Exploring the American Landscape
Well, so much for the trees. After leaving Cottonwood and its relatively leafy environment, we headed to northeastern Arizona, where the Colorado Plateau put us at relatively high elevation but in an arid desert environment with virtually no trees in sight. The flat, scrubby high plains just go on forever. We were scheduled to be … Read more
Our second full week in Tucson offered a chance to dive deeper into the offerings of this vibrant little city. By staying in one place, we grew more accustomed to the rhythms of the city, including but not limited to the training schedule of the Air Force base located near our campground. We focused our … Read more
Our visit to Joshua Tree National Park coincided with both the park’s traditional busy season around the winter holidays and the ongoing government shutdown. While this made for more stress in our planning, including finding a new place to camp outside the park when all the campgrounds were closed, we were still able to enjoy … Read more
Our drive in from the Mojave area really set the stage for the world of extremes that we would experience in Death Valley National Park, the largest national park outside of Alaska. One of the few towns we passed through was Trona, which basically brought my vision of an industrial hellscape to life. The town … Read more
Well, the grinches in Washington have given us a stinker of a Christmas present. We were evicted from our scenic public campground in Death Valley National Park – on Christmas Eve, no less – when the National Park Service closed. Even though one party controls both houses of Congress and the presidency, that brain trust … Read more