Going Down the Road Feeling Grand – Page 83 – Going Where the Climate Suits Our Clothes

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 […]

Paring Down and Gearing Up

January 4, 2020May 17, 2022 Shelly 2 Comments

Inside our house is beginning to feel spare, which makes it perversely inviting. Why did we have all that stuff in the first place? Paring Down First we gave away the easy stuff, the low-hanging fruit. Things like: the contents of an entire linen closet. Enough books to fill some guy’s car. All holiday decorations […]

What about Banjo?

January 2, 2020May 17, 2022 Shelly 1 Comment

Unwittingly, we made a couple of smart moves before we knew we’d be hitting the road this spring. One was adopting Banjo. We’d both agreed we wanted a dog to travel with, but the timing for adoption would be tricky. We had been fostering dogs thinking that we’d start looking for the special one closer […]

Where Is the Airstream?

January 2, 2020May 17, 2022 Shelly Leave a comment

The Airstream is at the dealership because we haven’t chosen a place to store her, nor have we bought and installed a proper hitch to get her where ever that will be. We’re working on that though because we’re keen to fit the interior with storage bins so we can work the magic of packing […]