Our cacheMobile (for non-cachers this is our vehicle), The Green Machine, is a 2004 Dodge Sprinter. It is big. Really big. We have a comfy, normal queen sized mattress in the back with plenty of room to spare. Disa can stand up and only has to lean her head over a little bit. Under the bed is storage: the ‘Wine Cellar’ (a case of wine nicked from my parents’ supplies, at the urging of Disa’s mum, that is slowly being emptied of wine and filled with Indian pottery), cases of bottled water, and our clothes.
Forward of the ‘bedroom’ is a huge ‘kitchen’ space (it’s large enough that we could probably set up the table and chairs in the available floor space inside if it was raining, but as it hasn’t rained we haven’t put this to the test!). In this area, behind the driver’s seat (left side) along the side until it reaches the bed is knee-high storage unit my father built. Behind the passenger’s seat (on the right side!) is a waist high cabinet made up of cabinets from older campers (originally designed and made by ‘Mr Ted’ in Maryland) and the eski.
Where we spend most of our time while in the Green Machine is in the front – usually with Scott driving and Disa navigating from place to place, geocache to geocache. Between us is camera gear, maps, trail mix, and water.
Our days don’t start long after sunrise – before if we’re somewhere where we want to see the sun rising, such as at Grand Canyon or Monument Valley. Disa gets a pot of coffee going on Maria’s Primus stove – 4 mugs of water and 4 heaped scoops of Dad’s Gevalia coffee gives us two mugs ach. We don’t filter the coffee, just let it come to the boil, pour, and the grounds settle as we drink. Brekkie might be bagels, scrambled eggs, pancakes – whatever the camp cook prepares Scott seems to be able to eat! If we are in a campground with running water, Scott does the washing up; if not he does the best he can with as little water as he can and declares it clean enough. One of us washes the front windscreen each morning; other morning tasks are stowing cooking things away, taking the curtains down, sweeping with the whisk broom, and moving our wedding clothes from the front seat to the bed.
Lunch is usually simple, such as sandwiches or trail mix and fruit, unless Scott has been very good and is allowed out to a diner.
Dinner is something cooked on Maria’s Primus again – chilli & couscous or rice, pasts, burritos – unless maybe we’ve just hit a shop and have fresh salads. If we’re at a campground or other place with running water, Scott does the washing up. Again if we have running water, we’ll make use of this and wash faces, underarms, feet – and Disa’s even been known to wash her hair in a sink! If there’s no running water, we use the moist towels you can now buy at chemists to wash faces, underarms and feet. And regardless of the water situation our walking boots are sprayed!
By this time the sun is usually down, so we might put up the curtains, look at where we’re headed the next day, and go to sleep. Early in the trip we would write up the day’s log on the laptop and download photos from cameras, but the converter in the van stopped working so we conserve battery life now and just do the uploads occasionally.
We tend to wake up at the ‘main attraction’ of the day, do some walks or whatever we’re doing there, then drive the next day’s destination and camp there. If we’re visiting a national park, we hand them our annual pass and it at the entry station and receive information with a map and general park information as well as a more seasonal information newsletter. Then we can plan our time, get out the cameras, and hit the trails!
If we’re covering miles, it’s nice if there are interesting caches on our route to break up the drive. There’s a lot of open desert out there – it’s amazing how the smallest changes in terrain or vegetation stick out when you’re travelling through it!
When we hit trails, we go armed. With many bottles of water (we REALLY should have taken out stock in Arrowhead water before leaving; we just buy several cases of 500ml bottles at a time!), trail mix, sun hats, long sleeved shirts, sun block, our walking boots of course, cameras, spare camera batteries, etc.
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