On Friday, we left for another little adventure down the street. To a place called Malibu Creek State Park. I just love the feeling of being in the van again with the Airstream in tow… especially as we just start pulling it onto the open road.

Don’t you agree, Ava? AVA!!!! Oh wait a minute. She’s still at daycare.

We usually hit the road directly from the house. But this time, we decided to leave right after daycare. It took a couple trips around the block to find a big enough parking spot for our set-up but we eventually found one.

When we entered Ava’s class, she was busy making her bed. Making her bed? That never happens at home. Never.

Ava was a little concerned to why we weren’t parked in the normal parking lot.

But then she saw it. She saw the Mali Mish.

Yeah!! We’re going camping!! YEAH!!!!!!

Stay tuned for Day 1 of our trip to Malibu Creek State Park.

the end,
marlene

Oh Mali Mish. Don’t let the little white fluffy clouds fool you. It’s supposed to sprinkle today. So, I am going to leave you looking a little dirty for our next adventure together. I’m so sorry.

But you are in good company. The van is just as dirty as you.

I’m so sorry about the streak marks, by the way. At least these stripes are vertical… and quite slimming on you.

Oh, I know. The windows. Your poor windows. They might be the worst part of all of this.

Who’s the blame? Don’t you dare say the quickly growing bump that has eaten my seat belt! Don’t you dare.

the end,
marlene

Hi. I’m Ava and welcome back to Mali Mish. So, as you probably noticed, we haven’t hit the road in a while. Mama’s pregnant, the baby wants to stay close to home, blah blah blah. But I have good news.

We are going on a mini-road trip to Lake Piru. It’s just up a road. Not too far.

Don’t believe me? Well, then check out my life jacket. Is that enough proof that we are going? No?

How about this? You know my Dada wouldn’t be washing the Mali Mish without a good reason, don’t you?

Stayed tuned.

love,
ava

The standard battery bank on the Airstream consists of two 12-volt group 24 batteries connected in parallel stored just in front of the trailer and behind the propane tanks. Group 24 batteries are designed to hold around 75 amp hours of power each. At a full charge, they store just enough juice for you to run all the lights in the Airstream for about 2 seconds. OK, maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but the power-hungry halogen bulbs Jackson Center, Ohio installed into our 25 foot International are not really designed with boondockers in mind. Bright and warm as they might be, they are very inefficient. Many people have swapped them out for expensive LED versions of these lights bought from Internet sources. The problem with this ‘upgrade’ is that in return of them running forever, you have to deal with these dim little blue lights that makes you feel like you are living in the International Space Station.

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See these lights on our Airstream? Pretty, huh?? Well, there will be none of that.

And that big water spot under the Airstream due to a leaky connector? None of that also.

You see, we are going dry camping this weekend. AKA no water. AKA no electricity. AKA ahhhh. I’m such a pansy. It’s about 80 degrees today. The rest of the country is buried under snow and I am complaining about ‘surviving’ the weekend. In California. On the beach. In shorts.

Pansy.

the end,
marlene

Howdy partner! I’m Ava. Wondering why I have a red cowboy hat, purple mittens and a bunch of crap piling up on the sofa behind me? Well, we are getting ready for our road trip to Arizona. We’ve got plans to visit Phoenix, Tucson, Bisbee, Tombstone, the Chiricahuas and a bunch of other cool places…

…including more ghost towns. Yippee.

So, come back, y’hear! We’ll be posting daily once we are on our trip… and then when we’re back, we’ll post some more.

love,
ava

We took Yoda to the vet a few days ago to prepare her for traveling with us around the country. We had a long list of Yoda To-Do’s that needed crossing off, which included yearly blood work, vaccine boosters, microchips, and health certificates.

We actually traveled with Yoda when we took our old T@b to Arizona last January but did not have any documentation with us when we got stopped at the California-Arizona border. It would have been really bad news for Yoda if not for the fact that when asked if we had any pets in the car, Dan answered ‘no’. But he didn’t intentionally lie. You see our first road trip started of like this but ended up like this. We were beyond exhausted and somehow forgot we had a cat in the car with us. Sorry Yoda.

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