It was summer, 1849. When we left Independence, Missouri months earlier our wagon was loaded with 2495 pounds of gear and supplies including five barrels of flour, 600 lbs of bacon, 100 lbs of coffee, three rifles, and three pistols. We were a bit lighter now, having covered over half of the more than 2000 …read more
June 21 – June 24, 2020. We didn’t expect to find shorebirds in Idaho, we didn’t expect to find an amazing canyon with such amazing scenery in Idaho, and we didn’t expect to find the tallest sand dune in North America in Idaho. And we had no idea we’d find all of this in one …read more
June 19 – 20, 2020. It was a little disappointing that we didn’t get to kayak on the Snake River. When we were at Swan Falls the weather turned bad on the days we had lined up for kayaking and at Celebration Park, north of the Swan Falls dam, the current ran too fast for …read more
June 11 – 18, 2020. I’m not sure exactly how the idea to visit Idaho popped into my head. It must have been some #vanlife Instagram image or perhaps a photograph of some picturesque Idaho campsite from the Campendium newsletter. Whatever it was, up until that point I had never thought of Idaho as a …read more
June 2 – June 5, 2020. John C. Fremont called it the “Great Basin” in 1844. His father-in-law, Missouri Senator Thomas Benton, had gotten him the job. In May 1843 Fremont led a party of 39 men west on the Oregon Trail. Reaching what is now Nevada, they turned south to explore and map. They …read more
May 27 – June 2, 2020. Bryce Canyon National Park is full of interesting birds, beautiful flowers, adorable critters, and oh yeah – lotsa amazing rocks! Although we have been to Utah many times we had never visited Bryce since the park is at such a high elevation it has alway been cold in the …read more
May 13 – May 24, 2020. I got lost in the woods alone. This was annoying. Not just because I was lost but because by becoming lost I ended up not avoiding the very thing I was trying to avoid when I became lost. No worries, obviously I found my way in the end. We …read more
May 6 – May 12, 2020. The first surprise of the day was the naked man. We were walking down a disused road deep in the forest at about 6:30 in the morning when we saw him. From a distance, I thought he wore odd colored clothing – kind of flesh-colored. But as we got …read more
April 27 – May 5, 2020. It was hot in Ajo. Really, really hot. Pushing 100 hot. The giant saguaro cacti were loving it. The intensity of the sun beating down on their recently sprouted green nubs growing out of their spiky extremities was causing them to burst out into amazing white blooms. We, on …read more
This is part 2 of our The Desert Around Ajo post. See part 1 here. April 20 – April 26, 2020. I was looking forward to visiting the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, even though it wasn’t going to be too much different from the 4 days we had just spent camping on BLM land …read more