Livingstone Journal

02/14/2025

Our Valentine's Day greeting to Livingstone (a Phoenix Pop-up camper) was published in Truck Camper Magazine today. 🥰

11/08/2023

Our trip to Africa in Livingstone just got featured in Truck Camper Magazine! (Such great memories!)

The Heimbigners share their preparations, critical apps, safety experience, route, roadside repairs, and the mind-bending wonders of Africa.

03/21/2022

Happy first day of spring! We made it home about 5 p.m. today. We were gone 4 weeks and 1 day--almost to the minute. Bruce drove most of the 5,325 miles (8,570 km), but Laurie put in more hiking miles--over 40 (64km).

Two days before we left home the snow was thinning close to our house. It was still over a foot (.3m) deep in our woods though, so Laurie went snowshoeing. When we got home today the snow was almost totally gone, even in the shadiest places. We sure timed our trip to sunny Baja just right. We were ready for spring when we left, we got it in Baja, and now it's just about here! (Though we'll still get 1 or 2 more snow storms before spring is here to stay.)

Next trip: central Oregon and ??? in early July. We have some repairs to complete in Livingstone before then (including a new window, troubleshooting some electrical problems, and replacing the refrigerator (which suffers from broken rack supports after being thoroughly shaken in Africa), but even though we just got home, we can hardly wait to get on the road again.

03/18/2022

Our next stop on our way north was the very rugged Tabor Canyon. 4 years ago it had deep pools of water, but, after 2 years of virtually no rain in this area the pools were mostly dry.

03/17/2022

Our goal after leaving Cabo Pulmo was to return to the beach where we met Tina & Odo, overlanders from Germany. While we were in the south we discovered that the beach does have a name: Playa Regalito Sur. And it is on iOverlander. The 5" (13 cm) drop-off from the highway to the sand road is a bit of a deterrent to a lot of drivers though.The drive between LaPaz and this beach has one of the curviest mountain roads in Baja. It was a really fun drive in our 5-speed Jetta. Not so fun in Livingstone.

03/17/2022

We continued south from La Paz to Laurie's very favorite place in all of Baja: Playa Los Arbolitos--now part of a national park as well as a marine preserve that boasts the northern most coral reef in North America. The last 25 minutes of the road is unpaved and BUMPY(!!!) but it's worth it. This beach is fabulous for snorkeling in the summer, but is much windier and cooler in the winter/spring so we weren't able to get out our snorkels or kayaks. We WERE able to hike to "Dinosaur Egg Beach", though. You know you've arrived as soon as you start seeing its egg shaped boulders.

03/16/2022

La Paz is our favorite city in Baja. It doesn't have separate local and tourist sections--instead it's all mixed up and you really get the flavor of a Mexican city instead of feeling like you're in a sanitized "Little America" like you do in Los Cabos and Ensenada.

03/13/2022

Livingstone turns 9 years old this month and is starting to show his age. The water pump hadn't been turning on consistently so Bruce took a look and discovered that the screws that hold it together were stripping out the aluminum. Conclusion: unrepairable. He replaced it with the pump to the outside shower, BUT that pump had been our primary water pump until it started having problems with loose internal wiring somewhere in Africa. That pump got us 3 more days before it quit working. Fortunately, we were about to leave for Loreto. It's a popular place for sport fishing so our hope was that one of their marine shops would have a replacement pump since boats use similar water pumps to Livingstone's. We made a plan: go eat tacos at El Rey Del Taco--the best tacos we've eaten--THEN go hunt for a marine store.
In Loreto we found a parking space big enough for Livingstone a few blocks away from El Rey. As Laurie was getting out of the truck she noticed a store directly across the street called Ferre Mar. Since a hardware store is called a ferretería in Spanish and mar is the word for sea, she wondered if it might be marine hardware store. But tacos were the first priority so that's where we went. Our fish and carne asado tacos were every bit as delicious as we had remembered. On full happy stomachs we went the store across from Livingstone which was indeed a marine supply store. It had just the pump we needed. Hallelujah!
We got a space at a tiny RV park just a block from the tourist section in the center of town and celebrated by shopping for Mexican pottery for the house then went out to a delicious dinner. Since he's had a LOT of practice it didn't take Bruce long at all next morning to install the new pump. Running water is a glorious thing!
Then it was beach time.

03/13/2022

After we were done with our trials and tribulations at Mulegé, we spent the week beach hopping. We started out at Playa La Escondida--"the hidden beach"--but it turns out that it isn't hidden anymore. An enterprising local had improved the narrow rocky road leading to it and added palpas and pit toilets. He comes around weekly to collect the camping fee from whoever is there that day. It was crowded with mostly long-term term campers spending the winter there who gladly pay $52 for the week.
From there we went to Playa El Requeson--a beautiful beach with a sand spit leading out to a nice little desert island. As it always Requeson was crowded with campers, but we love it anyway.

03/12/2022

We've always enjoyed the drive from San Ignacio to Mulegé with the views of rugged mountains steadily increasing, then a panoramic view of the emerald green Sea of Cortez. Mulegé is a small friendly town along a palm-lined tidal river with narrow winding streets.
After 2 weeks on the road it was time to do laundry, so the first night we camped on a beach right outside of town. It was a quick drive into town the next morning and we knew exactly where we were going: Claudia's Lavandería. It's the cleanest laundromat we've ever been in and they have a covered veranda with tables and chairs to sit at while the clothes are washing.
It wasn't possible to turn around from our parking place across from Claudia's so we had to drive up a steep hill and turn left then right into a very nice residential area--with roads that were even narrower than usual. That's when things went kind of sideways. At the corner of the right turn there was a very freshly painted Pepto Bismol pink wall with a square cement finial painted white on top of each column in the wall. Bruce swung wide enough to clear the wall, but didn't notice that the corner of the cement finial stuck out an extra 4" into the roadway--right at window height on the camper. The impact broke off the corner of the finial and shattered the window over our dining table then ripped off the safety handle by the door. Thankfully, the people who owned the home were very calm and understanding. They called their "cement guy" who showed up within 5 minutes to evaluate the damage and give an estimate for the repair. 700 pesos ($35) later we were on our VERY CAREFUL way. As we exited the downtown there was a grocery store with cardboard boxes sitting out front. Temporary replacement window--done.
Time to put our Mexican car insurance into use. It just took us 1 phone call and the insurance adjustor met us in Mulegé the next afternoon. It only took her one look and, as expected, she told us we'd have to have the window fixed when we get back home--they don't have windows like that in Baja. Today Bruce updated the cardboard with a piece of plywood. It'll get us home just fine. (And we just beach camped with a German couple who have an amazing flip-up window in front of their dining room table so Laurie has decided this is the perfect opportunity to upgrade our window instead of just replacing it!)

03/11/2022

As we started traveling south in Baja we received a message from Sandie and Karsten--a German couple we met while overlanding in Morocco. They were in Baja and heading north, so we arranged a meet-up at at a place they love north of Guerro Negro called "The Dunes". Since we are still tired from the work involved in getting unstuck from sand in both Baja and Africa, Bruce was rather concerned about driving Livingstone into a place with sand dunes. They assured us, though, that the road was solid, and since their overlanding vehicle is heavier than ours we went for it. They were right--the road was fine.
Bruce was, however, VERY picky about where we parked because there were salt marshes around the road, and the dirt past us looked liked it had been wet recently. Turning Livingstone around so we were headed out for an easy getaway (something taught to us when we were on the road in Africa by Nelly Byrd, an experienced overlander), we popped up our roof and got ready for company.
When Sandie & Karsten arrived along with their friend/traveling companion Ivan we all crowded into Livingstone for dinner and a wonderful evening of sharing overlanding stories.
The next morning was bright and sunny so Laurie took her breakfast outside. As she sat in her chair she noticed the watery borders of the salt marshes were closer to Livingstone. Then she noticed they were getting even closer. It didn't take any convincing--happy we were facing out, Bruce immediately moved Livingstone to higher ground. Then we watched the water flood where were had parked for the night. We hadn't thought to ask when high tide was! New lesson learned. As the water stopped advancing, then started receding, we went for a hike in the dunes.

03/06/2022

As promised here are some whale videos to give you a sense of what it's like to interact with whales. (Exhilarating!!!)