We don’t usually make reservations in advance, but after stopping on a whim at Goblin Valley State Park on Halloween a year ago, we suspected that if we ever wanted to stay at this small and quirky campground, we’d better plan ahead and book some dates (October 25 – 27, 2016). A year ago, there […]
After departing the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park on Monday, October 17, we restocked and cleaned up in Blanding. The Edge of Cedars State Park Museum is located there, which has an extraordinary collection of ancestral puebloan pottery and artifacts as well as a restored mesa-top ruin with a kiva that’s accessible to visitors. […]
The next stop on our six week Fall escapade was the Needles District, one of four distinct areas within the Canyonlands National Park, in Utah’s southeast corner and the furthest from Moab. It’s known by its iconic, white-topped red spires of Cedar Mesa Sandstone. When we visited Needles a year ago, we hiked all of […]
After spending almost a week Canyonlands, it was time to restock, clean up and fill up our water jugs in Moab. We returned to Ken’s Lake Campground south of town. David also needed to get some work done so we spent Monday, October 10 in Moab’s wonderful library. On Tuesday, we were ready for a […]
It took us three long days to drive from Glacier National Park just shy of the Canadian border in Montana, to southeastern Utah. We spent a night along the west side of Flathead Lake south of Kalispell, then just outside Missoula, and finally in Idaho Falls before the final push to our favorite Utah headquarters, […]
We’d been talking about going to Glacier National Park in Montana and watching the weather closely before committing. When we departed Coeur d’Alene on September 24, and the weather report continued to improve, the four-hour drive to West Glacier made sense. After biking the Hiawatha Trail on Saturday afternoon, we boondocked that night along a […]
With temperatures forecast to be over 100 degrees in Portland, we decided to escape to the Oregon coast for a week. We had no specific destination in mind, other than to camp at Cape Lookout State Park for the first night. Having gotten a later start then planned, we weren’t completely surprised that all 205 […]
We’ve just passed our one-year anniversary of owning the Ford Transit Van. We’ve driven more than 19,300 miles, and slept over 170 nights in it while exploring our home state of Oregon, plus California, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Washington, Idaho, British Columbia and Alberta. Our build-out has been slow and incremental over the past twelve […]
July 20: Departed Sandy first thing in the morning, and stopped to stretch our legs at White River Falls, Tygh Valley, Oregon which is an hour and a half from our house. From there, we turned north, setting our sites on Palouse Falls, Washington for the night. July 20-21: Overnight stop and hike at Palouse […]
After taking a horse-packing trip through eastern Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains in late July of 2007, I knew we’d return someday and try to cover the same territory on foot. So that’s what we set out to do in June. We’re also frequent users and contributors to an online camping resource called Campendium, and very few […]
What has been so enjoyable about our road trips is that we rarely have a destination or duration in mind when we set out. Equipped with a Delorme Road Atlas, our iPhones and a responsive touch on the steering wheel and brakes have allowed us to discover some pretty great locations. April 30: We were […]
We drove south on April 23, intending to check out the community of Sunriver which is about 15 minutes south of Bend, Oregon. This was our “shake down trip” since the purchase of a 12 volt ARB refrigerator— we needed to find out what the drain would be on our batteries. While we didn’t much […]
The following are just a few highlights of where we went and what we did during our sojourn around the southwest in February and March 2016. We put 6200 miles on the Ford Transit, filled up with gas 22 times and stayed in 30 different camp sites over the course of eight weeks. Joshua Tree […]
We thought we’d share some of our favorite camping locations from our Southwest trip in February/March 2016. We didn’t get reservations for any of these places ahead of time. The trick is to show up early enough in the day (before noon is best). And, having a manageable length vehicle (22 foot Ford Transit van) […]
We took a different route north to Moab on this trip, and decided to take a detour to Hovenweep National Monument which straddles the Utah and Colorado state line. Since the Visitor Center and campground is about 30 miles east of the main road, few people take the time to explore this area. Once home […]
We’d been waiting for a month for road construction at the Chiricahua National Monument to be completed before visiting. With time running out, we took a chance that a spot would be open at Bonita Canyon, the monument’s campground. Arriving at 8:30 am Monday morning did the trick, and we scored the only open spot […]
Be sure to check out the most recent update of our van conversion: Transit Enhancements We promised a full report from our original post about the 2015 Ford Transit cargo van conversion upon returning from our five-week, 3000 mile trip to the southwest this fall. We didn’t make it as far as we intended (Tucson, […]
On Sunday, we finally managed to extract ourselves from Moab’s magnetic pull so we could continue to explore southern Utah before returning to Oregon in time to take care of little Margot on November 12. We drove south again on UT191 then turned off into another of the three Canyonland National Park zones. With the […]
We decided to check out the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park for a few days, a two hour drive down UT 191. The drive to the Needles is round-about, heading south then veering sharply north through a long steep walled red rock canyon. We pulled over at Newspaper Rock to see the many centuries […]
Monday was spent as a “going to town day”. We took $4 showers at the beautiful new Moab Aquatic & Recreation Center, then spent a few hours at one of the nicest libraries we’ve ever been in. It was also new and very much set up for out of town visitors who may be in […]
Friday started off well enough. After departing Bryce and stocking up in Tropic, we drove a few hours north and boondocked just off the 9111 ft summit of Boulder Mountain at milepost 110 (elevation 85o0 ft). We were concerned about the weather report and didn’t want to get stuck in the snow if the temperature […]
When our Tucson friends Lisa and Dan said they were planning a camping trip to Bryce Canyon in October, we invited ourselves along. I’d been to Bryce for two brief hours exactly 14 years ago when my siblings took our dad to Zion National Park to commemorate his seventieth birthday. This time, we had six […]
Welcome to the City of Rocks National Reserve. Gotta jet… we’ll add text later!
We first learned about Bruneau Dunes from a post on Wheeling It. After a day of walking and cycling around Boise, we decided to camp at the Dunes campground and see the tallest, single complex natural sand dune in North America. It’s only about 65 miles southeast of Boise. The Wagon Wheel campground was arranged […]
The information in this post has been updated and published as “Update: Ford Transit Camper Van” BACK STORY: Because of the greyhounds, in 2014 we transitioned from backpacking/tent camping to car camping with a pop-up tent trailer at state parks. We enjoyed the Livin Lite Quicksilver 8.1 trailer— it was sleek, lightweight and had everything […]
After the Black Butte hike, we arrived at the intersection of NFS 1110 and 1120, (the road up to Black Butte trailhead) intending to drive back through Sisters. We spotted a sign “Lake Billy Chinook- 20 miles” on FR11 and confirmed the route on a paper map, we turned the van toward home, going “the […]
After yesterday’s challenging trek through the lava flow at McKenzie Pass, we thought a low-elevation stroll along the West Metolius River to the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery and back was in order. We headed north along the river’s west bank to the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery from the trailhead at the Canyon Creek Campground. After […]
We got a late start for a “pre-Labor Day” excursion because of a delayed roof replacement project at home. After looking at the weather for next few days, we decided on central Oregon as our destination, and focused on the Sisters area. That’s as far as our planning went. We had a full cooler of […]
2014 was a year of big changes. Sorely missing our little whippet, Willow (she died in 2012), we finally felt ready to find another sight hound. Enter the newest member of the Beyond family, Prospect. Prospect is a 3-year old brindle-colored retired racing greyhound from Kansas. After arriving in Portland in August 2013, he spent […]
We headed to central Oregon to enjoy the gorgeous fall weather, intending to hike around Smith Rock State Park and then drive south to Tumalo State Park to camp overnight. Unfortunately, Smith Rock was packed full of people (an archeology event and lots of other like-minded hikers/climbers). To avoid the crowds, we thought we’d hike […]
This is a challenging post to write… where to start or how much detail? We’re still having river dreams a week after returning home. We both agree that this was the best vacation we’ve ever taken. We’d go back in a heartbeat … like tomorrow! After watching some Salmon River episodes on “Outdoor Idaho” via […]
We thought we’d try an overnight on the mountain by starting at the Hood River Meadows Trailhead. Before departing, we each weighed our packs and came out pretty even at 27 pounds. In addition to our clothes, sleeping pad and bag and three liters of water, David hauled the tent and I carried the cook […]
On the way back home from Sun Valley, Idaho, we decided to take a different route once we got to Oregon border. We left the interstate (I-84) at Baker City, had lunch and then took Hwy 7 towards Sumpter, which also turns out to be the southern half of the Elkhorn Scenic Byway. This is […]
I thought we’d enjoy staying “off the beaten path” when we traveled to Costa Rica in March. Last summer, I cruised the internet until I found a something that caught my eye — a group of four hand-crafted bamboo houses on the Osa Peninsula built by an American couple from Austin, Texas. We had our […]
Somewhat on the spur of a January moment, we made on online reservation at the Pickett Butte fire lookout in Southern Oregon. We’ve stayed at a couple of other Oregon fire lookouts, but this would be our first tower. As in 52 ladder-like steps up into the frosty winter air. After driving several hours, we […]
We arrived at Cape Lookout just before dark and checked in with the camp host. We had reserved the “Nestucca” Deluxe Cabin online a few days before, a steal at $56 a night. The path from the parking lot to the cabin was lined with small lights mounted on wooden posts. The cabin itself was […]
I’ll start out this post by stating up front that we’ll never return to Badger Lake or its campground. While it’s less than 60 miles from our house, it’s almost impossible to get there from here. What should have been a hour’s drive turned into almost four by the time we had hurled our new […]
Our second trip to an Oregon fire lookout, took us to Gold Butte at 4618 feet elevation in the Willamette National Forest near Detroit, Oregon. To get there, we drove several hours, taking the beautiful “back way” through Estacada and Breitenbush. The lookout is a steep hike about 3/4 of a mile from where you […]
Timber Butte Lookout is about 20 miles from Lowell, Oregon and sits at 3650 feet elevation. This Willamette National Forest lookout features a picturesque little cabin that is at ground level. We were able to drive to within several hundred feet below the lookout and park at near the vault toilet. The warm days promoted […]