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Jayne and I got up Thursday morning and started to load up the Forester. We didn’t have a lot to go off of on what to pack. We knew we were limited to the back end of the Forester and I wanted to be able to see out of the thing. We also knew we wanted to go on vacation and not be washing clothes every other day. With that in mind, we filled up the two biggest suitcases we could find with enough clothes to last us a while and decided to revert back to the college “is it really dirty?” policy.

We really didn’t pack much else except for the few camping supplies we bought on Wednesday which we have yet to even test out. The dude at Scheel’s was pretty helpful and excited. I felt like a few more minutes of picking out gear with us and he would be begging to go. He told us about a breakfast place we have to eat at in Washington and whenever we mentioned another destination on our list he’d talk faster. He ultimately talked us in to a combo that we feel pretty happy with. We went there looking for warm sleeping bags and Thermarests. These were recommended to us by the Knutsons who are both a bit closer to that Bear guy than us. Our main goal was the Jayne comfort factor. I kinda married the princess and the pea girl. But she suggested this camping trip and I’m damn proud we’re doing it. Well Matt at Scheel’s talked us in to a good kind of Sanderson family meets Lady family package. We went king sized air mattress and big, sleeps-5 tent in lieu of the lighterweight, hiking-into-basecamp Thermarest and mini-igloo. The Sanderson family could be proud of the cousin Eddie (from Vacation) cheap-yet-gaudy traits while the Ladys could be proud to know their daughter is sleeping on a luxurious king-sized bed at the foot of such majesty.

To round out the mess we got my usual camera, laptops and lunchbox full of various cords, and whatever random camping stuff I’ve used in the past: camp stove with liquid propane that I don’t know how to operate, paper bowls and plates that Mom didn’t know she had and some plastic flatware we bought when we were refinishing the hardwood floors in the house and didn’t have any silverware. The usual.

All we need now is a cooler to keep a hot dog and a soda cool.

By the way, that’s Marti, me and Rihanna (from left). Marti is my old Forester that is no longer with me. No, she was not a “clunker” because she got bitchin’ gas mileage for AWD. We traded her in (along with several thousand dollars) for Rihanna a few days ago. Rihanna is a 2007 Subaru Forester Sport(s). She had 165000 fewer miles on her than Marti plus check out that scoop. I didn’t stray far though. Packing her up Thursday morning was just like packing Marti full of crap from my dorm back in 2002.

The number one tip on Camping 101 guides is to start slow: for your first time, don’t take off for weeks at a time on an overly ambitious trip. This is exactly what we’re doing. Five weeks, from Iowa up to Banff down to Santa Fe, stopping in pretty much every national park along the way.

We’re making this trip right now because we are both technically unemployed. My job at [REDACTED] doesn’t start until January and Z quit his job so that we can travel and have Kung Fu adventures until then.

Right now we are trying to get packed up so we can leave in the morning. The main obstacle to getting properly packed for me is not knowing what the hell I’m doing. My mental conception of outdoor activity basically begins and ends with the North Face display inside Scheel’s.

If you’re not a person of computers, send me your meatspace address and I’ll send you a postcard. Otherwise, this website is the exclusive authorized source of information about Zach and Jayne’s whereabouts: accept no imitations.

This was me and my milk shake waiting for my avocado wrap. If I could subsist solely on avocado the way babies do on breast milk, I totally would.

It was less than 24 hours before the bar exam started. As you might guess, I was tweaking pretty bad. And since the table jukeboxes at Taxi’s Hamburgers were “ONLY FOR DISPLAY” I couldn’t even soothe my nerves with the dulcet tones of Frankie Lymon or Bay City Rollers.

I know the kids are pretty bad these days (texting, Heelies, et cetera) but man at least restaurants don’t have individual music players on tables anymore.

Who knew the space program could be revitalized so easily??

We flew into Oakland and stayed at some jankety hotel we Hotwired. They were hosting a reunion for guys who supported the Apollo 11 mission. At least that’s what I gathered, since I did not see Buzz Aldrin or anything. I would assume he gets put up in a place that at least has an omelette bar.

As it was the day before the bar exam, I was fretting about everything. When Zach took this I was using my iPhone to double-check information on my flashcards. Now any time “all Ds must agree” pops up in my search history I have to repress a shudder.

Jayne and I are starting this blog to show where we are and allow you to follow us while we’re roaming around the next few months. I thought we’d start off where we officially became transients. Here we are moving out of our last permanent personal space until we move out to California in the winter. Do you see us? Look closely.

You can probably tell why we found it so easy to load up in a car and get the heck out. When you live out of laundry baskets, a tent in some state park shouldn’t be all that bad.

By the way, I’m not in that picture. Our sublease wasn’t bad enough to need a roommate so I had to take the picture.