We’re at a gorgeous Airstream-only campground (not the one we usually go to, although that’s up soon). This one’s near Roanoke, Virginia, up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, so the elevation has cured our heat-dome woes for a bit. What an abrupt change in lifestyle for us! It’s not like we’ve come here from months […]
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Small Precious Things
We’re such the assholes when we pull into a campground. We leave the diesel truck running in the road while we scope out our site. Once in, we crank down jacks with a drill, set up the starlink antenna, put up the tent, add lights. It’s a lot of stuff we disgorge onto our campsite […]
Surprising Watkins Glen
I could tell before we pulled into the campground that I was going to hate this place. Tons of out-of-town traffic, signs and parking lots for shuttles, restaurants and gift shops, all for some bunch of waterfalls or something. But Tracy insisted I go on a certain short hike he’d been on years ago. He […]
Attitude Adjustment on the Old Trace
I apologize for my grumpiness back at Muscle Shoals. Seems like everywhere I go lately all I see is misery that privileged white people (me) have inflicted. I needed a reset, and a forest in Mississippi did the trick. The Difference a Campsite Vibe Makes When we left Alabama, we got back on the Natchez […]
Natchez Trace, aka Scary Acorn Trail
Last year when we left TCPC to head to Texas for the winter, we stopped in Nashville and Memphis, which I’d actually like to do again, Memphis because I learned so much about its role in the civil rights movement, and Nashville because I need a do-over with better intel. Still, there’s a lot of […]
Home, Home on the Range
I’m backtracking a bit, because the prairies of Western Alberta and the grasslands of Montana and Wyoming, and even those of the western edge of South Dakota, have all blended into one big range the last few days. A gorgeous range. Oh, give me a home, where the buffalo roam. Where the deer and the antelope […]
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 […]
Along Kluane Lake
I am beat after a morning of hiking, an afternoon of online trivia (go team Donner Party!), and the heaviness of clouds after one sunny day. So, below are disjointed captions to my photos for this lovely area near Kluane National Park in Yukon. Congden Creek Campground We’re at a Yukon government campground that’s in […]
