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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
I’ve wanted to go to White Sands National Monument for well over thirty years now, and we finally made it! It’s hard to describe. At first it looks really disappointing. There’s little fanfare as you approach it, and if you’re not looking for the turn, can easily slip right past the entrance. From a distance, […]
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, […]
After leaving Natural Bridges National Monument, we’d planned to camp overnight at Goosenecks State Park. But with 35 mile an hour winds making it challenging to stand upright, we didn’t stay long. Just after the Goosenecks, we found ourselves hurtling down the graded dirt switchbacks of the Moki Dugway, considered one of the world’s most […]
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 […]
With a retirement date of October and our departure-from-Oregon on October 5, the last two weeks of September were consumed with putting in my last two weeks of work at school, retirement paperwork, and weeding through decades of files, both paper and digital. I kicked off the new academic year as usual and participated in […]
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 […]
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 […]
While we were in Sun Valley visiting relatives, our nephew Tyler left to visit a friend near Jackson Hole, taking Hwy 20 heading east. Shortly after, he called to highly recommend that we take a road trip to see Craters of the Moon National Monument, only about 70 miles from Sun Valley. We didn’t have […]
We drove east, following the Columbia River to join family for a memorial service in Sun Valley, Idaho. It’s a long but scenic drive (over 10 hours) and by the time we crossed into Idaho in the afternoon it was well over 100 degrees. David grew up in Idaho but had only been to Sun […]
It was a rare occasion for us to have both of our daughters and their significant others in town. Since the forecast indicated solid rain for the Portland area, we decided to head east where we’d have a better chance of finding some dry weather. Neither John nor Kevin had been to Eastern Oregon, or […]
On the way back from two nights at the Pickett Butte Lookout, we took the scenic route home via the Rogue-Umpqua Scenic Byway. One of the features along this three hour road detour was the dramatic Toketee Falls which is invisible from the highway. It flows out of a graceful columnar basalt formation that frames […]
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 finally managed to get down to the Bend, Oregon area for three days of sightseeing and hiking. We stayed at a surprisingly authentic adobe pueblo style house we found through AirBNB. Our first stop was the High Desert Museum where we enjoyed lots of interesting historic displays and wildlife. Next up was Lava Lands […]