We are gloriously at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, an internationally protected biosphere south of Ajo, Arizona, but closer to the town of Sonoyto in Mexico, which we can see at night from the campground. Tracy will be catching up on his hiking and birdwatching here while I continue to recover from Covid (I hope […]
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Cave Troll Plots Escape from Mars
Okay, maybe I’m taking these metaphors too far. But a travel blogger who finds herself stationary in a near-lifeless desert and then gets stuck in her bedroom, thus reducing her world to a smaller sphere than her readers’, has to resort to colorful language. The good news behind all the flourish is that this cave […]
The End of the Doldrums in Sight
To me, people say they’re in the duldrums when they’re stuck in a sad state of inactivity. I prefer the more specific nautical reference, which is a location: “the belt around the Earth near the equator where sailing ships sometimes get stuck on windless waters” (NOAA). One of my favorite sets of books, Patrick O’Brian’s […]
Towing Your Home on the Busiest Travel Day
The Monday before Thanksgiving may not be the busiest travel day ever, but as we moved camp that day, each figurative bump along the road made it feel like a doomed day. (Spoiler: in the end Tracy found us the best possible boondocking site right outside the south entrance to Joshua Tree National Park, so […]
Death by Paper Cuts?
That’s an exaggeration—in both directions. We’re still loving this lifestyle (so, far from death), but we’ve faced more than just paper cuts lately. An older guy dumping his trailer tanks at the truck stop next to us was just hopping to tell me that he’s sold his house and bought this RV and is going to […]
Planning for Winter
There’s snow in the forecast for Grand Teton, so we’re leaving a day early, which suits us fine seeing as how the crowds have kept us from enjoying the park the way we’d hoped. Maybe if we were to stay through the snow the crowds would thin out, but then we’d have to endure the […]
One Night in Butte Is Enough
Tracy wanted to see the famous Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana (he’d seen it years ago and was impressed), so we parked at an odd little boondocking spot off the interstate, tucked Banjo inside the trailer, and went exploring. Butte seems to be like Helena (but smaller): a shrinking, strange little town. It used to […]
Most Excellent Free Campground
(Marred by Racists Hate-mongers) After we left Lake Koocanusa, we drove down that lovely, long, valley lake, past Libby Dam, and into a Corps of Engineers campground right on the Kootenay River near the town of Libby, Montana. It’s a practically perfect campground. It’s one paved oval road, with level pull-through spots right on the […]
Packing up and Moving On
Goodbye Lake Koocanusa Today’s the day we leave Lake Koocanusa, outside of Eureka, Montana, where we’ve been for two weeks. Two whole weeks! That’s longer than we’ve stayed anywhere since we were in the Florida Keys this past winter, and it’s longer than we’ve stayed anywhere boondocking (without any connections to water, sewer, electricity). I’m […]
3 Days, 670 Miles, a Casino and a Brewery
From when we left the Airstream factory at 5:00 pm on Friday night and headed to Iowa (we’ll pull into our destination campground around noon today, Sunday), we will have driven about 670 miles, which is way more than normal for us. We really want to see our friends in Iowa! Just a couple of […]
