I was extremely weary after a long day of driving and sightseeing in the desert and found myself in Tonopah, Nevada – still six-hours away from my home in Salt Lake City.  I found a parking spot in town to crash in back of Roo.  It was only 7pm, but I was wiped.  I tried to sleep but I just didn’t feel safe.  The parking lot said free parking for truckers and RVs but I felt totally sketched.

I got back into the driver seat to look for a better option.  I thought about continuing on and finding some place to crash along the way but I was just too damn tired and then I saw a sign for an Economy Inn.

The View Outside My Motel Room - Tonopah, NV

I asked to see the room and it looked alright so I paid in cash – $30.  The room I had been given a key for looked nothing like the room I had been shown.  The deadbolt didn’t lock and the windows opened from the outside.  I checked under the bed for dead hookers and took a quick shower while scenes from Psycho played through my head.  Footsteps outside my room at 3am made my heart rate soar and I was out of there by 5:30.

I would have been better off crashing in my car.

Not to long ago I left my comfortable existence for a magazine internship in super expensive Colorado mountain town.  To save money, I planned on dirtbagging it and camping as long as I could manage.  After only a few nights, rain, lightening, and marble sized hail balls chased me inside and into the Glenwood Springs Hostel.

The Lazy Lizard Hostel - Moab, UT

Why are hostels so damn creepy in the US, but so freaking cool everywhere else?  Is it because I am usually too enamored with the fact that I am in a foreign country and oblivious to comfort and basic hygiene?  Rather I was thinking about my cozy bed a mere six-hour drive away and wondering what the hell I had been thinking to give up all that.

“Oh dude what is that?” I listened as the hostel employees tried to identify the matchbox car sized bug that made its way across the carpet before I crawled into bed with the hostel supplied linens (you weren’t allowed to use your own sleeping bag or blankets for fear of bed bugs, lice, and the like).  I began to itch as I drifted off to sleep as the transient in the bunk next to mine mumbled about the devil and fought out loud with the demons in her mind.

Why hadn’t I just spent one more night in the car?

Speaking of matchbox car sized bugs; last night as I tried to fall asleep I heard some strange sounds coming from Frank’s cage.  She’s been super high energy lately so I thought maybe she was just being her annoying self and playing in her food.  I turned on the light and saw her peering with fright at the bottom of her cage.

Roaches.  Big F-ing roaches everywhere.  Horror movie roaches.  I screamed.

The bugs were literally crawling out of the woodwork.  Chris raged the war as Frank and I huddled together frozen with fear.  One more roach and we were out of there.  Chris grabbed his pants off the floor, put them on, and a roach crawled out.  I shook out the bedding, grabbed some pillows, put Frank safely in the kitchen, and we made a run for the Volkswagen parked out in the street.

We found solace in a car.

For those concerned, I don’t live in a shit hole. Roach problem is now hopefully under control. Some pipe work had been done and they sprayed for bugs, which made them flee the walls.  Attracted by birdseed, the roaches found haven in Frank’s cage.

I just finished reading 4 Classic Mistakes I Made In My First Year of Blogging which led me to reflect on all the things I think I’ve done wrong with this blog.  And then I read Abbie Mood’s This Niche Business is Stressing Me Out and then I really started spiraling.

For a while I’ve been worried that my blog name is lame, but when I came up with the name I had no idea people would actually be reading this.

As the story goes, I was bored at work one day and was futzing around with things and decided to spend the $10 and buy a domain name so I could futz more freely.  At the time of blog naming, I had fantasized about this whole dirtbagging thing – I guess I was mustering up ideas for future world domination.

I wanted to be a writer and I also knew that the only way I was going to be able to leave my job and follow all my dreams was by being a total dirbag, which had pretty much been my total travel style all along.  Some people would describe dirtbagging as minimalistic or budget travel but I like to think of dirtbagging as more of a lifestyle.  So to me a dirtbag is an extreme budget traveler that is ambitious, eco-conscience, and cooperative – a major dreamer, adventurer, and conventional dissenter.  So I paired dirtbag with what I wanted to be and there you have it – dirtbag writer.

Still I wonder if dirtbag writer is super cheeseball and I wonder what I would name my blog if I were naming it now.

I wouldn’t use my name because for one: people can never spell it right so they would never be able to find it again and for two: I am too shy.  I’ve written some really personal stuff and some total babble and really haven’t been too stoked about people I know actually reading this stuff.  But then I started reading Julie Schwietert’s blog and started considering the importance of owning what I wrote and now I am wondering if I am hiding too much behind this dirtbag facade.

So I’m curious.  How did you name your blog?  Do you wish you had named it something different?  Are you totally sick of the name or are you just starting to grow into it?

Several people have recently asked me what exactly a dirtbag is. DirtbaggerGuide.com uses the term dirtbag to describe the dreamer, adventurer, conventional dissenter, uber cheap, and sometimes well-worn traveler. The new dirtbag has evolved into an ambitious, eco-conscience, cooperative individual from its dirty, unkempt, and contemptable roots.

Basically a dirtbag is an extreme budget traveler who doesn’t mind alternative sleeping arrangements and getting a little dirty.  You know you are a dirtbag if…

1. You get up at 5 am and sneak out of the campsite before the camp host gets up instead of waking at a more reasonable hour and risk having to pay for the site.
2. You buy a box of wine or a 6-pack of tall boys rather than spending money at the bar.
3. You are on an all expense paid trip for work and you cook dinner outside your hotel room so you can pocket the per diem.
4. You know the camping limits and rules of every major BLM recreation area.
5. You consider a natural hot spring a shower.
6. You can wrap anything in a tortilla and call it dinner.  You also have perfect torilla wrapping skills.
7. You have a particular adoration for Wet Wipes.
8. You can sleep peacefully basically anywhere (bivy sack in a rainstorm, a picnic table or the backseat at a rest area).
9. You catch free wireless at the library rather than the coffee shop because you don’t have to buy a cup of coffee.
10. You are constantly scheming up ways to quit your day job and never have to work again.

A journey into the wilderness is the freest, cheapest, most nonprivileged of pleasures.
Anyone with two legs and the price of a pair of army surplus combat boots may enter.
~Edward Abbey

Started my internship today weary and googly-eyed – I must have looked like I slept in my car last night. It would have been nice to get to town a few days before but I somehow couldn’t manage. Quite simply, I didn’t want go. Leaving Salt Lake and all my lovely ones was way harder than I could have imagined – it actually made me physically ill. I waited until late Sunday afternoon and then packed up Ruby, drove 6-hours, and crashed in a wayside all scrunched up in my backseat.

I am starting to wonder if my dirtbag days have sailed. I woke about 5 times in the back of Rubes because of various leg cramps and rain drops somehow managing to squeeze through the window crack and drip precisely onto the center of my forehead. Then as I tried to get the window up I managed to set off my car alarm disturbing all the other wayside sleepers.

I felt like I was getting too comfortable with comforts. I guess that might be my best reason for leaving.  But now I am wondering what the hell is wrong with comforts. I guess there is only something wrong if your need for comfort gets in the way of being brave and following your dreams.

Full of doubt today for sure – and wondering if I simply traded one office job for another. Starting a new ‘job’ is always so awkward and weird. It is like you want to look busy but you really have nothing to do and you fill your water bottle from the bathroom sink because you don’t want to disturb the super busy looking people with yet another seemingly unimportant question. Trying to stay positive and trust that I will take away valuable things from interning and living outside of my comfort areas but sometimes it just plain sucks.