“The journey is the destination.” (Reverend Niles, from his forthcoming book, Hold My Beer)

Wow!  It has been 10 years since TravelwiththeSlowskys first posted!  Happy Anniversary to us!  It was 10 years ago this month that we created our Slowsky travel blog.

Our first post was about the Canyonlands National Park (technically, we visited in 2013, but this was our first post in July, 2014).  Our visit to Canyonlands was part of our 25^th wedding anniversary road trip.  If you can stay happily married traveling for months in a 200 sq/ft home, you were meant to be.

The genesis of our blog was simple: find a way to share our travels, photos, and experiences with family, friends, and fellow wanderers.  And please remember, the blog is targeted to non-discerning viewers – like you.

The blog truly is a team effort.  My bride provides the content, and I just put pen-and-picture-to-paper, so to speak.  When I write about a particular experience, or we travel to a particular place, it is because she has come up with the ideas and made the plans.  I just captured it in photos and made up some delusional story for self-amusement.

We call it a travel blog, but it turns out to be more a documentary of some of our travels through retirement – think of this as an oral history with pictures.  A travel blog you say?  If you read a cookbook, you probably expect to see, I don’t know, cooking ideas and recipes.  If you came here looking for good travel or camping ideas, well, you may have leaned too far over the tips of your skis.  Feel free to hit the “back” button at any time, for the two of you still reading.  And I will warn you right up front – this post is HUGE, more than a one beer reading.

For those who don’t know us, we are a highly entertaining (only to ourselves) 36-years married couple from New England, who lived in Georgia for 25 years raising our kids, and now live back in New England.  When we first started dating, I realized Karen had the three essential qualities I needed:  a nice smile, horrible eyesight, and incredibly poor judgment.  She obviously found me to be pleasing enough to the eyes and exhibited such poor judgment that she found me mildly amusing.   We went on to raise two beautiful children and imparted our great wisdom on them.  Those poor kids.

What has happened to us during the life of this blog?  It’s nuts!

During these ten years we have lived through some political dysfunction, but let’s not get wrapped around the axle.  Sometimes the beauty of travel is being off the grid with no access to the internet or news.  On a positive note, and at a more local level during this time the Red Sox won their 9^th World Series; the Patriots won three Super Bowls; and the Celtics won their 18^th Championship!

This blog was created shortly after we both retired, so in some way the blog reflects our retirement years, as opposed to the other 86% of our lives.  We have traveled extensively, from the Florida Keys to north of the Arctic Circle into the Northwest Territories, and two months in Alaska.   We have visited most of the national parks (we have a few remaining on our map), all of which are nothing less than spectacular.

Our experiences include camping in 43 states and 4 Canadian provinces over this time (although we have traveled in all 49 contiguous states).  To date, we have created over 450 posts.  Interestingly, most of these posts (always north of 80%, usually above 90%) get revisited by someone every year!  No accounting for taste or judgment.

How do people find this blog?  Far and away, our largest “referrer” is Facebook, largely due to our shameless posting to that site.  Next comes search engines like Google, and other referrers like LinkedIn, Campendium, Airforums, and a host of others.  Don’t ask me how all this works.

While the number of views would be considered a rounding error compared to most blogs, over the 10-year life of this blog we have had tens of thousands of views, and maybe a dozen likes (thanks mom).  What does that tell you about the value and quality of these posts.  We have been viewed by people (or bots) from countries I couldn’t pronounce or point to on a map – 114 countries in total.  We can’t see who visits our posts, so I may be addressing these comments to bots in China, Russia, or Newark.  We don’t judge.  All bots matter.

I have two thoughts for those of you who have stayed with us over this 10-year span of time:  First, thank you.  We don’t receive a penny from this blog (by choice), and in return, you don’t receive a particle of value.  But we do appreciate very much that you have visited, revisited, and hopefully continue to join in our travels, experiences, and laughter.

Second, if you have followed us all or part of this time, get help.  There are professional counselors that can try to salvage the time and brain matter you wasted reading these posts.  I suggest two fact-based websites that might prove helpful: aliensremovedmybrain.com, and holdmybeerandwatchthis.com.

There are two things that I am particularly proud of as it relates to this blog.  One is my wife.  If it weren’t for my beautiful bride’s planning of our travels, this blog would never have occurred.  For anyone who has planned travel, particularly over the past few years with the huge growth in the number of RV’s and the static number of campsites available, you know what a yeoman’s effort it is to design, book and execute a road trip, at least if you want to see the most interesting places and camp in the prettiest locations.

You could easily get on the highway and just travel to various private campgrounds, but you see so much more when you avoid the highways, and incorporate state and national parks, BLM (Bureau of Land Management) lands and other remote boondocking sites.  A few Walmart and Cracker Barrel overnights round out the experience.  But the point is that our lives and travels have been so richly enhanced because of Karen’s efforts, perseverance, and thoughtfulness putting us in harm’s way of beautiful, interesting places.

The second thing I am most proud of is our photos.  The reasons we have some great photos are, a) (see above) because we have gone to such cool places, and b) most of the photos have been taken with a nice camera (Canon 6D with great lenses).  I should mention that as of 2024, most of my photos will be taken on my iPhone (15 Pro), due in large part to its size, convenience, and incredible capabilities that previously had not been available on a phone.

Of course, one must suffer through my dialog on these posts regardless to get to some of the photos, and for that I will be eternally sad for you.  Most photographers will take better quality pictures than I will, but few will be fortunate enough to capture the breadth and depth of incredible experiences we have enjoyed.

Family and Friends

More important than all our travels are family and friends.  Initially in this post I planned to include pictures of some of our friends from traveling over these past 10 years, but very quickly came to the realization that I would have to do a separate post on just that subject – perhaps I will.  But for now, just a couple of family pictures over this 10-year period of time.

Favorite Place

The #1 question we (or probably anyone who has traveled) gets asked is, what was your favorite travel destination?  If you have been thoughtful, deliberate, and creative in your trip planning, you will know this is an impossible question to answer.  There are SO many beautiful places to travel in this country and Canada!  As I have said before, it is more often the journey than the destination that captures the spirit, imagination, and beauty of travel.  I think that is why RV travel is so much more powerful and evocative than other means of travel, such as flying or driving, traveling from hotel to hotel.

Having said all that, clearly one of our favorite locations (out of many) is Death Valley in California.  We have been in November, January and February – fabulous.  I wouldn’t recommend it for a summer vacation, but then that’s just me.

Food

Did someone say food?  While we most often cook in our campsite, we have been to a ton of fun and excellent restaurants along our path.  I have only carved out a few of our favorites along the way.  But if you come across any of these in your own travels, make sure you stop!

Funky

Being mentally balanced isn’t a prerequisite for us, and some of the things that amuse us are undoubtedly not really very funny; funky might be the better term.  Add a sick mind to the travel formula and the canvas opens. Mind you, no one state or province owns the exclusive franchise on funky stuff that we have seen in our travels.

Like the Nellie E. Saloon somewhere in the middle of I Can’t Remember Where, Arizona, which you cannot get to without four-wheel drive.  It’s only open for a few daylight hours Saturdays and Sundays seasonally, and has no electricity (other than solar generated), water, or anything else that cannot be transported in.  And yet, so cool.

Or the Winter Blast Pyrotechnics Show held in the desert around Lake Havasu (AZ), where all the fireworks vendors show off the coming year’s best of the best fireworks.  You can’t make this up – it is unbelievable.

Here are some of our other funky encounters.

Remote/Semi-Remote Camping

While we love camping with our friends, and at the risk of sounding anti-social (we are both introverts and quite content to be off on our own), we find remote or semi-remote camping suits us best.  When I say remote, I mean remote – as in we might not see another human or camper, and often an absence of any sign of human life.  I know this must sound sad or awful, but really it is quite nice and therapeutic.

Farmers Markets

Karen has found us some extraordinary farmers markets and produce along the way, from Altos, to Palm Springs, to Hatch, NM, to the Imperial Valley and beyond finding us super fresh fruits and vegetables!  You get spoiled and realize quickly that what you get at supermarkets is just not at all the same.

Animals

We have seen our share of animals along the way, so here are but a few photos, distilled from thousands.  In case you were afraid to ask, none of these animals were in captivity and at no time did we put ourselves or the animals at risk.

Beautiful Scenery

Not to bury the lead, but the scenery we have experienced is nothing less than amazing.  Throughout the United States and Canada, we have been overwhelmed with the beauty and grandeur, and if you haven’t experienced it yourself, then get out there if you have the ability and the means.   Here’s to the next ten years!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“To journey happily may well be better than arriving successfully.” (Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life)

RIP Dottie