Big Bend National Park: East Side Trails
For the remainder of our stay at Big Bend, we pushed toward the distant eastern side of the national park. As we drove toward Rio…
Grand Canyon: Village to Visitor Center
Grand Canyon's Trail of Time Starting from Vankamp's Visitor Center of the Grand Canyon Village, we hiked the South Rim trail along the newly created…
Glen Canyon River Trip
While at the Grand Canyon visitors center I'd read that tour guides ran calm water rafting trips from Glen Canyon Dam down the Colorado river…
Grand Canyon: Desert View Drive
Grand Canyon's Desert View Point Just south of Mather Point, we took Desert View Drive eastward for about 23 miles to reach Desert View Watchtower.…
Adventures in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas
While Dallas is not exactly famed for its tourist destinations, we made a point of it in order to visit family during our travels. By…
Grand Canyon Village Historic District
If you’re into history, the Grand Canyon Village within the Grand Canyon National Park is an excellent place to explore and most of the buildings…
Waco Mammoth National Monument
As we rolled into Waco Texas, the only thing I knew of it was the Branch Davidian shootout that took place in there in 1993. It turns…
Grand Canyon: Hermit’s Rest to Bright Angel
The best way to see the Grand Canyon without punishing yourself on a heart-bursting in-and-out hike of the canyon is to hike the Rim Trail.…
Big Bend National Park: Chisos Basin
At the heart of Big Bend National Park resides the Chisos Mountains. They extend nearly twenty miles from the Punta del la Sierra in the…
Williams, Arizona
While visiting the Grand Canyon we have been parked right in the midst of Williams, Arizona. It is a relatively small town at some 3,00…
Big Bend National Park: Western Desert
Big Bend National Park is a magical place for the outdoor lover. Avid hikers will find a paradise of trails within the borders of this…
Sunset Crater Volcano and Wupatki National Monuments
Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument is one of three national monuments near Flagstaff Arizona. We alternated our site-seeing between the…
Montezuma Castle, Montezuma Well and Tuzigoot
Arizona is packed with National Monuments, having more than any other state. Everywhere we go in the state there are amazing things to see and…
Navigating Grand Canyon National Park
Visiting Grand Canyon National Park on the South Rim required a lot more planning than I had originally expected, but this is why I planned…
Trail & Hitch vs The Fading Furnace
We were staying in Williams, Arizona, just 1 hour outside of the Grand Canyon South Rim and this is the moment when our Airstream furnace…
On Second Thought, Forget The Alamo
Why did we choose to forget the Alamo? Well, it all began with a desire to see The Alamo while we were near San Antonio,…
Arizona Elections: A Traveler’s Discovery
As we have been traveling around we happened to be in both Arizona and Nevada while they were holding their presidential primaries. I'm something of…
Saguaro National Park East
In our second trip to Saguaro National Park, we headed out to the Rincon Mountains to see what the East half of the park had…
Casa Grande, Arizona
Casa Grande Arizona is home to the Casa Grande RV Resort and thus was home to us for about three weeks time. We've been waiting…
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
Our trip to Organ Pipe National Monument took over 2 hours to reach, and along the way we noticed several border patrol stops. Which makes…
Visiting Boquillas, Mexico
While at Big Bend National Park I made some noises about wanting to cross over into Mexico at least once just. I also wanted a…
Saguaro National Park West
We took a trip to Saguaro National Park late in the morning and the temperature was already reaching a high of 86°F. This is unusually…
Hitch vs High Anxiety
Generally, I am a chill dude, not prone to worry or anxiety. In the fight or flight spectrum, I tend strongly towards fighting. Not so…
We Locked Ourselves in Our Airstream
Every RV has its own "special qualities" that you get to know better and better as you travel with it. Everyone can imagine that an…
Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Within the northern boundaries of the Chihuahuan Desert of western Texas resides an underrated gem of the National Park System: Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Do…
Carefree Afternoon Tea for White Day
For our White Day celebration, we headed to the small town of Carefree, Arizona. Carefree's official town motto is "The Best Small Town in Arizona,"…
Hoover Dam
We took a half-day trip to Hoover Dam, an American engineering icon built by thousands of workers and cost over a hundred lives in the Great…
Carlsbad Caverns: Left Hand Tunnel
Crisis in the Caves, 1979 On a hot July day in 1979, four men entered the elevator leading down into the Big Room of Carlsbad…
Grand Canyon West
I'd first like to preface that Grand Canyon West is not a part of the Grand Canyon National Park. It's a private amusement park owned…
Las Vegas: Life in the Fast Lane
During our time in Death Valley our good friend Dennis decided to come down from the Camino Island in Washington to check out the Super…
Nevada: Odds and Ends
To explore Death Valley we stationed ourselves in Parhump, Nevada for two weeks. While most of our attention was focused on the park itself, I…
Spectacular Views of Death Valley National Park
Our first stop in Death Valley was a spot called Dante's View. What makes it such a good starting place is that it overlooks a…
Death Valley Sand and Pupfish!
If you're much of a Star Wars fan like we are, you may remember the scene in New Hope where C3P0 and R2D2 are arguing on…
Colors of Death Valley National Park
One of my favorite spots in Death Valley is Zabriskie Point. From this vantage point, we were surrounded by an unearthly desert landscape filled with wild erosion lines and the…
Driving in Death Valley National Park
Our trip to Death Valley was precipitated by a tip from our friend Dennis about the super bloom just getting under way. He was planning…
Death Valley: Would you like salt with that?
Our first day exploring death valley was a low point of our American journey; -282 feet below sea level to be exact; as low as…
Super bloom, Super Awesome in Death Valley!
Trail and I were enjoying southern Arizona and planning to continue making our way deeper into the state when I got a Facebook message from…
Ash Meadows National Wildlife Reserve
Ash Meadows National Wildlife Reserve is located in Nevada not far from the much larger Death Valley and quite close to our current base of…
Buckskin Mountain & Mesquite Bay
Buckskin Mountain State Park is a state park located along the Colorado River near Parker, AZ. It's mostly a camping site with space for both…
London Bridge at Lake Havasu
About a two hours drive from where we were staying is the 1830’s London Bridge at Lake Havasu City. The Arizona bridge is actually a…
Cibola National Wildlife Refuge in Cibola, AZ
Cibola refuge (GPS 33.363653,-114.66931) is one of the last major stopovers of the Pacific Flyway for migratory birds. It's located in the floodplain of the…
Carlsbad Caverns: Slaughter Canyon Cave
Tom's Missing Goats Tom Tucker went searching for a group of missing goats back in on hot July day in 1937. Eventually, he found his…
Revisiting Joshua Tree National Park
The amazing views of Joshua Tree National Park griped us so well on our first trip, that returning for a longer stay seemed natural. One…
The Salton Sea
When we first drove up to the Salton Sea State Recreation Area, the sky was clear and the weather unusually warm for this time of…
Exploring My History
One of the fun things you can do while traveling the country is make connections with your ancestry by visiting places connected to your families past.…
Carlsbad Caverns: Lower Cave
Carlsbad Caverns National Park offers a series of Ranger Guided tours that take you through caves off the beaten path. Some are called "Wild Cave"…
Slow Motion: Lingering in Southern California
Since Christmas we've been moored at my long time friend Tom's home in beautiful southern California. Tom is a kind soul and invited us to…
Carlsbad Caverns: The Big Room
Young Jim White's Adventure Imagine it's 1898, and you are a young boy of 16 years old. Your father sent you out with your trusty…
Temescal Sulpher Springs & Glen Ivy Hot Springs Spa
Many years before European settlers, the First Peoples of Southern California bathed in the natural sulfur hot springs of the Temescal Valley for spiritual rites.…
Mission San Juan Capistrano
Mission San Juan Capistrano was first founded by Father Lasuen and on October 30, 1775, a group of padres and soldiers moved in. Their stay…
