Travel dates: July 18-19, 2017 Presidential libraries and four year olds are not the best combination. Truth be told. But we have a firm rule about never passing up a good presidential history site (is there such a thing as a bad presidential history site, really? There are bad presidents, but they still make for good history), […]
La Hacienda RV Resort Review and Hanging out in Austin with Friends
Travel dates: July 17-21, 2017 Austin was our last long stop on our 2017 road trip. From there on, we had a series of overnight stops and then home. So it was lovely to be able to pause here for a few days, see a great city, and hang out with friends. Our friends, Kristi […]
Fort Davis and Davis Mountains State Park (but not a Star Party)
Travel dates: July 15-16, 2017 When the McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, TX popped up one month in our See America calendar (affiliate link), we thought it looked so cool that we rearranged an entire leg of our summer trip to make time to go see it and attend one of its Star Parties with telescope […]
A Day at Carlsbad Caverns with Kids: a Cave, Baby Raccoons, and a Whole Lot of Bats
Travel date: July 14, 2017 Carlsbad Caverns National Park has the prettiest caves we’ve ever been in. There; I said it. No offense to Mammoth Cave or Wind Cave or the lava tubes at Lava Beds National Monument–each of which has much to recommend it–but nothing comes close to Carlsbad Caverns for sheer beauty and […]
Brantley Lake State Park: A Campground Review and a Very Flat Tire
Travel dates: July 13-15, 2017 To get to the campground at Brantley Lake State Park, you have to drive about six miles off the main highway, down narrow, little traveled roads surrounded on all sides by rabbits of both the living and dead varieties. I don’t know how many of those miles we drove with […]
Passing through Petrified Forest National Park and a Stay at the Grants/Cibola Sands KOA
Travel date: July 13, 2017 Generally speaking, I wouldn’t suggest a drive-through visit to any National Park if it can be avoided. But if any park lends itself to this kind of visit, it’s Petrified Forest–you can see a whole lot of the park if you spend a few hours driving through and stopping along […]
Making the Most of One Day at the Grand Canyon
Travel date: July 11, 2017 Here is the sun setting over the Grand Canyon, as seen from the Desert View area. And here’s Gus, a few minutes later, mocking one of the many, many others we shared that view with: a woman in a bright yellow jacket who posed enthusiastically and ridiculously on the rim […]
Grand Canyon Railway RV Park: Campground Review
travel dates: July 10-12, 2017 To understand how we came to stay at the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park, you have to go all the way back to the beginning of our trip, to our day at the St. Louis Zoo. There I was, hanging out with penguins and whatnot at the zoo, when checked […]
Alcatraz with Kids: Prison Cells, Gardens, and Baby Birds
Travel date: July 7, 2017 Alcatraz is a fascinating blank slate of an island. People have been writing stories on it for hundreds of years, and wandering the island, reading through the layers of what’s been left behind, is an amazing experience. Fort, prison, site of an 18 month occupation by Native Americans….it’s all still […]
Muir Woods and Rodeo Beach–Country: Crossed!
Travel dates: July 2-9, 2017 And then we made it to the Pacific. After Lassen, we went west as far as we could go until we hit the ocean, and then we had to turn around and start heading east again. But first we spent a week in Livermore, CA, an hour or so inland […]