2020 has been the worst year ever – right? Watching 2020 unfold was like watching porn. First it was titillating, then it felt unseemly, and lastly you got a sinking feeling in the pit in your stomach like you get two minutes after wolfing down a quarter pounder and large fry. No happy ending, so… Read More 2020 in Review – Dec 2020
Want to know the most beautiful road in America? We’ll get to that shortly. Patience (Yoda). We finished up our stint at the fireworks show, and were now prepared to head east towards home. But we wanted to map a route that a) was not on interstate highways, b) was pretty and/or interesting, and c)… Read More Eastward Ho! – Feb 2020
You know your unhealthy interest in fireworks is excessive if it has caused you to make a 1,500-mile trip to attend the Western Winter Blast, an assemblage of like-minded individuals who have a slightly outsized and unnatural attraction to exploding cylinder shells. Combine Woodstock (add 40 years to the average attendee’s age), the tailgating of… Read More Lake Havasu City (AZ) – Feb 2020
This will be a short post, but it has been confirmed (photos don’t lie) – the pot of gold is located in the campground dump station! You can all breathe a sigh of relief. Or perhaps that’s not the best analogy. We camped again at Organ Pipe National Monument in southwest Arizona, literally on the… Read More Organ Pipe – Feb 2020
Spectacular. Simplest way I way can say to describe a short stay at Whitewater Draw. You likely have never heard of Whitewater Draw – I never had. But my bride had and scheduled it into our trip. Whitewater Draw is a wildlife preserve in southern Arizona, located on and around an ephemeral lake – a… Read More Whitewater Draw – Feb 2020
Almost to the day for me, it has been 3 years since I (we) retired. Oh, how I miss those days of quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily, hourly forecasts… And who doesn’t love a well-placed flaming email distributed to the world. After retirement, one is forced to forego the joys and luxury of business travel: cramped… Read More 3 Years Post Retirement – Mar 2017
For anyone who has ever traveled in the desert, you know that 98% of the effort to construct roads (or anything) is to manage flooding. We are talking about an area that might get 6 inches of rain – per year. Death Valley gets about 2 inches per year. Anyway, I mention this because we… Read More Desert Addendum – Feb 2017
We have been camped out for a few days at the Lake Pleasant Regional Park in Morristown, AZ. With the cell phone tower as close as it is, I feel confident we have been spayed and neutered. I seem to be picking up Radio Free Europe on my fillings, and we seem to have a… Read More Lake Pleasant – Feb 2017
A musical instrument museum? Really? Cha! The Musical Instrument Museum (Phoenix) might be the coolest thing ever. Recommended to us by new Airstream buddies at McDowell Mountain RP, we went for an afternoon to see this unassuming looking museum. It is technically in Phoenix, but really close to Sedona. Neither of us are die-hard museum-goers,… Read More Musical Instrument Museum – Feb 2017
The real story about McDowell Mountain Regional Park is the beauty. Yes, there are a boatload of things to do here, miles and miles of hiking, mountain biking, and horseback trails. Since the park borders Scottsdale and is only 20 miles north of Phoenix, there are tons of other activities you can partake in. But… Read More McDowell Mountain RP – Feb 2017
Like Karen said to me, “beauty as far as the eyes can see.” That pretty much captures Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. If you don’t know where that is, you can be excused; it is located in the Sonoran Desert in southwest AZ on the border of Mexico. Over 95% of this 500+ square mile… Read More Organ Pipe – Feb 2017
I really deliberated whether to post on this visit to Lost Dutchman State Park, in Apache Junction, AZ (20 miles east of Phoenix). I have posted previously about this place and in spite of what you might think I try to keep the blog current but also interesting, and with new places. But Lost Dutchman… Read More Lost Dutchman SP – Feb 2017
Our destiny is clear: Get to Mesa (AZ) in plenty of time to set up and watch the Superbowl, with the New England Patriots facing off against the Atlanta Falcons. This is clearly a game I want both teams to win, being as we spent most of our lives in New England and have lived… Read More Bowie, AZ – Feb 2017
I fully realize looking at someone else’s photos might be close to torture, but none-the-less I put together some of my favorites from our travels in 2016. For me the criteria for choosing these photos was simple: does the photo stir an emotion, trigger a cool memory, or just put a smile on my face.… Read More Favorite 2016 Photos
One of the most common questions I am asked (second only to how exactly did you get Karen to marry you) is what is my favorite place visited this year? Since we have finished our travels for the year, I thought it would be timely to put this list together. I struggle with this question,… Read More Top 10 Places – 2016
The National Park Service was created this month in 1916, one hundred years ago, “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”, and… Read More National Park Service 100th Anniversary – Aug 2016
Tucson undoubtedly means many things to many people, but to us I’d have to say it means rodeo – Fiesta de los Vaqueros (Celebration of the Cowboys), one of the Top 25 rodeos in North America. For the second year we traded in our backpacks and hiking boots for dungarees and cowboy hats and headed… Read More Tucson – Feb 2016
The thing about camping? When the weather gets too hot, or too cold, or too whatever, you move. As nice as the weather was at McDowell, it was getting on the warm side so we decided to head back to Sedona, part Duh. If doing something once is great, then doing it twice is greatuh.… Read More Sedona part Duh – Feb 2016
Success! We finally captured photos of wildlife with our new “Stealth Cam”. Catching photos of wildlife has eluded us until now. With this new camera in our arsenal we expect to catch more candid photos, but at least this is a start. I did discuss these photos with the park ranger. His counsel was, at… Read More McDowell Reg’l Park – Feb 2016
I know, you thought we ended up in Africa. Not so fast, Big Boy (or Girl). We are firmly in the US, although if you listened to the accents you would be sure we were in Canada, Wisconsin, Minnesota, or one of those other northern countries. That is because no one over the age of… Read More Mesa, AZ – Feb 2016
No, we didn’t change continents, but it feels like we did. We boondocked for a few days near Sedona, AZ and it felt like we were dropped into a scene from the movie, Out of Africa, somewhere on the Serengeti. We half expected lions and tigers to appear. Not so much, but we did see… Read More Out of Africa – Feb 2016
Prescott, AZ seems like one of those places where, if you were looking for the perfect weather year round, would/should be on your radar. Having been here for only three days in February it is a bit hard to say. Never the less, it sure seems like a pretty good candidate for that short list… Read More Prescott, AZ – Feb 2016
The places and people we have seen and met along the way, on the road, and in between destinations, is every bit as interesting and as much fun as when we land somewhere. By way of example, this was one shot taken on our approach into Anza-Borrego Desert. And I could not possibly list all… Read More On the Road – Feb 2016
Just when you thought it was safe to head west… Arghh! The Roberts’ are doin’ it – again! Sad but true, as I write these thoughts we are but miles from the California border, sitting on BLM (Bureau Land Management) lands in Quartzite, AZ. But I get ahead of myself. We started our journey west… Read More Heading West – Jan 2016
If your palate is looking for an off-the-beaten-path camping location, this is it! The Indian Bread Rocks Recreation Area, situated in Bowie, AZ on BLM lands (Bureau of Land Management) in southeast Arizona, is at the base of the Dos Cabezas Mountains Wilderness. There are zero services available, so whatever you need, bring (which includes… Read More Indian Bread Rocks – Feb 2015
Recommended to us by hiking friends Dave and Terry, we attended the Tucson Rodeo! The rodeo is a festival/celebration of the cowboy/cattle herder/horsemen, and participants are young, old, male, and female. And it is a great place to pick up a little cowgirl! We had an unbelievable day watching the rodeo: blue skies, stunning views… Read More Fiesta De Los Vaqueros (AZ) – Feb 2015
Sitting at the base of the Santa Catalina Mountains just north of Tucson, Catalina State Park is a great campground! If you like outdoors activities, this area is like a playground. We settled into one of the sites without water or electricity, but most of the sites do have those services. Yesterday I took a… Read More Santa Catalina Mtns (AZ) – Feb 2015
We visited the Frank Lloyd Wright “camp” known as Taliesin West in Scottsdale, AZ – terrific! We have previously been to Fallingwater (western PA), and as anyone who has visited a Frank Lloyd Wright destination knows they are in for a treat. We had a terrific tour guide to lead us through this facility, which… Read More Taliesin West (AZ) – Feb 2015
R If you don’t like gorgeous desert sceneries, biking/hiking on endless miles of dirt trails, beautiful desert flowers, and reasonably private campsites, you may not love the McDowell Mountain Regional Park campground. But it seems like everyone else in the world loves this place – hard to get a campsite, so reserve in advance. North of the… Read More McDowell Mountain RP (AZ) – Feb 2015
Situated in the Sonoran Desert at the base of the Superstition Wilderness (Tonto National Forest), Lost Dutchman State Park feels like you are cast out in the middle of the desert (oh, that’s right – you are). Our campsite has 360’ of intense beauty that changes constantly as the sun makes its daily journey. Tans… Read More Lost Dutchman SP (AZ) – Feb 2015