On a weekend morning when the wind isn’t up, Tracy hits the local university to bird. No one’s around because there’s no on-student housing, but don’t let that fool you. This Brownsville campus of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley is part of, according to Wikipedia, “the ninth-largest university in the state of Texas […]
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How Many Stories Can We Tell?
“Can I tell you about the book I’m reading?” “Did I tell you the funny story about those friends?” “Tell me more about what you want to do.” “Could you tell me how to do that?” The simple story goes: I stayed with Finn for the first half of his vacation on South Padre Island, […]
Big Boy, Pelicans, Airstreamers We Can’t Shake
We designed the week after the big Airstream rally as decompression time by a Corps of Engineers lake in Oklahoma. We’ve gotten some down time in, but it’s been a whopper of a week, overall. On our way, we had a first: we abandoned a Harvest Host reservation after not being satisfied with the sloped […]
City Camping at Little Rock
We are right on the Arkansas River in Little Rock, at a city campground that’s a lot like that one in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It’s basically just an organized parking lot, but it’s within walking and biking distance of most of downtown. What we thought might be a deal-breaker when we pulled […]
Happy Funhouse of Light Thanksgiving
I was about to say that I should post on Thanksgiving if only to commemorate where we are, since I love looking back at anniversaries. There was our first Thanksgiving in the beautiful Everglades, the next one boondocking in windy Joshua Tree, then camping right in New Orleans (which feels like last week, not last […]
Muscle Shoals, Alabama
We’re going to so many places so quickly that feeling like I need to report on those places is a drag right now. I don’t want to skip anything, though! I’ll try to spare myself by being brief and quoting someone else for this one. We’re still traveling south down the Natchez Trace Parkway, and we added […]
Three Surveyors and Another Guy
That’s what surveyors call Mt. Rushmore, since Roosevelt was not a surveyor. Surveyors are extremely proud of the foundational role surveying has played in our country, and rightly so. (Warning for extreme grumpiness and ranting.) I gotta say, though, that I approached Mt Rushmore with a cold shoulder. I mean, nearly everyone in this country […]
Alaska Trip Retrospective
After our summer-long trip to Alaska, we’re traveling south through British Columbia, Canada, and the climate, sunlight, ecosystems—really everything—is all changing rapidly. No more alpine or subalpine terrain, and it’s kind of shocking. I shouted out to Tracy when I saw a cow. We both said, “Hey, look at this!” when we had to use the flashlight […]
Once More in Alaska for the Bears
(I’m writing this without cell signal and can’t do even the smallest bit of research, so please forgive inaccuracies.) We decided to cross the border one final time, driving down the inside passage—along braided rivers and seemingly endless mountain ranges covered in a new, light layer of powdered snow, plus glaciers peeking out when you’re […]
Alaska’s Toll
Yesterday, I posted a photo on Facebook of Banjo’s last morning in Alaska, and two friends texted right away, enthusiastic about our trip and curious about where we’re going next. A third friend texted along the lines of, “Alaska wore you out, didn’t it.” Ha! Yes. The enthusiasm of the first two friends is warranted, […]