Snowy Mountains in Arizona

Seven years ago Travis quit his job as an architect and has been living out of a backpack ever since. Before we left on our journey, Jason re-connected with him while he was in Central America. After spending some time scouting the diving instructor circuit in Honduras, Travis headed back to the U.S. for the holidays. His latest stop was at his parents home in Alpine, AZ  and, well, we were invited.

Good thing, too. It was a great stop.

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Jason and Travis were buddies in high school and hadn’t seen each other in quite a while.  They had lots of stories about getting into trouble together. It was mostly geeky trouble, so I was only a little frightened

Travis’ travel style is a little different than ours – it’s a game to him to see how little he can spend for food and shelter. That means he’s slept in places with sewage on the floors (yeah, but it was only $2/night!) and gotten stomach amoebas eating questionable foods. He was talking about folks who say they want to do what he’s doing, but his response is, “yeah, well you don’t know where I slept last night.” The reality of long-term travel isn’t always the romantic vagabond notion people like to dream about.

Travis also said that for the past 7 years he can remember every single day. We’re finding that too. Every day is new and different and it makes life much more memorable.

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Candy and Phil, Travis’ parents, moved here from Texas and found their paradise. They built a very cool log cabin with all the comforts. It’s a long winter at 8200 ft. and each season they go through 5 cords of wood keeping warm with their only heat source, a wood burning stove. Despite the snow, Candy’s daily driver is red VW bug (but they also have a 4WD Jeep to tow the bug up the driveway if needed.)

Candy kept us well-fed with BBQ brisket and homemade tortillas, so we really appreciated the hospitality and the warmth after nights in the cold. Bode loved the visit too, he got to go sledding and Phil taught him a new computer game. He wanted us to let Phil know that he’s almost won every level now.

We hated to leave so soon, but the forecast called for more snow and we were on a mission to escape the cold.

By the way, Travis is selling his much loved Mustang (after 25 years) to finance his next adventure to Alaska. Since we’re keen on him going and sharing more outrageous stories, we thought we’d help him advertise. Let us know if you are interested and we’ll connect you.

One thought on “Snowy Mountains in Arizona

  • January 27, 2010 at 9:41 AM
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    Hello, Rehms,

    I’m glad everything is going well for you. What an amazing adventure. And, thanks for sharing the pic and info of Travis. We were friends in HS, too, and I was wondering what he was doing. I remember the mustang but I think it was yellow back then.

    Take care,
    Stacy Godby

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