WELCOME ABOARD!
This is the story of our “Great American Adventure.” It’s a record of our years-long motor home journey across America. It’s my online
scrapbook. My collection of trinkets. My recording of nature’s soundtrack. I want to capture here the sights and sounds of our country, the breeze across the water and the smell of salt sea air. I want to hear the noisy bustle of city streets and the peace and quiet in the redwood forest. I want to milk a cow and drive a tractor, ride in a freight train’s locomotive and learn about hobos during the Depression. I’ll play checkers with one of the fellas in front of the General Store, visit the Grand Ole Opry, Woodstock and Radio City Music Hall. I’ll go to a rodeo and watch the cowboys compete. I’m going to sit a while with the old man on a bench and listen…really listen, to what he has to say. I’ll meet a fisherman in New England and chat with him about the day’s catch. And I’m going to help anyone I can, in any way I can, along the way. I want to make a difference. I want to see our country and meet the people who live here.
our home in San Diego and began an adventure of discovering new people and places. Our Great American Adventure. At that time, I didn’t even know what a blog was, much less that during our travels I’d publish almost a hundred pages, well over three hundred posts and more than 2,000 photos of our Journey. Who would have guessed that my blog would receive more than a million visits (that’s right, a million!) by people wanting to share our experiences as we made our way back and forth across America? And the number of visitors still increases every day of the year! Who’d have guessed we’d spend five whole years making the most of what life has to offer, pushing ourselves to go the extra mile and even a year overcoming fears and obstacles we never dreamed could have happened to us. We got slapped by the big halibut of reality more than once! Sometimes we felt like we were in a circular firing squad, but we got through those times. We certainly had no idea what our Journey had in store for us! But it turned out to be the best time of our lives, and we have enough have happy memories to last a lifetime!
enterprise to grow and sell bulbs, the farm is open to the public for a month each year for a tulip festival, and it will end soon. The farm is pet-friendly, so we decided to take Molly and check out the place. We were lucky to have a sunny day for our trip. As we’re learning fast, Oregon doesn’t boast many of them until summer. When we arrived, we quickly realized that this family farm is a big-deal operation. It attracts about 100,000 visitors each year, and we had a chance to wander throughout the 40 acres of gorgeous blooming tulips with a dramatic view of snow-covered Mt. Hood in the background. Molly led the way!
and we’ve traversed the country…east coast to west… to get here. Over the years, we’ve vacationed extensively here and other areas of the Pacific Northwest, and we’re already noticing lots of landmarks and places that are very familiar. So in some small sense, it feels as if we’re home again. After so many years traveling all around the country…homeless if you will, it’s good to finally be in the place we plan to make home.
foot elevation at the summit. We’ve driven this route a half dozen times during the summer and enjoyed the scenery and the drive. But wait, it’s winter…an unusual weather condition largely unknown to a lifelong Southern California boy like me! In San Diego, a quarter inch of rain is front page news. This is different, especially when you consider the 30,000 pound gross vehicle weight of our motorhome! And there’s also an unusually severe winter storm in the area right now. Black ice is present on the route as are whiteout conditions and I’m not going to risk driving when either is present.
full circle and are back at Laughlin, Nevada where we stopped about four years ago. Since we have so many happy memories about time we spent here over the years, we couldn’t resist the temptation to stop one last time. The southernmost tip of Nevada, along the Colorado River, where Nevada, California, and Arizona meet, has become a major national tourist destination and gambling resort within the last few decades. The townsite of Laughlin was established in the 1940s as South Pointe because of the proximity to the southern tip of the state of Nevada. The early town consisted of a motel and bar that catered to gold and silver miners, construction workers building Davis Dam, and fishing enthusiasts. In the 1950s, construction workers left, and the town all but disappeared. But now it’s a different story. The town is bustling and the River is lined by about a dozen casinos, each with a high-rise hotel and lots of night-life. Many of the casinos along the river are linked by an unofficial pedestrian thoroughfare known as the Laughlin Riverwalk. And a river ferry runs up and down the river if you’d rather casino-hop by water than by foot.
due to the early winter and lots of snow on our intended route, we decided to spend a couple of months here. It’s outside of Tucson and the weather was absolutely beautiful for our entire stay. But after about May, forget it! Some folks who live in the area told us the temperatures are as high as 120 degrees during the summer. I guess that’s why so many Arizona residents visit San Diego during the summer each year. We call them “Zonies.”
it home. It’s located 65 miles from Las Cruces and 33 miles from the Mexican border. The town is named after Charles Crocker, one of the “big four” of the railroad industry. The silver spike was driven here in 1881 to commemorate the meeting of the Southern Pacific with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroads. This was the second transcontinental railroad to be completed in the United States. The Deming area is rich in native pottery artifacts, as well as beads and stone implements made by the Native Americans who still live here.
made a mistake. The spot is a working cattle and horse ranch located far, far off the beaten path. The dirt road leading to the ranch is so wash-boarded that it took us over an hour to drive to the ranch. Was it going to be worth it? We’d heard from others that it was, but as we drove that road at a snail’s pace we wondered. Turns out that the drive was well worth the effort.
mountains and then descends to beautiful vast plains on the other side. Then, we’d come upon the Los Alamos Demolition Army Base, still a top secret facility and famous for the national laboratory initially organized during World War II for the design of nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan Project. As a bonus, the Rangers said the chances were very good that we’d see elk and bighorn sheep along the way. Even if we didn’t, they highly recommended the drive so long as we paid close attention to the weather forecast and took some provisions and emergency supplies for use in a pinch. I’m not much of a risk taker, but we decided to take the drive. Armed with our large first aid kit, a gallon jug of water, flashlights, two GPS devices, cameras and cell phones (turns out there was absolutely no coverage) we left “civilization” at about half-past noon. It was a nail-biter along many sections of the road. My photos simply don’t do it justice! Because when I was driving up a really steep grade or navigating over some large rocks or ruts I was in no position to stop and take pictures. And even though we weren’t going more than about 5 mph much of the way, Florence was hanging on for dear life! But you’ll certainly get a good sense for the drive, and we’re sure glad we did it.
south of Santa Fe and surrounded by vast Indian reservation lands. For those of you who missed my description a couple of weeks ago about this beautiful country, you can take a 
often that not wanted to be tourists…to see all the places in this great country that we’d never had a chance to see until now. But having been on the road for so long, there are other times we enjoy finding a place to relax and just enjoy the surroundings, far from the hustle and bustle of modern America. We decided to take a week and enjoy such a place at this point in our travels, and we located Cochiti Lake in New Mexico to do so. It’s a perfect place to relax and unwind. We’re in a Corps of Engineers park at Cochiti Lake, about mid-way between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Our site is in a setting surrounded by vast open spaces and natural landscape plateaus in the distance. There are only a handful of other RV’ers here and it’s so quiet you could hear a pin drop! It’s almost eerie, and we realize how much noise pollution is the norm in our daily lives. The sun shines brightly all day long with temperatures in the mid-seventies. And the night sky, oh my gosh! It’s black as ink but thousands of stars stand out sharply against the backdrop. My words don’t do it justice. “Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.” -Anton Chekhov. I wish I could find words like that.
decision to change our route and avoid the severe weather there. Vegetation here is mostly short-grass prairie although pinyon and juniper trees are found in rocky canyons, and cottonwoods and willows grow near streams. The landscape is vastly different from what we saw for so long as we drove through Missouri and Kansas, and grassland finally yields to some hills and pines. We’re on the Original Santa Fe Trail, one of America’s scenic byways. The Trail was a 19th-century transportation route through central North America that connected Independence, Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico. It served as a vital commercial highway until the introduction of the railroad to Santa Fe in 1880.
