Canyonlands Trails

Hundreds of miles of 4x4 trails surround Canyonlands - White Rim Trail over 100 miles long takes as many as 2 days, generally 4 so you have to be prepared to camp and take fuel and food to complete the trip. Some bends require reversing in mid bend to get the vehicle around the hairpins! Short wheelbase Jeeps recommended!

Dead Horse Point

Dead Horse Point has to be one of the most stunning views in the south west! Awesome panorama with boaters on the Colorado River which cuts its way down through the multiple sandstone layers and the gravel rock and mud White Rim Trail winding its 100+ mile torturous adventure track around the Canyonlands makes this a Mecca for the adrenalin seekers!

Returning from dinner at Red Cliff sResort

Enjoyed dinner by the Colorado River at the Red Cliffs Lodge and Winery tonight and on the way home the setting sun just turned the cliffs to gold. Lodge has a wonderful Moab Movie Museum of movie history in the region and details all the movies filmed in the area from black and white era till current - very impressive!

Traveling Companions

Eric and Susan Arens at Gooseneck State Park with the meandering San Juan River cutting down into the plateau some 800 ft deep gorges. That will stop any wagon train in its tracks!!

Airstream Coffee Shop

Location Cortez CO.. lo and behold an older Airstream International converted to espresso coffee shop and drive through and a nice range of treats and snacks! Nice patio and furniture all done in the style of the era!

Grill night

About twelve grillers fed the ~60 campers for a Mesa Verdes cookout that with smoke, sizzle and jousting commentary reminded me of a reality TV cooking competition🐂🔥🍷🍽 Our pair of steaks are smaller because I trimmed mine first then saved half for the next day!

The storeroom in the Indian museum

Many many beautiful examples of pots exhibited at the Edge of the Cedars museum in Blanding but the storeroom with the vast stay of pots that are not exhibited is much more impressive! No price tickets on these!

Monument Valley

Nothing quite as iconic and beautiful as Monument Valley to remind you that you are on the most wonderful adventure in a foreign land and still within the USA! Left mitten, right mitten are the names of the two left rocks!

Breakfast treat

Love my soft boiled eggs and buttered soldiers!

Never seen this before!!

Some kind of automated laundromat tub for dogs! Select either clean, disinfect, flea treatment, blow dry! I wish I had time to hang around until a dog owner came along and ran his pouch through it!

Handle Bars for Silverton Lunch

Trip Advisor Review: Early train start in Durango without time for breakfast and a four hour slow steam train journey leaves you standing in the town center of Silverton (origination a ton of silver) around noon mighty hungry. Most reviews of local restaurants are pretty good and leave you unable to differentiate so it takes the recommendation of a local friend to make a choice which we did not regret! A half slab of ribs, a burger, a barbecue sandwich, soups and salads were all excellent! A little disorganized due to two conflicting street or store entrances to the restaurant but eventually seated in a quaint dining room with more seating at the bar along one entire wall. Wait staff very attentive and helpful despite quite crowded tables but we all enjoyed the eclectic collectibles, stuffed wildlife and joshing humor of the staff. Would certainly recommend it to travelers to this small 200 winter 800 summer population quaint former mining town at 9,500 feet altitude.

Durango to Silverton

All my life I've wanted to take this steam train - something I inherited from the last days in the 1950's of steam locomotives in England! Three and a half hours climbing out of Durango at 6500 ft to Silverton at 9300 ft following a mountain stream with waterfalls and precipice edge canyons. Covered in soot and grit from the locomotive!

High Rockies above Durango

Took a jeep trek up the valley to 12,000 ft to overlook the young sharp geological formation of the Rockies ranges surrounding Durango. A rough ride up the mule mining trail of La Plata valley pioneered by the highly lucrative silver and gold rush in the area.

Trout hatchery

Thousands of little trouts raised from eggs and ready to be distributed into lakes and rivers at the fish hatchery in Durango. Just your shadow presence was enough to start a frenzy in expectation of feeding!

Conquer the highest sand dune in North America!

Sand dunes and you are not anywhere near the seaside or beach! Almost too unusual to understand how this can happen however a dried out sea bed and two conflicting winds have managed to create a minor environmental miracle - add two rivers that feed either side of the sand dunes and you have a wildlife mix that astonishes you when standing in the middle of the Colorado mountains at 7,100 feet altitude! Only attempt climbing to the peak of you are fit and have two hours or more! This is the proverbial two steps forward one step back. Kids love the boards you can rent to slide down the dunes. Essential to take water, shoes for the potentially very hot sand 140 degrees max, and wind and sand protection like glasses and wind breaker. A treat to have a national park that you can act as wild as you like and cause no damage to yourself or to the park!

Great Dunes

Hard work these dunes! We had an hour or so to explore and walked up the dunes two steps forward and one slide back only so far before coming back to check out of our RV site and make our way - only 130 miles or so - our last travel day to Durango. Finally in our alpine caravan site and meeting up today with our 57 other Airstream travelers in 30 campers!

Power generation

Kansas is about 400 miles wide and takes a whole day to drive across. Unbelievable number of wind farm turbines in Kansas stretch in their hundreds as far as the eye can see... they co-habit with many spinning oil pumps sitting out in the middle of vast agricultural fields, which are in themselves generating the bulk of the country's food. Grain elevators on the horizon in all directions. Taking full advantage of airborne resources, underground resources and land cultivation resources but hardly a soul to be seen! Serious business! Maybe Kansas is a good place to lose a few thousand Syrian refugees!

Overnight in Illinois

Convenient on day 2 of our journey west we stopped in Cobden Illinois at Margaret's brother Andy beautifully landscaped homestead - naturally he is a professional landscape architect!

Cross Country

Two thousand miles in four days! The beast and silver cloud devoured mostly I-64 and I-70 onwards and onwards to the Rockies and eventually to Durango Colorado where we join 30 Airstreamers for our South-West Adventure. Beautiful rides through West Virginia and Colorado mountains offset by the tragically depressing and decaying cities we passed through like Charleston WV, St Louis MO and Kansas City KS. Oh for the wide open spaces...!

Region 3 Rallye Doswell VA

Night time at the Meadows Farm in Doswell Virginia where some 80 Airstreamers gather for a Wednesday to Sunday rallye full of interesting seminars and people. Followed in the footsteps of John Wilkes Booth who was captured and killed near here in Port Royal and enjoyed the outstanding hospitality of the Caroline County Chamber of Commerce and Port Royal and Bowling a Green museum folks! Took the Secretariat tour around our campground farm birthplace and training ground for this famous Triple Crown winner in the early 70's. Also learned protocol for flying the flag at night by adapting my inspection light! We traveled all of 40 miles to attend this Rallye - one of the closest participants! Downside weather was overcast and rained for the entire Rallye which was disappointing since it was 80F the day before it started. Spent lots of funds on final payment for our South West Adventure caravan starting in August, a new TST trailer tire pressure monitoring system and a three year subscription to SkyMed for emergency evacuation while traveling anywhere in the world!

Botany Bay, Edisto Island

Who could believe that two centuries ago this was a thriving cotton plantation or that the barrier islands were a mile further out to sea. Civil war, diseases, hurricanes and house fires have left their toll and changed the direction of this 5000 acre plantation at Botany Bay. The tour is over 6 miles and best driven by SUV - it has 15 or so stops which are detailed on the map you pick up at the main gate. Our first stop was the beach car park and a long walk on the beach - something out of a Kafkaesque movie with all the dead trees, most uprooted some still standing on the shoreline. The exposed to the south east beach and trees were once much further out to sea - as much as two miles before storms and hurricanes have ravaged away nature. Most appealing is the huge piles of very large shells all in great condition as no one is allowed to take them away! The dramatic drive through tunnels of live oaks with Spanish moss make it memorable along with the well presented large map and historical narrative. A most enjoyable day!

Fort Pulaski on Tybee Island

Designed by a Frenchman! Beautiful moat and grounds, stylish brick architecture, eye catching vistas! Unfortunately technology evolved since the era it was designed and built and the brick fortification were no match for the new Union spiral rifled projectiles which threatened to reach the armory after a 30 hour bombardment from Tybee Island and the Confederate army were obliged to surrendered. Well worth a visit and well maintained by NPS National Monuments.

Hurricane reality check

Hurricanes happen frequently! So be prepared! Know how high the storm surge will sweep over the island. Fortunately the old fort sanctuary is well above Cat 5! For the rest of us, just floor the gas and get out of town asap before it hits!

St Patrick's Day parade

On Tybee Island Georgia and the Mint Julep Girls are in the small town but really excellent parade! A lot of variety and effort in this small community!

Cheap overnight!

Free! Can't beat that! Cracker Barrel welcomes RV and campers to use their lot overnight! Slide in after 7pm and grab a wholesome dinner and slip out next morning after a solid breakfast!

Back Home to Storm Jonas!

The snow storm begins and keeps coming down for two days with at least 12 inches and 3 ft drifts. The Brute did a great sortie on Sunday in 4WD checking out the deserted neighborhood! Getting ready to take Nuage Volante to Ashland RV to have the Dometic AC and heat pump fixed under warranty.

Florida Trip mileage

Florida - Key West, Sarasota, Destin CanOpener, Jacksonville
December 25 to January 20, 2015
Total 3,560 miles - Cum: 8,179

Resting for a bacon sandwich....

On our way back from frigid Florida to freezing Virginia we pulled in to a NC rest area and happen to park next to a Smithfield truck with an important lunch suggestion - bacon sandwich!

Red Snapper on the menu!

Safe Harbor Market and Restaurant actually has deep sea fishing boats tied up to the dock and the fish in the market are plentiful, varied in species and fresh. Part of the delight is selecting your fish dish from the menu, being given a number, and within a few minutes the most copious portion of your chosen delight appears at your table! One of the best examples of sea to table delivery!

Brisk morning stroll

Low forties overnight and slow morning until our trip out of the Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park in Jacksonville Beach took us along the beach road where we stopped for a sun warming stroll down the beach for half an hour! Feeling quite reptilian letting the sun invigorate my body today!

Topsail Florida State Park

You can easily recognize that Florida has made a serious investment in its tourism infrastructure and spent a lot of money on developing excellent state parks throughout the length and breadth of its territory! Topsail has been well designed and laid out with complete services for RV's providing water, electricity, sewer and cable TV in a well spaced out layout with lakes, clubhouse, store and many other facilities including trails and circulating tram to the beach all for $40 a night ... perfect! The beach is perfect white sand as far as the eye can see and unspoiled environment reached by a 200ft elevated walkway over the dunes.

Airstream In cold weather!

Yes it's much much cooler in the northern Florida panhandle! We had a delightful sweaty 85F in Key West last week and tonight we have 30F in Destin! Got two heating systems running - the Airstream has a propane furnace which we pay for the propane and also we connected up an electric space heater with its own thermostat hanging in the middle of the van and plugged that into the campsite electric system so that's covered in our $40 night fee. Spent the last 24 hours figuring out many electrical problems and replaced main power cable to hook up, replaced breakers and added redundant systems to bypass the Airstream sophisticated built in electrical system so we can survive a cold night in comfort! Learning to adapt as failures occur all around.... AC and heat pump were already dead and will be fixed under warranty when we return to VA later in the month, fridge is oscillating up and down wildly but we have it tamed now by adding additional clip on fan to cool the evaporation coils.... then the power system developed all kinds of issues and we bought a 100 ft cable to borrow from neighbor power supply which just kept us going overnight last night except the rain and moisture kept tripping out GFI breakers. Must have stopped at 5 or more stores yesterday and today to find all the parts! Tonight (so far!) all systems are running perfectly!

All part of the rich life experience so you are better prepared for the next crisis ! A Honda generator might be on the horizon!

Airstream Can Opener 2016

Three interviews on local TV station WJHG about the CanOpener rallye at Topsail Hill State Preserve

Continually recording statistics

The Laramie has so many displays of many functions including multiple trip logs, fluid temperatures throughout the engine, transmission and exhaust systems, fuel and oil filter life, tire pressures, trailer electric brake settings, fuel economy, more info than you ever wanted to know!

Banyan tree in Key West

Beautiful Banyan tree on Duval Street in Key West frames the Main Street entrance and reigns over the entire front of this classic Keys house!

A useful reminder

Leaving Key West this morning the camp site has some useful reminders! Not sure about the prioritization!

Pontoon cruise in the Keys

Took an afternoon pontoon boat rental - 22ft and 60hp outboard - around Key West and north up the coast to the Boca Chica beach. Two hundred yards offshore there are many sandy underwater shoals which you can anchor on and swim in perfectly clear and warm water, and stand up in four feet of water. Boat anchored up and down are in the party mood with music and laughter!

Southernmost KOA camp

Unintentionally checking off the KOA sites at the furthest cardinal points here in "as far south as you can go" Key West, in September we stopped at Bar Harbor, Maine, the furthest east in the USA. Onwards north to Alaska and west to California!

Perfecting the Grill !

Much experimentation with our portable grills and we do love our FireSense earthenware grill - we load up with lump charcoal to get it going and then part way through the warm up we add mesquite wood blocks so that it becomes a wood fired grill... then at the highest heat with the embers glowing bright within an inch of the grid we place seasoned Grouper or Snapper until it's slightly browned and crisped on the exterior while the inside is moist and tender - about two minutes per side. Fish fillets are best prepped into 2 to 3 inch servings about an inch thick, salt and pepper and a light spray of olive oil. Great with fish tacos or as main entrée!

Planning for next year!

Touring all the RV sites in Key West we checked out Geiger Key and indeed we found an idyllic spot with its own Tiki hut on the waterfront which we reserved for a week in January 2017. Certainly beats our current mangrove site! Being in an open spot that has the prevalent SE breeze coming straight in is perfect! Note another Airstream almost like ours is on the site this week!