We would be in Carrollton, TX for the winter after just two more stops. But first, we needed to get out of New Mexico. After a 278-mile leg, including 50 miles of the Llano Estacado, we stopped in Amarillo, TX (population 199,371). There was no doubting in which state we had entered. We didn’t particularly…
We weren’t very far past Winslow when I-40 was closed because of an accident, and we were directed north on what became a 100-mile detour across more of the Colorado Plateau and the Defiance Plateau. Being retired has taught us to not be in any hurry and to take what comes along in stress-free stride….
Our next leg of 249 miles took us from Needles (elevation 495′) on a slow climb across west central Arizona to Flagstaff (elevation 6,909′) and onto the Colorado Plateau. We stopped at the Meteor Crater RV Park about 20 miles west of Winslow and 5 miles north of the Meteor Crater Natural Landmark. We had…
Few things scream coastal California better than a classic woody station wagon. We had lots of friends to visit in the Los Angeles area before heading east to winter in Carrollton, TX; so we again stayed for a week at the Walnut RV Park in Northridge, CA. From experience, I chose a better-located spot within…
We planned on wintering again in Carrollton, TX starting on November 1st. This gave us about seven weeks to get there, so we needed a plan for where and when we’d be stopping. I still didn’t like making campground reservations too far in advance, because it reduced our flexibility. Instead, I planned our tentative route…
In the mornings, I had time, along with terrific weather, to squeeze in two local hikes. Both started in our campground, leaving MFI free from not having to drive me to a trailhead and bide her time until finished. The first trail was not on my AllTrails app and looked more like an infrequently used…
The Inuvik coordinates were 68°21’39″N and 133°43’47″W, which placed it 124 miles north of the Arctic Circle. I referenced this to make a comparison with my assignment at Thule Air Base, Greenland from Dec 17, 1976 to Dec 17, 1977. For accuracy, Thule was renamed Pituffik Space Base in 2023, since it had become a…
The distance from Anchorage to Tok was simply too far to squeeze into a day’s drive. According to RV Trip Wizard, our only interim-stop option was Red Eagle Lodge in Chistochina (population 60). This lodge was a throw back to Alaska’s roadhouse system, when in the late 19th early 20th centuries entrepeneurs built them to…
The Harding Icefield was an ice cap sitting atop the Kenai (Key’-nigh) Mountains, which formed Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula 80 miles due south of Anchorage on the Gulf of Alaska. This ice cap was the largest of the four remaining icefields lying solely in the United States, and covered 700 square miles, or 1,100 square miles…
On the north side of the Whittier Tunnel, we took the Portage Glacier Highway north to Sterling Highway (AK 1), hung a left to the Seward Highway (AK 9), and finally another left on AK 9 which terminated at the southern end of Seward. We took a rest stop along Portage Lake for more glacier…
