FALCON'S ODYSSEY

[FALCON]

Two new posts to share:

Before Vandwelling: Test Trips
This is some background info on the test trips I took, back before I build my own van, to see if I thought I should do so. One trip was in California (Sequoia) and the others were in central Arizona.

Exploring Arizona 1 - Apache Trail and Roosevelt Lake
A trip out of Phoenix - along the wonderful Apache Trail, and camping with wonderful views of Lake Roosevelt

 

[FALCON]

]Exploring Arizona 2 -- Rained out near the Beeline
I tried to find a nice place near Phoenix to camp, in the desert at low elevation. I ended up camping at high elevation and got stuck in the rain two days

 

[FALCON]

Exploring Arizona 3 - Road to Four Peaks
For my third trip out of Phoenix, I went up Hwy 87 again, and explored a back road to Four Peaks. Also, do you know Arizona well? Where else should I go?

 

[masterplumber]

Hey Falcon, nice blog post. You really need to see the town of Jerome, even if you basically just drive thru.

 

[FALCON]

@masterplumber: ok. I've never been there, so I'll add that to my list. Thanks :-D

 

[FALCON]

Exploring Arizona 4 - New Friends
Camping in Tonto National Forest near Payson... Two wonderful bike rides on a Forest Service Roads.... And two new friends who came with a gift!

 

[BobBski]

Love that photo

 

[FALCON]

Whoops, just a heads up, I messed up the links in my post just above. The text links to an older post (Exploring Arizona #3) . The picture links to the correct one (#4)

 

[FALCON]

Spending Update - Q1
A summary of my spending in Q1


I'm still in Phoenix, here later than I expected to be. I've ordered some things over the internet (some of them related to the gift referenced in the 2nd blog post), and one of them coming form China is taking particularly long. Hopefully it will be here within a week and then I'll start drifting north. This month some friends and family came to Phoenix to visit other family. It was cool to spend time with them. I got some interesting life stories out of some of my family.

I plan to get up to Vegas by the end of April. Some friends are flying in to meet me there. After that, I may meet up with my brother and his girlfriend.  They've hit the road with their camper and will be heading out this direction. We'll hang out in northern Arizona (probably the north rim of the Grand Canyon) and southern Utah.

 

[ArtW]

cool, soon you can show us drone shots, too, the pic of the two vans at the campfire, love it!

 

[FALCON]

Yeah, I'm excited about using the drone!

 

[FALCON]

April 2017 Travels
Includes Phoenix, Sedona, Lake Mohave, and Las Vegas

Oh, and here was the first drone footage I shot:

I'm having fun with it, and learning some video editing software pretty quickly. I'll have much better stuff to come...

 

[Cammalu]

That looks like a lot of fun and I thought about buying one but figured I'd crash!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[FALCON]

That looks like a lot of fun and I thought about buying one but figured I'd crash!

Yeah, that's why I've never bought one. Most people I know who've owned a drone have owned it in the past tense because they crashed it. I don't like the idea of spending $500-$1500 on something that comes with a very good chance of crashing and ruining.

Someone gave me this drone, although I did have to buy a battery and charger for it (which are not cheap). Now that I have it, I see that flying it is pretty simple. It's actually been very easy for me. I do have a lot of experience playing video games, and I have very good spacial awareness, so for folks without those it will be a little trickier. The drones are quite safe now, having features like the ability to hover in place (so if you feel like something bad is about to happen, just stop pressing any buttons and the drone will stop and stay in place, and then you can take some time to figure out it's orientation and where to direct it.... and the crash avoidance systems are getting better and better).

The problem with the drone I have (A DJI Pantom 3) is that it's huge. It takes up a lot of space in my van. Now I'm wishing I had a DJI Mavic Pro because when stored it takes up only about 20% as much space.

 

[BobBski]

Thumbs Up, enjoyed. I share the same concern of crashing

 

[Cammalu]

Post more videos. When it came in the look of delight or your face was something else!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[FALCON]

A couple quick updates:



Blog Post: How full time travel makes appreciation harder, and what to do about it





Drone video of campsite near the Colorado River

This has been my favorite campsite in a year of travel around the western US. (I'm not aware whether it's possible to embed a youtube video in a blog post (???))



And here are a couple quick picture from my first day in Zion. More to come. This place is amazing. I'll be sharing much more from Zion. I'd like to spend about a month here, but it's getting pretty hot, so I may move on and come back in the fall

 

[Cammalu]

Beautiful photos


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[highdesertranger]

I must agree you post some amazing pics. highdesertranger

 

[AbuelaLoca]

Wowsers!! Those photos certainly make me want to visit!!