It was all so simple in our former sticks-and-bricks house. We had a lovely DSL line running into our home, feeding a constant, consistent broadband data pipeline. We could game. We could stream. It was heavenly, and we took it so for granted.

Then we went on the road full-time. We have a decent set up for data and several options. Our primary internet data connection is through an AT&T hotspot with an unlimited data plan. Since we live inside a metal box (think Faraday cage), we installed a WeBoost  4G-X cell signal enhancer antenna system which boosts our cell signal and re-broadcasts it inside our motorhome. Most campgrounds also offer wifi. It sounds good, right?

In reality, our connectivity is highly variable. It all depends on the cell signal strength where we are sitting, and the number of folks trying to connect. In a major city, our signal is usually fairly robust. But, we typically don’t camp inside a major city – we are at a campground somewhere on the fringe of civilization. As a result, our cell signal is not so robust. Even with a strong signal, 4G data speed is limited. Slow uploads. Laggy web pages. Don’t even THINK about streaming. One must exercise a great deal of patience.

But wait, there’s the campground wifi! That works, right?

In reality, not so much. In all of our travels, I’ve encountered very few campground wifi systems that are any better than our mobile hotspot. I have run across one or two that had a very good signal, even streaming-worthy. But that is the rare exception. Most of the time, it is fair useless.

We make do. Some areas are better than others. Now that the COVID restrictions are easing, we can once again haunt Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts and take advantage of their wifi for uploading/downloading larger files. It works.

But, the problem is, I’m spoiled right now. At our Tucson winter home, we subscribed to broadband internet and experienced the glory of 40 Mbs download speed and 5 Mbs upload speed. Video streaming!! Both of us at once!! Fast file uploads! Crystal-clear Zoom calls! It was heaven.

Now we’re back on the road, and back to low-speed and unreliable data streams. <Heavy sigh>

I guess we’ll just have to enjoy the great outdoors!

After 4 months stationary, I must admit that I felt a bit of moving-day performance anxiety. This was the longest period our bus had ever just sat in place. We started packing up the day before our move, to ensure we had plenty of time to complete all of the break-camp steps. Happily, everything worked as designed. The jacks went up (although a bit squeakier than usual), the slides went in, and new slide toppers retracted uneventfully. We checked and double checked each other, just to be sure we hadn’t forgotten anything after so long!

We left a day earlier than we had originally planned in order to change out our four drive-axle tires. They were the last of the original Goodyear tires, and at 5 years old were due for replacement. We bid goodbye to our Tucson friends and headed out early to the tire shop for new Michelins. We had figured on spending the day getting this done, but were finished around noon. We called our Sedona-area campground and were able to check in a day early! All in all, our travel day went quite uneventfully — which is the way I like it!

We’re settled in at a brand-new campground in the small town of Clarksdale, about 30 minutes from Sedona. Rain Spirit RV resort didn’t even exist when we were here three years ago. It’s relatively small, with about 65 RV sites, and only a dozen or so big-rig capable sites. But the sites are solid, level and open, and the facilities are beautiful. There is a pool and hot tub, a small exercise room, and a small lounge with a lending book and DVD library. The individual bathroom units are tiled, clean, spacious and comfortable. It’s a fantastic little RV park, and super affordable. It’s also in a very pretty setting, with a view of hills all around. The only negative is the internet signal quality in the area. After months of high-speed internet, it is tough to adjust to a minimal bandwidth again!

Cottonwood’s “Old Town” is just a couple of miles up the road with its shops and restaurants. We’ve already found a couple of new favorite eateries. Hog Wild BBQ has some of the best ribs we’ve ever had. And Mai Thai on Main makes some absolutely fantastic curry. It’s a great home for a month!

And of course, there’s nearby Sedona! Our very first day here, Jeff called me mid-bike-ride. He said, “I forgot how just how beautiful it is here. Please, can we come back here next year?!”

You bet!

Once again, the winter season has flown by! Tomorrow we head out on our 2021 West Coast loop! Although many venues here were COVID-closed, we did manage to get out and do some sightseeing. I’ll share some of the highlights.

We visited several interesting museums during our stay. I already wrote about our visit to Biosphere 2. Another unique display was at the Titan Missile Museum, located just south of here. A guided tour takes you through an honest-to-gosh missile silo, complete with a (non functional) missile. The tour guide explains the detailed shift change procedures, life while stationed in the silo, and the sequence of events required for a launch. Jeff even got to push the launch button! It’s not a long tour, about 45 minutes, but it is quite interesting.

We also toured the Pima Air and Space Museum. There’s not many “Space” exhibits, but there are hangers and acres of airplanes of all types and vintages. It included everything from small kit-built hobby planes to a Presidential 747. There were commercial and military aircraft of every era. During non-COVID times, there are docents and guided tours, including a tour of the enormous airplane “boneyard”. We just wandered around and looked at a whole lot of planes. If you are an airplane buff, you’ll be in heaven! I got airplane overload after a while.

Organ Pipe National Monument lies a couple of hours southwest of Tucson, adjoining the Mexico border. The distinctive organ pipe cactus is abundant in Mexico, but only grows in the US in this area. The park has several hiking trails and scenic drives. A downloadable nature guide allows for an informative, self-paced driving tour of this beautiful area.

Of course, the Seguaro National Park is right here in Tucson. We did a fair bit of hiking in the park, as well as in nearby Sabino Canyon Recreational Area. I’m not necessarily a huge fan of the desert environment, but I’m warming up to it after this winter’s experience. The environment seemed rather brown and dead when we arrived, but a few winter rainstorms caused the area to green and even bloom. The rains caused seasonal waterfalls to flow, which was quite exciting! Seeing water flow in the normally dry desert seems almost miraculous.

Of course, the best part of our stay has been meeting some fantastic people and making new, great friends. We have exciting plans for this year, but we’ll be back in November to rejoin our friends and continue exploring the Tucson area.

2020 was a tough year. When we arrived at our Tucson winter season spot last November, I was despondent. Activities were cancelled, we knew no one here, and I was dreading the prospect of months of lonely isolation. Fortunately, our experience here was MUCH better than I ever could have expected!

Our current location here in Tucson seems to attract a much more active crowd than last year’s location in Florida. The very first day here, Jeff met another avid mountain biker. That contact led to our participation in a small “12 beers of Rincon” gathering and the opportunity to meet and forge connections with a new group of great friends.

That little group became our “quaranteam” for this Covid season, satisfying the need for human connection that we all craved. We have found kindred spirits here. Jeff has mountain biking buddies. We’ve done several spectacular hikes with one couple. We’ve experienced a couple of great day-long motorcycle rides with another small group. We’ve enjoyed outings to a local dining/entertainment venue. We regularly meet for “happy hour” to share beverages, snacks, conversation and lots of laughter. The ladies (crafters all) have conducted crafting sessions and classes. I taught a Swedish weaving class, learned how to make chenille pot holders, and we mandala’d rocks. We admire each other’s creations. We giggle and support one another in group text. These folks are interesting, funny, kind, and generous. We’ve become our own little family.

Their camaraderie saved my sanity, and restored my spirits. What an unexpected blessing in this crazy pandemic year!

As we approach the end of the season here, we are all making plans for next year. The park offers returning campers the option to select and reserve sites before opening reservations to the public. As we jockeyed for proximity to one other, I felt as though I were in middle school comparing schedules with classmates — “What site did you get? When will you be back?”

Our time here is winding down, but we look forward to our return in November ….. to see our friends.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday, everyone!

Being the advance planners that we are, we now have almost all of our 2021 reservations completed. 2020 was a year of having to be flexible …. hopefully 2021 will go more according to plan! This is officially our second “West Coast” loop and we’ve planned a route that includes a combination of favorite spots and new locations.

We’re starting off in Sedona. Our last visit was just too short, so we’re staying a full month this time. There’s plenty there to keep us busy! From Sedona, we’re heading up to the Grand Canyon, our first visit there in the rig. Jeff has an overnight hike planned, down into the Canyon. After that, we’re off to Utah for a couple of weeks at Hurricane (a favorite place) and a month near Park City (new to us). The Park City area offers downhill mountain biking and a ton of hiking opportunities.

From Utah, we’re scooting up to Kalispell, Montana for a three week stay near my sister. My siblings and parents are flying in for a week, which will be our first time all together since the stupid pandemic began. Family vacations are the BEST!

After Montana, we head back to a familiar campground for a month-long stay in northwest Washington State. Originally we had booked an Alaska cruise out of Vancouver during this time, but …. that’s not gonna happen. As of this writing, Canada has closed its waters to cruise ships until Feb 2022, effectively killing the 2021 Alaska cruise season. We’ll just shift our Alaska cruise plans to 2022 and enjoy beautiful Washington!

Next up, we are spending a couple of weeks next to Olympic National Park. We took a day trip there last time, and want to explore that area more thoroughly. It offers a unique and beautiful temperate rain-forest ecosystem. After that, we head south to Eugene, Oregon (a favorite place) and then west to Bend, Oregon (a new spot). From there, it’s on to Reno / Lake Tahoe for a couple of weeks. We have been to Reno before, but it’s been many years.

From Reno, we head to one of my very favorite RV Parks – The Vines in Paso Robles, CA. That is the only campground restroom I’ve ever seen that boasts chandeliers!! We are booked for a couple of weeks, but will only be physically present for a few days, because we are flying back east for a wedding!

Yes, our son is getting married to his longtime girlfriend on October 23! I couldn’t be happier or more excited! Their wedding will take place at Fontana Village, in North Carolina just south of the Great Smokies National Park. It’s a lovely little spot for a destination wedding and a place that holds fond memories of family vacations there. It’s will be a small group — essentially just her family and ours. What a blessing — looking forward to it so much!

After the wedding, we’re off to Palm Springs for a couple of weeks, will make a brief stop in Quartzite, and then head back to our winter season home here in Tucson. But wait, there’s more! As soon as we settle the bus into its winter site, we’ll be flying out to Florida for a 12 night Southern Caribbean cruise! (Assuming, of course, that cruising is back to normal by then!)

2020 was a very challenging year. 2021 is getting off to a slow start, but here’s hoping for a year of smooth and enjoyable travel ……

2020 started off so normally, with Jeff and I spending the holidays with family in Indiana. We were enjoying our winter in a great Florida RV resort. January saw us putting the final touches on our newly restored Gatlinburg cabin which had been damaged in a June 2019 dryer-fire. It took longer than expected to complete repairs, but by the end of January it was back on the rental program, better than new! In early February, we embarked on a fabulous Southern Caribbean cruise with my sister and had an absolutely fantastic time.

Then … COVID. The pandemic threw our plans into disarray (as it did with everyone). We paused our travels, hunkering down in our cabin for a few weeks to see what was going to happen. By the end of May, we resumed our planned Northeast loop, albeit in a limited fashion. We made the most of our planned stops, and did what we could at each, considering pandemic closures and risks.

For me, the Northeast was just …. meh. Maybe it would have been different in a non-COVID year. There were certainly highlights ….. walking the Boston Freedom Trail, delicious fresh seafood (lobster!) from the Portland fish market, the beauty of Acadia National Park, ascending Mt. Washington on a narrow winding road, visiting a maple syrup farm, touring the Lancaster Amish area … to name a few. But, on the whole, we found campgrounds to be older and not so big-rig friendly and the roads confusing and expensive (tolls). There are some cities I’d like to re-visit, but I wouldn’t do it in the RV. It would be far easier to just stay in a hotel near the tourist areas.

The most challenging aspect of 2020 for me was the feeling of social isolation. Our lifestyle tends to be isolating anyway (because we’re constantly on the move), but we found we could compensate by staying at resorts with planned social activities. This year, that strategy didn’t work out so well. My family began holding weekly Zoom calls, which helped greatly, but just wasn’t the same as that in-person connection.

On the other hand, we have so much to be grateful for. Our family members have stayed healthy throughout this pandemic. Financially, we’re all doing fine. We stayed safe during our travels this year and didn’t experience any major issues or breakdowns. We tried to make the best of our situation …. just like everyone else.

I made the (controversial) decision to fly home from Tucson for the holidays. I mitigated the risk as best I could by self-isolating for 10 days prior to travel and obtaining a negative COVID test. I flew on an off-peak day (Christmas Day), and even sprung for a first-class Delta ticket to facilitate social distancing. Hopefully, that will prove to be good enough. So now, I’ve come full circle, celebrating the holidays with my family, looking toward the New Year.

And, there are many things to look forward to in 2021. Vaccines are being deployed, promising an eventual return to normalcy. We have made friends in our current winter spot, so can enjoy some limited socializing the remainder of this season. We have an interesting West Coast loop planned, including visits with family and friends. We have TWO cruises booked, one to Alaska in the summer and one back to the Southern Caribbean after Thanksgiving.

And the biggest joy of all is that our son is getting married! He finally popped the question last May to his long-time girlfriend and they are planning an October wedding near the Smoky Mountains. I couldn’t be more delighted! We love her, and I already think of her as my daughter. They are planning an intimate destination wedding, with essentially just her family and my family. The prospect of a joyous weekend event spent with loved ones, and WITHOUT the spectre of COVID, just makes my heart sing.

2020 — good riddance! Bring on 2021!

Happy New Year everyone!

Last year, I wrote about staying at Recreation Plantation for the winter. RP is an active RV community with mostly seasonal residents. With a full-time activity office and variety of recreational facilities, the place is hopping! There are any number of activities and social events to plug yourself into. If you are bored — it’s your own fault! I made some great friends, learned new skills, kept super-busy, and just loved it.

When we decided to winter in Arizona this year, we looked at a variety of RV parks and zeroed in on Rincon Country West, in Tucson. At over 1100 sites, the park has beautiful facilities and offers a wide variety of activities for residents. We arrived in mid-November and settled in for a four month stay.

The facilities are quite extensive. The main recreation center is equipped with a large auditorium, meeting hall with kitchen facilities, swimming pool, indoor hot tub, lending library, fitness studio, and a dozen classrooms equipped for specific activities: cards, sewing, lapidary/silversmith, pottery/ceramics, stained glass, general crafts, digital photography, ham radio, billiards, and a large wood shop. An enormous outdoor model train facility sits just outside the rec center and is regularly maintained and run by the Garden Railroad Club. Other outdoor facilities include shuffleboard, tennis, pickleball, basketball, horse shoes, putting green, and bocce ball. There’s even a beauty shop right on site! The Loop paved bike trail is just outside the back gate, and mountain biking trails are a short riding distance away. Jeff can literally hop on his bicycle and ride out to his trails. The facility hosts more than 100 activity clubs including musical ensembles, arts and crafts, and sports. This place looked to be right up our alley!!

But ….. Covid.

For the 2020 season, most of the activities simply aren’t safe to hold. So there goes my exercise classes, card games, choral group, theater group, and arts/crafts lessons. Although the park is still hosting reduced-occupancy Bingo and concerts, I’m not comfortable attending indoor events, not with COVID spiking the way it is. Frankly, it really got me down — staring down at an entire season of boredom and isolation. On the other hand, Jeff found a mountain biking buddy literally the first day we were here. All of the months we’ve traveled, he’s had to bike by himself. But here, he’s found other kids to play with! Johnny is even more hard core than Jeff when it comes to biking (if you can imagine that).

Johnny is also into craft beer and is the ringleader for a “12 days of beer” event. The premise is that 12 folks meet on 12 consecutive evenings. Each evening, one person brings a new craft beer for the group to try – and usually brings a light snack as well. The event is held outside at Johnny’s site (bring your own chair) to facilitate social distancing. Jeff signed us up!

Joining that group has probably been the best thing I could have done. It has given us a chance to meet and bond with some really nice folks here. I showed off my latest Swedish Weaving project, and the ladies want me to teach them how to do it. So, we’ve planned a class for after the first of the year. It gives me something to prepare for and look forward to. Being able to regularly interact with real, live people has definitely given me a psychological boost.

It’s not the season I wanted ….. but it’s a start.

As we continued winding our way toward our winter-over spot in Tucson, we stopped at one of our favorite little cities — Las Cruces, NM. We stayed a couple of weeks here when we made our original swing out west, and we couldn’t wait to visit here again.

We arrived on a Friday afternoon, and first thing Saturday morning we headed out to the Las Cruces Farmers Market. For a relatively small town, they offer a fantastic Farmer’s market with lots of vendors and variety. We had hoped against hope that our favorite vendor was here …. and he was! This guy makes the best kettle corn in the world. No, seriously. We’ve eaten kettle corn all over the country and this guys’ is the very best. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the ratio of popcorn to sugar, or maybe it’s the Love. In any case, it’s just the best. We bought two enormous bags; one regular and one cinnamon-sugar. YUM! The market also has the best price on honey I’ve found anywhere at only $15/quart. (Going price is typically $20/quart or more). We perused a variety of local goods, including strung locally-grown red and green chilis. I could have picked up a burlap bag full of fresh-picked chili peppers — if only I knew what to do with them! I love this market.

Another day we headed out to White Sands, previously a National Monument and now a National Park. I had to get my updated Passport stamp! We drove through the park and walked over the dunes — such an unusual place.

We dined again at the historic La Posta de Mesilla restaurant to enjoy some fantastic New Mexico cuisine in the 1850s-era building. Wandering through the historic village of Mesilla, the dearth of visitors was apparent. I wonder how many of the little shops and restaurants just won’t make it through the next year.

We also headed back to Heart of the Desert pistachio farm to pick up a supply. I don’t think they are doing their farm tours right now, but we stocked up on flavors you just don’t see elsewhere such as red chili, and garlic/green chili. We attempted to find the Dos Viejos winery that we liked so much on our last visit, but alas, it seems that it is now entirely defunct. We also tried to find the winery that stocked the Monks Reserve dessert wine that we liked, but that one had changed ownership and none of that wine was left. Too bad.

Unfortunately, during this stay, there several things things that we just couldn’t do, thanks to COVID. All of the museums were closed, including the Farm Museum and Art Museum. We had hoped to catch the Museum of Space History in Alamagordo this trip, but no luck. We also looked at going back to the hot springs in Truth or Consequences, but access was extremely limited due to COVID, so we decided it wasn’t worth it right now.

Despite the limitations, Las Cruces remains a little town that we like to visit. After Las Cruces, onward to Tucson and our winter-season spot!