Ken and Kris Cardwell: mOOners In Mexico |
| Angela White | Sunday, 27 September, 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||
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As sailors, Ken and Kris Cardwell were once known to drop more than their anchors. Now they spend their life "sailing" their land yacht from Northern California to Mexico.  Truck campers have a different mindset than other RVers. We are attracted to truck campers because we want to do something very specific. Maybe it's remote off-road camping on BLM land. Maybe it's towing a trailer with ATVs. Or perhaps we just want to be able to park in the small driveways of friends and family. Almost all the time it's the "go anywhere" feeling of freedom that truck campers deliver so well. For Ken and Kris Cardwell, the original mission was sailing. They were racing sailboats and needed a way to tow their racing sailboat while saving on hotel rooms. Today, the Cardwells enjoy that "go anywhere" freedom while traveling from Northern California to Mexico every year as full-time truck campers.
TCM: On your website, you call yourselves, “mOOners”. What is that all about? Kris: The name, mOOners, was given to us by friends in our sailing group. Twenty years ago, we were out for an evening sail and snuck up on our anchored friends in our boat and mooned them. That event became known as a two moon sighting and that boat became, two mOOns. We’ve also had a Santana 20 racing boat named, mOOn, a racing dinghy, mOOnwad, and our current Capri 26 is Full mOOn. So that’s where the blog name, “mOOners in Mexico” comes from. Although now, we are older, a bit less crazy, and not inclined to drop drawers in Mexico or anywhere else. TCM: So you’re a couple of proud mOOners. That’s funny. Tell us about your sailing. Kris: We’ve had quite a few sailboats including another twenty-six footer that we trailered to the San Juan Islands, up and down the California coast, and to many inland lakes. We used our sailboat like we use a truck camper. We would spend our mild winters cruising in the Bay Area or on our home lake. We discovered a natural inclination to “race” if there was another boat anywhere near us. This led us to become involved with One-Design Class Racing and ownership of the Santana 20, mOOn. Racing at the National level involved travel and expenses of lodging and meals for us and our third crew member. Hence, the purchase of our Bigfoot camper to make trips more affordable and comfortable. We enjoyed our years of racing, often against Olympic and professional sailors, and we attained a level of success that we are proud of with as high as fifth place at National Championships. Racing was competitive, physically hard, and keeping a boat outfitted with racing sails was expensive. We realized what we were enjoying more was travel with the Bigfoot, so we sold the Santana 20. We are still sailors and have since purchased our “forever boat” the Capri 26, Full mOOn, for fun times with friends and family on the water. Ken: We actually call our truck camper a land yacht. With our camper, we don’t have to plan ahead with navigation and weather like we do with a sailboat. Kris: Right now, we travel from November to May in Mexico. In the summer, we enjoy our sailboat in Northern California. If we’re not at the marina or on the lake in our boat, we stay at our kids’ driveways in our camper. We’re fortunate that our kids all live in the area. They jokingly argue about having us visit. Ken: My parents live twenty to thirty minutes away from the lake where our sailboat is located. On Wednesdays, I take my dad out fishing on the lake. While we’re here in the summer, we keep very busy doing projects, babysitting, house sitting, sailing our boat, and hanging out with our family.
TCM: That sounds ideal. What are the differences between being on a sailboat and living in a truck camper? Ken: A huge difference is that you need to buy a lot of diesel/gas for the truck camper and very little for the sailboat. Similarities are that you are in a close, intimate space, but can be outside very easily. Kris: The refrigerator on a boat is actually an icebox that keeps stuff cold for a while. We’re always adding ice to that. Grey water goes directly into the lake so we do dishes in our nearby camper. To dump our fourteen gallon black water tank on the sailboat, we go to the marina and have it pumped out. With the camper, we have tanks with fresh, grey, and black water that we empty as necessary in campgrounds. In the cabin of the boat, we have a table that drops down, so that area turns into a huge bed. We always have the windows open and screens in the companionway because the weather is just fabulous. We also don’t have a bug problem. We may have an occasional mosquito or pesky fly, but not much more. It’s great to wake up in the morning on the water and enjoy coffee in the cockpit, take our Westie, Duffie, to shore on a kayak for his morning “routine”, and enjoy the peace and quiet. Storage space is limited in both the sailboat and the truck camper. Although with our basement in the Bigfoot and the backseat in our dually truck, we have enough room for everything we need and then some. We use plastic bins for just about everything in both the boat and the truck camper. We use boat terminology in both. For example, the head is the bathroom, the galley is the kitchen, and the lazarettes are the under seat storage areas. This keeps things simple for us for whichever home we’re in. Ken: Luckily, we don’t have to winterize either the boat or the truck camper because of the mild winters where we live. We put the boat into dry storage when we leave for Mexico. To do that we had a galvanized trailer built for the 26’ long 10’ beam (width) boat. It’s a heavy combination. If we trailer it, we can’t take the camper. It’s one home or the other. TCM: Tell us the story of how you got your truck camper. Kris: We both had happy memories of truck campers. Ken had a truck camper earlier in his life and I had truck camped across Canada many years ago. Our sailboat racing was getting more expensive with the cost of motels at regattas. We thought the truck camper was the logical choice of RV since we always need a truck for projects and boat towing. There are several RV dealerships in Sacramento, so we decided to see what was available for our needs. We looked at different types of truck campers and then fell in love with the Bigfoot 2500 25C 10.5 model with the wet bath. I liked that because I’d rather have more counter space and cupboards than a dry bath. We didn’t shop around for six-months, we just bought it. TCM: Wow! You bought it on the spot? Kris: Yes. We are big into instant gratification. We once went out for a toaster oven and came back with a Ford Bronco. So, this time we came home with a shiny new Bigfoot camper. We had a three-quarter-ton Dodge 4X4 that was great for towing the racing boat. On the ride home with the new camper on it, we said, “This isn’t happening”… so we researched truck and camper weight issues and bought a Ford one-ton dually 4X4 truck. It’s such a great and comfortable ride and the truck has all the power we need.
TCM: You spend your winters truck camping in Mexico. What keeps drawing you back to Mexico? Kris: You couldn’t talk to two people who enjoy this lifestyle more. We love the beaches and the villages in the highlands around Guadalajara along with other regions. We love the freedom of going where others in larger rigs cannot go. When we stay in areas for periods of time like in Roca Azul on Lake Chapala’s western shore, we unload the camper and have the use of our truck for day trips and for running errands. Ken: We enjoy the beach, but we spend a lot of time in the mountains. In Mexico, the things you can see and learn are virtually unlimited. We have seen so much and we’ve barely scratched the surface. A lot of places we visit are recommended by word-of-mouth from people we meet. Kris: Having a truck camper makes us feel like we are a little more adventurous when we can get off the beaten path and away from touristy areas. The big RV owners say, “Yeah, one time we parked next to a lake.” We do that all the time. Friends also draw us back to Mexico. Along our travels in Mexico, we met fellow truck campers, Paula and Jerry Gale. We’ve also run into former sailors who are now land cruisers. There seems to be a correlation between sailors and RVers, including truck campers. Ken: We don’t go to Mexico to hang out with tourists. We have an interest in the locals and culture. Both of us speak the language fairly well and love to keep learning and practicing every day. We seek out Spanish speaking people to talk to even here in the States. In Mexico, we go to dinners with locals and visit with them in their homes. We’ll bring them to the camper to visit with us. When we speak with them in their language, it’s like a password to their lives. TCM: Did you learn Spanish just to truck camp in Mexico? Ken: I started with three to four years of high school Spanish, but forgot most of it. I do believe that there’s a link between learning music and learning a language because it’s kind of easy for me to learn. The last four years I was teaching, I studied it by talking with the Spanish students and Spanish language teachers at our school. Kris: I also had high school Spanish, but mostly I’ve just learned with Ken. I’m probably a better listener. It’s a teamwork thing. I’ll listen and he’ll talk. We practice Rosetta Stone for a half an hour as we have our coffee each morning. Ken: We are constantly studying and keeping it fresh. We always carry a Spanish/English dictionary and a pad and pen for writing new words and phrases we learn from talking to Spanish speakers we meet. Kris: While we’re in Mexico, we’re kind of kid magnets. It’s a grandparent thing. We learn a lot from talking to and playing with the kids. They explain things in the simplest of forms. We have made some wonderful kid friends and we plan to go back and watch them grow up.
TCM: How do you keep in contact with friends and family while on the road? Ken: We mainly use our Hughs Net satellite internet. The satellite can be picked up everywhere from the mountains to the beaches. We set it up by using GPS coordinates input to a program and passing a cross-poll test. It takes me about twenty to thirty minutes to set it up. It’s not as fast as cable, but it’s way faster than dial up. Kris: We go to Mexico in early November and return home in May. We’re away for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but we share the holiday fun with our family via Skype. With email and Skype we are always in touch. It would be hard to be away from kids and grandbabies for so long without this contact. With Skype, we can call any phone number. Our parents aren’t into Skype via the computer, but their phones ring when we call from a computer and they answer it like a regular call. Skype has been a lot of fun. Computer to computer, Skype is free. If you call a phone, it’s four or five cents a minute. Ken: While we are in Mexico, we use a Mexican cell phone we bought for thirty dollars and no monthly fees. At almost any store we can buy one hundred pesos worth of talk time. We have open communication with Mexican amigos and RV buddies cheaply and effectively. Kris: We don’t carry a television, but watch occasional movies on the computer. We’re avid readers so books are a big part of our packing. We’ve considered the Kindle for replacing books. It would lighten our load considerably. TCM: Tell us about your electronic music set up in your camper. Ken: I have a degree in Music. I taught music, I play guitar, and keyboard. For many years, I had recording equipment at my house. I have MIDI keyboard, Logic Pro 8, which is the latest package suite. I play guitar and sing for groups and do some recording and a lot of MIDI with that program. It’s not to the degree I want, but I do dally with it. I don’t find I have the time to do all I want to do. I have a lot of interests and can’t do it all. TCM: I read your blog and saw the part about Ken in the hospital. Many people worry about going into a different country and having something happen to them. That must have been scary, but at the same time it looks like everything was handled very well. Tell us about that. Kris: By the grace of God, we were at Lake Chapala near Guadalajara. If we had been at a remote beach village, things could have turned out differently. There is a lot of disparity in the medical facilities in Mexico. In Guadalajara, the doctor was phenomenal. The hospital was brand new, and it was equipped with the latest technology. The staff was very knowledgeable and capable. We communicated in Spanish, English, and the always useful, “Spanglish.” Ken: Guadalajara is a multi-university city and there is a tremendous medical community of highly trained physicians in all fields. We were at the cardiologist’s office when I was diagnosed with unstable angina and the doctor immediately drove us to the hospital. I was in intensive care, which was tough, but I was never a bit worried. If I pushed a button someone was there within five-seconds to take care of me. It ended up costing around $16,600 dollars. In California, according to our inquiries, it would have been $120,000 to $180,000. My doctors in northern California are very impressed with the level of care I received in Mexico. TCM: That’s incredible. What advice do you have for people who may be hesitant to go to Mexico? Kris: We want to try to encourage people to go wherever they want and not to worry more than normal about the dangers of travel. Make your camper a safe zone and use common sense. Fear is turning a lot of people off from experiencing an amazing culture and country. Ken: Unfortunately, the United States media exaggerates the negative news of Mexico to sell newspapers and to keep tourist money in the states. The border towns have issues, but not involving tourists. Unless you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, which could happen anywhere in the world. We go through the border by ourselves. We know the entering and departing system and go prepared with the necessary paperwork and copies to expedite the process. We get a hundred miles south, and away from the so called danger zones as soon as we can. But, really all we’ve found is that the Mexican people want to help us. I mean, look at the statistics for getting in your car and going to the grocery store in the United States. Anything that could happen to us in Mexico could happen to us in Sacramento. Kris: Just prepare yourselves, go, and enjoy. It’s a wonderful country with scenery to delight everyone, culture for all tastes, color infused architecture and artifacts; and people with the biggest smiles and hearts that you’ll ever meet. TCM: Thank you Ken and Kris. It sounds like we may be hearing about more adventures from you in the future. Please keep in touch. Kris and Ken: We will. Thank you for the opportunity to share our story with your readers, our fellow adventurers in truck campers. If you'd like to check out our blog, go to mooners.squarespace.com.
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