Category: General

Well, it wasn’t the trip we’d planned – exploring the Southwest – and we saw enough to know we want to go back there to catch the people, national parks and other cool places we missed. Although we’d visited much of the Southeast before, we did manage to see a few new places and enjoy new experiences, as well as help out my mom. We learned that if necessary, we could get across the country quickly. And we confirmed that the concept of traveling in the fall with a careful reentry into New England after the first snows was not only doable, but adds a different kind of beauty and fun with just a few adaptations of the usual RV logistics.

Continue reading “Home”

As we left Everglades National Park, we drove west through Big Cypress National Preserve. It’s another million acres of wetlands, though deeper and with slower moving water. Yes, the folks at Cypress are proud of their swamp! The National Preserve status allow for more recreational usage (compared to a National Park) so fossil fuel exploration and extraction, hunting, and off-road vehicle use are all permitted. There are also parcels of land withing the preserve that are privately owned, and traditional uses by the indigenous Seminole and Miccosukee tribes also take place.

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Here is a PSA from my mom, Theresa:

Walk 2 miles every day. That’ll keep you feeling and looking young. And if you ever fall and break your hip, it’ll make everybody shake their heads in disbelief and say wonderful things about you when recovery from your surgery takes a few days instead of a couple of months.

Continue reading “Melbourne, FL”

It was when we got close to Los Angeles that the Little Old Lady From Pasadena earworm started. We visited Pasadena, and everywhere we went – guitar store, a restaurant, our friends’ home, the Rose Bowl – we found ourselves crossing the famed Colorado Boulevard – yes, the very road terrorized apocryphally by the little old lady in that song.

Continue reading “Get Your Kicks… part 2”

About 5 years ago, we found ourselves in a situation where we each had to travel separately for a while. At that time, I wrote a couple of posts about life on the road, how stuff happens, and you deal with it. Well – as you may have already guessed – deja vu all over again.

Continue reading “An unanticipated repositioning”

When we moved to Connecticut in 1990, I worked on a team at The Travelers that was lead by Dwight. A firm believer in team-building, he and his wife Colleen hosted several team dinners at their home in Essex, CT, and we got to know Colleen as well. For the next few years, I thoroughly enjoyed the ground-breaking work we did in managed care. and I learned so much – about the healthcare/health insurance business, business politics, project management, people management, team-building – all skills that served me well when I later started my own business. Thank you, Dwight!

Continue reading “Pasadena, CA”

Sequoia National Park was established in 1890. This park includes Mt Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 states at 14,505 feet above sea level, as well as 5 of the 10 largest giant sequoia trees. General Grant National Park was also established in 1890 to feature and protect giant sequoias, including the General Grant Tree. In 1940, in an effort to protect more of the unique resources of the area – the 14,000-foot peaks of the Sierra Nevada, Kings Canyon 10,000 feet below, as well as old-growth forests and other large groves of giant sequoia trees – the Kings Canyon National Park was created, incorporating General Grant National Park. Since 1943, the 2 national parks comprising nearly 1 million acres have been adminstered together as Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks.

Continue reading “Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks”

Our change in plans afforded us 4 more days in which to choose a new adventure en route to Albuquerque. We spent three of them in Palo Duro Canyon State Park and loved every minute.

Palo Duro Canyon is the 2nd largest canyon system in the US, after (what else?) the Grand Canyon. Really? In the Texas Panhandle? Yup! It’s 40 miles long, averages 6 miles wide and drops 600 feet from the rim to the canyon floor.* The Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River cut the canyon over millions of year leaving behind caves, hoodoos and colorful rock and sandstone formations. Unlike the Grand Canyon, most of the action at Palo Duro takes place on the canyon floor.

Continue reading “Palo Duro Canyon State Park, TX”

Our plan was to head northwest from Tulsa to meet our friends and fellow travelers Mark and Linda who were going to be in southern Colorado. Unfortunately, their motorhome had a mechanical problem which forced them to skip their rendezvous with us in favor of a visit to the Sprinter dealer, way up in Denver. Though we were sorry to miss our friends, a consolation prize for us was that, if we weren’t heading to Colorado, we could slow down on our push to Albuquerque. We started by extending our stay in Tulsa to take care of a couple of necessities (like laundry) and see a little more of the city. The Arts District we talked about in the previous post is adjacent to, and partly within, the Greenwood section, which was once known as Black Wall Street. Over the past few years, along with many others, we learned for the first time of the history of that area – in particular, of the horrific events that took place there a little more than a century ago, hidden and suppressed for most of the ensuing years. To learn more, we visited the Greenwood Rising History Center.

Continue reading “Tulsa, part 2 – a difficult history”