Category: Destinations

Laissez les bons temps rouler!….Let the good times roll!

Does New Orleans live up to all the hoopla?

Ken and I have started out the new year on the road with our first stop in 👑New Orleans. Probably not the best choice when you have vowed to do better on your budget and your diet🎺🎶🍽 but it was in our path, so who could resist?

Does New Orleans live up to all the hoopla? We only stayed for three days but I’m all in. New Orleans is older than our country, filled with restaurants that have created (and continue to create) iconic foods such as Oysters Rockefeller, Bananas Foster, Po’Boys and Gumbo and overflowing with fantastic old buildings. If you are a foodie or history buff then NOLA is a must.

From NOLA, we continued west. There was a frightening experience in Vidor, Texas where we tried to overnight at a Walmart. We still aren’t sure what the motive was but we were harassed and followed out of town at 1:00 am. FYI: The police are little help until an actual crime has been committed. We didn’t feel like waiting around for that to happen. So, we followed our instincts and left. Thank goodness The Burrow was refueled before our stop and we were able to get far, far away from Vidor, Texas.

Our next stop was with long time friends and family in Austin. We love Austin and even though it was a quick visit, it was like old times with friends Tim & Kaye who were generous enough to let us driveway surf.

Other than a cold front that forced us to spend a couple of days in Van Horn, Texas and another stop to visit family in Scottsdale, we made an uneventful trip back in to Las Vegas (our West coast base).

So, here we go again. New adventures are calling. A little more RV savvy, a little less stressed and a lot more certain that this is where we want to be.

This year we intend to focus on economizing our travels. So stay tuned. We’ll be writing about some of the measures we are taking (including more boondocking 😬) and how effective they are. And, of course, we will be sharing photos of our stops and flops.

Always grateful. 👫

Visit Yosemite National Park from Fresno to Sonora, CA

“Where am I goin’? 
I dont know
Where am I headin’?
I ain’t certain
All I know
Is I am on my way”

Paint Your Wagon
Our Visit to Yosemite National Park

Gold rush towns, waterfalls, lazy rivers underground gardens and apple cider. It was all included in our visit to Yosemite National Park.

Ken and I discovered that we like moving slowly. That is, moving The Burrow only a couple hours drive at a time. It’s calming and less stressful to everyone onboard our rolling home.

So, we haven’t moved more than a couple hundred miles from the Southern Sierra (our last post). But the natural wonders, history-rich gold towns, outdoor adventures and jaw dropping beauty just keep multiplying. At Forestiere Underground Gardens, an orangery (yes, it really is underground) in Fresno, we saw what one man’s intelligence, tenacity and will-power can accomplish. By carving out tunnels, with only hand tools, he managed to create a cool pre-air conditioned home and was on his way to creating an underground inn. We took a ride on Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad, an authentic mountain steam train that at one time hauled logs from the forest.

Being There

Now we are positioned a mere 6 miles from the entrance to Yosemite National Park. Though it requires a 5 mile trip up a mountain to get cellphone service, we couldn’t have enjoyed ourselves more.

The magnificence of Yosemite is apparent within a few miles of your entrance. Grandeur is the one word that comes to mind. Half Dome; The Ahwahnee Lodge; Bridal Veil Falls are all so photographed and seem so well known until you are standing there. Then it occurs to you. No picture painted with watercolors or words, oils or chemical solutions can ever capture what you are seeing.

Armadillo has had a chance to stretch here as we did a little mountain crawling out in the woods. It’s kind of like going on an unfamiliar fair ride for the first time. Stomach clenching but fun. And grabbing a few of the sweet blackberries blanketing the woods, hoping a bear is not nearby to mind. That’s up there on my list of heaven.

Time to Relax

This is a second visit to Yosemite for us. But 30 years ago we only had time to rush through the park like tourists at Disney World. Today our campsite is on a crystal clear, lazy stretch of river. We may float down it a few times or sleep in the cool shade on the bank. Maybe we’ll get energetic and go slide down the falls into the rainbow pools. Maybe take a hike or open the bottle of organic apple cider that we picked up at a local orchard, Indigeny Reserve, and drink the whole thing (it does go bad very quickly-really it does-or so we have been told). Whatever we choose for today, I know it will be just right because it’s really, really hard to go wrong here at Yosemite. Always grateful.👫

We are trying something new with our pictures. Hope you like it. And please notice the new logo that was designed by our daughter of Love Lorena Designs.

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A quick note
Just a few days after we left, the Ferguson Fire closed down Yosemite National Park. Please keep all those who are fighting to save our national treasure in your thoughts.

Say “Thanks” to a Farmer.

The Pacific Northwest has been all we expected and more. Forty miles of towering redwoods give way to massive four-story high dunes in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area

A little glimpse and I almost forget that we aren’t home.

The Pacific Northwest has been all we expected and more. Forty miles of towering redwoods give way to massive four-story high dunes in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. A stroll along the docks in coastal towns like Florence, Oregon, where you can snag fresh tuna, salmon and Dungeness crab from the fishing boats. Meadows abound with majestic Roosevelt Elk. A giant cave filled with sea lions and pristine, secluded beaches, all made it hard to leave for new play places.

Oregon Coastal Sunset
Scenic Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

Through the magnificent Columbia River Gorge we traveled to eastern Washington/Idaho where the views were vast rolling hills of wheat as far as you can see. It was harvest time, the end of summer and we watched as the farmers worked until evening’s last light to get the wheat harvested. The setting was so peaceful, we kept saying “let’s stay just one more day”.

Wheat Fields, Colfax, Washington

We did finally move on to experience the “weirdness” of Portland. Downtown is overflowing with historic buildings, restaurants and breweries all waiting to be tasted or explored. From the largest bookstore in the country to those Voodoo doughnuts, Portland did not disappoint.

Long Beach, Washington

Ken and I are having the time of our lives out here traveling. It is exciting to see new things and to explore areas of the country that are so different from Florida. But while exploring the differences, there are moments; a shaded trail; a glimpse of a palm tree out a restaurant window; a farmhouse, when I forget that we are thousands of miles from our home state. There is a little “oh!” moment, a jolt of homesickness when the realization hits that it’s not home we are seeing.

These are small moments of sadness scattered throughout the joys we experience daily. But the small moments are overshadowed too by our commonalities. We travel the backroads and see differences but many more likenesses. From the fishermen and farmers, the RVers and campers, and the moms and dads, whom we all share the goals of love and happiness, health and safety, and it is a comforting realization.

Say “thanks” to a farmer today.

Click here for our latest video of Oregon:
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Always grateful. 👫
h

Sequoia National Forest Trail of 100 Giants

🎶🎶 On the road again
Goin’ places that I’ve never been
Seein’ things that I may never see again
And I can’t wait to get on the road again
Here we go, on the road again
Like a band of Gypsies we go down the highway
We’re the best of friends
Insisting that the world keep turnin’ our way 
And our way is on the road again
I just can’t wait to get on the road again
🎶🎶

Willie Nelson

It’s one of my favorite Willie Nelson songs and couldn’t be more appropriate to how we feel today. We are off again and our first stop is Sequoia National Forest and the Trail of 100 Giants.

Exhilarated to be Moving Again

June was a tough month for Ken and I. Our last post mentioned that we were sick and within a couple of days of that post Ken was hospitalized with pneumonia.

Being seriously ill in an unfamiliar city is a frightening situation to be in. We managed to get through it, through the one hundred thirteen degree tempertures, the lousy RV park that we were stuck in (oddly though, our next door neighbor was Robbie Knievel), our bikes being stolen and the inability to do very much while Ken recuperated.

It’s been eye opening and inspired a few RV projects (stay tuned for a YouTube project vlog). Now we’re moving again and ready for the joy of new experiences.

Sequoia National Forest
Giant Sequoia trees in a line on the Trail of 100 Giants
Giant Sequoia Trees
up the trunk of a large Sequoia tree

Before we begin the new, we are revisiting one of the best. We’re back in the Sierras, home to those beautiful giant sequoias. This time we are exploring the Sequoia National Forest and Trail Of 100 Giants where Joey was able to come along with us. The reward is that even on a holiday weekend the crowds were less and we could take a slower pace. Kern River Brewing Company was a delightful find for lunch where we had a great conversation with a young lady traveling in her van for four years. Oh, to be young again. It was a wonderful way to spend Ken’s birthday.

It was absolutely hilarious that we had to stop for cows among hairpin turns and drop-offs down the side of a mountain but the cows seemed non-plussed about it. Enjoy.


Always grateful.👫