Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas and Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico

May 16 and 17, 2015

Kate at the top of Texas!

Martin and Kate at the top of Texas!

View from the top

We arrived in Guadalupe National Park on Friday, May 15 around dusk. The mountains jetted from the plains like I've never seen before. The tallest mountain in Texas is located in Guadalupe National Park, and is rightly called Guadalupe Peak. It stands surprisingly tall at 8,700 feet. We slept at a  pull out on the side of the road, right outside of the National Park. We are committed to not pay to sleep for as much as possible. The goal is to make our funding last for an entire year.

Trail leading down into Carlsbad Cavern

We woke up early to tackle the mountain. The air was dry and windy. The hike was 9 miles round trip with 3,000 feet of elevation gain. It was surprisingly easy and quick to get to the top. Only two hours to the top and an hour and a half back down. We were back down at the car by about 11:00 a.m.

Carlsbad Cavern

Carlsbad Caverns National Park was only a 35 minute drive. Carlsbad Cavern is one of 120 caves in the area and provides easy walk down into the deep dark cave. The cave was formed by sulfuric acid within the cracks of the cave. The stalactites and stalagmites were fantastic. The large were huge and spacious. I can't imagine how it must have been to be the first to discover such an amazing find. 

One of many storms we worked to avoid in Texas

After spending time at Carlsbad Caverns National Park we made our way back across the border to Texas. We decided to camp at a rest stop around Peco, TX to avoid tornado warnings and severe thunderstorms.

Tornado's and thunderstorms surrounded us. After calling my aunt and uncle in Houston, we made a plan to stay in Houston and visit family tomorrow. We are excited to sleep under a roof, have running water, and catch up with family!

Turkey Creek Hot Springs, New Mexico

May 14 and 15, 2015

We slept at the Turkey Creek trailhead. I feel like we've been on the road already for weeks. It feels comfortable to us. We continue to remind each other how lucky we are to afford such an adventure and lifestyle. It may not be everyone's preference to travel this way but we are making memories along the way.

The hike into Turkey Creek was an easy 3 miles. The hike in was beautiful. We ended up passing a man who had turned around because he couldn't find the hot springs. The pool was primitive and I can see how some may pass right by it. It wasn't regulated, so the temperatures were either too hot or too cold. It was obvious that the wall around the pool had been washed out so Martin and I worked on rebuilding the wall with rocks. It reminded me of playing in the creek behind my house as a kid. The creek and the red cliffs made for a little slice of heaven in the New Mexican wilderness.

Martin pumping water next to our campsite at Turkey hot springs

We arrived to the hot springs early, so we had plenty of time to read and relax before night fall. After building up the make-shift wall around the hot spring we sat around the creek and read, wrote, and took photos. It was a relaxing day.

Our protected campsite

Evening came and a storm came in. Luckily we were camped underneath a large boulder that protected us from the rain.  It stormed all night long, but by the morning it was sunny. We both agreed that it was a beautiful hike, but if you are looking for a hot spring, this may not be the best place to stop. We must be spoiled with pre-made cement hot springs.

Keeping warm during a thunderstorm

We made it back to the car at a descent time. We started to drive to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas. Our next stop: Guadalupe Mountain.

Hannah Hot Springs, Arizona

May 12 and 13, 2015

On Tuesday, May 12 we pack up our things in our mobile storage unit and our Subaru and officially said goodbye to our Flagstaff home. We left Flagstaff after a full night of catching up with current Game of Thrones episodes with close friends. Anya made a hearty breakfast in the morning and we were off to drop off the van at Martin's friends house. Since the van is not registered, we were nervous about driving it a short time to its temporary resting place, but we made it with no issues. We are grateful that Martin's friend has the space to keep our van until we are back in the fall.

Hannah Hot Springs

Our first destination was Hannah Hot Springs in Eastern Arizona, on the border of New Mexico. We made it to the parking lot at 3p.m. and quickly packed our backpacks to hike in. The description said it would be about 10.5 miles to the hot spring, so we didn't have any expectations to make it all the way there before nightfall. No  trail was in sight and hiked up the river up to a canyon, only to hike up another slot canyon to the hot springs. After some searching and about 5.5 hours of hiking we surprisingly found the hot springs. We were exhausted but both agreed that the mileage in the description didn't make sense.

The air temperature was warm, which made the hot springs pool seem extra hot.  After an early night to bed and a quick soak in the morning we packed up and started to head back. Another feature to this excursion was the "blue box",

The start of the Blue Box

which was a conglomerate slot canyon, which looked blue in the right light. We were fascinated by this short canyon and the hue of blue it created all around us. After visiting the blue box, we started to make our trudge back to the car at about 9 a.m. With numerous breaks on a hot sunny day, we slowly made our way back to the car. Burnt, dehydrated, bitten up by mystery flies, and exhausted, we repacked the car and drove out of Arizona through the Morencie Copper Mine and into New Mexico. Martin had one more hot springs in the plans - Turkey Creek Hot Springs in New Mexico.

Here we go again!

Martin and I are planning again for another year-long adventure!

I am so excited to report that I am graduating in May with a Master's Degree in Public Administration from Northern Arizona University. These past few years in Flagstaff have been both memorable and tough. We made some great friends and I got some great experience at The Guidance Center. However, the time has come for us to pack up again, and move on.

I have given my one-month notice at The Guidance Center. My last day will be April 24, 2015. My parents are coming on May 2 to watch the graduation ceremony on May 8th. Soon after that, most likely on May 11th, Martin and I are packing up and moving out. We are going to store our van somewhere in Flagstaff and pack up our bikes and gear into the Subaru. We plan to make it to Florida to spend some time with my aunt and celebrate a her birthday with her! 

On June 2nd, we are flying out of Miami, FL  to Warsaw, Poland via Moscow! We'll be spending a lot of time with Martin's grandparents in Wroclaw and then we will be doing a bike tour in Central Europe.  We are excited to kick back, relax, and see some historical sights in Central Europe. 

We'll keep this up to date as we travel. In the mean time, I need to get back to writing my thesis and finishing up my last month of school then on to our next adventure!

~ Kate

We arrived in Oregon on November 1st and made it back to our home sweet Van! Thank you to Roxana and family for looking after our precious van. We were grateful that it was one thing we didn't need to worry about. We stayed one night at Fernando's house, and immediately had nachos and beer! That is one thing Korea and Japan are lacking - really yummy BEER!

Overall we cycled 1,851km, and visited everywhere we wanted to. We climbed both Mt. Fuji, tallest in Japan, and Mt. Hallasan, tallest in Korea. Both of our bodies survived 6 weeks of cycling, sometimes over 100km, and boy did we eat a lot! We only broke: 6 spokes, 1 brake cable, 3 or 4 flat tires and 1 broken pannier. I had to leave my bike seat in Korea, it was totally eaten up by this trip.

A few thoughts about cycling in Korea - I wouldn't recommend it. We read other blogs of others cycling in Korea and dealing with the traffic and the buses and the roads. Korean roads are fine if it weren't for the cars. Some highways had medians, but there were these annoying little reflectors that stuck out from the road, which was dangerous to hit. The highways weren't the issue, it was the cities. Once we got into a city, chaos broke - weaving in and out of cars, dodging buses, that I swear were aiming for us, and avoiding taxi's who just weren't looking. Some cities did have bike lanes, I'll give them credit, but usually there were cars or trucks parked on them, people walking on them, street venders selling fruit, or motorcycles/scooters zooming on the sidewalks. Yes, and they looked at us like we were in the wrong! Everyday we cycled in Korea I wonderded if we'd be hit. By the end of the trip I followed some advice I read on a blog - take charge, and cut in front of the buses, and we survived.

One great thing about Korea is the fact that we never had to worry about where to sleep - just go to a bus station or train stations, where there would be motels everywhere. And the motels were cheap, and for a good reason, they were called "Love Motels" for a reason. They were 30,000 W for one night, and they had cable tv(English CNN!), nice rooms, and some of them were actually really fancy!

A few thoughts about cycling in Japan - I recommend it! Japan is very cycle friendly. We found out the second day, however, to pay attention to the "No Bicycles" sign, we were pulled over by the police on a freeway - they were very kind! Any place that has a No Bicycle Sign always has a route that bikes can take with signs pointing you in the right direction. Japan is clean, very clean, even the big cities. Japan is orderly, Japan vehicles are quiet, even the large trucks. Take note that when biking, the all vehicles are very quiet, so sometimes you can't hear them coming up on you. And Japan is expensive. The food is expensive, the hostels are expensive, everything.

We enjoyed cycling through Japan. We did have problems finding places to sleep, which is why we brought our tent. Guerilla camping is well known in the cycle touring community, and we were glad we did it. No one bothered us and it was free! A few times it felt like we were homeless, but I got over it quickly, as we needed to sleep somewhere and a lot of these little towns didn't have motels like in Korea.

Overall, a great trip, and what a learning experience! A trip I will forever remember for the good, bad and ugly!

Korean Bound

We arrived in Korea on Sunday, October 23, after about 41 hours on the ferry. We went from Tokyo to southern Japan, Kitakyushu, and then cycled about 15 km to Shimoneseki, where we caught another ferry from there to Busan, Korea. The ferry from Shimoneski was very rough, definately the roughest water I've ever been in. It was full of Korean toursits running to the bathroom to get sick. Luckily, thanks to a little dramamine, I didn't get sick.

In Busan we spent a day seeing some sights that we hadn't taken the time to see before. We weren't quite ready to cycle in Korea, and we had a lot of time before our flight out of Seoul, so we decided to stay an extra day. We made a day of sightseeing and hiked to Seok-Si, and temple that is hard to find, tough to get to, but well worth the visit. After climbing a peak, and walking around the mountain, passing many Koreans dressed to climb Everest, some little resturants on the other side of the mountain, we finally arrived at the Seok-Si Temple. A quiet temple outside of the second largest city in Korea, nestled in the mountains. It was breathtaking. The temple had large Buddha carving and the temple itself was set inside the rocks. Totally worth the visit.

We cycled out of Busan and decided to stop in Gyeongju, a tourist city, before taking a bus to Seoul. We had a lot of time, and have already over spent out budget, so we decided to do a night at Golgulsa, a temple which is also the headquarters of Sunmudo, a zen martial art. The templestay proved to be one of the highlights of our entire trip.

We arrived at Golgulsa at around 2:00 p.m., enough time to change into our monk wear, put our stuff in our separated rooms and head to our first session - archery. Archery is used as a form of meditation at the temple, and they were kind enough to give us a little lesson. Martin proved to be the star, and hit the bullseye a couple of times, I think he lost his calling. After archery we were to do "Community Work" however, the Head Monk was out of town, so we were let off easily. Dinner time was at 6:00 p.m. and the meal was fantastic! Monks are vegan, but, in Korea, they do like their pepper paste, which is very spicy. We then were off to Sunmundo training where we learned some kicks, stretches and a few yoga-like poses. We were in bed early since we had to wake up at 4:00 a.m. for our morning chants.

Day 2- Woke up with no issues, partly because if you were late, you had to do 1,000 bows, which is Not easy. The chants lasted 1/2 hour, and I tried to keep up, but giving that it is in a different language, I quickly gave up and just listened and bowed when i needed to. We then did a 1/2 hour of meditation. I thought this would be hard, but it was agonizing for me, partly because we had to sit in lotus position, which is crossing your legs and having one foot on top, ouch! Then we went into walking meditation. Both Martin and I agreed that we do much better at walking meditation. Martin is convinced that his climbing is a form of meditation, and talked about opening a temple of his own. ;) 6:30 a.m. was breakfast, again, delicious! After breakfast we had a bit of a rest before going into 108 bows. My knees really started getting raw after the first 50!

Overall, the templestay was a wonderful experience and I recommend it to anyone going to that part of the world. Yes, it was a tourist attraction, but we were able to get an idea of what life is like in a temple. I'm happy I'm not a  monk. ;)

Back to Korea, in Photos

off the boat in Kitekyushu, Japan. About to cycle under the water to Shimoneski and get on yet another ferry to Korea.

Martin had his Fugu, or pufferfish in Shimonoseki. Everyone said it was soooo good, we were disappointed.

Seok-Si temple. These sculptures were all over, and impressive. I was exhausted from the hike, obviously.

Martin in his "Monk wear" at Golgulsa temple, posing as a Sunmundo Master.



At Gulgulsa Temple, rubbing the Buddha for good luck. Do I look enlightened yet?