Part Time Vagabond

Welcome to Part Time Vagabond’s new writer!

// July 12th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Feature

I am supremely happy today to announce the first official writer to Part Time Vagabond (other than myself). Alexandra Munier runs the blog Broke207, and has posted to PTV before. She’s a fantastic writer with a biting wit and sharp sense of humor, knows a ton about having fun while living on the cheap, and loves exploring places most people wouldn’t normally go. I can’t wait to see what Alexandra brings to PTV, but I know you’ll all love it. Here’s a little introduction Allie wrote about herself.

When I was a little girl, my dad used to stuff me (and my mom and 4 additional sisters) into our faux wood paneled (and un-air conditioned) station wagon for 2 weeks of camping all over the state.  And when I say camping, I mean CAMPING. There were no air mattresses, porta-potties, or folding camp chairs. It was just the 7 of us (rowdy and uncooperative as we often were), lots of campfire pancakes, and the great outdoors. My dad taught me everything I know about loving life on the road, finding fun anywhere, and generally amazing travel under inopportune conditions (also known as 5 children under 10), so I’m hoping I can do him proud as I join the cast at PTV.

Other than having logged a lot of road hours with my crazy family, I do have a few other fairly weird qualifications that I hope will add some new perspective to my posts here:

I don’t drive (as in don’t have a driver’s license, and never have).  Surprisingly, it hasn’t kept me from roaming, and it has made me into an excellent co-pilot and expert public transit taker. I can also give one hell of a walking tour.

I’ll do just about anything on a dare that isn’t illegal or dangerously unsanitary. Which is not to say that I’m fearless, but I do believe that some of the best vacation spots lie outside of our comfort zones. If there’s an abandoned building to be explored or a mechanical bull to be ridden, I’m your girl.

I don’t pay full price for anything. I’m a very serious shopper (with enthusiasm for everything from cocktail dresses to plumbing parts), but I am cheap as hell. There are a few things that I don’t tend scrimp on like the occasional amazing meal, or a direct flight when I can afford it, but everything else is fair game for my discount hounding, coupon clipping ways. You’d be amazed how much you can get for free or dirt cheap if you just know where to look (or who to ask nicely).

In my non-traveling life, I am the office manager for a small commercial real estate office, and busy the rest of my hours with my very amazing friends, and other stuff like reading juvenile fiction from the 50s & 60s (go Nancy Drew!), attempting to learn how to dance, and writing about my financial mishaps over at my personal blog, Broke207.  I am extremely excited (and honored) to have been asked to start contributing regularly to PTV, and I’m hoping to use it as an excuse to log even more time out on the road.

The Five

// October 21st, 2009 // 2 Comments » // THE FIVE

The Five

The Five is a new feature on Part Time Vagabond that showcases an adventure, big or small, in five – and only five – photos with text (or minutes of video, minutes of sound, etc).  Think of it as though you’re presenting your trip to a group of really interested friends; you tell a story with each picture, but you only have five minutes to get your whole trip across. What will you say? The premise is to boil down in the most basic elements what truly makes us want to travel and seek out adventure, and to examine those elements for some hint of what these journeys bring to our lives. Either that, or it’s to look at pretty pictures. You decide.

If you’d like to contribute your own Five, shoot an email to info [at] filmosity.com and let me know.

Acadia National Park, Mt. Desert Island, Maine – October 2008

A year ago, I was living in Jersey City, New Jersey, trying to figure out why I was so depressed. It didn’t occur to me that it was the city – and the state – that was driving me crazy until I came to Maine for a weekend camping trip with my brother. These images are from that trip.

Photo by Dan Cavallari

It was around mid-October, 2008, a time when the colors of fall in Mid-Coast Maine are at their peak. I’ve been coming to Acadia since 1993, and had never seen color as striking as this.

Photo by Dan Cavallari

October is just past peak tourist season in Maine, so while there are still a good amount of people floating around the park, it’s much quieter there than other times of the year. Here I soak in some sun breaking through the trees at our campsite. It’s been some time since I’ve been camping, so some of my clothing and equipment are not quite up to par, even for “car camping.”

The Tarn at the base of Dorr Mountain

On the second day of the trip, I decided to hike Dorr Mountain (named for one of the fathers of Acadia National Park, George Dorr), a walk I had never done before. It was a goal I had set for myself, one of many new goals I seemed to be putting on my list at the time. Sitting here, at the base of Dorr Mountain on the edge of The Tarn (a mountain pond), I first realized that the quiet was something I sorely missed living in New Jersey.

Bubble Rock on top of South Bubble

It wasn’t until I made it up to The Bubbles, a pair of small bulbous mountains at the north end of Jordan Pond that I finally decided it may be time for a life change. Sitting on a rock outcropping on the edge of the South Bubble, my senses came to me with a renewed vigor. I could smell, hear, see, even taste something I had lost since moving to a more urban environment.

Eagle Lake; Photo by Dan Cavallari

It was time. Being able to sit at places like Eagle Lake, or hike up the Bubbles, or even backpack to the summit of Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park (the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail) on a regular basis was my new goal. It may be somewhat cliche, but in the words of Henry David Thoreau, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I have not lived.”

Simply put, I needed to eliminate things in my life that were not only distracting me, but influencing me in a negative way. I didn’t know if moving to Maine would eliminate my problems – I wasn’t naive enough to really think it would – or simply create newer, more interesting problems, but I had to at least make a change I thought would be positive.

So far, so good.

S24O Video Update #2

// September 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // TRIP REPORT, VIDEO

From day 2 of my first S24O camping trip. Tuesday, September 22, 2009.

S24O Recap

// September 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // TRIP REPORT

My first S24O camping trip was a mixed bag of complete success and utter failure. And I totally expected both. (For those who don’t know, S24O stands for “Sub-24-hour-Overnight” camping, where you get to a camping spot, usually by riding your bike, set up, eat dinner, chat by the campfire, sleep, then head in to work the next morning. The great thing is you can do it any day of the week, so long as you’re in riding/driving distance of work.)

Successes:

• Found the campground and got a nice site
• Hiked to the top of Bradbury Mountain with a loaded backpack
• Had a roaring campfire all to myself
• Finished a book by headlamp/campfire light
• Learned a lot about my current gear
• Started (almost) a fire using magnesium firestarter

Failures:

• Lost my $115 Oakley sunglasses on the trail
• Found my gear to be incredibly bulky and heavy
• Forgot the battery to my camera
• Trekking pole lost parts
• Insufficient amount of water
• I have no rain gear
• Headlamp died
• Knee started to hurt
• Chafing. Enough said.

General Observations:

• Need insoles and taller socks for boots
• Heavy cook kit
• Tent was heavy, too big for one person
• Need to improve my backpacking skills
• Found out there’s apparently a pocket for a water bladder in my pack. Will need to use that in the future

Overall, I consider the trip a success. It’s a great way for me to both get outside to enjoy camping and have a nice campfire, and also to test my gear and my skills. I love that I was able to find out what works and what doesn’t, and seriously improve upon my techniques. In the spring, if I’ve been able to meet a few goals, I’ll get a new touring bike with panniers and do an S24O on my bike.

S24O Video Update #1

// September 24th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // TRIP REPORT, VIDEO

From the first day of my S24O camping trip. Monday, September 21, 2009.

16 Hours of Camping

// September 21st, 2009 // 2 Comments » // TRIP REPORT

Today I embark upon my first sub twenty-four hour camping trip, and although I’ve done zero preparation for this overnight stay, I’m upbeat and excited. It’s about 8:45 on Monday morning, and despite an allergy attack yesterday that had me laid up in bed, I’m ready to go with allergy meds and Breathe Right nasal strips. I will be a breathing machine.

The plan as it stands is to pack everything in my giant Lowe Alpine backpack, a behemoth with nearly 5000 cubic inches of cargo space and pockets galore. I bought this pack around 1997 for multi-day backpacking trips, but it’s hardly been used for that purpose, and now that I’m 12 years older, I’m thinking a smaller, more compact and lightweight model would be better for me. For now, though, I’m taking it with me to test how well the pack and I hold up.

Once I’m packed, I’ll head up to Bradbury Mountain State Park in Pownal, ME, pick a campsite, and then do some day hiking, pack fully loaded. I’ll make sure to take some video and post it up here on the site after I get back. Since moving to Maine, I’ve only spent one night in the woods, so you can imagine how much I’m looking forward to this. I only wish I’d realized I could do this sooner!

S24O Preparations

// September 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // Feature

This coming Monday I’ll be packing up the car and heading about twenty minutes north to Bradbury Mountain State Park for my first S24O camping trip. I’ll admit, I’m pretty excited, and if I find that I enjoy this overnight, I hope to do many more. And once spring rolls around, I hope to have a new touring bike outfitted with panniers to get me to these campouts. Even though the sub 24 hour trips are supposed to be “grab some gear and go” adventures, I find that I’ll still need to do a bit of preparation to make this successful.

One of my tasks over the next few days is to decide what gear I need to bring with me. “Lightweight” and “minimalist” are words I’ll be keeping in the front of my mind as I go through my gear. As you saw in the video yesterday, I have a good amount of big and bulky stuff in my collection, so it will be important to pare down what I bring. My goal is to pack simple, enough that I can fit most of my stuff into one small daypack. I’ll be leaving sometime Monday morning and driving up to the park where I’ll set up camp and get some hiking in. Unforutnately, biking to the park is out of the question because of 2 broken spokes and a bike without gear racks. So I’ll drive for this one, which is fine by me.

First, I need to remember to pack toiletries. On Tuesday morning, I have to get up and be at work for 11AM, meaning I have to get there early enough to shower, shave, and change into my work clothes. I picked Bradbury because it’s fairly close to Freeport, Maine, where I work.

Second, some of my gear is old and hasn’t been used for months. Checking the tent for tears or mold, making sure my headlamp has batteries, cleaning my pocket knives and cook kit, and other various tasks are all on the checklist.

Next, I’ll need to decide what electronics I’m going to carry along. I’d like to document the trip for PTV, but I’m not into carrying iPods and cell phones with me on any camping trip. I go to the woods to avoid those things. So, I’ll bring my Nikon point & shoot camera to take some pictures, and maybe shoot a few video clips along the way. Other than that, the only other battery operated toy will be my old Petzl headlamp.

Finally, I’ll need to pack everything up. That will happen on Sunday morning, because I work late that night, and won’t be able to pack anything once I do arrive home. I’ll make sure I get directions from Google maps, and do a final check before heading to work.

That’s the plan for now. I’ll keep you updated as the day nears, especially on what gear I do end up taking. Woo!

VIDEO: My Gear

// September 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // VIDEO

Part Time Vagabond 001 from Chris Cavs on Vimeo.

I walked into my room the other day and happened to glance a the corner next to my dresser, the one where i keep a crate full of camping gear. The pile glared at me like a long neglected lover, angry at having been ignored for so long. I decided it was time to pull out the old crate and find out what was lurking inside. This is the result.

S24O

// September 16th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Feature

Part of being a Part Time Vagabond is making short trips a regular part of your life. The reason I’m a part time vagabond is because I don’t necessarily have the resources to travel full time right now. That doesn’t mean I won’t be traveling on a regular basis in the future. In fact, that’s the goal very, very soon. For now, though, I have to find alternate ways of having fun and getting outdoors. As I was reading one of my favorite blogs, The Path Less Pedaled, I happened to learn about S24O (pronounced “ES-two-four-OH”). Russ and Laura from Path Less Pedaled are on an extended bike trip around the U.S., and Russ posted an entry on the Bike Commuters blog about S24O and the guy who supposedly coined the phrase, Grant Petersen.

I thought about this idea of taking short overnight camping trips and realized it was a stroke of genius. Sure, it’d be great for me to be able to ride my bike to the location, and I plan to do that in the future, but I simply don’t have the proper gear for that yet. So in the meantime, a short car ride will suffice. After all, I came to Maine so I could camp and hike and be outside! And dammit, that’s what I’m going to do!

This week at work is going to be a rough one, so I’m thinking next Monday might be the day. Just throw some stuff in the car, grab my tent and sleeping bag, and head to one of the nearby parks. It will give me an opportunity to relax, have some time in the woods, maybe read a book and sit by a campfire. I need to do more of that. I can’t wait!

Photo Credit: Bedtime by Jeff Pang on Flickr