Attempting to CROSS AMERICA...And Then The World! // S01E09

Last time on Combi Life we met up with friends and campervan experts Go Westy for some much needed advice on how to transform our 73 V-Dub Combi Boomerang into a capable overlanding adventure mobile. We also said our last goodbye to our west coast amigos who we're not going to see In this episode ready or not we are pushing east and attempting to cross the United States of America. First stop on our mission east was not our favorite but it was necessary. We were back in Quartzsite, Arizona. Last time we left San Diego with a combi full of stuff but that was all materials that we'd been buying for the build. In Quartzsite we had stored all of our worldly possessions. Yes somehow we supposed minimalists have to get all of this stuff into our combi and then cross America. We're at the stage now where we have to sort out all our things and pack it back into the new bus and organize everything for shipping so we need to make an itemized list for to ship the bus and our personal belongings over to the UK and we have to write down every single item that we have. It's a huge task. The problem is in this situation that all of that has to get in there and all of that doesn't fit in there and somehow we also have to sleep in there so we're going to build some kind of bed around all of our stuff we just need to relocate to the UK at this point and I think we're going to have to leave some of the stuff in America. This is it this is going to be our sleeping platform so hopefully with any luck it's actually just a piece of plywood not even bolted down but there's a huge gap here so we're gonna have to put some kind of sleeping bag. Cut! Spinner in the bump. Yeah you're gonna watch out for these. Okay maybe we should have sanded this before we turned it into a bed. It's only temporary guys we just need to book it to New York right now so this will do for now. Boomerang was definitely running a little slower with the increased weight but he was still going strong. Comfort factor on the other hand was at an all-time low. That night was a first for us as we wild camped in the Mojave Desert. We're part of the most windiest campsite we've ever been in. We're in the middle of the Mojave Desert and there is sand coming into the holes of the combi right onto our bed inside here and we've tried to like cover them up with little magnets but there's too many holes it's just it's so windy just blowing through these tiny holes god damn it. The Mojave Desert is right on the border of Nevada and the city of Las Vegas. We were here to meet someone very special to help us with turning our combi into an off-grid YouTube studio but there's a lot to it so we'll get into that story another time. Back in Arizona and a little further east we met up with this legend near the town of Flagstaff. So we've finally been able to get out and actually enjoy Arizona and see what Arizona has in store because we've been stuck in Quartzsite and we met up with Regan who is our Patreon. We've been dying to meet him so he's showing us around Arizona. We're in Walnut Canyon which is right outside of Flagstaff. It's a national park that has all these Indian ruins here and all the all the artifacts and houses. It's amazing. These cliffside dwellings were America's original tiny house movement although this one was long before hashtags were on the scene. Just look at the view that they would have had from their bedroom. It looks amazing. So 800 years ago the Sinagua people lived here. Sinagua is Spanish for without water. They cultivated, they farmed, they had very little water to work with and they built all these dwellings right here that you see along the cliffside. You can wander the cliff paths here at Walnut Canyon and explore the remains of these dwellings where 800 year old scorch marks are still visible on the walls from the communal fires. How social life must have been before social media. As it turns out Arizona is blessed with natural wonders at every turn. Arizona is awesome. Unintentionally we'd spent quite a lot of time in Arizona during the past few months but most of that time was spent under our new Kombi. Now we're getting to explore this stunning state properly and the scale of the scenery was just spectacular. We really wish that we had more time to explore this incredible country. There is just so much to see and a few short weeks to cross the whole of the USA is not enough time. We feel blessed that we're able to experience this land but gutted that we can't explore deeper this time. But as you can see there are plenty of reasons to come back. You've got to admit Red Rock Country is a bucket list destination for any road trip in Arizona. It was a fairy tale for us to spend time here. To wake up in such a magical place was unforgettable and just down the road we discovered the remnants of an ancient civilization. So these people left around what do they say 800 years ago and they don't know why it wasn't for reasons of war or famine or anything like that so perhaps it was religious reasons. Leah thinks maybe there was an earthquake and they just all got scared and ran away. But whatever the reason was this whole place got deserted. It's incredible that 200 people used to live here. They made double-story houses against this huge rock here. It's insane. Wow that's amazing. The old paintings on the walls like figures. There's like a moon or a sun or something over there. Some of these pictographs are like 10,000 years old and they're left by many many tribes that have either come past or lived here and so all of them are different have different meanings and slightly different in their their pictures. It's really cool. It was interesting to see a little bit of America's ancient past but the next place we stopped had its roots way back in time. This is so amazing. We are at the petrified forest and it used to be all rainforest here millions and millions of years ago and now all that is left is this petrified wood and old trees that have been like crystallized from the minerals or something like that. I don't know it's amazing though it looks incredible. That's nuts there's actually like quartz crystal in here. What happened was that when the trees fell over they were basically submerged in water and they absorbed all of the minerals and over millions of years they basically formed quartz crystals inside the tree so this is stone but it's a tree. Unbelievable. Up until this point I'd been doing most of the driving but if we were going to overland all the way to Australia Lia was going to have to take the wheel and let's just say there was a bit of a learning curve. What did we learn today Lia? To check the gas tank. Yes gas gauges are useful. Empty is bad. Two miles that way two miles that way New Mexico sun it's pretty warm. I should be carrying that so everyone thinks I'm a gentleman. It's empty damn it it's light. I carry it on the way back stop judging me. Well Ben is always telling me that it's not an adventure until something goes wrong. We now only had two weeks before our boat leaves from New York so we had to put some miles on boomerang. All right let's get this thing back on the road. Crossing America on interstate 40 is not ideal. Our Kombi runs at its best at 55 miles per hour and we want to keep Boomerang happy so that he can make it all the way to Australia but 55 miles per hour is not ideal for the American freeways. We just got pulled over on the freeway for going too slow on the highway and we got a warning for whatever the opposite of a speeding ticket is and we're going about 51 55 miles an hour which is what the Kombi is built to do but it is 25 miles under what the speed limit is. The reason why we can only do 55 is because we really need to take care of this engine we got a really long road ahead and that it was really really windy today and we're getting blown all over the place so we're just being a bit careful and we're going up a hill so there's no point explaining that to the police officer he made up his mind and it's okay. No for next time. Fortunately running alongside the highway was the historic and much more tranquil route 66. Driving a Kombi we definitely preferred the slower pace on the empty highway of route 66. There was almost no traffic as we passed ghost towns and abandoned motels. Route 66 served at the main cross-country backbone in the USA for over 60 years and you can just imagine how many characters, hitchhikers and nomads you would have met on this route and how many stories you would have heard. Some parts of route 66 we saw even less traffic and some parts were actually impassable. When we tried to turn around I slipped off the soft verge and got stuck in this sandbank and this scene is a little embarrassing let's be honest. There are so many things in our Kombi that I couldn't even find our shovel and I had to do a self-recovery using Alaska's water bowl. At this point we were totally unprepared for overlanding but trust me that is going to change. Texas would be the largest state that would cross on this road trip and we'd be doing it in a hurry. Sorry Dallas we're not stopping. Next stop New Orleans. These roads are insane. Seriously it's some feat of engineering. On this trip as always we prefer to find places to sleep outside of the city and it was not difficult to find free wild camping in America. This was a remote boat ramp that we camped at and the perfect place to stretch our legs for the evening. You know at this point if we look back at the map we've already made it an incredible distance. Just over a week and we've traveled over 3,000 miles and crossed half of the USA. We are on schedule with still 10 days to make it to New York to catch our boat to Europe. Morning from van life. I guess you could call this van life. It is life in a van but doesn't really seem much like a life or anything to do with van life. Yes we're going to give you a little tour of our current living situations which are quite depressing and we're very very glad it's temporary but temporary in this situation is about three or four weeks as we cross the entire USA from the west coast all the way to New York eventually if we make it. I don't kill each other in the process. Alaska you tell them how little time you've had to run around and how you've just been sitting in the car all day every day and how much you hate van life. What you don't you love van life? Everything outside the Kombi was great. Inside was another story. So this is the worst of van life that I've ever ever been in and I think Ben as well. We have no cooker, we have no lights, we have no curtains, we have no bed. We are sleeping on like a piece of cardboard, not cardboard, wood and our belongings in these containers. So sorry we just have we just we can't find anything in here. We don't have we have a cooker but we can't really cook like this. We don't have any saucepans and all that stuff because we had to get rid of stuff. Yeah it's been a bit of a disaster but I'm not complaining because it's only temporary and we are shipping it to the UK soon so after that we're going to build an interior but for now it's been not very nice to live in at all. I can't wait to think what's coming you know once we have our whole interior and we have our kitchen and we have our shower and we can actually live and wash and clean ourselves. Yeah we just spent like four days without a shower just now trying to find places to shower couldn't really find a river. I don't even know how we're going to do van life in New York. How's that going to happen? But we have each other that's the important thing. With each passing mile our confidence was increasing. We had been looking after the Kombi and Boomerang was doing great. However we hadn't been looking after ourselves and we were about to pay the price. But that is a story for next time. 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