Taking a break from blogging was a good idea. I was tired of writing about everything from my own perspective, and I needed the space to find a new writing focus. In the meantime, I met up with some new traveler groups and found lots of new traveling friends. I realized that it is the…
I dig the desert! Not literally, of course, with a pick or shovel. I dig it in the slang sense: I love it. It makes me happy from the inside out. My dad used the term “dig it” back in the day when he lived in NYC and was a writer. Sometimes he assumed the…
Tango and I have been at Death Valley (Sunset Campground) for 3 weeks. For two of those weeks, we hung out with the single RVers group, Escapees Solos. The gathering is planned every year to coincide with the 49ers Encampment, a music and history festival. We are pulling out today but first, like every other…
I finally had my DNA tested through Ancestry.com. I had bought kits for others as gifts over the years but never tested my own. It did not seem necessary. I knew the results for my half brother and my son. Plain vanilla Northern European profiles. What more could I possibly learn from testing my own…
The drive from Pahrump, NV to Death Valley National Park was less than 2 hours. It should have been quicker, but I was buffeted by winds and slowed down to 40 MPH. For once, other drivers did not honk at me out of frustration. Of course, there weren’t too many people out there and those…
Dry RV camping means living without any hookups (water, electricity, sewer). I have dry-camped many times, usually for a max of 3-4 days. That is fairly easy using a solar panel to keep my RV batteries charged. Afterward, as I did recently in St. George, UT, I can pull over at a Motel, get a…
I had a pleasant 4-day stay in Pahrump, NV. It is about an hour west of Las Vegas. The town has everything a nomad needs in terms of services and supplies plus a great library. That makes it a perfect place to stop before heading into Death Valley, another isolated National Park. I stayed at…
All I can do is gush about the weekend Bluegrass Festival. I arrived a night early and camped in a forest service campground just up the canyon from the venue. After warm temps in Red Rocks Canyon, the night was extremely cold. Go figure, I was at 7,000 feet again. Hard to believe that Las…
Goodbye, Great Basin National Park! What an adventure. I did not want to retrace my steps coming in, over the narrow passes, so I headed east, towards I-15. After a week of driving on back roads, I was attracted to a relatively quick passage down an Interstate. I never thought I would say that since…
My visit to Great Basin National Park was one long lesson about going outside my comfort zone. First, the road was super challenging just to get to there. Seriously, the Park is extremely remote, and I had to drive all day on back roads and then cross several steep mountains via winding, narrow passes. I…