We drove I-10 between San Antonio and Phoenix many times while Sarah was an undergraduate at ASU. “Go Sun Devils”! The McDonald Observatory was one of the points of interest highlighted with signage along the way, and this has stuck in MFI’s memory for several decades. Therefore, as part of her plan for our trip…
For our fourth and final day in the park, we made Boquillas Canyon in the Park’s southeast corner our primary focus. It was a 50-mile drive from the Park entrance. This canyon is one of the last locations we saw where the Rio Grande is still easily accessible, that is, reachable on paved roads. Four…
The weather on Day 3 was also mostly clear and beautiful. Our destination was the basin inside the Chisos Mountain caldera. We took a right turn before getting to Panther Junction and climbed into the forested mountains. The lower forests were comprised of Piñon Pine, Drooping Junipers, and Gray Oak, while at higher elevations we…
We decided to make Santa Elena Canyon our featured stop for the day. From the Park entrance, it was a 38-mile drive with many interesting sites and stops along the way. The weather was beautiful, although forecasted to get very hot in the afternoon. I’ve included this map to illustrate what turned out to be…
MFI selected Big Bend National Park as our first major stop of the 2023 travel year. On our way, we stayed for three days at a mediocre RV park between Midland and Odessa, TX. While the staff were very helpful, the owners of the park have not adequately maintained it. Likely will be the only…
We stopped in Santa Fe for 13 days with the intent of getting to know the city and determining whether this would be a place we might like to live when our AirStreaming days are over. We drove around town to see the city and familiarize ourselves with various neighborhoods. We visited downtown to get…
After Colorado Springs, our next extended stop was Santa Fe, NM, but to get there we needed to stay over at one waypoint. MFI had identified some options, but frankly the potential parks sounded sketchy. Kristi Hartman suggested we take a slightly different route and spend time in Mosca, CO near the Great Sand Dunes…
MFI drafted a rough travel plan after we entered Canada in July. Her plan identified tentative stops between Winnipeg and Santa Fe. I never questioned any of her choices until we approached Wyoming in late August. She explained, “I want to take you to see the prison in Laramie.” Years ago, she had done an…
Originally, I wanted to stop in Scottsbluff, NE because I thought my grandmother, Dorothy Dunbar Bunner, was born and raised there. I figured we could dig into local records and visit the cemetery where some of my relatives might be buried. Then I texted cousin Cheryl. She’s always been my go-to contact on things related…
I captured the feature image above as we approached the Black Hills from the east. In my view, it perfectly represents why the Lakota Sioux called them the Pahá Sápa. The Pahá Sápa were considered sacred by native plains tribes, because they had for centuries provided tribes a place to pray and sustained them with…
