Exploring the American Landscape
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
We had two goals in visiting Ventura: seeing Channel Islands National Park, and getting a hearty dose of the ocean to carry us through the months ahead, which will be spent in the desert southwest. We succeeded spectacularly on both counts. Channel Islands National Park Channel Islands National Park is probably the closest U.S. analogue … Read more