With a whirlwind Florida winter behind us, we’re now getting ready to set out on the road again with the Airstream for another western adventure!
But, before our 2026 trip commences, we had one more very important commencement to attend.
James “Chris” Mather, our youngest child and also our favorite son, graduated on May 9th from Florida Polytechnic University as a Mechanical Engineer.
Chris was completely robbed of his high school graduation due to Covid. Instead of crossing a stage to receive his high school diploma in 2020, he was handed a brown paper bag by a hazmat suit wearing teacher in a drive through line. The brown paper bag contained his cap, gown, tassel, a Class of ’20 t-shirt, Class of ’20 face mask, a bottle of Germ-X and his diploma. That moment didn’t quite demonstrate how excited we felt about Chris graduating from high school. So to say the least, we’ve been counting down the days to Chris’ university graduation. We’re so very proud!
After our big blowout RV camping trip this summer, Chris heads off to work for Parker Hannifin in a rotational set of roles that start him in Kearney, Nebraska!
We are very proud of Chris and excited for him!
So, now to the details about our upcoming journey… we’re headed back to Utah where we’ll be meeting up with Hannah, Chris, and Maya (Chris’ girlfriend) and we’ve rented them an RV! We will be doing a ten day trip to see Utah’s Mighty Five! (Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Canyonlands National Park, and Arches National Park) as well as a drive through Monument Valley and a few days in Page, AZ to visit the Antelope Slot canyons. We’re so darn excited to finally get to a few National Parks with the kids! It was always one of those things we wanted to do while they were still in high school, but if your children are in ANY kind of activity or sport these days, they’re expected to stay through holiday and spring breaks. It just never happened until NOW 🙂
The kids all fly in and out of Las Vegas. That gives us exactly 11 days after Chris’ graduation to hustle our truck, camper, dogs, and ourselves all the way from SW FL to Zion National Park in SW Utah. It’s about 2400 miles and we try to keep our driving to about 300-350 miles a day, so it’ll take us about a week to get out there, without any issues!
We’re also hoping to meet up with some family and friends while on the 2026 adventure too, so maybe we’ll see you on the road!
Following the 10 days we’ll be spending camping with the kids and after we drop them back off in Las Vegas, it’ll be just the two of us again and we’re off for some new adventures. The plan is to see a number of national parks and sites in the southwest and south including Joshua Tree National Park, Lake Havasu, Sedona, the Poozeum in Williams, AZ (this is a repeat visit haha), Saguaro National Park, White Sands National Park, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Area 51 at Roswell, NM, Fayetteville, AR and then back to Hot Springs Village for the 4th of July. Stay tuned because it should be a great trip!
More new places visited means that we will be adding to our places visited sticker collection.
We’re off to pack, but here’s where we stand before we leave on this 60 day, 10,000 mile adventure…
TaterTotTales 