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Our Eastbound Dash

January 29, 2021 in photography, RV, Travel | Tags: Full Time, nature, outdoors, photography, Photos, Travel | 1 comment

Our original plans had us wintering in Tucson with a planned field trip in the truck back to Florida for a couple of weeks to have some long overdue doctor visits. We are of an age where scheduling doctor appointments is not an option but a necessity. The on-going Covid unpleasantness prompted us to change those plans and take the RV east with us. We made arrangements to rent a condo in Cape Canaveral for a few months and we were able to store the coach in our old storage facility, so after Bryce we headed east at what was, for us, a rapid pace. Our initial goal, other than a quick stop in Albuquerque for annual maintenance for Sybil, was to stop near Baton Rouge to visit family.

So, off we went. Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas fell into our rear view mirror. We saw trees that were millions of years old here, just missed getting caught in severe winter conditions in North Texas, camped with alpacas near Dallas, and rode out Election Day on a bayou in East Texas. Which is a story in its own right.

But we made it without too many mishaps. Here are a few shots from along the way. Next time: east of the Mighty Mississippi for the first time in a while!

Dinner at Wahweap Campground on Lake Powell, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, 10/13/20

Night sky over Lake Powell, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, 10/13/20

Petrified Forest NP, 10/16/20

Alpacas are silly. Denton, TX, 10/29/20

What a goofy face. Denton, TX, 10/29/20

Early morning on the Big Cypress Bayou. Karnack, TX 11/3/20

Bryce!

January 10, 2021 in photography, RV, Travel | Tags: Full Time, nature, outdoors, photography, Photos, RV, Travel, Utah | 2 comments

Wow, it’s been way too long (again) since I posted. We’ve been a bit busy, what with driving across the country, moving into a condo for a few months, many doctors appointments, and implementing major changes in our lifestyle. That latter item is a subject for a later post. Patience, grasshopper.

Our next stop was Bryce Canyon National Park. Beautiful Bryce. This place is awesome and the pics you’ll see below don’t come close to actually capturing the natural wonders that make it up. It needs to be seen to be appreciated. So we went, spent a week, saw beautiful things, and left wanting more. As it should be.

We also took a couple of side trips while there, specifically to Red Canyon just outside the park, and Kodachrome Basin State Park just a short drive away. Both were well worth the time, particularly Red Canyon. It is literally directly on the way to Bryce from the west and has insane (and easy) walks straight from the parking lot. It’s a “must not miss” stop for anyone in the area. (Note from the editor: The hike at Red Canyon is one of my top five fave hikes so far.)

On an “RV’ing isn’t for sissies” note: when I was setting up at the campground, the water intake attachment on the RV blew up when I turned on the hose. This is a one way hose attachment and is, obviously, critical to our getting fresh water. I took two quick actions. One was to order the part and to have it delivered to our next stop. The second was to drive to the thriving metropolis of Tropic, UT, population 530, where there was an Ace hardware store. I bought four (4!) adapters to convert the H2O input piping to directly connect a hose. There was a small amount of dripping even with the use of plumbers tape, but it would do. The lows overnight were forecast to be about 36 degrees, so no danger of freezing. No problem.

At 3AM I got up to answer the call of nature and checked the outside temperature from my weather station. It was reporting 28 degrees. Crap. So at 3AM, this Florida boy found himself outside disconnecting an already partially frozen hose and capping the icicle-encrusted half-assed connection. Good times. Fortunately I got to it before any of our interior pipes were affected. Two lessons were learned: 1) always keep your eye on the actual temp vs. the forecast one and 2) the furnaces on our RV were able to easily keep our basement storage area (where our tanks and water lines live) nice and warm. Both of these are good to know.

Enjoy the photos and stay tuned. I hope to resume posting more regularly over the coming month to catch up with actual real-time events. Stay safe y’all.