it was a mellow summer mostly spent eating great food, connecting with old and new friends, and pursuing hobbies. thomas took up kung fu, tai chi, and ultimate frisbee, and paloma joined pottery and yoga studios. it was in the low-mid 90s pretty much every day with either beating sun or torrential downpours (often both in the same day).

our previous host mark put us in touch with a local woman who wanted help around her property. we did weekly yard work for her and enjoyed hanging out with her chickens, turkey, horses, and other critters.

we went on the cajun pride swamp tour in the maurepas swamp and saw tons of wildlife! our guide was a local cajun guy who definitely wasn’t afraid of the gators (or anything). he loved to instigate interactions between the gators, wild boar, and raccoons by throwing marshmallows and corn between them. everyone stayed peaceful as far as we saw.

we drove up to big branch apiary to visit our previous hosts and pick blueberries and zinnia flowers before the end of the season.

we did a tour at the Hermann-Grima house in the french quarter which was built in 1831 and is considered one of the first examples of american architecture in the area. this tour was unique because it focused on urban enslavement in new orleans rather than the rural plantation experience. the photo below shows the open-hearth kitchen where enslaved people spent all day everyday over an open flame preparing elaborate meals for the family. this room is open to the courtyard where it was often in the 90s-100s. most of the objects here date to the 19th century as the property is now a national historic site. we found out about the tour through the new orleans public library “culture pass”, which gave us access to several of the city’s attractions for free - we also went to the Ogden southern art museum and the Pontchartrain conservancy’s lighthouse museum.

then paloma’s sister sienna and her boyfriend nathaniel visited for 5 days! we had lots of fun checking out restaurants and trying to beat the heat by tubing down bogue chitto river, eating sno-balls, visiting the southern art museum, and seeing the odyssey.

yesterday we repacked the car with our ever-growing pile of stuff and headed east. we spent a night in alabama in a very cute tiny home. today we drove into birmingham and had a killer meal at a hifi listening lounge, then visited the spectacular botanical gardens. birmingham is cool! from there we completed the road trip - we’re in atlanta! this saturday we fly home to the bay for a brief visit. then the atlanta era begins…

Our month at pelican gardens here in algiers is coming to a close! This has been our longest exchange so far, and it’s been a great one. Our mornings have mostly consisted of working around the garden - spreading mulch, weeding, pruning trees, sowing seeds, transplanting starts, and maintaining the front garden and community fridge. One of our projects consisted of harvesting elderflowers from the trees around the property to make elderflower cordial and elderflower wine! We made a simple syrup solution with lemon, apple cider vinegar, and citric acid to put the flowers in, then passed the concoctions along to our host Mark to take care of the burping of the jars and all that. The garden here is beautiful, and it’s been wonderful witnessing the explosive growth over the course of the month. Here’s what’s growing: papaya trees, a peach and a fig tree, elderflower trees, a curry tree, sugarcane, taro, cucuzza squash, muscadine grapes, watermelon, okra, peppers, chard, longevity spinach, garlic, onion, turmeric, ginger, sweet potato, shiso, hoja santa, mugwort, betel leaf, lemongrass, mint, sage, rosemary, basil, and dill. It’s been fun harvesting and using the produce in our meals - garlic flowers make a delicious garnish!

The afternoons are free for us to do our own things - T will go to the gym, P does yoga and practices guitar, and we can read, journal, take a walk, or just enjoy sitting around on the screened-in porch. It’s a pretty sweet place to be when the rain is coming down, listening to it patter on the tin roof and watching the garden get watered. The weather is pretty awesome here - we’ve had torrential downpours and thunderstorms on the same day as blue skies and sunshine. Just this morning lightning struck right across the street, and the thunder crack was the loudest either of us has ever heard - and now it’s a clear day!

The lizards pictured above are green and brown anoles, and they love to hang out around the garden and along the porch windowsills. The males show off their dewlaps, or throat fans, as you can see with the brown anole, to attract mates. These ones run along the porch sill doing pushups and showing off. We also see a green anole that hangs out on the porch screen hunting flies daily. Apparently, the green anole is the only anole native to north america, and their brown anole cousin has been outcompeting them for resources on the ground and even preying on them. In response to this pressure, the green anole has moved further up into the tree canopies where they blend in. Over the last 20 generations, they have developed 5% larger toe-pads, which apparently is quite fast-tracked evolution. Check out this article “An Homage to the Green Anoles of New Orleans” for more info on them!

We’ve enjoyed the neighborhood a lot - a few of our regular activities have included getting tacos at the Barracuda taco stand/margarita garden (we saw some free live music there last night!), taking the ferry across the river to the Prytania theater on Tuesdays for $6 movies, and grabbing delicious shrimp po-boys from River Fine Foods cornerstore nearby. We walk along the levee or through the neighborhood to get to the ferry in Algiers Point, depending on if we want a river view or to walk through the neighborhood with cute homes and kitties and gardens.

we’ve done a few fun activities across the river as well, including a free jazz tour of the french quarter and the marigny, live jazz on frenchmen street, a tour at the free people of color museum, and many excellent meals. the jazz tour was guided by playdoh, a local puppeteer, who taught us about the origins of music in bulbancha (the original name for new orleans, meaning “place of many tongues”) - heavily influenced by rhythms and beats from africa and choctaw and mardi gras indians. this legacy was kept alive at congo square for centuries.

we also got to see our host mark play upright bass with a local band. he also DJs for “the best radio station in the universe”, WWOZ - it is pretty great, you can listen live here. we made the most of p’s birthday weekend, swimming at the local country club, eating delicious indian food and sushi, checking out the historical new orleans collection (art and history), and hanging with our friends jack and larissa by her pool. p went to elementary and high school with jack and they’ve reconnected since being in new orleans. we’ve had a great time getting to know them better and meeting their friends!

This is the rainbow bridge in the Bywater neighborhood where we’ll be living in june and july. On monday we will say goodbye at pelican gardens and move on to our next work exchange!

on monday we started at our 3rd wwoof: pelican gardens in the algiers neighborhood of new orleans (a quick ferry ride across the mississippi river into the french quarter). algiers is a quiet residential area with a unique history. so far pelican gardens is awesome. mark, our host, has turned an empty lot into a luscious garden with 2 tiny homes and an area for camping. we’re living in one of the tiny homes mark built from a shipping container with a large screened in porch with kitchen and bathroom connected. the front of the property is a community space that remains open to the public to harvest from the garden, fridge, and seed box. anyone can drop off and pick up food from the fridge anytime - there are 17 of these community fridges across the city! the fridge gets a lot of traffic, we see people coming and going throughout the day. mark grows papayas, turmeric, eggplants, flowers, chard, okra, garlic, and more in his gardens. he trades the papayas at local thai restaurants and in exchange he eats for free. we’re super stoked on his model of food justice and excited to learn how it all came together. so far we’ve helped him prepare garden beds, plant turmeric and okra, assemble a car port, sift compost, and other miscellaneous farm tasks.

we decided to stay in new orleans for the summer! there’s so much to soak in, we couldn’t possibly leave after one month. we’re hoping to stay at a work exchange in the bywater neighborhood for june and july. then off to atlanta!

the main farm products here are blueberries, honey, and eggs. they have a variety of blueberry cultivars in a sizable field with zinnias, sunflowers, roses, salvias, and pear trees interspersed. they host a seasonal u-pick where folks come harvest their own blueberries or cut flowers, and occasionally host farm tours as well. Cheri consistently sells out of honey and eggs, with about 14 hives and 100+ chickens. there’s never a shortage of honey or eggs for wwoofers, though! the fridge stays stocked with pre-peeled boiled eggs coated with Creole seasoning. a few of those with some avocado on freshly baked sourdough makes for a yummy, hearty breakfast.

we start our day around 8am after breakfast, and work until around 12. the weather has been warm and humid, highs usually in the 80s, and it’s been feeling great to work outside and sweat, listening to music and chatting with Cheri and the other wwoofer here with us, Kia. At noon we break for lunch together, then the rest of the afternoon is ours to enjoy!

the other day we got to throw on the bee suits and check on the hives, which was super fun. it was paloma’s first experience, and the first time for thomas since keeping bees with his dad twenty years ago! we checked the frames in each hive to see how they were progressing, (making brood, storing honey and pollen, building more honeycomb) found and marked a few queens, and learned a bunch about bees. Cheri keeps the hives up above one of the chicken pens, so when the harmful hive beetles pupate, they fall to the chickens to gobble up and prevent them from proliferating. we also learned how to sheer sheep, which was fun but quite difficult! we sheared three rams, and fortunately they were mostly cooperative. it’s tricky getting the balance of shearing close enough without nicking the skin. it was very satisfying though, especially watching Cheri do it.

in our free time we’ve gotten to explore the surrounding area a good amount - the nature here is crazy! there are several wildlife refuges nearby with boardwalks to walk out into the bayou. so far we’ve seen a few alligators, several snakes, (water moccasins and king snakes), turtles, many birds, frogs, newts, catfish, crawfish castles (in the blueberry field!), and many many different bugs. the spookiest of which include wolf spiders (very big), buck moth caterpillars (known for having a very painful sting, and all over the property here), red ant hills, and, unfortunately, ticks…P has the record with finding 6 on her in a day (no bites), whereas T has only found 2 but both were lodged in…yuck.

our first weekend here we went to the Ponchatoula strawberry festival, which was a blast. it’s been going on every year since 1972, with live music, rides, lots of food vendors, and a million different strawberry-themed dishes and drinks. we walked around with our strawberry daiquiri, listened to music, and got a big plate of boiled crawfish with corn and potatoes. it only took us maybe an hour to eat :P

the property is located right next to a 30+ mile long bike path called “the trace”, and we’ve used the bikes here to go on some rides. we checked out nearby fontainebleau state park, an old sugar mill property located right on the shore of lake pontchartrain. gorgeous old growth oak trees covered in spanish moss dominate the landscape, and there was a fascinating natural history museum there as well.

we took some time on the following weekends to check out baton rouge (saw the state capitol, walked along the mississippi levee, got some great tacos) and then headed into new orleans for french quarter fest - so fun! we went with our new wwoofer friend Kia, who has lived in new orleans for a long time and showed us around. we’re stoked to spend more time in the city starting next week! after spending the weekend with friends at jazz fest (wooo!!!) we’ll be starting our next exchange at a small farm in the Algiers neighborhood for the month of May. Until then!

love,

P&T

next, we stopped in austin to see thomas’s high school friend ryan and grab some classic texas bbq at terry blacks. we continued our drive to louisiana and stayed at a hipcamp just over the border from texas. we happened to find a great property called snow white sanctuary that had 4 natural ponds and tons of animals roaming around - baby goats, dogs, emus, turkeys, chickens, ducks, turtles, 2 rescued horses, and a tiny potbelly pig! the baby goats and pig were hilarious to watch stumble around and climb over each other. other than the bull frogs croaking all night long, this was probably the coolest spot we’ve camped so far.

on tuesday we arrived at our second wwoof, big branch apiary, a blueberry and honey farm about an hour north of new orleans across lake pontchartrain. our hosts cheri and tim have an awesome 50 acre property, 4 of which is the blueberry field. the bayou even runs through the land and they occasionally see small alligators in it. cheri has wisdom on so many different topics including gardening, animal husbandry, bread making, painting, beekeeping, and much more. spring is definitely springing here - in just the past day they’ve had a lamb born and six ducklings hatch. we’ll be here exploring the bayou, learning from cheri, and pulling endless weeds until april 30.

first we checked out Hueco Tanks state park in texas - we didn’t really know what it was, except that Paloma’s coworker said we had to go. turns out it is a beautiful desert oasis! “hueco” is spanish for hollow, and the rocks here have “huecos” that hold water. this attracted people and animals early on, and you can see the pictographs from ancient visitors on some of the rock faces. the rock faces here are also pockmarked with holes, and it is a world-class destination for bouldering - we saw several groups out with their crash pads. most of the park is only accessible via guided tour, but we had fun hiking and climbing around on the North Mountain.

Carlsbad caverns was next, in southern new mexico. that was a really incredible experience. It’s hard to capture with pictures, but if I had to pick one thing from our trip so far to recommend seeing for yourself, it would be this cave. the largest part of the cave, called “the big room”, is about 750 feet underground and over 8 acres. the whole cave itself is over 30 miles long. we hiked down from the natural entrance and spent about 4 hours walking the cave, and exited via elevator (which you can also enter from). but the most spectacular part about it isn’t the size, it’s the formations. if anyone is familiar with making drip castles at the beach, it’s like earth making drip castles over millions of years. it’s cool hearing the drip-drops of the water knowing that the cave continues to be forming, and seeing stalagmites and stalactites slowly reaching toward each other. We also learned about how a 16 year old boy named Jim White discovered the cave in 1898 while looking for cattle. he saw a cloud of what looked like black smoke, but was actually millions of bats leaving the mouth of the cave. we heard all about how he came back and descended the cave with rope and a kerosene lamp, became fascinated with the cave and spent the rest of his life exploring it. but apparently, he also had a friend who helped explore and map the cave! an unnamed “Mexican friend” who was totally left out of the story we heard - we didn’t learn this until researching the caves discovery. lame! here’s an article that goes into this a bit more.

Then we went to big bend national park! the most vast and magnificent park yet. it was super worth the out of the way journey to spend time here. the “backcountry camping” was rustic (basically a patch of desert off a bumpy dirt road), but the peace and quiet was awesome. we did a great hike into Santa Elena canyon and waded across the Rio Grande into Mexico. apparently DHS wants to build a border wall here which is crazy and dumb and we saw lots of posters and signs saying “no big bend wall”. anyways, a highlight of the park was the natural hot spring on the edge of the rio grande - we had the full spectrum of hot, warm, and cold water available with a beautiful view. that was hard to leave! they also had a fascinating outdoor dinosaur exhibit with a variety of fossils found in the park, a geological timeline of the area, and a model of the biggest flying dinosaur ever discovered. our stay was complete when we finally saw some javelinas! they are super cute pig-looking guys that live all over the desert.

more on texas coming soon!

we visited jemez hot springs, taos, and albuquerque in our time off. jemez hot springs was one of the greatest gems we’ve found so far - a beautiful spot at the base of the jemez mountains with 4 geothermal pools and cute cabins. we loved exploring taos and got to have a yummy brunch with Trisha (my college friend’s mom)! we checked out the impressive rio grande river gorge, earthships, and taos plaza. we were especially intrigued by earthship biotecture - an org that builds off-grid homes made of recycled materials, namely tires rammed with dirt, bottles, cans, and cardboard. there’s a lot to say about earthships but i think the coolest part is that the design (placement and angle of windows, greenhouse chambers, adobe walls, etc) harnesses the sun so that the homes maintain an internal temp of 70 F year-round, even when it’s 20 or 100+ outside! not to mention no water or gas bills… sadly earthships can’t be built in most places due to crap building codes and laws against collecting rainwater…

albuquerque was also cool! we found a great panaderia where the 85 year old owner told us he’s “one of the healthiest people” and that he’s learning to do 1-handed and no-handed cartwheels. they’re famous for their biscochitos (new mexican butter cookie). we were able to get a funky slice of albuquerque culture when we stumbled upon a low rider car show on the downtown strip.

yesterday we departed placitas and set out on another stretch of camping. our first stop was southern new mexico where we camped at the base of the organ mountains and visited white sands national park. so white so sandy! today we’re in el paso, eating juicy tacos and drinking micheladas.

hasta la vista,

p & t

On the way here (Placitas, NM) we popped in to Colorado to see the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings and petroglyphs. We did the petroglyph point hike, pictured below - a loop through desert shrubs and along a big rock wall with great views of (more) canyons. The end of the loop took us through old-growth pinyon pine and juniper forest - which reminds me to tell you all about how cool juniper trees are.

Juniper trees have significant cultural value for indigenous communities around the grand canyon and across north america - they are used for food, medicine, ceremony, and more. Here’s a video of a guy explaining their many uses.

The one-seeded juniper specifically was an essential survival plant, because the seed inside of the berry is very high in protein. On our way out of the grand canyon, we pulled over to check out some native american made jewelry. P and I each bought necklaces, partially made with juniper berry seeds. The woman who sold them to us explained that after the berries fall to the ground, the chipmunks eat the flesh and then poke a hole in the seed itself to eat the high protein meat inside. After this happens, the necklace maker will collect the seeds, give them a good soak and scrub, poke a hole in the other side of each seed, then string them onto the necklace. She exclaimed, the chipmunks do most of the work! So of course, we were very excited on our hike when we started to see juniper seeds scattered across the ground. Even more so when we saw the seeds post-chipmunk consumption, with the holes in them and everything!

Anyways, I never thought junipers were particularly cool - I just knew their berries were used to make gin and they were a common landscape plant. Learning more about them has been super fun, and I have a new sense of appreciation for these versatile and culturally important trees!

We’ve been here at Dotty Tree Farm since Wednesday, staying in a 100+ year old adobe house that is actively being renovated. It’s very cute, insulating, and..dusty. We’ve been helping Bob, one of the contractors, with some of the construction work. We’ve also been helping to clear out and re-dig the acequia (basically a gravity-fed irrigation ditch), and we’ve planted a couple trees and done some watering. The owner, Snow, purchases a variety of pine and fir saplings from the new mexico forest service in bulk (~40 cents each) and plants them here. She has received and is working on grants for soil health and remediation, as well as one for setting up a community bike repair shop (which is completed, with the grand opening coming up soon). She has a small orchard of fruit trees, and leases part of the land to a young farming couple who are currently growing garlic and tomatoes.

Anyways, we will keep you updated on how the rest of our week here goes!

With love,

Thomas & Paloma

Next we drove east to Page, Arizona. On the way there we pulled off onto a dirt road after seeing a sign that said “Dinosaur Tracks”. We were greeted by a very energetic, fast-talking Paiute man named Ricky Redbird who was carrying on his family tradition of giving free tours of the landscape, a wash on the colorado plateau, which is home to the footprints and fossils of dinosaurs - specifically the “two crested lizard” dilophosaurus (featured in jurassic park). We followed their footsteps on the flat and windy landscape as the sun set, and Ricky told us about the geological history of the land, and how the wind and rain continues to reveal more of the prints underneath the hardened mud. it struck us that this site was not monetized or otherwise commercialized as we’d expect it to be - rather, the aim of this and other sites on the reservation seemed to be preservation of the land and tradition (despite researchers and geologists from universities visiting the site to take samples throughout the years). Ricky pointed to his small town off in the distance at the foot of a canyon wall where a natural spring allows his community to grow food (asparagus coming up!). We asked about a “no uranium mining” sign we had seen off the highway, and Ricky explained that uranium mines in the area had been closed until recently when Trump re-opened them.

The next day we had a tour at lower antelope canyon - a slot canyon in Navajo nation. The contours and lighting on the walls were incredible! Our guide, Isaiah, was a young Hopi college student - doing full time online classes while guiding up to five tours a day. He played us a beautiful song on a carved wooden flute in the canyon, told us about how it formed and its cultural significance, and did a great demonstration about its formation using sand and water at the end of the tour.

After the tour, we popped back over to Page and ate our lunch at Horseshoe bend before making the drive to our next campsite, Gooseneck state park in utah, which overlooks a similar canyon river with a U formation. Like a horseshoe, or I guess a goose neck. On the drive there we passed through Monument valley, a vast desert landscape with massive rock formations protruding from the earth. Super cool.

The majority of our driving during these two days was through Najavo nation. As we took in the varied landscape, we listened to “Canyon Dreams” - a journalist’s account of a high school basketball season in the small Navajo town of Chinle where “rez ball” holds much cultural significance. So far it’s offered many great insights into life on the rez and vivid descriptions of this geologically unique and beautiful land. (Apparently the netflix movie “rez ball” is based on this book). Up next, mesa verde…

montezuma’s castle is a misnomer from white people and actually had nothing to do with montezuma - it was built by and housed the sinaguan people of the verde valley. the main structure is a single family unit that housed 35 people at a time. it was built over centuries sometime around 1000 AD and was inhabited until around 1300 when the people migrated northeast. the structure offered protection from predators and annual flooding and regulated temperatures that otherwise were very hot and very cold on the ground below. the average height of the rooms was about 5 ft while the average person was 4 ft 10. there are many more structures like these in the surrounding areas - we’ll see more at mesa verde!

now off to the grand canyon…

after the museum, we went out to lunch at a hotel called the Clinkscale and had an awesome meal - the elote appetizer was pretty phenomenal…

on the way back into town, we checked out Tuzigoot national monument - the remains of a Sinaguan pueblo built about 1,000 years ago. the view from the last photo is actually where our current campsite is! To end the day, we did a small walk through cacti and desert shrubs to a spot called the secret slide rock, recommended to us by a volunteer at the red rock ranger station to watch the light on cathedral and bell rocks. apparently the red rocks are made of quartz and are stained with iron oxide, which gives them their unique reddish color. a big day!

on wednesday we did a 6ish mile hike where we got to see a panoramic view from Boynton vista (there was a man playing a flute at the tippy top of a cool rock as we hiked up) and the birthing cave, a big dome-like cave with a view.

the highlight was an unexpected canyon trek to arizona hot springs - a local recommended it as an “easy walk down”. the 6.5 mi round trip hike wasn’t exactly easy as it lead us down a steep canyon descent, through various hot spring pools, and out to the colorado river. we left our backpacks at the top of the hot springs so sadly we don’t have photo evidence but trust us, it was GORGeous.

our campsite at happy trails hipcamp

canyon trekking to arizona hot springs

getting closer…

yesterday was another big driving day - joshua tree through los vegas to meadview arizona. we arrived at our campsite last night and took our long awaited first showers of the trip! meadview is sandwiched between lake mead/colorado river and the western rim of the grand canyon. now that we have plenty of time until our new mexico wwoof, we’ll camp here for a few more nights before trekking closer to the southern canyon rim and the sedona area.

oatmeal and matcha breakfast - thanks grandma judy for the excellent almond butter!

joshua tree flower

summit of lost horse mine hike

lost horse mine - prospector johnny lang found it while looking for his lost horse in 1890

sunset over jumbo rocks campground

it’s a sunny day, and we’re currently passing through merced county on our way from palo alto to joshua tree - enjoying the blue skies and reservoirs, the vibrant green rolling hills, and Paloma’s Maroon 5 CD from elementary school.

it’s been a busy few days - we moved out of the village on saturday (thank you Ethan & Lexi!!), had a nice goodbye dinner with our grandparents in palo alto, and spent the last 48hrs sorting through almost all of our belongings on her parents’ living room floor (except what i’d already stored in sonoma - thanks padres!). Fortunately we were able to buy a roof rack and a cargo box last minute on Craigslist - the extra storage space proved to be very necessary in the end.

Lots of gratitude to Mark and Celina for being so patient & supportive as we unloaded a U-Haul and took over their space for two days - thank you guys for providing a landing & launching pad for our adventure!! <3

As we told our friends and family about our plans, it was really nice hearing so much interest in staying updated on our travels. So, here we are - hopefully you guys enjoy following along!! We’ll be exploring Joshua tree for the next couple days before landing at our first farm near Sedona. Talk to you all then! :)

Lots of love,

Thomas & Paloma