Once again keeping our (my) priorities in order, we arrived in Bend for the purpose of tasting some local craft beers. Or bust. Well, we got a little bit of each. But before I get into that, you need (“need” might be an exaggeration) to know about our trip heading into Bend, OR. As a side… Read More Beer or Bust in Bend – July 2018
One of the nice things about creating your own blog is you can write about whatever you want. In this situation, that is not the case. I am about to lose one of my childhood friends to a very long-term and prolonged illness, and it makes me sad to write this story. Frohn, if you… Read More Frohn – July 2018
Continuing in our all-volcano, all-the-time channel, this installment is Crater Lake National Park. What a stunning area – holy crap! Now remember, even though this is a lake, it is really a volcano, caused from the collapse of a volcano that then filled with water. The volcanoes here are over 400,000 years old. Don’t lie to me… Read More Crater Lake NP – July 2018
We visited hell, devastation, chaos, and boiling mud. No, not the nightly news – Lassen Volcanic National Park, in northern California at the southern tip of the Cascade Range. We seem to be entering our “volcanic” period. I guess like volcanoes themselves, you don’t plan for this period. They just happen. Volcanoes happen, as the saying… Read More Lassen Volcanic NP – July 2018
We visited Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, CA for the July 4th week. Nice!! Santa Cruz. In Santa Cruz we visited with my niece and her family – always great to see them! We camped in a marina – there is a “campground” (about a dozen paved parking spaces with full hookup) in the Santa… Read More 4th of July Week – 2018
Long post – settle in with a cup of coffee or a cold beer (or two) – a lot of ground to cover. Anyone who has ever had the good fortune to visit or live in Santa Barbara, CA knows how beautiful and how much character this town has. We are here in Santa Barbara… Read More Santa Barbara – June 2018
As the preeminent surfer dude (not), I think I can report to you on Pismo Beach on the California coast. Gnarly, dude. That’s my report. Clutched in a sliver of land between US 101 and the Pacific Ocean, and about 2 hours north of Santa Barbara, Pismo Beach is kind of a cool little town. Granted… Read More Pismo Beach (CA) – June 2018
I may have found my favorite shiny new object… the town of Lee Vining, CA! We camped here for about a week for a variety of reasons, but one the weather was so cool, as was the town (population 395 on the sign entering the town). The town just had a cool vibe – what… Read More Lee Vining (CA) – June 2018
We have been camped in Lee Vining (CA) for a little bit, affording us time to visit Yosemite National Park. More on Lee Vining later, but in or close to Lee Vining on the eastern slope of the Eastern Sierra’s is Mono Lake and the Mono Lake Basin. Mono Lake has a really interesting story,… Read More Mono Lake – June 2018
Yosemite is one of the most popular national parks in the system, and there are two predictable outcomes: the views are extraordinary, and there are a lot of people. We camped in Lee Vining in a pretty cool private RV campground (more on Lee Vining later), and the town is practically adjacent to Yosemite NP. … Read More Yosemite NP – June 2018
Sequoia and King’s Canyon (SEKI) NP is a paradise of contradiction. Or maybe there is no contradiction; maybe it is just balance. One thing for which there is no dispute: this place is beautiful. We spent four nights camped at the Lodgepole campground in the park. There are no hookups in the campground, although water is… Read More Sequoia & Kings Canyon NP – June 2018
We continued our trek west. How shameless is it that we are heading to the west coast for a free meal at a wedding? I’ll have the chicken, please. We left Kansas and made the transit across eastern Colorado to Denver and stayed at Cherry Creek SP (highly recommend). Here is where the story goes a… Read More Westward Ho! – June 2018
We have made our way across Kansas and we have come to appreciate Kansas. Often considered a “fly-over” state, this is a really pretty state – we enjoyed it as a “drive-over” state! We have avoided interstates as much as possible, and have held largely to secondary state and county roads. Most of our roads… Read More Kansas – June 2018
Kansas City Chiefs. Is that a Kansas football team… or a Missouri team? I thought Nurse Karen was going to call a Code as a result of too much BBQ in Kansas City. Yes, we may have pushed the limits on BBQ in this town, but oh so good! Tomorrow it’s vegan for me. That’s a… Read More Kansas City – June 2018
As mentioned previously, we are headed west, the first meaningful stop being to visit our son (the poor thing) in Denver. From there we will head further west to Santa Barbara to torment the daughter of one of my best friends at her wedding. We headed west from our highly regarded (by me only) escapade… Read More Heading West – May 2018
Bang a gong, smoke a bong – let’s get this party started! Tell me I didn’t just write that! Jeez. I was recently re-reading some of my prior posts and was thinking – who writes this stuff? Some of my comments go careening off the guardrails, while others feel like an errant missile with a blindfold… Read More Summer Kickoff – May 2018
In today’s environment, it is hard not to talk about the goings on in Washington, our nation’s capitol, without some snarky comment. But the fact is this is a magnificent city! You need a month or two to do any justice to this city, touring neoclassical monuments, endless historic sites, and world-class museums. We visited… Read More Washington, DC – May 2018
Life can be circumstantial. Fortunately, that is not the rule or we as a civilization would be doomed. We exult that we can live our lives beyond our circumstances, beyond our experiences, beyond our immediate conditions – we live for the hope, dream and reality that we can live better, be better, and do better. But… Read More Break the Cycle – May 2018
Holy Crap – Frank is 80! I won’t lie – it gets more than a little weird when you actually know someone who turns 80 years old. How can that be? Like my father before me, I am still only 39. Along the Airstream road, we have met many incredible people. Of course Frank isn’t one of… Read More Frank turns 80! – Apr 2018
I know – if you have to ask, you probably don’t deserve to know. And yet, with all the world’s troubles, I felt this a topic of high worthiness. I mean, we all know who is smarter, right? Or not. In order to answer this perplexing question, I went back over my past pictures –… Read More Cows or Horses Smarter? – Apr 2018
Not a big story here, just a few pictures from TCPC on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. Spring has sprung! Or maybe not so much. On Monday (happy belated Patriots Day for my peeps in and around Boston) we had just a beautiful dusting of snow on our wonderful (sorry, Airstream only) campground…
Yup – we just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary! Truth be told, more often than not we have forgotten our anniversary over the years. That is cool, but only if you both forget it. I have known Karen since 1stgrade, and we graduated high school together. But we traveled in different orbits. She would have you… Read More 30th Anniversary – Apr 2018
Plan B. My original plan (Plan A) after this past weekend was to report back to you my detailed and hugely successful and tasty recipe for smoking a ham. Not so much. You most likely do not recall my post from three years ago (2015) about the ham I prepared and smoked for Easter, but… Read More Easter Ham – Apr 2018
Happy birthday to this blog! Yes indeed, it has been 5 years! Technically I started this blog on Tumblr and then moved to its current WordPress platform, but it is 5 years old this month! The genesis of the blog was to find a vehicle to keep friends and family apprised of our photos, tales,… Read More Blog 5 Years Old! – Mar 2018
It didn’t take much more than a trip to Austin, TX to inspire me to recommit to the fine art of smoking – meat, that is. While I have greatly enjoyed my Grill Dome Kamado style smoker, it did not have the cooking surface size I wanted, and I was really looking for a wood-fueled… Read More Smokin!!!!! – Mar 2018
Some of my readers have been asking me, “Brad, when are you going to do a post on high tension electrical power lines?” Well, your wait is over! When I am towing our trailer over the open roads, my mind is busy. That is probably not a good thing because I contemplate some crazy shit.… Read More Power Lines – Mar 2018
If our stay in Palm Springs was sublime, then our very short stay in Austin was ridiculous. We LOVE Austin, although this time around we did not get to stay nearly long enough as we would like – practically an overnight. We traveled from Palm Springs and a campground (Outdoor Resort) that was very homogenous,… Read More Austin – Mar 2018
We did two things in February we have never done before: 1) stay in one place for more than two weeks, and 2) stay at an RV resort. OK, technically we did stay at an RV resort before (once), but never for this length of time. We essentially spent the month of February in Palm… Read More Palm Springs – Mar 2018
One of the big deals in Palm Springs during February is Modernism Week, which is all about mid-century modern architecture and design, which I would highly recommend attending (see my previous posts from 2015 on Modernism: A, B, C and D). If you haven’t been to Palm Springs, there really is some fabulous 50’s era… Read More Palm Springs Trailer Trash – Feb 2018
Self-awareness, and its sinister sister self-esteem, had no place on the ski slopes for me this past weekend. I flew into Steamboat Springs, CO for a long weekend skiing tryst of sorts with old North Adams State College friends, one who moved out to Steamboat after college and never left, and one who I traveled… Read More Steamboat – Feb 2018