July/August 2021 Trip – The Henry Ford, Mammoth Cave and Hot Spring National Parks

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 The Henry Ford

Fordyce bath house
Hot Springs NP

Approaching metropolitan Detroit traffic builds and roads deteriorate.  Freezing weather, ice, snow and lots of traffic are hard on roads.  We are hoteling near Dearborn the next couple nights to see The Henry Ford - Museum of Innovation and Greenfield Village.  Greenfield Village is a conglomeration of buildings Henry Ford had moved, reassembled and restored representing the early days of America.  They include Ford's birthplace, the Wright brother’s home, their bicycle shop, Thomas Edison’s laboratories, just to name a few.  Arriving later in the day we are only able to spend five hours at the museum.  We could have spent several more seeing everything. 

July/August 2021 Trip – Northern Wisconsin, Pictured Rocks and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshores

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Northern Wisconsin

Spray Falls - Pictured
Rocks National Lakeshore

My family lives in northern Wisconsin, part of our trip is to see them.  We haven’t seen my sister and her husband since the start of the pandemic.  We had a trip planned last year but nobody felt comfortable given the virus conditions in 2020.

Once in WI we stop for cheese.  We enjoy Henning’s Cheese.  They specialize in cheddar, having many flavors.  We also pick up a few packages of cheese curds.  They are not a favorite of mine but my mom and Nicida love them.  Several bags of cheeses curds disappeared during our brief visit to northern WI.

July/August 2021 Trip – Gateway Arch, Indiana Dunes National Parks, Chicago, IL

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This is an escaping TX heat/visiting family, trip.  We are including visits to four National Parks and two National Lakeshores.

On the way we stop at Elephant Rock State Park in OK.  The campground itself is on Lake Murray, it’s huge, popular for fishing and playing in the water.  We are on a small arm of it, a no wake zone so canoeing, kayaking, fishing and inner tube floating goes on all around us.  We break out our ‘origami/foldable’ Oru kayaks.  While traveling, with a bit of planning and effort, we fit one in the back seat of the truck, the second inside the camper.  With the exception of a paddling class we took a month earlier this is our first opportunity getting out to paddle.

March/April 2021 - Yosemite NP, Saguaro NP, White Sands NP

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Yosemite NP

Moonrise over half Dome

Orange groves and nut trees line the roads heading towards Fresno.  Once through town we see development give way to open ranch land then rolling hills.  The snow topped Sierra Nevada mountains form the backdrop to the east.  Our route is one of the main roads entering Yosemite National Park.  We are here for a photography workshop lead by Gary Hart.  The next portion of my blog is an unsolicited story of our workshop experience.

March/April 2021 - Joshua Tree NP, Kings Canyon/Sequoia NP

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General Grant sequoia

Our goal for this trip is to make it to Yosemite National Park for a landscape photography workshop.  On the way we will visit friends, relatives and several national parks.  We will spend several days at Yosemite for the workshop adding a few days to practice our skills before visiting a few more parks on our way back home.

We face the usual southwest spring weather during our drive across TX, NM, AZ and CA - incessant head wind.  At times the skies are brown from the blowing dust.  Driving through a pass just east of Tucson, sleet and freezing temperatures are added to the wind.  We stop outside of Phoenix for the night on our way to Joshua Tree National Park.  I don’t want to know our gas mileage; I know it is low due to the wind.  I almost see the needle move towards ‘E’ whenever I step on the gas.

Southeast trip, mid November - early December 2020 - Great Smoky Mountains NP, Congaree NP

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We are off to visit Nicida’s family in North Carolina.  We are including a couple national parks because they are mostly along the way.  Our national park count at the start of this trip is 18, of 62.

This trip takes a bit more planning; we are visiting relatives so we need to wear clothing that’s presentable; more than just hiking and lounging at the campsite. The other clothing challenge is packing for any combination of warm, cool or rainy weather.

More Utah travels, September 2020 – Blanding, UT; Mesa Verde NP; Southwestern CO

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Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde NP

Blanding/Bluff, UT

The next day we are off to Devil’s Canyon, a National Forest campground, about 40 miles down the road.   After setting up we empty our cooler, the last of the food is still frozen, we will leave it slowly thaw in the camper refrigerator.  We head off to Blanding to do laundry then see The Edge of the Cedars Museum.  It is well worth the price of admission.  There are many indigenous people exhibits from archaic through the pueblo era.  A partially excavated pueblo stands behind the museum.

More Utah travels, September 2020 – Canyonlands - Island in the Sky; Arches NP; Canyonlands NP – The Needles; Deadhorse Point

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Canyonlands National Park – Island in the Sky

We are staying at the Canyonlands RV Park in Moab, other places we had hope to stay were already booked and this place is full too; fortunately I made reservations a few months ago.  It is a convenient location for Canyonlands – Island in the Sky, Dead Horse Point and Arches.  We visit each of them.  First we have to do laundry, find produce for the refrigerator and restock the dry ice.

More Utah travels, September 2020 – Cedar Breaks National Monument; Zion NP; Goblin Valley State Park, Sego Canyon

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Cedar Breaks National Monument

Today we are on our way to Cedar Breaks National Monument.  It is a smaller, less visited, version of Bryce Canyon, and is only about an hour away from Bryce Canyon.

On the road between Grand Canyon and Cedar Breaks we see many areas where wildfires have burned.  They are in various stages of self-restoration; grasses, aspen, and small pine refilling the areas.  Prior to entering Utah we stop at Le Fevre overlook.  This is the area where the wildfires burned only a few months earlier.  The entire valley is blackened.

Continuing on to Kanab we make a stop to restock the refrigerator and dry ice for the cooler.  At this point the only time we were not able to find any was in Holbrook AZ.  The food in the cooler is doing well, most of it still frozen.

Full cooler we drive on to Cedar Breaks.  The road is a continuous climb from Kanab to the park, ending at over 10,000’ in elevation.  Cool nights ahead.  The campground is only a half mile from the visitor center with a trail snaking between.  We are able to leave the truck sit for a day while we hike several trails starting from the visitor center.

More Utah travels, September 2020 - Central TX; Petrified Forest NP; North Rim - Grand Canyon NP

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Grand Canyon, sunset

Since I last posted we have relocated from NM to central TX.  We are enjoying our time here, happy we made the move.

Back in early-March we started thinking about a trip to Greece when the pandemic hit.  As time went on we knew Greece was out of the question so we started looking at revisiting southern Utah catching some of the areas we missed in April, 2019.