"Sedon'awe"

Sedon’awe

Sedona is so awesome, it inspired a series. the story of our life, as told in audio & video & words:

This is episode one, in words. (Photos and video below; more videos on YouTube.)

Sedona... has been... Awesome. We’re blushing the colors of red rock formations, and gushing over our amazing home base for quarantine. This has been our strongest move in van life. We selected stability, healing, and restorative natural beauty – incredible, endless hiking trails, many of them accessible right from our campsite.

It took some deliberation, and it took some work (and, it’s taking money). It took an entire weekend to make the drive of 16 hours. We arrived in Sedona on Sunday, March 22 with enough time to take a short hike. We parked at a trailhead new to us and hiked Wilson Canyon.

“must’ve been Covid-19” – conclusion about our illness last month.

We've now been here in Sedona for a full three weeks and counting. We feel settled in. We’ve been in quarantine for over a month. We are both able to work remotely and share the space in our van home. We’re naturally sharing the responsibility of meal prep, and taking care of the van and each other.

In a way, living van life for two years has been a masterclass, training us for this “new normal” of remote work in self-quarantine, away from everyone. In some ways, our experience may be easier than many others’. But in other ways, it must be just as difficult for us, if not more so. We’re dependent on campgrounds. We need services – we need to refill our water and dump our waste holding tanks. We need maintenance, for a house and a vehicle. And in van life – nomadic life – your place of shelter and your primary transportation are one and the same.

In this strange time, like everyone, we are managing! Life is decent, which is really good.

Nevertheless, we find the broader societal and economic implications disconcerting as things continue to unfold, with modern civilization dealing (…not dealing) with the serious existential threat of pandemic virus. First: business as usual, keep calm and carry on; then, no large gatherings; stay home, shelter in place; now, masks and mitigations when shopping for necessary items like groceries and medicine, and precautions when venturing out for recreation. A national shut down needed. The askance glances and looks askew. The mutual suspicion: healthy skepticism? “Trust, but verify” (so don’t really trust). Society seems to risk fraying at the seams or unraveling, and we’re wondering how well woven our collective fabric really is… but, for now, she seems to be holding up.

Back to Joe & ash:

We are well and healthy. We've been hiking and walking almost every day. We've been preparing all our own meals since we got here, except for one frivolous and celebratory take-out order weeks ago. We've been having boundaries with work.

Joe has been balancing his duties as a boss, leader, marketer, communicator, consultant. And partner. He is busy, but wondering what will happen with his company if the economy really falls apart. Just keep trying to stay ahead of the curve…

Ashleigh has been enjoying ”homing” at the campground in our hobbit house, sheltering in place with her yoga, work and merriment; with morning and evening walking routines, with deep gratitude for being here, in Sedona, this land, our home.

We both feel grateful to have productive work to do, for income stability and also for a small comfort: distraction from news of the virus and the state of the world…

The Transformation of Ash & Joe

In this strange time of quarantine amid pandemic virus, we’ve embarked upon "The Transformation of Ash & Joe", an envisioning we've done over some number of months. Pandemic pandemonium has somehow unlocked this embarkment for us. How so?

The quarantine, broadly, is like a blanket “low power mode” for us. We can be more easily in the flow when we prune and reprioritize our background processes, freeing us to focus on the present. What better prompt than an existential threat to get our affairs in order…

And what do we mean by “The Transformation of Ash & Joe”? The reweaving of patterns. The integration of insight. The deeper revelation of truth. And more to be explored in future posts.

And so in an orderly fashion we soldier on.

Aww, Sedon’awe... Aloha!

Edited by Ashleigh

Namago Retreat to Sedona

We went west on Friday, March 6th – right on the cusp of the world turning upside down. The world was on edge, but hadn’t yet tipped.

We had bought our flights only one week prior, having delayed our return to van life, and so far having planned only five weeks on the road.

The van had been in Reno since Joe dropped it off three months prior at the beginning of December. We picked it up from the repair place, and the next morning got breakfast and hot beverages at Coffeebar just like the good old days, and then got on the road! We might have done a quick shop that day or somewhere along the way, on our trip to Ashland for a night. On Sunday, we arrived in Portland. On Monday, we arrived at our Airbnb, two days ahead of the Tool show. This workspace/home-base was strategic. Our friends would be arriving over the next two days, and we were planning to see Tool in Portland and then Eugene.

On Tuesday, Joe started to feel cold and achy. Ashleigh blamed the chair, and the Nest thermostat. Perhaps… but Joe tried walking and stretching and warming up, and nothing worked. It was slightly curious and yet further unremarked upon through bedtime. Luckily (in retrospect) Johnny had dropped out due to increased Coronavirus concerns and responsibilities, and canceled his flight. But even he up to that point was still 50/50. Ryan and Sara had recommitted to flying out the next day, but then the airline canceled their flight. Concerns over the Coronavirus were increasing. The show was the next night.

By the next morning, Wednesday, March 11, Joe woke up sweating. He had been tossing and turning since the early morning hours. He felt exhausted and uncomfortable and unable to regulate his core temperature. Ashleigh still thought it could be due to too many blankets. Blanket on: overheating; blanket off: freezing. Temperature: 101.4º F. This was not good. It was almost all Joe could do to advise his team of his symptoms and condition, take some ibuprofen and CBD, and go back to sleep for another 3-4 hours. The next few days would be fairly miserable. He could only muster the energy for brief periods of focus and short conversations. Joe would be fatigued and achy for the next 5-7 days.

Ashleigh skipped the Tool show in Portland too. She could have gone and had amazing seats and access and met up with friends and probably met the band (!!!). But it didn't seem right. If Joe was sick, Ashleigh could be infected while not showing symptoms. And if she didn't have the Coronavirus, a live concert would be a good place to get it. It didn't seem prudent, so she didn't go. That would be the last live concert Tool would play for awhile. The next night's show in Eugene was canceled the day of the show due to new social distancing rules in Oregon (no gatherings of more than 250 people). We had checked out of the Airbnb, and Ashleigh shopped at the pharmacy and grocery store in Portland before we headed south. She picked up a pack of toilet paper, a bottle of acetaminophen, and a full cart of food.

That Friday the 13th Joe was still in the throes of what may very well have been COVID-19. Ashleigh was starting to feel fatigued and would begin to show symptoms the next day.

We hunkered down at a campground in Ashland, Oregon for the following week. Ashleigh was sick all weekend, confined to the bed. She took a sick day on Monday and should have taken more time, as her fatigue wore on for several days more, and her dry cough would last almost two full weeks beyond that. Joe started feeling a little better, and was well enough to be back to work on Monday, and good thing, as his key employee in Connecticut had now fallen ill with similar symptoms.

We were seeing the world turn upside-down mid-flip. We accepted the self-quarantine protocols early, because we had researched the disease and experienced its symptoms. In retrospect, we feel blessed. We caught it early, and thus we caught on early.

We spent that week trying to see the future. What was going to happen with our companies? What was going to happen to the economy? What was happening in society? What were the prospects for us, and for van life? Were we foolish to fly out here? Was it just bad luck to now be stuck?

Our prevailing thought was, how can we persevere through these challenges?

We would need each other. We vowed to get along, to be a team. Cooperate. Rise to the occasion. We'd need to coordinate our remote work-from-home arrangements (home=van). Ashleigh's team meeting could be first thing, while Joe finishes making breakfast. Joe's multiple phone calls and remote support sessions could take place at the standing desk in the kitchen, and move to the table in the back allowing Ashleigh to have the standing desk for the remainder of her workday. We'd need to stock up on food, plan our meals carefully, and prepare more on Sundays for the week. We'd need a campground. We'd need access to some recreation – hiking and walking. We'd need access to infrastructure and services in a fairly developed place. It should be within a weekend's drive from here, and a strategic location in case we needed to head south, head west, or head home. Preferably a place we already knew well: Sedona. Arizona. That's where we would quarantine. Sedona would be our home.

Thus it was decided; we embarked on Friday March 20, the first day of spring.

Champoeg (“Shampooey” Ha!) State Heritage Area, Oregon

Champoeg (“Shampooey” Ha!) State Heritage Area, Oregon

Labryinth in Ashland, OR

Driving through northern CA

Rest Stop, Northern California

AirBnb in Portland, Oregon

Recovering at Emigrant Lake, OR

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada

We spent the night boondocking just outside the park, getting ready for a 2nd full day of travel to Sedona.

Hiking Valley of Fire

We definitely started that fire.

Lake Mead, Nevada

Stealth camping at trailhead on Schnebly Hill in Sedona, Arizona

We didn’t want to drive all the way out to 525C, 525D, or 525E. We didn’t want to park at the top of Forest Road. We didn’t have a site at Rancho Sedona. We thought: why not camp at the trailhead on Schnebly Hill Road. It’s a grey area; we might be backpacking and backwoods camping along a trail. We had a recreation pass. We decided to try it. We woke up the next morning, in the midst of a movie shoot! (Or television or commercial photography, or maybe just an Insta-influencer and accompanying entourage.)

(This was on a past trip, not recently.)