Las Vegas Bay, Lake Mead: the water used to reach the foreground of the photo  where the bush (lower right) now lives. “Fabulous” is how the neon sign welcoming millions of visitors each year describes LasVegas but with an unemployment rate near thirteen percent and the dubious honour of leading the nation in foreclosures for the past five years, it’s not a word that immediately comes to mind. ...

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  McKayla (left) and Alyssa (right) roasting marshmallows as Chris and David look on. Today is our final day of camping and I, for one, am happy to see the end of this adventure.  Calling it a failure would bean exaggeration, but just barely.  Lack of planning showed through every step of the way and I clearly under estimated how difficult it would be to camp in a...

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Mike & Lisa hiking at Lake Mead. The one and only reason we go to Las Vegas is to spend time with David’s son, Chris, and two granddaughters, McKayla and Alyssa.  I know that there are a lot of people out there who love this town and choose to visit regularly, but neither David nor I are among them.  He lived here for over twenty years; I was...

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Scotty's Castle: A multi-million dollar villa in the middle of nowhere. We broke camp early this morning and drove down to Stovepipe Wells where it was already 83°F in the shade, three degrees above the average high temperature for this time of year, making our chances of camping in the valley look pretty slim.  Most people believe Death Valley is the hottest place on earth.  But it’s not. The...

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Wildrose Campground, Death Valley The drive to Death Valley turned out to be longer than expected due to poor navigation (my job).  I just assumed we knew where we were going … and so did David.  By the time all was said and done, we added an extra hundred miles to the day (and about two hours of driving) but, on the bright side, we saw areas of...

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John, David and me in San Diego. Our plans to spend a long-weekend in San Diego visiting John, David’s son, grew into a week after we decided to give Painted Rock State Park in Arizona a pass.  As we were breaking camp Wednesday morning, a couple told us the park offered no shade and, once we saw how warm it was at lower elevations, we made the decision...

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The Hoodoos of Chiricahua Wilderness area with "Cochise Head" in the background.  The Civilian Conservation Corps, part of Roosevelt’s New Deal program to get men back to work during The Great Depression, was stationed in Chiricahua from 1934 to 1940 to make improvements to the park, including seventeen miles of hiking trails.  And it was time for me to take advantage of their hard work.  I love to...

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Chiricahua National Monument We’re losing track of the days nicely now and are falling more and more in love with Chiricahua with each passing moment.  Yes.  It was windy and cold (not an unexpected result when you plan early spring camping trips at elevation – 5,100 feet) but it’s so beautiful here – peaceful and quiet – that what was lacking in the weather was more than made...

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Bonita Canyon We drove on to Arizona in hopes of better weather but it was the same, so we spent another night in a motel where we could take a look at the local forecast.  It appears we’ve landed directly in the middle of a squash zone (a high to the northwest and a low to the southeast) which explains all of the wind.  But things are improving,...

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The cliff dwellings at Gila National Monument. It got down below freezing again last night and we both woke up shivering at four in the morning and had to add another layer of clothes to our long-johns.  When we finally drug ourselves out of bed at nine, David started a campfire to help warm us up while I took Sally for her walk.  Minutes later it began to...

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Pictographs from British Columbia (left) and Gila National Wilderness (right). We started the morning off by filling out police reports regarding last night’s ordeal.  Not because we have any hope of the guy appearing in court – he was just passing through the area on his way home to Pennsylvania – but because we said we would.  At this point, it would be easy to pack everything up...

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Sunrise from the visitor center. It was much warmer last night and down right hot by nine o’clock this morning as we had breakfast and broke down camp.  By ten o’clock our work was complete and we were on our way to Gila National Forest which is good because, though only 189 miles away, it took most of the day to get there.  Gila National Monument, the site...

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The Tularosa Basin and White Sands National Monument. It was much milder temperature-wise last night (a balmy 41°F) but the day was warmer as well which was beginning to stress out Sally who had sought refuge in the truck and refused to leave (she hates camping).  I had hoped to do some hiking in Dog Canyon, but we needed to get to cooler ground so we took a...

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Sledding at White Sands National Monument. We arrived at our next destination, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, late yesterday afternoon and made camp as the sun was setting over the San Andres Mountains.  It turned out to be a cold and miserable night, something we’re not set up for.  Our tent is light-weight nylon and we use our duvet for a cover rather than proper sleeping bags (I...

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Carlsbad Caverns The last several days were a flurry of activity as we packed our things and said good-bye to Wichita.  We had a great time with my mom, visiting Grandma on Sundays, hanging out with the sisters in the garage and going out with friends, all making the past two months fly by and, once again, I found myself not wanting to leave.  But we can’t put...

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