The Gypsy Van Captain's Blog

Most of you who read my blog know that I purchased a 1998 Eurovan/Winnebago a few months back. It's been an amazing gift in my life and I love being in it. My partner, Alex has been instrumental in getting her all fixed up and road ready and has been a great and very fun travel pal.

The Pearl Suite

I wanted to create a "Captain's Blog" of our travels - so here goes. We've already had such incredible journeys and put more than 5,000 miles on the van. I may go back and write about those here but for now I'll start with our last trip.

Saturday, June 28.

The Ebony Suite

We are getting very good at being able to throw what we need in the van and make a quick getaway. We decide to drive to McCammon, Idaho for the grand opening of my cousin's hotel. He has purchased a building that was built in 1901 and sat empty for many years and created an incredible boutique hotel with 8 rooms. It's now called The Harkness Hotel. We were there a few weeks back and could not believe that he would be ready for the grand opening this weekend. There was still so much to do. But with the help of his large extended family who worked with him 24 hours a day for the last several weeks - they had a great opening. More than 1,000 people came to support them. I'm so glad we went.

Later that evening, we drove to Lava Hot Springs for a soak in the famous healing waters. We walked around town for a bit and the place was buzzing with energy. Live music on the street, a vendor selling buddha statues, drums, incense and banners, a line outside the ice cream store a block long...

The Harkness Hotel

We went to the main the hot tubs and it was a madhouse. Way too many people and it didn't look at all relaxing. We went down to the Lava Hot Springs hotel where they have their own pools and it was a much better scene. Beautiful pools of different temperatures, a man playing guitar, a huge cockatoo named Peru watching over things and lovely people. We stayed until they closed at 11 pm. I have not felt so relaxed and happy in many weeks, it seems. It was so sweet.

We grabbed a quick shower and headed back to McCammon in the van. We parked at the small rodeo grounds near clean new bathrooms and buttoned up our van for the night, made our comfy bed and crawled in. It's called boondocking - parking someplace for the night with no plug in, no sewer line....and we're getting really good at that too. If we're not going to have the whole "camping" experience of a campground and stay for several hours (or days), we just find a nice safe place to sleep where we won't disturb anyone. It was lovely to walk around the town the next day. So small and quiet on a Sunday morning. We went to The White Wolf diner for good hot coffee, eggs and toast and then we were on our way.

Yummy breakfast

We decided to drive the back way to Maple Grove Hot Springs outside of Preston, Idaho. The road to the hot springs was dirt, rutted and intense. Not really a good fit for our low-to-the-ground van, but it was in such a beautiful valley with the Bear River running through it. We had a nice visit with the current owner and his wife. They plan to make it a healing retreat space, complete with raw food restaurant and a yoga space. They have 8 camping spots, two trailers and two yurts along with one small cabin for rent. It is very much in a state of change and I'm sure in the future it will be amazing. We decided not to spend the night, but put it on our list of places to visit in the future.

We drove toward Logan, Utah on our way home but then looked at a map and decided to take a back road over James Peak and drop down to Eden and Huntsville which is on the east side of the Ogden valley. Probably not a great plan - as the road turned out to be mostly used by 4 wheel drive vehicles and ATV's. Definitely not a place for our *not* off road van. It was a 13 mile stretch that took us over an hour to complete. We were quite shaken and rattled to the core when we got down the mountain but the views were absolutely stunning. What an adventure. We stopped at the park in the Huntsville town square for a walk and a rest for the van and then decided to go up to Snowbasin ski resort for Sunday Blues. It was a delightful, sunny afternoon with great music by Screen Door Porch. We were pretty exhausted by the time we got back to Ogden. It was a pretty intense, fun filled 24 hours in the gypsy van!