Two hours east of San Bernardino through Cabazon (where the concrete dinosaurs in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure live), past Palm Springs and a series of steep climbs up into the Mojave desert you arrive in a magical landscape that’s as…
Day 444 – Tucson, AZ – Discovering the ancient saguaro cactus.
Tucson sits about 60 miles north of the Mexico boarder in Arizona between California and New Mexico. This area has been populated by native people for over 12,000 years. The first European settlement happened in 1700 when the Spanish…
Day 411 – South Padre Island, TX – Gulf Coast Paradise
After several long spurts of driving and active sight seeing, we were ready for a brief repose. I had packed for a beach adventure a year and a half earlier and had been carrying it with me without ever…
Day 405 – San Antonio, Texas – Looking for the basement of the Alamo.
It wasn’t until 1691 that Spanish explorers first met the Payaya Indians of the San Antonio River Valley. It was June 13, the feast day of Saint Anthony, and so they named the area San Antonio. In 1716, to…
Day 394 – Austin, Texas – In search of TPS reports and high weirdness
Austin is a city I’ve always wanted to visit. I kind of thought I might have waited too long and all the tech hipsters might have drove the prices up and all the cool places might be replaced by…
Day 393 – Driving from Arkansas to Texas
Our next stop was Austin, Texas, a 7.5 hour drive from Hot Springs, so we decided to break the drive up into two days and head through Shreveport, Louisiana which added another hour to the drive. We wanted some…
Day 394 – Hot Springs National Park
For more than 8000 years, native people had been visiting the area for the healing powers of the springs located in present day Hot Springs, Arkansas. Many tribes had come together to share the springs agreeing to put aside…
Day 393 – Graceland – The Home of Elvis Presley
“I’m going to Graceland For reasons I cannot explain There’s some part of me wants to see Graceland” – Paul Simon Graceland After Elvis Presley’s first house purchased in 1956 became too overrun with fans outside, he gave his…
Day 374 – Winter is coming. Out of time for the east coast.
My main goal for the summer was to visit my daughter in New Jersey and see her new apartment, visit my family in West Virginia, and see the east coast. I’ve seen almost all of the rest of the…
Day 366 – Driving the five great lakes.
In the course of a week we drove through all five great lakes and took a few side trips along the way. We killed a couple of weeks exploring Michigan’s Upper Peninsula waiting out our time (for covid restrictions)…