Here’s a text-only post because I don’t have enough data to upload photos. Photos coming soon! I’ve also thrown it together from unedited notes, so my apologies there, too. This week we’re in a national forest campground just a tad south of Big Sur. So far as I can tell, this means giant everything: giant […]
Month: April 2022
Goodbye San Simeon, Bring on the Music Game
Today is our final day at San Simeon State Park; tomorrow we take a short but dramatic drive up Highway 1 to a new (to us) state park in the Big Sur area. We’ll have no cell signal at all there, so I thought I’d post while I can. For the last of our week here […]
Beauty and the Stress
My friend Whit shared a NYT article with me yesterday about the contrast between the shiny social media portrayal of #VanLife and the sometimes-miserable day-to-day reality of constant life and travel in such a small space. You guys know this is a multi-layered theme for me here. It’s easy to make fun of the trendy […]
We Are All Caricatures of Ourselves
When we were in Texas, I mentioned this quote (by my sister’s friend), referring to Texans. The sentence in full—that I love so much—goes, “Texans are caricatures of themselves and they don’t even know it.” It turns out you can find people and places that exemplify caricatures all over the country. Texas is just an […]
Shana & Marcus Make a Day into a Gift at Del Mar Fairgrounds
We are steadfast boondocking enthusiasts, but on occasion we find ourselves enjoying time in oddly amazing (campground) situations. We decided to give the fairgrounds in Del Mar, CA, a try. Known as the place where the surf meets the turf, it played host to the world-famous Sea Biscuit back when he began his historic run […]
“Where the Kelp Meets the Sycamore Tree”
This exactly describes where we’re camped at our first California State Park campground by the ocean: Leo Carrillo State Park, directly west of LA at the foot of the Santa Monica Mountains. We walk under the bridge with this mural (imagine dolphins jumping up to meet bald eagles, all painted by children) to get to […]
In Search of the Bloom
For a week, we’re boondocking on BLM land at the Carrizo Plain National Monument, the largest native grassland in California. Before I get to why we’re here, I’ll give you a rundown of how we got here, because my friend Susan told me that people don’t understand that this, too, is part of our lifestyle. […]
Shana & Marcus at Pacific Beach
Note from Shelly: Here’s the second in a series of guest posts written by friends we’ve met on the road. We’ve had the pleasure of hanging out with Shana and Marcus several places in Southern California; I wrote previously about our afternoon on Pacific Beach with them, and here’s their fun review of their longer […]
Doug & Melanie in Red Rock Canyon, NV
Note from Shelly: Here’s the first in a series of guest posts written by friends we’ve met on the road. Doug is a fellow traveler who sends email updates home in quick-like fashion because he so often has little-to-no cell service; he and Melanie like to hike in remote places. He has generously allowed me […]
Introducing GDTR Guest Writers
New voices have joined me here! Here are regular posts by sets of friends we’ve made on the road, friends who RV full-time or mostly fulltime or who help us RV. Click on their names for their posts, or click here for all guest posts: Guest Posts Here are a few: And here are our […]
