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  • Life in the Valley of the Gods

    Valley of the Gods was part of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah when Obama designated it; Bears Ears was the first national monument created by request of and with input from Indigenous tribes. The protected land size was reduced under Trump, restored under Biden, then reduced under Trump again, and, thanks to lobbying from […]
  • Moving Sunlight and Changing Focus at White Sands National Park

    How do I tell you about White Sands National Park in New Mexico? We spent only a day there (a short record for us), but my impressions are hard to pin down. Words aren’t enough, and photos are hard to take. I could tell you about the unique geographic features that come together to make […]
  • Where Salt Marsh Meets the Sea

    We’re spending the rest of November traveling down the Texas coast, camping at one beach spot for a few days, then moving on. A sampling, a taste of each one. We’ve done this before, so we’re staying at a few favorites, but we’re also adding new spots, like here, our starting point at the top […]
  • Surprising Watkins Glen

    I could tell before we pulled into the campground that I was going to hate this place. Tons of out-of-town traffic, signs and parking lots for shuttles, restaurants and gift shops, all for some bunch of waterfalls or something. But Tracy insisted I go on a certain short hike he’d been on years ago. He […]
  • Alaska Photo Journey

    I’ve been thinking back to our Alaska trip last summer (2023), and I’ve realized I don’t have a single, encompassing compilation of our memories. Here goes! British Columbia in May The Alaska Highway connects the Lower 48 with Alaska, and it’s really the only way to get to Alaska. Like a lot of road-trippers, we […]
  • For Itinerants, We Sure Settle Down Well

    I’d forgotten that a friendly Canadian gave me her tiki bar sign right off her campsite post in Alberta a couple of summers ago. Here, in the Tip o’ Texas, we’ve been unpacking storage spots in the Airstream that I didn’t realize we had (which is saying something) and finding things like tiki bar signs […]
  • Beach Camping Is the Best Camping

    This! This is why I live in a trailer. We’re back on the beach near Galveston, Texas, exactly where we spent a week last year, because it is just the perfect spot for us. It’s not in an ocean-side campground; it’s not a camping spot with a palm-roofed tiki bar. What it is is a […]
  • You Keep Watching the Tundra, Then You Remember to Look Up (at Tombstone)

    I said this to Tracy yesterday while we were hiking along the mountains in the northern part of Tombstone Territorial Park, here in the Yukon, a little east of Fairbanks. The sub-arctic tundra here is so beautiful—moss and lichen and flowers—a deep cover that insulates the permafrost right below. Even if the ground weren’t captivating, […]
  • What 10 Million Bats Looks Like

    They don’t look like anything I can describe, is what they look like. There is no way to capture in a photograph, or even a video, the enormity and beauty of this many animals moving all at once, together as a colony and individually as mammals, feeding. They fly together, and they fly into each […]
  • Kayaking the Largest Oxbow

    You probably know this, but I didn’t: an oxbow is a water formation that started as a big curve in a river that got cut off, as in the river took a short cut through the curve, for whatever reason, and kept going, leaving the curve on its own as a separate body of water. […]
  • A Gem South of Revelstoke

    Revelstoke (how cool a name is that?) is a tourism town in British Columbia, Canada, where people come to ski, mountain bike, hike, fish, rock climb: you name it. It reminds me a bit of Red Lodge in Montana: a gateway to grand national parks in BC. From the vibe I got at the only […]
  • “She Gets Excited Easily”

    That’s how Tracy excused me when I suddenly jumped up and left our weekly Zoom trivia game. Go Team Donner Party! Just without me for a bit. There was a whale within sight, and I had to grab the binoculars to watch it surface. This was the third majorly wonderful wild animal spotting in a […]
  • Hellhole Canyon and the Slot

    There’s not a ton of hiking near us in Anza-Borrego, but we’ve done two short ones that have made the stay here worth it. Indeed, hikes are a memorable as the names. Hellhole Canyon The park brochure description makes this out to be a 6-hour hike into the wastelands of misery, but we did it […]
  • 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 […]
  • Beartooth Highway

    According to Destination Red Lodge, Beartooth Highway is “the most beautiful roadway in America.” Maybe “roadway” is the operative term here, being used in a very specific way, because I sure do enjoy Highway 101 along the Pacific Coast, and The Going to the Sun Road in Glacier Nat. Park, and even Skyline Drive along the […]
  • Getting in the Groove at the Keys Just as We Prep to Leave

    We have one last week here of our six-week stay, and I’m realizing how much I’m going to miss this place. Yes, it’s crowded with tourists, and the new highly-contagious variant of the virus is here more than most anywhere in the U.S. So it’s definitely time for us to move on. But look at […]
  • Banjo, Don’t Step on That!

    I’ve written here earlier that we’re on a small key that’s been developed almost entirely into our RV park. Our trailer is about where the circle is. There’s a bit of wild land on the other side of the highway that we can walk to under the bridge (see my clever hand-drawn arrow). It’s weird […]
  • Beautiful Myakka River State Park

    We scheduled only one full day at this state park outside of Sarasota, Florida, which turns out to be way too little time to watch all the water birds, to hike and bike the trails through the palms and live oaks, to watch the enormous alligators in the river. But the two nights we have […]

My Tattoos Meet Their Inspirations

April 2, 2020December 13, 2023 Shelly 12 Comments

I spent a lot of time in the woods as a kid. I used to pretend to make the frame of a house by arranging downed tree trunks in the shape of rooms. And I would routinely harass a crawdaddy by building it a house in the creek using wide, flat stones. When it was […]

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What I’m Doing in Confinement

April 1, 2020April 1, 2020 Shelly 6 Comments

It’s a little tricky here when the weather is bad and we’re inside the Airstream all day long. Of course we walk Banjo at least three times a day in the woods, but we take turns when it’s cold or raining, and odds are that means I’m outside only once a day. That leaves something […]

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Early Spring in the Campground

March 31, 2020March 31, 2020 Shelly 3 Comments

Spring seems to start later in the woods than in neighborhoods. Here it’s still just tiny signs, and I haven’t seen any of the gorgeous flowers that friends are posting photos of. I did see blooming trees last week, but that was when we were driving back from picking up groceries. *Sigh* The Woods I […]

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Cycles of Activity at Our Campground

March 30, 2020March 30, 2020 Shelly Leave a comment

Finally we’re having warm enough weather so that life, at least around the Airstream, is more as we’d imagined it. We’re eating outside, I’m playing ukulele (quietly) outside, and even this very early morning I’m spending my one hour blogging (while I do my “stim” treatment for insomnia, ask if you’re curious) outside. It’s chilly […]

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How RV Quarantining Is Different

March 29, 2020March 29, 2020 Shelly 5 Comments

Disadvantages of RV Life As I’ve said before, we got out of D.C. just in time and found this campground that we hope we can stay in for at least a month. We’re good. However, we do face different challenges than if we’d stayed at home. Insecure Home This is worth repeating: campgrounds across the […]

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Ways the Airstream Fits Me

March 28, 2020March 28, 2020 Shelly 3 Comments

Of course the Airstream fits me and I love it here—because the people I love are here with me. My specific point, though (I started with the above so I could use that awesome photo at the top), has to do with the fact that I’m very short—4′ 11″. And you know I do complain […]

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We’re Going to Be Here for a While

March 26, 2020March 26, 2020 Shelly 21 Comments

Well, Virginia State Parks have closed their campgrounds, and this is the trend for sure across the nation. It makes sense for people who are vacationing, but there are a lot of full-time RVers (like us now) who need a place to ride out this first big wave of the virus. Luckily this campground we’re […]

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Staying in Place in a Tiny Space

March 25, 2020March 25, 2020 Shelly 2 Comments

Oh, look at that bit of sun shining on the Firefly in my photo! We had that glorious bit yesterday morning, and I squandered it by sitting in the truck while Tracy went in to Tractor Supply to top off our propane tank, and then he filled up the truck with diesel and we picked […]

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Learning to Live in the Firefly during Downtime

March 24, 2020March 24, 2020 Shelly 6 Comments

Of course we’re not doing any of the things we’d planned on doing in Virginia for this stay: hanging out with friends and family, going to the kazillion breweries we like here, hearing local bands. We are, though, getting time to figure things out in the Airstream. Accomplishments Yesterday we: Opened the awning for the […]

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Winter Hike and Indoor Yoga

March 23, 2020March 23, 2020 Shelly Leave a comment

I’m sitting here in the Airstream on this cold rainy day, writing because I have plenty of time, and I’m guessing some of you do, too. So maybe you’ll enjoy this now, whereas regularly you’d be like, “Shelly sure does post a lot!” I’m guessing I won’t post so often once we’re on the road […]

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What’s with the Changes?

My decision to leave the road (in brief)

My decision on where to live (in not so brief)

What happened to our Airstream home (long-winded!)

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Five Years Living on the Road

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