Feel free to scroll to the end if you want to see my creative use of duct tape; probably not what you’re expecting (viewer discretion advised). Otherwise read on to hear about our travels for the last couple of weeks.
Time has flown by! We’re really loving life on Betty, and it’s starting to feel like home. Our travels have taken us from Temecula to Long Beach, LA, Palm Springs, Joshua Tree, Ventura, and now Ojai. Tomorrow we head to Santa Barbara.
I finally found some running trails near Temecula on the last couple of days. There were beautiful views from the hill.
After Temecula we moved over to Long Beach. We had fun exploring a few neighborhoods, and Jami took me on a surprise date to a first Friday block party. We also took a little tour of the haunted ship the Queen Mary. The first picture below was an interesting situation, with a photographer taking a picture of another photographer and model… not sure what was going on there! I guess with Jami taking the photo it was a photographer taking a photo of a photographer taking a photo of a photographer taking a photo of a model… whew!
After Long Beach we moved on to Northridge, which was the closest location we could find to Jami’s LA office, which she needed to stop into for some meetings. It was hot. Thankfully I did find a trail to run nearby, but mostly Mia and I lounged around while Jami worked.
From there Mia and I had our first drive without Jami out to Palm Springs. I was a little worried how that would work, since Mia likes to ride on someone’s lap and I didn’t want to let her do that while I was driving. Thankfully it worked perfectly! I setup a blanket in the passenger seat and Mia was a great copilot. We went for a little hike once we arrived at the Happy Traveler RV Resort. Mia was very excited, but wanted me to cary her on the way back.
Jami picked up a rental car and joined us in Palm Springs later that night. We spent a week there and had a blast connecting with friends we hadn’t seen in a while, exploring the town, running some great trails, and enjoying some great drinks. We love Palm Springs, and I could see a longer stay in our future. Oh, it’s hard to see in the picture, but after a trail run I looked down to find my legs stained orange in pollen from all of the flowers leaning into the trail. Jami said it looked like I had a bad spray tan. I can’t explain the guy driving with his leg out the window…
Jami took a flight out of Palm Springs to Chicago and I drove over to Joshua Tree National Park, which was beautiful! After driving through the park from the south to the north Mia and I parked Betty for free on BLM land. The next morning I had a blast running some trails in Joshua Tree.
After my run and a shower we drove the four hours back to LA, where Jami was landing from her trip to Chicago. We stayed at the Dockweiler Beach RV park, which is right on the beach and only a few minutes from the airport. I’m glad we only stayed one night though, since the constant sound of airplanes was a bit distracting.
We took off early the next morning and drove up to Ventura, where I stopped for a quick run. Jami worked while we were driving and found a setup that Mia was happy with that still enabled her to type with both hands. After my run and a shower we continued on to Ojai, where we’re staying at a park. This will be the longest we’ve stayed without hookups so far, with a solid 3 days of showers and living… we’ll see how it goes!
Ok… On to the duct tape story. The last couple of days I’ve been running in the heat and have been super sweaty. This has lead to some painful chafing on my inner thighs, which got to the point of bleeding on my 12 mile run in Ventura. It’s a bit painful while running, but mostly after I’m done; both in the shower and after. I actually had a hard time walking after the run. Jami graciously went to the store in Ojai and got some bandages, which I applied with Neosporin. Thankfully this morning I was feeling much better, but was worried about making things worse during my run (just a short 4-6 miles). The bandages wouldn’t hold, so I decided to try duct tape (also my go to for avoiding nipple chafing). It worked beautifully! The trick is to take it off right at the end of your run while it’s still warm and sweaty… I’ve waited longer in the past, which leads to painful removal. Wish me luck on my long trail run tomorrow!
Inner thigh duct tape application successful! I used some gauze to make sure it didn’t stick to the chafed area, much like a band-aide.
Ok, sorry about that. I’ll try to make it up with some cute pictures of Mia lounging on the van and some from my run this morning.
