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Alaska Bound: Cruising Through California
Since the beginning of our great big RV adventure, I thought Alaska would be our last state visited, if ever. But here we are, 37 states and 4+ years later, and we’re on our way! We’ve just spent the last 5 weeks traveling through California. The time has flown by without too much to report, so just one blog post. I’ve resolved to be okay with not doing a whole lot on our way to Alaska. Just getting ourselves there (and back in the Fall) will be the adventure. Back in early March, we returned to Sunbeam Lake RV Park in El Centro for a night. I forgot to mention…
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La Paz & Balandra Beach, Mexico
After Loreto, we moved to La Paz, the capital and largest city in Baja California Sur. We stayed at Campestre Maranatha, an RV park that rivals any nice RV park in the US. It had a pool and an onsite cafe but my favorite amenity was the onsite laundry. One afternoon we drove into town to walk along the Malecón. We were excited that we were in town during the first half of Carnaval, the week-long celebration leading up to Fat Tuesday. Then we were disappointed to find out that the parades and main events were only during the last 3 days when we’d already be gone. We also walked…
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Visiting Family & Friends in Chicago
The most exciting stop on our way east this year was seeing Michael’s Aunt Mary & Uncle Roger and my college friend, Erin, in Chicago! We got to see everyone twice which made it a very wonderful week. We arrived in downtown Chicago on a Saturday afternoon and had a 24-hour reservation to stay in a truck marshalling lot for the McCormick Convention Center. This was probably the craziest place we’ve ever towed and parked the camper but it sure was convenient after we got there. We were about 3 miles south of where we wanted to walk around so we took an Uber up to Millenium Park, where The…
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A Little Bit Of Albuquerque, NM
We were parked at High Desert RV Park in Albuquerque for a month starting the second week of April. We needed to be near an airport and plan to spend the summer in the Rockies, so Albuquerque suited our needs perfectly. Albuquerque is a big city but somehow doesn’t feel too crowded. The Sandia Mountains are just east, Spanish for watermelon because of the color they turn at sunset. The Rio Grande runs through the middle, with miles of multi-use trails that we didn’t get to take advantage of this time around. We did make sure to visit historic Old Town which is a lot like Santa Fe, except that…
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Austin & San Antonio, TX
Michael’s sister told us about the Texas bluebonnets years ago and we timed our visit to Austin to see them! We stayed at McKinney Falls State Park, just 15 minutes from downtown Austin. The campsites were large and had water/electric hookups. We were at McKinney Falls the second half of March and over those two weeks watched the bluebonnets bloom to peak, followed by the appearance of Indian paintbrush. These fields were inside the state park, so we got to see them on our daily walks. In addition to all the wildflowers, there were also trails around the falls. We noticed right away that Austin seemed like a very nice…
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New Orleans, LA
We couldn’t imagine driving past New Orleans without stopping. We had visited before for our friend’s wedding and wanted to experience it again. There are two state parks within easy commuting distance of the French Quarter, Bayou Segnette and St. Bernard. We chose St. Bernard because, although a little farther away, we were able to reserve a full hookup site. Even though we were only 30 minutes from the French Quarter, the area felt pretty remote. We didn’t find much to do during the week. We went to New Orleans twice during our week-long stay. While looking for a place to listen to some of the city’s live music, I…
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Fort Lauderdale, Miami, & Biscayne National Park
For the past two winters, we’ve explored the desert southwest. We love the grandeur and the wildness, but it was time to do something completely different. So I dragged Michael to southeast Florida, which was actually plan b after I wasn’t able to get any state park reservations in the Florida Keys. There was so much to do…south Florida has three national parks and plenty of city spaces to explore. It’s the most urban area we’ve ever experienced for this amount of time in our lives. We’ve felt crowded and a little claustrophobic. The traffic is way worse than imagined. But the weather has been way better. It’s hard to…
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NYE In Jacksonville, FL
A couple of days after Christmas we packed up and headed toward Florida to thaw out. Literally. We’d just discovered that the low-temperature limit of our Arctic Fox travel trailer is 5 degrees and our fresh water tank was one huge ice cube. We’ve had plans to be Florida snowbirds for at least a year because that’s how far you need to plan in advance. Our first stop was Hanna Park, owned by the city of Jacksonville. Hanna Park is awesome. It is oceanfront and the full hookup campsites are tucked into a jungle of live oaks and palms. And it has mountain biking trails! We loved walking to and…
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Memphis & Nashville, TN
I’ve gotten a little behind on documenting our travels. In real-time, we’ve been at home in NC since the weekend before Thanksgiving and have been spending time with family and taking care of all our annual appointments. Last month, we spent the first couple of weeks of November continuing our eastbound I-40 journey through Tennessee. Our first stop was Memphis, where our friends Mark and Diana live. We stayed at Tom Sawyer RV Park, actually located across the Mississippi River in West Memphis, AR, but was an easy 15-minute drive to downtown Memphis. While we prefer public campgrounds, this was a great private one. It was reasonably priced, had large…
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Heading East: Palo Duro Canyon, TX & Oklahoma City, OK
After digging out of our muddy Santa Fe boondocking spot 2 days late, we had a 325-mile drive to our next destination in the Texas Panhandle. Perfectly doable for a one-day weekend drive but way too far to attempt during the week. We stopped for a night/work day at Blaze in Saddle RV park in Tucumcari, NM, a Route 66 town that still appears to be a popular one-night stopover for cross-country travelers. We finally got to Palo Duro Canyon State Park on Wednesday evening, stopping at Cadillac Ranch along the way. We ended up being glad that our week-long reservation at Palo Duro Canyon State Park was cut short.…
