On the road with no wifi...

It probably comes as no surprise that the Campbulance is not equipped with wifi. On top of that fact, we've already managed to sail through our data on our phone plan this month. Because of this fact, we've resorted to being fairly off the radar to save data and money.

We holed up last night in a motel in Sturgis, North Dakota. Christian was in desperate want of a shower and I was excited to sleep with an exorbitant amount of pillows. It also meant we got access to wifi for the night and briefly this morning before we leave.

This is only the briefest of updates since I'm about to have to pack everything up to hit the road again, but we felt so badly for the internet silence that we wanted to post something.

Our trip has taken us up through Colorado, into Utah and then over to Boise, Idaho to visit with family for a few days. From there we made our way across Wyoming and now we're about to knock out some serious miles in South Dakota. Turns out, Vermont via Idaho isn't the most direct route...

For a few more updated photos and such, please check and follow along on our Instagram here. With no data, we will won't be posting all that much, but if I find a snippet of wifi here or there, I'll try hard to throw a few photos up when I can!

Big updates will come once we reach the east coast and have time to edit some video footage we've been getting!

Before we head south...

A few folks have voiced varying degrees of concern after reading about us selling everything before we hit the road. More specifically, this concern has been aimed at the fate of our beloved Campbulance. Let me set the record straight here and now. The Campbulance will not be sold.

In fact, before we set off on the two-wheeled vehicles, we're doing a whirlwind trip around the USA to see our family. This was an important decision to make given that we have no timeline for our trip south and therefore no clue when we'd get a chance to see all of our family again. We're on track (at least we hope we are) to leave the Vail Valley this Sunday to start our cross-country trip in the Campbulance. We'll head up to Idaho first, then over to Vermont, down through Cape Cod and Alabama, ending up in Arkansas.

Luckily, the bikes are small enough to fit perfectly in the back of the Campbulance, so taking them along is a breeze.

A decent portion of my family lives in Arkansas, so we'll be parking the Campbulance there and it will act as a storage unit for whatever belongings we've held onto while we're gone.

The other big concern has been the fate of our dear travel-kitty Loulou. Not to worry, she'll be taken care of in Arkansas as well. My grandpa is graciously taking her in and will be keeping her company while we're away. It absolutely breaks our hearts to be leaving her behind, but we have the sneaking suspicion that she'd rather skip the ride on the motorcycles.

What are we doing?

We are riding our pint-sized motorbikes south, with no agenda or route, other than to start at the US-Mexico border near San Diego, California. We're aiming for South America (Tierra del Fuego?!), and we're thinking we may stick close to the Pacific coast, but none of that is certain. All that is certain is that we're selling everything and taking off on two wheels. If you have any suggestions, let us know.

The idea was born after an enlightening conversation revealing just how much each of us would like to hit the road for a while without a plan or timeline. Both of us have lived and traveled overseas, Chelsea in Greece and Europe, and myself in China, but neither of us have traveled to Central or South America. We figure riding south could be easy, in that we don't have to take a plane to get to where we going, and if we're relatively self-supporting, we can stop anywhere. With no timeline, we don't need large, fast bikes. Suddenly, in our minds, the world has become our campground!

In a way, the adventure has already started. When we took delivery of the motorbikes, they both were underpowered and needed plenty of work to become road-worthy. We chose to swap out the old engines, opting for two new Lifan 125cc motors, giving us extra power and reliability. Although we aren't the first to make the swap, clear directions don't really exist, and the process has been more adventure than we had anticipated. On the bright side, we now know the bikes more intimately than before, which will be helpful during the guaranteed breakdowns. 

That's the plan, ride south through Mexico, Central America, and South America. We've never been anywhere south of the border. And neither of us speak Spanish. Nor have motorbike licenses (yet). How hard can it be?

I've been a slacker...

Christian stopped working at his raft guiding job on August 15th to focus all of his time and energy on the motorbikes and preparation for the trip (which we have yet to fully explain on here...soon, I promise!). I've continued serving at the restaurant job I picked up a few months ago, along with shooting for the local newspaper, the Vail Daily, so my time has been a little bit more limited. Since I'm the one mostly running the show when it comes to our web presence, this has caused some serious slacking on my part.

However, before I run off to work one of my last shifts in a few minutes, I wanted to post a quick update pointing you to where you can see some snippets from the prep and motorbike work we've been doing. (And by "we", I mostly mean Christian.)

All you've got to do is head over to our Instagram feed to see daily photos and short video updates. It's not much, I know, but it's something!

First video officially up!

Since I spent the day trying to get our website looking a little cleaner and user friendly, Christian labored away this evening on a quick edit of some footage he took of the first time he started his bike, Foiter, after swapping in the new Lifan 125 engine.

It's barely a teaser into what we're up to, I know, but more is soon to come once our work load lightens!