Arches and Canyonlands National Parks are spectacular during the shoulder season, and Moab is the perfect place to stay for day trips to both. The crowds aren’t overwhelming at all during early November, though the wind can be a cold. We had only four days to explore, so we packed plenty …
Chased by blasts of bitter cold from mesa tops suddenly covered with an icy white blanket, we finally get serious about our migration to San Antonio, Texas. Hordes of winter Texans, like us, were already on the move, but instead of another Route 66 adventure, we took a short cut …
The frigid bite of approaching winter didn’t stop our Mesa Verde adventure, though we sure ran through in a hurry before we continued our southbound migration with another quick stop at Natural Bridges. Wrapped in layers, we played like stereotypical tourists. We parked the car as close as we could …
Traveling with no reservations was never easier than when we ended our volcanic odyssey and began a Harvest Host hop-along in northwestern Oregon. We enjoyed fabulous boon-docking adventures at the Evergreen Air and Space Museum in McMinnville and at the Western Antique Airplane and Automobile Museum (WAAAM) in Hood River. …
Calderas, lava rivers and obsidian: a volcanic legacy more than a million years in the making Climb into calderas, navigate lava rivers and enter the Big Obsidian Flow at Newberry National Volcanic Monument, a fabulous place for adventuring in the cinder-cone dotted heart of central Oregon. Those who stop to …
Taste your way along the Bend Ale Trail for some brew-tastic adventures! That’s our recommendation for a fabulous and flavorful fall. We guzzle our way through fourteen different breweries in just more than a month during October 2018, and we gained only two or three pounds, even with all the great …
After our Lava Beds adventure, we drove an easy 48 miles north on Highway 97 to Chiloquin, Ore., and the Kla-Mo-Ya Casino, where we enjoyed easy parking and a surprisingly quiet two nights boon docking. Since we arrived so early in the day, it was only a few more minutes until we …
The second stop on our volcanic legacy tour was Lava Beds National Monument in Tule Lake, Calif. From our Lassen base in Chester, Calif., we decided to stay at higher elevations with fewer steep grades, so we took highway 36 east and highway 139 north from Susanville. It was brutal …
What a wonderful discovery we made on our way back down the road from visiting Crater Lake in Central Oregon. Train Mountain is much more than a railroad museum, it’s a model railroad enthusiast’s dream. There are so many miles of 1/8-scale track, they can operate seven model locomotives …
A long-awaited visit to Alicia’s hometown in northeastern California quickly spurred us on a volcanic odyssey. The town, actually several small towns, are collectively known as Indian Valley, which sits nestled in a beautiful mountain meadow where the Sierra Nevadas meet the actively volcanic Cascades. Our sulfurous adventures began nearby …
Smoky late-summer skies might be the new norm along the west coast, but all that smoke did nothing to detract from our fun in the California wine country, where our favorite drive was through the Anderson Valley. Why, you might ask? Because the top appellation there is the pinot noir! …
High-five to Highway 95 Ghost towns and wild west works of art spiked our adventures along a lonely stretch of Nevada highway. We decided to avoid California Interstates and drive Highway 95, since we had only a few days to get from Arizona to the Bay Area in California. The …
Crack! Boom! Boom, boom! Like echoes of long-quiet stamp mills, thunder and lightning pounds the rough and rustic town of Bodie on a mid-summer afternoon. In an arrested state of decay, the town sits nestled in the rounded mountaintops of the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains between Los Angeles, California …
