American West

Yosemite, Sequioa and Kings Canyon After our Death Valley foray we headed into the Sierra Nevada. Not many roads lead across this rugged land, so we rounded them on the south side. We made a stop in Kernville Brewery to break up the drive, neither the food or the beer was good, so I wouldn’t recommend it. North of Kernville there are dozens of small campgrounds along...

It all started when I was late getting back to the RV in Arches National Park, I ran into this Irish guy who was quite talkative.  He was clearly set up to take photos, and waiting for the time of day to get just the right light.  He told me about his time getting lost in Bryce Canyon and staying over night because he had stayed out for the evening light...

Sitting outside after dark, listening to a fellow camper giving an impromptu concert, the warm breeze cooling us from the 90 degree day, I can’t imaging a better setting. Death Valley is a unique place, coming west from Las Vegas, after a short climb up one side of mountains, you descend, and keep descending, long past you think you have dropped below sea level. At...

The second half of our Utah adventure started in Capitol Reef NP, this one hadn’t been on my radar, but it happened to be along the route so we decided to check it out for a day. The “reef” is a result of an uplifting of the crust, so on the east you have gentle sloping hills, to steep cliffs facing the west. The main attraction here are the canyons that were cut...

We have been travelling for the past two weeks through southern Utah, canyon country. I have had the National Parks of Bryce Canyon, Zion and Arches on my list for quite some time, but along the way we added a few more national parks and a couple National Forests to the list of must see places. I wasn’t prepared for the amount of sights and variety of each of the...

So we’re finally on track when it comes to our objective of an eternal summer.After the cold weather in Yellowstone, we slowly but surely made our way down to Utah. With the weather being super nice, it’s no hardship to spend our days outside again. First stop in Utah: Bear Lake. A beautiful lake with gorgeous blue water, nicknamed ’Caribbean of the Rockies’. The...

We happened to catch some early winter weather, with lows in the 20s inside the park. With the previous heater issue still a question mark, and not knowing how the tanks would hold up to freezing temperatures, we took the conservative approach of staying in a campground with electric. So we did two nights near Cody, Wyoming which I thought was just outside of the...

Oddly enough we ended up in Ten Sleeps exactly 10 sleeps from setting out on our journey. Ten sleeps was named because that was the halfway point between Fort Laramie and Yellowstone that was a journey of ten sleeps for the Sioux Indians. We ended up here after avoiding the cold of the Bighorn National Forest, we originally intended to stay up in the Bighorn...

Many times when talking about the first part of our trip, people mentioned the boring drive of the Dakota’s. Hours and hours of nothing that just needs to be passed to get where you are going. While I can kind of can see peoples point, the eastern portion two thirds are fairly homogenous on first inspection as you fly by on interstate 90 or 94. But I would challenge...

Our first stop was back in my old hometown of Milaca, visiting our old friends Jim and Julie. They graciously hosted a get together of some of my closest friends from high school. It was good to see Tim and Mike and their families. The friendships I made in high school and college are generally stronger than those I made later in life, so it was very good to meet up...