Author Archives: Ann & Ben (co-authors)

According to Google, at least, but our research hasn’t been very thorough. We think we found proof of this theory in one of the local gift shops though. Ann gets to pick most of the stickers for our Airstream door collection and the Moose sticker is her pick but Ben saw the “I Love Big Tetons” and he just had to have it to prove the boob theory (🙄).

Now, on to regular business and our agenda for the day. As promised, we planned for a 4:45 wake up and sunrise pics of the Mouton barn at Mormon Row!

Didn’t happen lol. We didn’t wake up until almost 6 am, after probably the best night of sleep in a week! No tornados, no thunderstorms, no highways, just dead quiet. There’s a mild threat of bears in our location, but we didn’t even hear them. We slept like the dead and it was fantastic!

After a leisurely breakfast and a little more writing, and let’s be honest, after allowing the temperature outside to at least at reach 50° (which is still highly questionable in terms of appropriateness for exiting the cozy airstream), we suited up in layers, boots, sunscreen, and armed ourselves with water, energy snacks, folded up rain jacket, and of course, bear spray and headed in to the park for a big day of fresh air and incredible scenery!

We did, however, leave our infamous wiener dog, Pepper, to guard the Airstream. She sadly passed away this past March, but as she was in the process of crossing the rainbow bridge, I promised her she’d be coming along with us, in one form or another, as she has on every prior trip. She’s just a little ashy this time.

Our destination, the Jenny Lake Loop, a moderate 7.1 mile hike leading all the way around Jenny Lake. The little dashed line is the trail route. The goal is to start at the visitor center and hike around the whole dang thing. If you’re a big fat cheater, there’s a little pontoon boat ferry that will cut the hike to 2 or 2.5 miles, but we’re neither cheaters or wimps. We planned to hit the whole thing!

We started at the red dot (picture below), expertly photoshopped in as you can tell. Didn’t even use AI!

And went all the way around the lake, back to the red dot.

We saw some interesting critters on our journey. There’s a tie for the two cutest. This is the first time we’ve attempted video in the blog, so we’ll see how we do but it’s so much better in video format.

Critter number one that we saw…

And then shortly after cute critter number one, we ran into a cousin of our dear Pepper, may her soul rest in peace (even though we’re convinced she’s searching HARD for Ann in any animal form she think will get Ann’s attention).

Despite being distracted by cute wildlife, in keeping with tradition, there was an incident. Luckily the incident was FAR from the bear!

We’ll note the location of the incident on the map below:

If you’ll notice, the incident took place as far away from modern facilities and from where we parked, as was possible. Ann was pretty proud to make it this far, but it occurred with little warning, as is common with these types of incidents. At the time, we were hiking on a very steep hillside, with only a narrow path to walk, and steep, heavily vegetated hillsides above and below. There was no stepping off the path, let alone stepping off the path and squatting. A Walmart bag shoved down her pants was a solution Ann seriously considered, but she held on and we pressed on for about 1/4 mile more.

Of course, just as we find a semi-suitable spot, that’s when the isolated trail suddenly became more popular than a drive thru line at Chick-Fil-A. Ben was running interference and holding everything, while Ann quickly and discretely explored some of the local flora just off the trail, and mischief was officially managed. Luckily we didn’t have any observant 5 year olds pointing and asking “Mom, why is that lady sitting in the bushes? Can I go sit in the bushes too?”

With the pressure relieved, we were definitely quick to abandon that area and move on around the lake, which seemed to never end! What was laid out as a 7.1 mile hike, ended up racking up just over 9 miles and it took just under 5 hours to complete the loop. 21,000 steps according to the old Apple Watch. Way more than we intended for a couple of Florida flatlanders on their first hike with real elevation change in at least a year, and we are now two exhausted campers, with zero plans for the rest of the night!

We are still on the quest for an awake-ish bear (no need to be totally awake) and a moose (we’d accept a sleeping moose too), but for now, this bronze moose at the visitor center will have to suffice.

Maybe tomorrow will be the sunrise pics, since we are likely going to be asleep by 8 pm tonight!

About an hour after setting up in Rawlins, supporting the local economy via Walmart, and hogging the laundry facilities (I would do it again in a heartbeat), Ben was checking on the next few steps of the trip, and had an “oh s**t” moment. He realized that he never made a reservation for the RV park at Grand Teton. During the winter months, this area is pretty well closed down, and Ben had emailed and called while they were in hibernation mode, so the reservation was never set.

In a light panic, Ben quickly called the campground. Thankfully, the campground just opened last Friday and they were still slow, so they were able to accommodate us for our original dates.

With a reservation secured, and an FAQ on the website that said in no uncertain terms do not show up before 2 pm, we had a relaxing morning before setting out on the four hour trek.

It was another gorgeous drive from Rawlins to Moran, WY, just outside of Grand Teton National Park. We crossed the continental divide three times somehow? Cell service dropped from 5G to LTE to 3G and then just a bunch of little dots. Good thing there aren’t many turns out here.

We were chased by the weather again today, but it was a halfhearted chase at best. Dark skies, a light sprinkle here and there, and we were through to sunny weather.

At the overlook heading down towards Teton, we stopped off to stretch our legs a bit and get edumacated on some history. Ok, well Ann actually read all the signs someone had carefully created for the rest stop, explaining the history of the area and who explored there. She knows me well and only gave me the ADHD summary and basically told me that people “like” Grizzly Adams settled the area. Turns out, the guy in the picture might have looked like Grizzly Adams, but this is NOT where Grizzly Adams stomped around (I so had Ben convinced of this LOL. If he’d actually taken the time to read the info at the rest area, he would have known who actually stomped around this area but now I’m not gonna tell him). It was not until I was writing this and questioned Ann, that she started giggling uncontrollably, so I did a little googling and found out that Grizzly Adams was a California dude.

This was also the first time in about 8 years that Ann had the opportunity to stand in the snow (I kinda hope it’s my last time and I only did because it was 70°!).

As we got to our campsite, the laws of supply and demand were quite apparent. At the only gas station and convenience store for about 30 miles in either direction, as well as the owner/operator for our little campground, the prices for fuel (diesel at $4.99) and ice ($4 per bag) were shocking but given our lack of options, understandable. But we sure are glad we stocked up back at the old Walmart!

After we got set up, we decided to grab a park map and head in to Glacier for a teaser before the first full day there. We worked our way down to Antelope Flats and Mormon Row, hoping to arrive before sunset. We were late by about a half hour! Next we’ll try to time it for sunrise, but since sunrise is at 5:45 am here, it’s a bit of a long shot (Ugh, Ben is going to kill me with this sunrise crap!).

On our first evening, we saw a huge herd of bison grazing on the far edge of the valley and a great blue heron, effortlessly cruising above a winding river bed, but we did not see the moose and bear that Ann is really seeking (without getting to close, of course)!

On the way back out, we turned the truck around to go back to a bridge crossing a wide, shallow creek. I was able to catch the sunset boiling behind the mountain range and I also grabbed the black and white of the Mormon Row barn (both pics are at the beginning of this post).

Headed back to the airstream for a low key evening and a fresh start at 4:45 am to go catch some sunrise photos (this is Ann laughing).

While we had a beautiful day with David and Katie and Peter, the day before, in Denver and then a quiet late afternoon up in the hills, we knew a fairly major storm front was moving through the area. Of course it was. Cold air temps, non stop drizzling rain, periodic hard rain, and as the temps dipped into the 30’s that evening, stuff that looked suspiciously like sleet, hail, and snow. With weather like that coming down on us, Ann was in for some rough sailing on our final day in Denver. So, it was with limited other options that Sunday was declared an inside day at the Central City campground. Ben fiddled around with indoor maintenance projects that are just an accepted part of traveling across miles of highway in a thin metal tube. Ann ventured outside of the camper exactly once, and then, like Punxsutawny Phil, saw the weather conditions, felt the 40 degree air, and quickly retreated back inside the cozy Airstream with a mildly reproachful glare directed at Ben.  

The nice thing about being in a camper is that if you don’t like the weather around you, you can just pick up and move somewhere else, and that is exactly what we did the next morning. 

The next day dawned with clearer skies but very brisk temps, with 34 degrees showing on the weather app. After an expedited teardown, a brief conversation with Nosey Nora, as Chuck ran through his own teardown procedures next door, we stopped to refill the depleted propane tanks, and headed out towards Rawlins, WY.

We almost made it all the way out of the campground before someone’s tummy signaled distress. So, once again, we stopped, turned on the onboard water pump, and made use of the bathroom that we take with us wherever we go. Not mentioning names of course. Keeping it classy and discrete. As a side note, Ann is loving the grey puffer coat she borrowed from the Noni.

Mission accomplished, we headed back on to I-70 and started the journey north!

We crossed the continental divide at Berthoud Pass at 11,306′. Ann was able to be coaxed out of the warm truck for a photo, and then it was back in for the trek through Colorado by way of Fraser (Winter Park, where Ben and David have skied for years), Granby, and up Colorado 125 through the Arapahoe National Forest. Actually, I just found out that we did the entire 125, from its southern start just outside of Granby, all the way to its northern end, just after it crosses the Wyoming state line.

I told Ann, “Hey this is pretty neat!”

She said “ok”, clearly not impressed.

To which I replied, “Well, how many highways have we driven end to end? It’s not that common. Have you driven I-80 end to end? Noooo. I-40? Noooo. Have you driven I-75 end to end? Noooactuallyyeeeeeesssss. Yes, I guess we did”

I guess it is not as rare as I thought, but I still think its neat.

Anyway, the road was absolutely beautiful, with pine covered rolling hills with surprises around every corner. Unique houses, farm animals, old barns, new barns, and next to us for most of the way, the very rivers and streams that carved the canyon through which we were driving.

And there was nobody on it.

We had no one pressing on us from the back. We weren’t stuck behind Ma and Pa from Kansas going 20 under either. It was just wide open and the only thing that kept taking us to the side of the road was Ann’s gastrointestinal woes. Probably more like WHOAS, if you ask me. But since she’s still in recovery mode from the Denver area, I’ll let it go, for now. Trust me, there will be many more times to make fun of her GI issues, when she finally thaws out.

The most exciting folks we encountered weren’t people at all, but rather it was two mountain goats standing on the white line on the inside of a sharpish curve. We just barely missed them and still stayed in our lane, but it was close. We think they were mid-mountain-goat-coitus and we definitely interrupted the mood. They were just as surprised to see us as we were them.

As we popped out of the top of 125, we headed just about 20 miles east to our home for the evening, Rawlins, WY. Population 8000. Had a very convenient Walmart right close by, so we grabbed a refill on groceries and topped off the fuel, as we knew were soon headed in the National Park land, where things are way more spread out and far more expensive.

Since we got into the campground right at check in time, we were pretty much the first to even be settled in, but we knew many more were coming. We decided to get ahead of the crowd and get started on laundry. Things were getting a bit funky in our little camper, so we were due. We gathered everything up, including the very Duluth Trading gear we had been wearing since we bought it, and we were very reluctantly removing it so we could wear it again later, and hauled it down to the little laundry room.

To be fair, for a little campground, this place had four newish SpeedQueen washers and four newish dryers. It was a nice little setup. After a very intense but also very brief internal debate, Ann bought every quarter the campground had on hand and decided to load three out of the four machines. Just as she got them coined up, started, and tried to sneak out for the 25 minutes the loads would take, in walked Mary from Indiana with an equally large armload. Mary glanced at the three machines in operation, then down at her double armload of wrinkled bloomers, inside-out socks, and wadded up t-shirts, and then finally back up at Ann. AWKWARD! If you’re ever at a campground laundry with Ann, watch your back. And if you’re a sweet little lady from the Midwest, especially watch out. She’ll get you every time and she’s learned how to smile while she’s doing it!

So,

Once laundry was wrapped up, however awkwardly, dinner was done, and we had a few hours before hitting the sack. So, we opened up the windows and turned on the fans, and really hammered some fresh air through the airstream, as it had been mostly closed up since we left Florida due to outside temps and lots of rain. The fresh air, pleasant temps, and very sunny afternoon was great after the complete lock down the day prior.

While the weather was almost perfect that afternoon, we did have a bit of a noisy evening as our specific campsite was situated as legally close to I-80 as it could get. So, when the big semis would roll by headed west into the setting sun, the wind from the fast moving trucks would ruffle our hair. Our site was also directly adjacent to the end of a major drag through town that let people get on to I-80 from there. We are fairly certain that each and every one of the 8000 residents of Rawlins took a turn right next to our campsite that evening, each with varying volumes of stereo systems and taste in music, engine horsepower, deferred brake maintenance, power-steering leaks, and quite a few ineffective or absent exhaust systems. At some point that night, we heard and felt every one of them.

Thankfully, the airstream has a really good fan system and it does a great job drowning out most outside noises. So with that kicked on, we called it a night. On to Grand Teton in the morning!

Our last day in Central City was a disaster for Ann. We woke up shivering to a brisk 34 degree morning. Predictably, Ann disappeared back under the covers as soon as she heard the sleet hitting the Airstream. There were also snowflakes falling, which I didn’t mention because I didn’t feel the need to make matters worse. GAME OVER for Ann today. That leaves me with a decision about what to do with my day. While I was deciding whether to settle into a book or have another cup of coffee (most likely both), I noticed some commotion behind us. Directly behind us, down the hill slightly, is a tent site, which was empty last night. Suddenly I wasn’t bored anymore, because I was intrigued with the poor father setting up the tent there . 

The tent sites at this campground are extremely nice. Generously sized, compacted, smooth, level pads with a single weatherproof outlet close by, a firepit, and a picnic table. They are a short walk from the parking area for tent campers. David and Peter set up camp when we were here a few years ago and the sites were perfect. Close to the bathrooms, sheltered from the wind, and they offer some privacy. 

However, this morning, there was not nearly enough privacy to hide the spectacle of this unfortunate father’s project. 

The morning started with the not so gentle slamming of car doors in the near distance, just out of sight through the dense pine trees. The first up the little hill was Mom and Dad, dragging expensive hard-cased suitcases through the pea gravel trail to the site. The young family, with two daughters and one son, all appearing to be under the edge of ten, lugged all of the suitcases and several large new-looking weatherproof bags to the edge of the tent site. 

The kids immediately split off in different directions, with the girls picking their favorite suitcases upon which to sit and scroll through their phones, plugged in to the single outdoor outlet like umbilical cords, while the boy donned what must have been Dad’s also new-looking large raincoat and proceeded to find good sticks with which to swat objects in the nearby trees and to engage in swordplay with imaginary foes in epic battles. 

Mom must have had tummy issues as she disappeared quickly to the local facilities to take care of business. We can certainly relate. 

This left Dad on his own to set up camp. 

Over the next hour, Ann and I were captivated. 

The unfolding alone was a fairly massive undertaking. Dad poured the contents of the largest bag out on the ground and approximately 200 cubic yards of lightweight blue and grey material slowly and with the faintest of light whispers, slumped out on to the center of the tent site. 

Dad picked what looked like it might be a corner (it was not) and proceeded to drag it toward the edge of the site. The whole wad followed, effectively shifting the position, but not the shape, of the lump of tent towards the edge. 

This was repeated several times, as Dad desperately sought out a side, any side, to start actually unfolding this mess. 

He finally found one side and was able to repeat the process four times, revealing the potential of seeing what the final size of the tent might be. And it was huge. At least 12ftx12ft. 

And it was upside down. 

Flipping it over proved to be easier than the original unfolding, but not by much. With two people, each could have grabbed a corner and walked it backwards toward the other side, then repeated the process with the two other corners. By himself, he had to pick a single corner to drag backwards, and we watched as the tent did not gently and calmly fold back upon itself, rather, it simply revealed yet unseen layers of thin blue and gray material, with no apparent marking or seams to indicate if a true corner was present or if we were looking at a door or a side. Additionally, the opposite corner also pulled along, with the result being a roughly tent shaped pile of material with no defined corners any longer. 

15 laps around the tent pile later, and dad was able to get the corners in the right spots, the right side up, and the door facing the right direction.  

Success! 

But, it was still a two dimensional tent, and tents really need to be three dimensional to be comfortable. 

Out came another bag. This one made odd rattles and muted clanks as he worked to untie the little knot at the top. Once untied, he turned the bag over to dump it in the ground, and while a few tent poles started to slide out, they were all effectively one unit joined by elastic strings down the middle and caught up in each other. After much bag shaking and muttering under his breath, the bag puked out a thick bundle of loosely but at the same time doggedly connected fiberglass sticks. 

The separation of piles of sticks in to smaller piles of sticks, while dad knelt on his knees in the apparently moist gravel by the pad, took another 15 minutes. All it required was a single loop of stubborn elastic to foil the separation attempts, and unwinding the connected 3’ long sticks sometimes ended up re-winding previously separated components. I felt dad’s pain. 

I should mention that at many times throughout this entire ordeal, dad looked over to the kids or to see if mom was back, in order to ask for help with the other end of something, but alas, he was on his own. 

Now that the tent poles were segregated into individual piles, which dad wisely spaced very far apart to avoid a spontaneous re-entanglement, he began the process of identifying the little loops, hooks, Velcro straps, and tunnels in the wispy, square shaped, tent fabric pile. 

He selected a pile of tent poles and began fitting them to one other to form a very long and wobbly single pole. As he carefully threaded one end of the pole in to the selected loop, tunnel, or hook in the tent pile, the forward, inch-worming motion of the beginning of the pole often left the rest of the pole lagging behind, causing separation and no end of reversing course to let the laggard pole sections catch up. 

There were four, tent-width spanning poles to be deployed. Two different lengths. Poor Dad got each one in the wrong place on the tent, leading to a slow motion removal of the poles, which caused the same separation issues as before, but this time, the separated ends were shrouded in tent material loops, forcing dad to try to manipulate the pole sections back together without pinching tent material in between. He was mostly unsuccessful in this approach, but at this point, determination and sheer willpower propelled him forward. 

Finally, after much shifting, re-routing, adjusting, bending, and not a little bit of quiet cursing, the tent stood, proud, strong, and almost ready for its inhabitants. 

Ann observed that they had better get working on the rain fly, as clouds were moving in. 

Sure enough, the first drops started to fall about that time. Mind you, it had been overcast all morning and while not windy, the temperature stood at about 45°. It was not ideal conditions for tent erection. 

As it turns out, the rain fly also had two bags, and also employed dad’s favorite style of tent stakes. So, while the rain misted down and the rest of the family waited in the car, dad wrestled through the same process for the rain fly. With the practice from phase one, you would be justified in thinking that the rain fly would go much faster. You would be incorrect. While simpler in construction, the rain fly had the added complication of needing to be installed on top of the tent, which stood 6-7’ off the ground and spanned about a 14’ square. As dad got one side prepared, we would watch as the partially assembly rain fly would slowly but surely slide off the opposite side of the tent while dad was bending down to assemble posts. He would stand back up to see the fly assembly canted down across the back of the tent, and his shoulders would slump. He would set down the pole or rope or whatever was in his hands, take a deep breath, look skyward for a moment, and then proceed to slide the fly back up in to position so he could finish. 

At long last, the tent was assembled, and magically, the rest of the family appeared and piled in to the tent with the aforementioned suitcases, bags of gear, food, and trailed an extension cord from the tree mounted electrical outlet in to the grand palace of a tent. 

Dad went for a long walk. 

Update: About four hours later, the rain had really picked up, and midday, dad was back out again, this time stretching a separate tarp across the top of the tent, as apparently, the rain fly was not doing its job. I watched this poor fella drag the tarp across one side, just to have it come all the way across and fall to the ground. He finally got it in place and tied it off to a couple of the aspens you see close by, only to see him clothesline himself on a final lap around the tent. At this point, I am ready to invite them all in to the camper to warm up for a bit, except I am pretty sure I just heard the car drive away.

We’ve arrived in the Denver area and it finally feels like we’re starting our scenic adventure. It also felt like one of us had to go potty (this time it was ME, Ann). Pressure changes and all. Ugh. Anyway, we were meeting up with Ben’s brother and our nephew at one of those ginormous park and ride spots to say a quick “hi” as we rolled into town. They hadn’t arrived yet, so I took the opportunity to have a scenic twosie back in the Airstream. As the mission was complete and I was walking back out of the Airstream , a white SUV pulled up and the window went down. The couple in the vehicle identified themselves as a reporter team from the local Denver channel 7 news. Oh geez. Do they know I was pooping not even 45 seconds ago? The weirdest things seem to happen when we pull over for me to poop because next thing we know Ben is being suited up with a mic and the news camera pops out of the backseat of the SUV. Somehow me having a scenic poop got us live on the five o’clock news to talk about traveling through Denver for the Memorial Day holiday. I wanted to tell them the roads, particularly I-70 coming into Denver is poopy, but I kept quiet. I let Ben do all the talking because all I could do was stand there, nervously wondering if they knew I had pooped or if they knew that was my banana peel in the grass, by the passenger side of their vehicle. Ben and I are now in a tie for embarrassing bathroom stories, on this journey.

Once we left the park and ride spot, we kept rolling up into the mountains to Central City, CO. One of us had a slightly wagging tail when we first spotted the snowcapped peaks and one of us did NOT. It can’t seriously be that bad. It’s May, nearly summer, so our expectations are high for decent weather. Of course, what constitutes decent weather is different for both of us. But here were the current weather facts when we arrrived at the campground high above Denver, approaching the continental divide, 20% humidity, 9000 feet of elevation, and 60° temps, dropping down to 43° overnight ((WHAT?)). It didn’t take long to notice that all the SW Florida moisture had been robbed from our bodies, starting with hands and lips. When you’ve lived in Florida for a while, you forget that chapstick is a thing. As you can see, despite feeling a bit dried out, we seem warm and happy on our mountaintop.

This is our campsite at the Denver West KOA campground. We’ve now been here twice, both times in the same spot. It’s a really a high class campground. So classy that if you dial up the front office, they’ll bring you fresh propane tanks, firewood and pizza right to the camper! Lickity-split!

However, one particular issue we didn’t encounter here on our initial visit was a super chatty Chuck or a super nosy Nora from Someplace, Colorado who told you everything about themselves, their kids, their grandkids and every pet they’ve ever owned in the first three minutes of their arrival. It all came out of Nora’s mouth so fast that I didn’t catch anything but their names and for all I know, those are the wrong dang names. Either way, we were so very happy to see whatever their names were tottle into their RV and shut the door, after our initial round of introductions. Finally, we were able to relax a little once they disappeared. We opened the windows in the Airstream to air out the different travel aromas, kicked on some tunes and we started to make dinner. Out of freaking nowhere, Nora’s head pops under the raised glass of our Airstream dining room window and apparently she wasn’t done chatting because we got the “Howdy neighbors” greeting through the screen. Ugh, obviously all campground etiquette is out the window with this woman. One of us likes to cook in just a t-shirt and underwear and this is when things got a little weird. But oh no, it wasn’t weird for Nora. Every trick in the book was tried with this woman, including full out ignoring her, but nothing kept her from finishing her life story. We ended up liking Chuck a lot more than Nora because he came and pulled her away. Thankfully, we were safe for the rest of the evening. The trick is to avoid eye contact haha

Once dinner was cleaned up and additional hyper-local social obligations were avoided, we decided to venture five minutes down the road into Central City. While Central City and neighbor Black Hawk were originally the site of the first gold strike in the region back in 1859, leading to the point where the area was known as the richest square mile on earth, the eventual bust hit the area hard. We quickly learned that there are two main types of businesses in Central City. Weed shops and casinos. Now, yes, on the surface that seems truly exciting, but it was actually depressing. It’s a horrible feeling when you’re a lover of classic slot games with three rolling wheels and all that can be found are slot machines from hell with a bazillion lines, overwhelming electronic beeping and booping, and more buttons in front of you than were mounted in the space shuttle…I swear you need a graphing calculator and an abacus to calculate how much you’re spending per spin. With $100 gone in under five minutes, it wasn’t long before we were back at the campground sneaking back into the Airstream for the evening.

Our first morning was a bit chilly, but manageable as long as we were wearing every piece of warm clothing that we brought, plus the two extra down comforters we had stashed away “in case.” We cooked up some gluten free pancakes and were ready for a day in Denver with family. First we had a quick little detour to Duluth Trading because one of us nearly froze to death last night. A mere $400 later “we” felt we had the necessary gear to make it through the blustery 40° temperatures. Plus we felt we had done our part to stimulate the local economy.

The rest of our day was spent having fun while visiting with David, Katie and Super Toothless Peter. They always have great restaurants to introduce us to and different projects we can have fun with. As a result, Ben got a sweet origami samurai hat that fit nothing on his body lol. Always fun visiting family along our journeys!

After departing stormy Fayetteville and our powerless campground, we proceeded through Oklahoma to Tulsa where we hung a right (Right Turn Clyde – This was Ben’s contribution) and headed north through Wichita, past the signs for Hutchinson KS, the first stop on our married- around-the-world journey nearly 30 years ago, then we went on to Salina, KS for a night and then Goodland, KS. 

The last time we came through Kansas, we hauled a mega day from Denver all the way to Salina, which is nearly 500 miles of STRAIGHT, NEVER ENDING highway. We learned on that adventure that anything over about 350 miles is a pretty long and tiring day when you’re hauling a camper and looking at nothing but windmills. You just have to be so much more alert to the weather, the traffic, the road conditions, the tire pressures, the engine and transmission tempos, fuel levels, and of course, potty requirements. Potty stops are significantly easier since we bring our own bathroom with us on the journey, we just have to find a place to pull over. Fuel is a lot easier as well since Ben added an onboard 60 gallon diesel tank, so we usually have 800+ miles of range. It is still an exhausting day though. 

So, on this trip, we tried to break the drives in to smaller pieces. It would ultimately take us longer to go the same distance over the course of the trip, but we felt it was safer, and honestly, we are mostly retired, so what’s a couple days longer? That is how this 7000 mile trip stretched in to 60 days.

So following our guidelines for smaller drives, we arrived from Fayetteville into Salina, Kansas without event. Besides hitting the Salina Sam’s Club for the next few days of meals, we did absolutely nothing else but sleep, knowing we had power again and a fan to cover the noise of life outside the tube. And we desperately needed that sleep after surviving all the crazy weather in Arkansas.

It was unfortunate timing, but our road diet caught up with us a bit during our Salina stop. I won’t share names, in order to protect the innocent (Ben did it)(HEY!), but there was a record breaking potty incident, which tested the mechanical limits of the airstream bathroom AND the person who was involved in the incident. After hearing someone’s rumbling tummy and a great deal of moaning from the unnamed person, the cause of discomfort finally exited like it had two left elbows, bowed knees and was ready to give the campground septic tank a run for its money. Usually it’s Ann with all the GI issues, so she had plenty of empathy for the unnamed person. It took teamwork to fix the issue and in the end we decided just to replace the whole toilet. 🤭 and we vowed to not eat any more McDonald’s breakfasts. Another lesson learned, far too late in life.

Kansas is really beautiful country and it is part of our nation’s heartland and breadbasket to be sure. There is just a LOT of it and it NEVER lets up. 

Just when we thought Kansas was getting a bit on the boring side, WHAM! World’s biggest easel and world’s biggest Van Gogh! And only 300 miles ahead in Goodland, KS! Oh baby, it’s ON!

That right there is the world’s biggest easel. With the world’s biggest Van Gogh (I’m concerned that it might possibly be fake or even worse a deep fake). Both TripAdvisor and Goodland, KS did not disappoint. 

That easel was listed as the number 1 attraction in Goodland, for good reason. Walmart was number 2, also for good reason. 

Here is the back of the easel. We did tour the local Walmart, but did not get a picture. So sorry.

Honestly, it was a good thing we called ahead and made reservations. Parking was a disaster. 

We’re officially registered as visitors to the biggest Van Gogh. Hooray!

From here, it’s on to Denver!

It turns out that when you exit the Denver metro area, the sweet, rich weed money, that the Denver area uses to keep the roads smooth, RUNS OUT. Holy Moses!

Exactly five miles outside of Denver is when our half gallon of milk made itself into a milkshake! Dumb me made the mistake of having two large coffees, while we were packing up to head out of Central City and my bladder was about to burst. 🫣 Suddenly we were in no man’s land and once again no cell signal to distract me from my pee pee woes. Sigh! I refused to ask Ben to stop before his bladder needed relief because he drinks about a gallon of water an hour and that would be embarrassing if I had to go first. Nope. Not happening.

Ben FINALLY claimed full bladder, just as I was about to burst in his leather seats. We found a strange gas station about an hour out of Denver. It was a Yeti themed gas station out in the middle of nowhere, which was strange in itself. The good news about this stop was that everyone, including Peppy got to empty their bladders. We also put everything back in cabinets and drawers in the Airstream, because our crap had flown out of every compartment, on that bumpy stretch. Crazy, but at that moment we were trying to leave, a spontaneous cement truck parade just came out of nowhere. I have no clue what would require that many cement trucks because it apparently wasn’t road repair. We got trapped, for what seemed like HOURS, trying to leave this gas station. I’ve never seen so many cement trucks at one time! The most unexciting parade I’ve ever been forced to watch. 🥱

No matter how bad the roads were outside of Denver, a day driving through Kansas is almost worse. BORING! I thought I was tired of seeing rocks, and I’m pretty confident that I’m still sick of rocks for a while, but now I’m just as sick and tired of windmills. There are a bazillion windmills across that state and now I’m dizzy. 😩 Cows are at least kinda fun to watch. Where are all the cows???

Hours of no cell signal and reading my e-book was out of the question, unless I wanted to have a seizure on these awful roads. I already felt guilty because Ben has had to do all the driving of this monster rig, so I promised myself I wouldn’t sleep. So instead, I attempted a thumb war with Pepper and lost because she thought she was going to get one of Ben’s beef sticks for winning. She got her prize and boy is she strong when she wants food! BAD decision to lose that thumb war. Pepper got double revenge with beef stick toots. 🤢

My options for entertainment were running low and I didn’t need any more dog farts stinking up the truck with my little games. So, I just spent my time torturing Pepper. She thought I was gonna be sweet and invite her into my lap, but instead I tortured her with selfies while she made strange gurgles and whiny noises. LOL She soooo badly wanted to be up front in my lap, but I can only do so much Pepper lap time when my bladder, even though it was just emptied, is being bounced around and my bowels are still rumbling. Combine that with the HOURS in between finding civilized potties and this is what my blog looks like today…

Excuse my language but there isn’t shit in Kansas to report on. Sadly, I wish there was something, anything exciting to say because this is the birth state of our daughter. Sorry Hannah. Your birth state is BORING! But I got you a keepsake pic!

We arrived at our campground in Salina, KS and still boring! We had a mountain man with a beard down to his knees in the spot next to us. He was kinda entertaining as he shuffled around the campground, but I wasn’t sneaky enough to get a pic without a potential murder/death/kill. He looked sinister. 😳

And the only other speck of anything interesting was this beauty.

Oh and the best part of my evening was baking cookies and making Ben’s face do this because they were pumpkin spice cookies. He kinda looks like a puckery pumpkin spice by this point of the trip with that beard. LOL

Off to Fayetteville, Arkansas next! We get to see Hannah and Ty in their new house!

Well hello Colorado! If ya’ll know me, you know I DON’T DO SNOW! The first thing we see on the way to our luxury campground in Central City, CO is SNOWY peaks! UGH 😩

We had some wicked cold 60° nights in Moab and that was bad enough. My body totally stops working when it gets below 70° and by “stops working,” I mean just that. My brain cells freeze, my teeth chatter so badly that I can’t verbalize anything, I lose all feeling in my central nervous system, therefore I also lose feeling in all important extremities and my joints don’t move anymore. I turn into a really, really broken down version of the Tin-man. I can’t even function enough to ask for the oil can. 🙈

When we arrived at our campground, the scenery was stunning and I was pleasantly surprised that it was still almost 80°, but I was VERY wary. There was a strong, cool breeze blowing through those mountains, at almost 11,000 ft of altitude. The leaves on the trees were starting to change and I could SEE the snow from where I stood. All bad signs that pointed towards me being cold soon. 👀 By the time we finished setting up our campsite, that sun wasn’t far from setting.

The whole time I was prepping for dinner, my paranoia kept me wondering if we were gonna get a surprise mother of a snowstorm and get trapped on top of this mountain for the rest of our lives. Everyone around the campground, me being the exception, was still running around in shorts and a t-shirt. I truly believe they’re all in on tricking me into staying or they’re crazy. Or both!

Just in case I die from freezing, here’s a last pic of us happy and warm-ish.

The town folk even went so far as to lure me here with casino billboard after casino billboard. I know how much Ben loves the mountains, especially the Rockies and I think he picked this campground due to its proximity to gambling. His backup plan is to haul me off to the casino if the snow starts flying and he needs to distract me. I’m gonna stay strong and not fall for it, but $1,000 in free play for new members!!!! Who can pass that up? 🤦🏼‍♀️

Nope. Not falling for it! Ben definitely knows we’re in danger because three bundles of firewood magically appeared and one of our Airstream propane tanks was refilled and delivered to the campsite. The heater runs on propane! ALL RED FLAGS! 😳 Who plans a fire when it’s 80° unless they KNOW there’s gonna be a serious drop in temperature???? Suspicious!

I have to give myself credit though. I acted so totally cool with Ben’s plan to open the camper windows and air it out for a bit. It was still pleasant and there were several weeks worth of toots and a little bit of skunk trapped in that metal tube. 🤢 What Ben didn’t know is while he was opening windows, I was back in the bedroom putting on 4 more layers of clothes and fiddling with the thermostat so I knew how to turn on the heat, when that cold, dreadful winter storm slammed down upon us. The poor Airstream hadn’t been turned to heat mode yet, so I truly hoped it worked.

While I was planning for snowpocolypse, Ben and his brother Dave were devising a plan to get he and our nephew, Peter, up to the campground for a tent sleepover the next night. There just happened to be a spot open right behind our spot. Now we’re planning to torture a small child with freezing temps and a night in a tent? Ugh poor Peter!

When Ben informed me of the plan, I forgot about the impending cold weather for a second and went straight into “Aunt” mode. Aunt mode includes planning for lots of high sugar snacks and the messier, the better. Definitely s’mores ingredients are on the grocery list, as well as chocolate milk and cookies because I know Peter LOVES chocolate milk, with a side of double sugar.

With my grocery list in hand, the windows all securely shut again, old toots forgotten and dinner all cleaned up, Ben seemed really excited about that campfire. Hmmmm. He knows I’m about to freeze to death. I’m certain! Being the brave human that I am, I decided to tough it out, but I brought a blanket and my fuzzy slippers, as extra insurance on top of my four layers of clothing. It wasn’t five darn minutes after Ben lit the fire that he said he was cold in his shorts and flannel long-sleeved shirt. 🙄 I had to remind him that his Florida rule to never wear long pants unless he’s cutting down trees is DUMB in the mountains and to go get some pants on. Nope. Stubborn men!

I was actually enjoying the campfire, in all my layers and blanket, so I asked him to hold my blanket and keep it warm while I secretly went to get HIM a blanket. And darn if he didn’t happily accept my gift, except he kept the blanket that was already pre-warmed! 😂 He’s definitely more of a Florida creature now.

I was pleasantly surprised that we survived the night, with heat on, of course, and still in 3 layers of my extra clothes. One layer, unfortunately, had to be shed to rid myself of campfire smell. Love the smell, but don’t like sleeping with it.

After a quick breakfast and Ben heroically walking Pepper, until she pooped (yes, it was steamy!), it was time to find a grocery store! We were finally back in a land where I recognized grocery store names, so I picked one on Google that I thought would be safe. Kroger it is and it’s only 12 miles away through the winding mountains.

When we pulled up, I could tell this particular Kroger was a little “off” from what I was used to in a Kroger. You know something’s off when you pull up and see in tiny letter’s “Bart and Agnes’” before the real Kroger logo. 🙈 I grabbed a cart with confidence, because how hard can it be to find campfire food essentials, even in a mom and pop mart?

Help me Lord! Everything about this store was WRONG and THE BART knew nothing. Apparently Agnes was the “brains” of the organization and she wasn’t around. I had no choice but to hunt and gather under dire circumstances.

The burgers all expired in two days. Every last package lol. No gluten free graham crackers or gluten free anything, which I kinda expected, once we pulled into the parking lot. Ugh I knew I should have stayed in the truck with Pepper and let Ben and Bart figure this mess out.

The killer though, no full sized Hershey bars. 😳 This is definitely where I had to challenge Bart. What self-respecting grocery store doesn’t have full sized Hershey bars in stock, especially in the fall? It’s the quintessential must have for s’mores! Half a candy bar fits perfectly on a regular, full-of-gluten, tasty graham cracker! It’s not even October yet and the Christmas candy was on the shelf but no regular sized Hershey bars???? BART!!! Bart was about to see a woman from Florida have a melt down.

Poor Bart. I ran him ragged, searching backrooms, pallets of food that hadn’t been stocked yet, secret hiding places where Agnes might hide her personal stash. Nothing. Empty handed. It was then that Bart suggested either a Halloween treat sized bag or a Santa pack of treat sized Hershey bars. This was all wrong. Wrong! I could tell Bart was becoming a little afraid of me, so I snatched the Halloween treat sized bars from his left hand and paid my store ransom of $168 for 6 tiny bags of food (plus $.10 for each plastic bag). Crazy land!

I’d finally calmed down by the time we made the short 45 minute drive into Denver, to meet up with David and Peter. Unfortunately, Katie was working and we were gonna miss her altogether. Sorry Katie! ❤️ Ben thought it was wise to warm me up in the Denver sun for a few hours before we began the “Peter night of camping” in freezing, higher altitude temperatures.

I finally broke down when we had cell signal, in Denver and I checked the weather. AH HA! Now I know it’s getting down to 42° tonight! YIKES! I shouldn’t have checked, because now I’ve just alerted my body to proactively shut down. Goodbye toes and fingers. 👋🏻

Peter was so ready to go camping though! He even had ME excited about camping in the frozen tundra and I had ZERO plans to be in that tent. This kiddo must have a super, built-in heater because he’s in shorts, a t-shirt and sandals and what was the thing he wanted first, before camping? ICE CREAM 😱🥶

And what better way to burn off the extra energy from ice cream?

I’m learning to appreciate small children again, now that ours are grown. Other people’s children are fun to sugar up and release into the wild. 🤣

I’m happy to report that all survived the 42° night and the tent campers didn’t even end up in the Airstream for warmth. Peter did finally break down and put on a sweatshirt and sweatpants. Colorado people are tough!

Next stop Salina, Kansas! Why you ask? No idea, but there’s a KOA there in the middle of nowhere and it has to be warmer there!

I’m happy to report that we are skunk-free, to start the day! The vinegar soaked rags worked and my clean sheets stayed fresh and our breakfast was mostly stink free (Ben overcooked the bacon a little lol). 🙌 Mr. And Mrs. Wisconsin are packing up so FAST that I’m curious if maybe they got the full brunt of last night’s skunk attack. But I also don’t have oodles and oodles of free time to go ask that little question. Just as a side note… Is it just me or do Wisconsin people seem to get ten to twelve added hours in their day, with the only stipulation being that they’re only allowed to use the extra hours for chit chat sessions? 🤭 I’m terrible, I know. Our Wisconsin friends are sweet, bless their hearts, but very chatty.

I’m extra chipper this morning because I had another shower victory. Today makes a total of two shower victories in the last fourteen days. A shower victory means no new bruises, no blood and no bandages, of any kind are required post-shower. Maybe, just maybe, I’m finally learning how to shower and shampoo my hair in a tiny shower stall, with minimal injuries. I’ve only attempted shaving ONCE in the Airstream shower. My first attempt was so horrendous that I nearly died of blood loss. The end result of that shaving attempt was the shame of walking around for two days, with little pieces of one ply, cheap ass RV toilet paper stuck to about forty-nine spots on my legs and armpits. Never again! I wanted it to be physically possible, but it’s just not. 😤

We do have a tiny bit of bad early morning news… we had another toiletry fatality and yet another campground memorial service. This time it was an item of mine and a pretty important one. I don’t know how many times I’ve sweetly tried to train Ben to close the Airstream potty lid, especially before opening the cabinet above. 🙈 The training obviously hasn’t taken root!

So with my armpits, generously, coated in Ben’s manly deodorant, I’ve packed up the backpack, in anticipation of a another full day of rock exploring. Yay for rocks (secretly 😩😩😩).

Once again, we leave poor Peppy behind today. Breaks my heart, every time. Not because she’s so old that we don’t think she can handle a day of rock exploring (we all know she’d label it poop exploring). The national parks don’t allow dogs anymore. That was the main reason why we left Charlie and Bailey with Noni and Pop-pop, to run around on their property to destroy, hunt and kill. Better there than destroy the Airstream while we’re gone six to seven hours a day. 🙈 It’s just not fair to lock three dogs in a camper all day. However, Peppy likes to sleep almost as much as she likes to eat, so Pepper has big plans for the day. A FAT NAP! I’m kinda in her camp today, but we only have one last day in Moab. No rest for the weary!

After an exciting 45 minute drive through lots of rocks, we arrived at Canyonlands National Park to look at more rocks. We found the parking lot, which connected to the trail for our first planned exploration. The only problem was that there wasn’t a parking space available. Especially for Ben’s huge truck! Boy, people sure do love their rocks!

After circling 23 times, we finally got lucky and happened to be at the right place at the right time, as someone departed. So up the trail we went to find our first special rock of the day. And no, it wasn’t phallic shaped. Well, I guess if you turn the picture this way or that way, use a little imagination about the rock’s potential and kick in a Viagra, it could definitely be phallic shaped.

Of course, once again, I was too scared to venture out where that person is, to get the winning scrapbook pic, so we’ll just say this was Bob, our friend from Wisconsin and move on. “Hey Bob! Pssst! You’re sitting under a limp rock penis!” 🤣

So as we made our way back to the truck we discussed what to do next. We honestly hadn’t planned a ton of strenuous hikes for the day, due to my crazy and unpredictable pancreas and my out of control Lupus flare. I kept checking the park map and kept seeing these crazy long hikes and honestly, it was only to see more rocks. Fine. I’ll admit it. I’M ROCKED OUT!

As I was checking the map, I did see something that caught my eye and it just happened to be on the way back down the mountain, headed towards the campground. A road, which technically wasn’t part of Canyonlands, nor was it technically part of Dead Horse Canyon State Park, which was just outside the national park. It was just a DIRT road, called Pucker Pass. Intriguing! I know that my husband is always up for an adventure and who could resist an adventure with Pucker Pass in the name?

Now granted, I have no clue what I’m getting myself into, but I have two choices and I’m getting desperate to avoid touristy rocks. One, I can wear myself out looking at more famous rocks or go for a possibly insane bumpy ride out into nowhere. I’ve definitely decided that I’m DONE with rocks, so I convinced Ben that we definitely needed to check this Pucker Pass out. Didn’t take much convincing, especially since we weren’t dragging an Airstream behind us, this time. 🤦🏼‍♀️

This is one of those adventures where the road isn’t physically marked, but it popped up on the truck navigation, so we knew we were in the right spot. When we arrived at the dirt road, I started to understand the pucker part. It was a dirt road mixed with small boulders to drive over and through. And as far as I could see down the road, it looked like it dropped off into a free fall to the canyon below. Pucker up buttercup because Ben was all in. 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

We followed the road until it got to the point where it looked like it was about to drop straight off into nowhere and I made him stop! LOL The rocks that we had to drive over, to continue on, just kept getting bigger and bigger and I know it crushed Ben to stop because he was finally having fun with his 4×4 truck.

We got out briefly and walked on some rocks until we got scared of a potential rattle snake encounters and decided our mission for the day had been accomplished. The one thing I really noticed about this particular spot was how QUIET it was. I asked Ben to just stand there with me, out towards the edge of the canyon, BUT NOT TOO FAR, and just listen with me. Dead silence. You couldn’t even hear the wind. Until Ben broke wind and the echo was booming! 💨 😩 It’s not fair how free Ben is with his farts. I swear he needs to check HIS pants when he does that!!! That’s gonna catch up to him, as he ages!

Time to go back to the campground. I’ve had my explorations for the day and I finally feel like I’ll puke if I see another rock.

We got back to the campground and everyone had deserted us, which was just fine by me. I could sit outside and pretend I wasn’t surrounded by rocks, at least for a little while. UGH and BIG SIGH! As you can see from the pic below, I can’t even do that. We’re surrounded!

Tomorrow we start the long journey towards our home in Florida. Our first stop on the return is Central City, Colorado. We’re there for two nights so we can visit with Ben’s brother, David and his family. We better sleep well and skunk-free tonight, because our little nephew, Peter, is so stinking cute, but a huge bundle of energy!

I don’t often get to admit that I was correct, but I was definitely correct this time. Remember when I said our Moab campground smelled a little skunky, upon our arrival and check-in? Well, I woke up an hour before my alarm to a very different kind of alarm. SKUNKS! The smell was so overpowering! It was definitely fresh and I’m not a huge fan of fresh skunk spray. I know I’m weird, but I prefer and actually kinda like the smell of two day dead, road-killed skunk smell. Definitely don’t care for the fresh skunk perfume!

Ben’s nose and my nose usually interpret the smell of dead skunk very differently, but this was lively and STRONG with an intense, burning tang to it. I think we’ll both be on the same page about the “quality of smell” this morning!

I could almost swear that the skunks were actually romping about IN the Airstream. After popping up into a sitting position, carefully and without banging my head for the thousandth time, I quickly confirmed that no skunks were present inside. Shew! That would have been a weird scene to wake up to and I have no clue how we would have handled that one (mental note… form a plan in case skunk invasion actually does happen).

Now that I knew the interior coast of the Airstream was clear, I moved right on to the uncontrollably giggling stage. I couldn’t help it. It was sooooo FOUL! Then, as I started belly laughing, my concern was whether everything in the Airstream would forever smell like skunk and our nostrils would be so singed and forever scarred that we couldn’t smell our skunky selves, but everyone else would. 🤢

I felt kinda bad for waking Ben up because until the belly laughing started, he was still purring lightly beside me. But seriously! How the man could sleep through that kind of stench is mind boggling.

When Ben finally stirred, I could tell when he was done breathing out of his mouth and actually took a nice deep breath through his nose. At that moment, there was an amusing show of gagging and sputtering from the other side of the bed.

It was a bit earlier than we wanted to wake up, but the show was on! The show wasn’t quite what I expected though. The first question out of his mouth was “is that YOU?” 😳 Now Ben and I have been together since we were 17 years old and I don’t think I’ve ever made a smell that compared to this stench, so that had me a little bit concerned. Did Ben actually think my body could churn out a smell that disgusting? That might be a private conversation for later. LOL

Ben being Ben went straight to Google to determine how to keep skunks away for the next two nights. It was obvious to me that they were permanent residents here at the campground, so now the focus became how to send them over to the nice people from Wisconsin’s camper, without any evidence. Ben the Google pro always finds the answer! Rags soaked in vinegar under the Airstream. Easy peasy!

Next on the docket was coffee and breakfast, which all had the extra tang of skunk flavor. I don’t recommend anyone thinking they should bottle that smell up as a flavor enhancer. Bluck! Even with the extra tang in my breakfast, thankfully my digestive tract seemed to be behaving. If all the belly laughing hadn’t triggered anything, I was hoping I’d be ok to freely explore Arches National Park for the day. 🤞

We had a huge day of arch and rock sightseeing planned, with a little extra curricular clothes washing to following our day in the park. I really felt like we needed to get the skunk stench out of everything.

We were ready to head out but did one last quick search on Arches National Park website just to refresh our memories about the particular sights and hikes we had planned for the day. I had my bowel emergency kit packed and in the truck, just in case things decided to get exciting again.

Among our online research, we learned that we had to make a reservation for the park, which we did not know. UGH and SIGH! Ben quickly solved the problem by getting us one of a few reservations left at noon, which was perfect for me. Gave me some extra time to evaluate my GI tract and soak our rags with vinegar for our sneaky “deter and send the skunks to Wisconsin people’s camper” plan.

We hit the park at exactly 11:58 am and we’re released to explore rocks and more rocks! I don’t know if I was feeling a little frisky or what but suddenly every rock formation we saw looked like one thing!

And I saved the best for last…

Ben and I were quite proud of ourselves on the last one. It’s not on the official park map but by golly we found it! The crown(ed) jewel of Arches National Park.

As a bonus on the way out of the park we caught a bonus angle with bush!🤣

But wait, you say! Did we actually see any ARCHES? Why yes, but they weren’t nearly as exciting or giggle inducing as the other rock formations. Hehe!

We actually had to work for the above arch, like in an actual hike across rough terrain with no potties, so I’m particularly fond of that arch.

And we saw a few more…

I guess I would have found the park more intriguing had they called it Penises National Park but maybe the attendance wouldn’t have been as high. Who knows though. Most of my friends have a similar sense of humor. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Then because I think we were scared to go back to the Airstream and find that our entire rig smelled like skunk, Ben stalled and had me do weird poses and I was clueless about what I was participating in. I SWEAR!

Gosh I love my husband. He makes life so much fun, even when half the time I have no clue what he’s up to.

We arrived back to camp and I was either nose deaf or the smell from the morning had completely dissipated. I still felt the need to wash anything that was exposed to the great skunk fiasco of 2023. So I grabbed my quarters and all the laundry and proceeded to fill every washer, since no one was around. Just as I had started the last load in the third washer, Mrs. Wisconsin walks in with Mr. Wisconsin’s tidy whities among other things in a ridiculously small laundry bag. I felt kinda bad about that, especially knowing that we were sending the skunks their way tonight. I set my timer for the 27 mins that were left on the first washer and promised to come let Mrs. Wisconsin know the minute I had a washer open for her husband’s undies. 🙈

In the meantime, we caught a glimpse of possibly the world’s tiniest house, just on the other side of the campground. Thought it was kinda cool. Very rustic.

Next on the schedule was the coolest idea that Ben had, by far! We headed back to Arches National Park for sunset and some star gazing. No picture he took could possibly show how awesome the stars were over a pitch black park but this was the best we could provide.

That’s a wrap for Arches National Park. Tomorrow is another day full of amazing rock sightseeing in Canyonlands National Park. I just hope I can start unseeing phallic symbols. LOL

Well my pancreas decided to completely riot and shut down on me, following our hike day in Zion. I blame the awful, evil, two horned shuttle driver, who caused me an extra 3/4 mile hike in AND out of the Emerald Pools. All kidding aside, I spent most of the evening doing unspeakable things in 2 sq ft of camper bathroom space and slept not a wink. Of course that meant that Ben didn’t sleep either, considering the bed is only 1.5 feet from the bathroom. I’m also claustrophobic, which means the bathroom door is never closed during any act. 🙈 Romantic and intimate. Yes!

So, because I’m a trooper, I put on my old girl panties (aka an adult diaper) and told my outrageous gurgling innards to simmer down, in anticipation of a LONG 8 hour day in the truck. We had planned a couple of “stretch our legs” short hikes at two national parks, on the way to Moab. Not really what my digestive tract was up for, but I really wanted to see these Dr. Seuss type rocks that I’ve heard rumors about. Even with careful planning, to ensure that I didn’t have any massive eruptions along the way, I could still tell that this would be a challenging day. 🤢

So we said goodbye to the lovely Zion campground. We had made some lovely friends there. By lovely, I mean we sometimes learned their first names and where they were from. If they had a dog, then we for sure remembered the dogs name, but not the owner’s name. The joys of making campground friends is that you can chat away about anything, knowing you’ll never see them again. It’s fabulous for someone like me, who never remembers names or pretty much any other information someone gives me. At least not the first time we meet. Usually by meeting 20 or 30, I get some of the info correct.

So we were off, on our way to Moab, with my new best friends (the baby wipes, a paper towel roll, puke bucket, emergency poop bucket and Febreze), carefully stashed in the backseat of Ben’s shiny new truck. The Airstream potty was a mere 10 feet behind my passenger truck seat, but I was uncertain if I could make it that far. Heck, I was uncertain if I could crawl into the back seat, even in emergency mode.

The plans were to stop through Bryce National Park and Capitol Reef National Park, but neither of those stops went as planned. Bryce National Park didn’t want us to stay. Not one single parking spot that a truck and Airstream could fit into, in their “overflow” parking. UGH It provided a somewhat scenic, yet stinky potty stop though. We illegally parked the Airstream in front of a row of dumpsters labeled “no parking,” just so we could do our business before traveling on. 😝 Take that, Bryce NO PARKING National Park! Out of spite, Pepper left a poo memory behind, as well. She may or may not have sampled someone else’s poo memory too. I tried not to test my tummy, so I purposely didn’t pay attention to what she was sniffing or taste testing.

Unfortunately, by the time we got to Capitol Reef National Park, I was a total mess and we had to skip it completely. Just not my day. I was just praying I’d make it to Moab and Ben wouldn’t ditch my sorry ass on the side of the highway somewhere. My gurgling colon was making us both cranky and he was already crabby pants about traveling with two emergency buckets in the backseat of the truck and the possibility that I might completely ruin that “new truck smell” he’s been enjoying.

So let’s talk about some of the roads and highways, out in the western states. I’ve always wondered why you can’t tell your GPS that you’re dragging a monster camper behind you so that it doesn’t take you down the shittiest roads known to mankind. 🙄 There has to be a navigation app that has a “truck and trailer friendly roads” filter. If not, then someone needs to get on that. Pronto!

I felt like I had burning boulders bouncing around in my stomach and our GPS takes us down a diabolical road named, “John’s Valley Road.” Now I didn’t meet John, nor did I see him off in the distance but I did meet many of John’s pets. John’s Valley may be a perfectly great road for a farmer/rancher on a tractor or four wheeler, but geez was it BUMPY and it was chock-full of wandering cows. Cows everywhere! These cows have so much land to freely roam, I don’t even think they realize they might be tomorrow’s dinner. And they didn’t give a cud whether a giant vehicle was driving at them or not. It made our journey just a little more interesting.

So, bad road, badass free range cows and the road went on for HOURS, DAYS, maybe even YEARS. Okay, it was hours but endless hours with zero cell signal. None. Instead of zero cell bars it said SOS “shit outta service!”

Somewhere thousands of miles down John’s Valley Road, out in the middle of nowhere, we suddenly came across a herd of bicyclists. Like they had been parachuted in for some bizarre road race and with no one supervising them, especially if they needed help. I’d love to know where this spandex biker gang came from. They were mooooving so fast I couldn’t even get a pic of these crazy people. On road bikes, in the middle of nowhere with no cell signal or potties and free range cows that mentally thought THEY owned the road. NO THANKS! They should get their money back for that arranged bike tour.

I’m thinking John, of the famous John’s Valley Road, has a few side hustles going and probably gets a few good laughs out of it. I imagine he has hidden cameras in the bumpiest parts and the most cow populated parts of the road. John also probably has his own Instagram where he posts funny videos of his victims who bravely, but naively go bumping down his road, only to encounter grumpy cows. For all I know, he could be one of the world’s richest social media influencers and we’re now famous, in a bad way. 🤣

One more thing to add… if you ever find yourself on John’s Valley Road, watch out for falling rocks! That’s all I’ll say because it’s SCARY how some of the biggest boulders are hanging on for dear life, just above the road.

After what seemed like days, we finally made it to civilization and the highway to Moab. Home to 5,000 full-time residents and the place felt like a metropolis! There was no sneaking into town though, at least not with our rig. The “normal” mode of transportation in Moab was either a Jeep or a 4-wheeler and we were a little larger than both. Luckily the one police cruiser in town didn’t actually catch us barreling into town because it was parked on the side of the road, with a giant stuffed dog, residing in the driver’s seat. I guess that’s how their officer gets a night off! LOL

I walked into the local Moab supermarket with confidence and only a few slight adult diaper waddle noises. The people working there couldn’t have been nicer, but looked like they were straight off the ranch. Considering I looked like a crazy haired city woman, who was on her last leg, or at the very least, maybe partied too hard the night before (I WISH!), I can’t or shouldn’t comment much on their style. They were completely gracious about helping me fill my cart with the necessities at 10x the price I’m used to paying.

I just don’t know if I could live in a town without a big box grocery store, or at the very least a somewhat bigger franchise type grocery store. The Ore-Ida frozen potato selection was awful! It had me in tears! Steak fries and plain hash browns were my choices. Not a dang tater tot in sight. When I asked the lovely man in the freezer section, who by the way, turned out to be a lovely well-muscled farmer type woman, 😳 if they carried any form of tater tot, whether it be crown, extra crispy etc., I must have sprouted alien antennae and turned green. I’ve now met the first person in this world that didn’t know what a tater tot was and I didn’t even have the energy to explain it. Ugh 😣

Either way, they were happy to answer all my dumb questions about products they didn’t carry and even allowed me to push their cart to the street to load the groceries into the truck. Again, the parking lots were designed for Jeeps and 4 wheelers. Our rig would have taken up the whole parking lot, so instead Ben illegally parked on the street. Luckily, I spent all of Ben’s savings on one cart of groceries, so we weren’t there long enough for stuffed sheriff dog to ticket us.

With fresh, expensive groceries in hand, it was time to head for the campground. We pulled in and most of the campers/trailers there looked like it was their final resting place. I also detected a light whiff of skunk, which frankly I don’t mind but I’m weird like that. Skunks and coffee grounds smell the same to me 🤷🏼‍♀️ However, it’s a bad combination of signs when the campground smells a little skunky and the office is locked at 4 pm. Did the skunks run all the humans off?

It was a good thing the handler of such matters had taped a sheet of scratch paper to the door with her phone number scrawled on it. Within seconds of Ben dialing the number, she appeared out of nowhere. Shew and thank goodness! I needed our potty hooked up and hooked up now!

For me, getting parked and all set up was a relief, in more than one way. We had one small issue getting the poop connection cap off, but luckily our new neighbor, whatever his name was from Wisconsin, had the perfect tool to help. You can always count on Wisconsin folk to be helpful and talk funny. 😆 Three nights of stability meant I might be able to recover and enjoy our days in Moab. Even though the campground didn’t have all the usual perks, like shade trees or a pool, it was clean and quiet.

My understanding is we have a lot of rocks to see in Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park, over the next few days. Who doesn’t love ROCKS?!!! Hopefully my pancreas, colon and stomach make the decision to let me see all those cool rocks!

We literally bumped our way across New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, but we finally made it to the cool stuff! Holy moly, my bottom is sore, my stomach is a mess and we had a gruesome gnome casualty along the way. Poor Mr. Totters! He didn’t make it.

If you’re ever on the journey to Goosenecks State Park, I’d recommend avoiding Highway 64. It’s a pee your pants, lose your cookies, gnome killing kind of road, that seems to go on for DAYS. And Lord help you if you’re in the questionable territory of needing to do a number 2! One because it’s dang bumpy and two because there’s NOTHING out there. Nothing! Well ok, there’s something somewhere out there, but I didn’t see it unless it was a giant rock. 🫣 But, on the other hand, if you do find yourself on Highway 64 by mistake and need to do any of the above, just pull on over and do what you need to do. No worries because you can see another vehicle coming from 10 miles away and the scenery is interesting. In our case, we were dragging a potty along behind us so we were good.

It was on my way to the Airstream potty, while parked on the side of what NO ONE should call a “road,” I came across the gruesome Mr. Totters crime scene. One quick look and I had to pronounce him dead. There was no reviving him from that assault. Poor Mr. Totters was the greatest traveling gnome, but he met his match somewhere on Highway 64 and obviously his seatbelt failed him. Now we just have a broken “Weekend at Bernie’s” version of a traveling gnome.

So besides riding a lot of bumps, we did get to see some pretty cool, rugged terrain. I guess I should mention I’m scared of heights. Terrified actually, so this was the beginning of some major, personally inflicted “vacation stress.” However, for the sake of the 2.500 miles my butt has invested in this trip, so far, I put on my big girl panties and parachute and sat on the edge of Goosenecks, a mere 900 ft above potential death. For comfort, I inflicted the same or more terror that I was feeling on my comfort companion and smiled pretty for the camera.

Then we quickly got back in the truck and I soothed my height anxiety issues by giggling at every phallic-like rock formation we came across. They truly do come in all shapes and sizes. Haha!

Ok. Enough with my dirty mind. I do wish I would have been around when they named these formations, many many moons ago. I have some pretty decent suggestions if anyone is looking for a fresh new name. Isn’t it cool to rename things that have been around for centuries ++++ now?

Not only did we get to see exciting rocks, we also pulled over down on Forest Gump hill (Monument Valley). Even though Forrest wasn’t there running at the moment, I felt like loudly cheering him on, just to see what all the other tourists would do. Forrest wouldn’t have survived that run and he was right to puss out. That road is way longer and hotter than it looks and that hill is sneaky and deceptive. He was 100% in his right mind to say he was tired and going home!

I honestly can’t believe this it’s possible in the modern USA, but we drove for almost six hours without cell service. At one point our GPS stopped working too! 😳 There’s something to be said for having a dorky atlas with you! Reminds me that I need to teach Hannah and Chris how to use one. Those “old fashioned” ways still come in handy!

In addition, I also took note that if Ben and I need to disappear and I mean REALLY disappear , we’ll just head back to Utah in Navajo territory. There seems to be plenty of scary places to hide. My Apple Watch seemed extremely concerned as every 30 seconds it was letting me know I could report my location by satellite because I had no freaking cell service. LOL They really want to keep track of us!

So in summary, after 8+ hours in a bumpy rig on bumpy roads, we finally made it to Page, Arizona to the Page-Lake Powell Campground, last evening. Pepper found a way to chill out pretty fast. I know it looks like she’s pulling a Mr. Totters but she’s just asleep. I swear!

I promise to tell ya’ll tomorrow, about the adventures we had today, in Page. There’s quite a bit to tell, but I’m out of gas. I tried to leave my Lupus and other autoimmune issues back in FL, but my Lupus definitely hitched a ride with us (sigh). We’ve been planning this trip for way to long to let that little nuisance stop the fun.

Here’s a sneak peak/teaser of one of our stops today. It’s a Pepper photo shoot on the very highest rock at the very edge of Horseshoe Bend… that’s her punishment for barking the entire 1.5 miles path, to the canyon ledge. LOL

I’m pretty sure because we crossed the Oklahoma line, yesterday, that we’re officially in the Wild West. Yee-haw! I can’t imagine traveling this terrain with horses and a covered wagon, but I get a vague idea just by dragging a covered wagon, called an Airstream, across the hilly, bumpy roads. We lack any horse manure, but each time we stop and I check the inside of the Airstream, it looks like a group of rowdy teens broke into the camper and had a wild party. Cushions, pillows and dishes all akimbo and a roll of toilet paper streamed down the aisle (I forgot to put it away in the cupboard 🤦🏼‍♀️).

All kidding aside, we’re traveling along the iconic Route 66, which is a pretty cool throw-back in time. The landscape definitely feels a lot less tropical and more plainsy, rolly hilly, than Florida. And it’s gosh darn HOT. I thought Florida was hot but nothing like Oklahoma. We pulled into our KOA campground late afternoon Thursday, to set up in 107° temps. 🥵 No wonder it took the Airstream, as well as the fridge and freezer 6+ hours to cool down.

Pepper survived her first day without Charlie and Bailey and if I’m not mistaken, I kinda think she enjoys being the center of our universe. She’s managed to expand and stretch her little body to take up all the space Charlie and Bailey previously occupied, before we left them behind to vacation at the lake with Noni and Pop-pop.

Pepper hasn’t voiced her opinion yet about ditching the two troublemakers, but as far as I can see the only thing Pepper really misses are the extra potential meals. However, I have faith that she’ll survive on the extra scraps careless people have dropped and thrown on the grassy knolls at the Pilot and Flying J truck stops we’ve been hitting. So far she’s found a chicken bone, a half-eaten chicken nugget and two ant-covered pickle slices. She’s on cloud nine with all the little rotting treasures she finds. She has a cast iron stomach, so absolutely no concerns that she’ll be burping up any of her treasures.

I’m sad to report that we’ve now had our second memorial service at a campground. The tater tot memorial was a tough one for me, back in Chattahoochee, but those limp things just weren’t going to make to the next oven warming. Now Ben has experienced his own great loss. I guess I’m partly to blame. I was really trying to have less clutter in the 50 sq ft that we share, so I invested in a couple of highly rated, silicone toothbrush holders, off Amazon. Stick those suckers to the wall, where you want ‘em and DONE. Easy peasy. The holder works perfectly for my plain Jane toothbrush. Fair warning to all you fancy toothbrush owners though! If your toothbrush has the weight of a tiny battery in it, HUGE failure!

I just happened to be standing in the tiny hallway, as Ben was scratching his head and pondering something. His toothbrush was no longer in the fancy silicone holder. So, there are only a few places a toothbrush can go in a dinky bathroom. Sink (your best hope). Nope. The corner of the counter? Nope. There HAD to be a magnet at the base of the toilet that just called out to Ben’s toothbrush, because that’s where it found a new home. Almost like Ben’s toothbrush felt the base of the toilet needed a good scrubbing. 🤢 Hence, the second memorial service of our journey and a newly acquired, non-fancy toothbrush.

We’re now in northern Texas, on our way to Albuquerque, NM, with four hours left to roll in this horse-less wagon. I stopped counting windmills when I got to 587. There are literally MILLIONS between Oklahoma and New Mexico! Kept me entertained until my coffee finally kicked in. Now that I’m done writing for a bit, it’s time to find an interesting topic of conversation to have with Ben. I’m desperately trying to avoid receiving more about the ins and outs of windmill production/operation or oil rig bits and pieces, which he used to manage producing. 🥴 Note to self… don’t ask technical questions about a thingy majig on a windmill or oil rig. The answers he gives are ENDLESS, especially after he’s had four cups of coffee! 😆

Its all an adventure! Hoping to stop in and surprise a few of our Mather relatives in Santa Fe, once we get the Airstream plugged in and started cooling!

I’m a little behind in writing, but this first part of our trip is a lot of one night setups and tear downs until we get out west, to the main attractions. And GEEZ, campground Wi-Fi is pretty darn crappy!

So we have a mystery on our hands. We picked up a strange hitchhiker, the bumper sticker kind, somewhere between Ocala, FL and Chattahoochee, FL. We didn’t even notice it until we were packing up in Chattahoochee. Is this a typical practice? We’re newbies and don’t know much of anything about the camping world rituals, but maybe we’re supposed to have a stack of funny bumper stickers handy to spread around? Not sure. Is it like the rubber duck exchange that Jeep owners do? Interesting ritual if so, but I’ll have to be on the lookout for some funny bumper stickers to keep on hand, just in case.

So, we left Chattahoochee Sunday morning and pulled into the Hattiesburg, MS KOA for the final night of the Labor Day weekend. We definitely got to experience the true party atmosphere of a campground in full holiday swing. I’ve never seen so many camping families, who actually bring ALL the comforts of home along with them. I’m starting to think these people aren’t really into camping, but just enjoy doing the same things they do at home, just with a change of scenery.

I guess Ben and I must look like ghetto campers because we lack a 70” television on the outside of our camper, an extra party tent, equipped with real living room furniture, complete with a shag area rug, an extra full-sized fridge and freezer on the outside of the camper, by a full sized bar, under a fully decorated canopy AND we don’t have 50 house plants surrounding our campground “yard.” I wish I had the time to watch these people pack up when they leave, but I’m too busy bungee strapping the coffee maker into the sink to ensure it doesn’t hit the ceiling and break. Hey, it’s important that we’re properly caffeinated at our next destination, but I suspect there’s a full sized moving truck, tucked away somewhere in a back lot, that moves all this extra stuff for them. 😳

We’re going to have to make it a habit to do a walking lap of each campground, just to keep an inventory of all the incredible crap people bring from home, when they “rough” it.

Ben and I are truly happy keeping it simple. Even without all the extra luxuries, this particular campground made us feel pretty fancy with our own “private” patio, fire pit and a flock of ducks and geese, who visited frequently. Still a little too hot and humid for the fire pit experience, but turns out geese are pretty entertaining and will eat anything. They must be related to Pepper.

I thought I was in decent shape for an old lady, but these ducks and geese hauled ass after me, when they figured out I had a trash bag and was running their potential snack to the dumpster. I made it to the dumpster and threw the trash in with seconds to spare before the fattest goose made it to my heels. Those suckers are FAST waddlers!

The cooling down of the camper fridge is still another mystery we haven’t figured out quite yet. I feel like it shouldn’t take 6 hours to get the fridge acceptably cold enough to cool a beverage but I’m sure we’re doing something really wrong. So until we watch enough YouTube videos to find the solution, we’re existing on beef jerky and string cheese out of the old-fashioned cooler, kept cold with old-fashioned ice.

We’re off next to Hot Springs Village, Arkansas where we’ll be out of camp mode for a couple of days while we stay with Ben’s parents and get organized for the push out west. Charlie and Bailey love the lake and “Noni and Pop-pop,” so we’ll be leaving two of the three fur babies with them.

Pepper gets to come along on the Wild West adventure. Not because we love her most but because she gets herself into trouble by eating things that aren’t food. That bad habit then requires $9,000 worth of surgery to get her straightened out. The second reason is actually strangely funny, but she has this weird “mommy separation” anxiety issue where her butt hair turns completely white two days after she’s away from me and then falls completely out after the fifth day. So unless we want a funny looking dog that requires another expensive surgery, she stays with me. Gotta love a quirky dog .😩

As long as we’re telling Pepper stories, I’m not sure what she got into on this trip but her poo is perfectly round balls, almost like she ate ping pong balls and are attached to each other with hair or string. I didn’t inspect too closely but took a pic in case anyone wants to report back on the situation. As you can see from the pic, Ben has expertly picked up multiple connected poop balls, which are already bagged and left the last one dangling by its hair, or string, or possibly dental floss, for everyone to inspect.

On that poopy note, I’ll sign off but not before I mention that we barely make it out of Florida and there’s already another potential hurricane steam barreling towards Florida. Hurricane Lee looks like it could be a doozy. We’ll be keeping an eye on that because who knows, the Airstream might be the only home we have left by the end of September. 🙈

We’ll hit the road again Thursday for another adventure!

Like clockwork, we made it to our first destination and in Mather style, making it minutes before the campground office closed. It’s completely our style to ignore little things like an office closing time and one of these days, we’re going to find ourselves and our little mobile housing unit parked on the wrong side of a campground gate. Sigh. Who knew a campground isn’t like a hotel, where you can check in any time of night.

Pretty much like any vacation, I usually find myself relieved to get to the destination so I can relieve myself. But oh no, not when you’re camping. There are “unspeakable things” that need to be prepared before you can sit on that Airstream potty and relieve yourself. Hooking up the “poop slinky,” as we call it, is totally Ben’s department, so until that’s done, I wait and continue my dance.

There’s also the issue of three dogs that are staring you down from the backseat of the truck, who also need relieved. So I did the adult thing and continued my own little pee pee dance, sacrificing my own comfort in order to hook up all three dogs for their comfort walk, complete with barking galore. Our dogs have definitely not learned campground etiquette. I’m hopeful by the end of our trip that me saying “hush” actually has some kind of effect.

Prior to just making it in time to the campground, we made a quick stop in Tallahassee to visit Aunt Charlie and John, where we learned that our system for keeping perishables is a complete failure. Even with Aunt Charlie’s extra 60 lbs of ice, leftover from hurricane Idalia, all that precious food that was leftover in our fridge from back home was pretty much lost. I’m glad we got that lesson out of the way. We’ll just plan to hit the Piggly Wigglys along the way.

So the summary of night one is we had two questionable hamburger patties (you might be hearing more about those later today 🫣), mushy chicken nuggets and mushy tater tots with warm Cokes for dinner. My “extra crispy” tater tots were so mushy that I knew I’d just be torturing them to try and save them for another day, so we had a small memorial service for the remainder of the bag. Rest in peace Chattahoochee tater tots.

Oh and by bedtime, our Airstream was infested by ants. So overall, not a bad first day. 🙃

Like clockwork, we made it to our first destination and in Mather style, making it minutes before the campground office closed. It’s completely our style to ignore little things like an office closing time and one of these days, we’re going to find ourselves and our little mobile housing unit parked on the wrong side of a campground gate. Sigh. Who knew a campground isn’t like a hotel, where you can check in any time of night.

Pretty much like any vacation, I usually find myself relieved to get to the destination so I can relieve myself. But oh no, not when you’re camping. There are “unspeakable things” that need to be prepared before you can sit on that Airstream potty and relieve yourself. Hooking up the “poop slinky,” as we call it, is totally Ben’s department, so until that’s done, I wait and continue my dance.

There’s also the issue of three dogs that are staring you down from the backseat of the truck, who also need relieved. So I did the adult thing and continued my own little pee pee dance, sacrificing my own comfort in order to hook up all three dogs for their comfort walk, complete with barking galore. Our dogs have definitely not learned campground etiquette. I’m hopeful by the end of our trip that me saying “hush” actually has some kind of effect.

Prior to just making it in time to the campground, we made a quick stop in Tallahassee to visit Aunt Charlie and John, where we learned that our system for keeping perishables is a complete failure. Even with Aunt Charlie’s extra 60 lbs of ice, leftover from hurricane Idalia, all that precious food that was leftover in our fridge from back home was pretty much lost. I’m glad we got that lesson out of the way. We’ll just plan to hit the Piggly Wigglys along the way.

So the summary of night one is we had two questionable hamburger patties (you might be hearing more about those later today 🫣), mushy chicken nuggets and mushy tater tots with warm Cokes for dinner. My “extra crispy” tater tots were so mushy that I knew I’d just be torturing them to try and save them for another day, so we had a small memorial service for the remainder of the bag. Rest in peace Chattahoochee tater tots.

Oh and by bedtime, our Airstream was infested by ants. So overall, not a bad first day. 🙃

Our thoughts and prayers go out to those North of us, who didn’t escape the clutches of Idalia. For those of you who didn’t escape, she threw a terrible punch. She chose to ignore us this time, but we were definitely suspicious and super wary, up until she slid on by us and our power poles gave a collective sigh of relief.

We escaped with some minor flooding in our island neighborhood and a few downed branches at the shop house. I’m almost embarrassed to throw these pics out because I don’t want to diminish what happened up north. We know it’s no fun because we were there just 11 months ago with Ian. This exact dirt road, below, was under 4 ft of roaring water after Ian, trapping us for days on end and was littered with downed trees, power poles and power lines, under all that water. Luckily that wasn’t the case this time. We had 3 puny palm branches, that in no way impeded our Jeep’s path, and we’re very thankful.

So yes, we were very blessed this time around. The island flooding was a mix of Gulf drainage ditch failures and storm drain failures. No serious damage to report in Venice or Englewood and our family and friends in Tallahassee, Ocala, Estero and Sanibel Island are all ok, so I consider this a huge blessing.

Quite honestly, Ben and a friend smoked a couple of delicious turkey breasts under the lean-to, while it thundered and rained off and on all day. Meanwhile, Idalia was slowly creeping up past us, about 50 miles off-shore. You ask “why turkey in August?” Because the grocery store was throwing some pretty funky pre-storm meat specials.

Everyone still makes fun of me for making a huge batch of sloppy joes, brownies and boiling half the egg supply before Ian hit, last year, but we had food that got us through that 14+ hour windy adventure.

So, as things stand now, we’re loaded and ready to pull out Saturday morning on our 6,000 mile camping adventure. Gas seems to be plentiful post-storm and the Chattahoochee campground has confirmed we have a spot, undamaged by the hurricane, for Saturday night.

So now that the danger is out of the way, I’ve spent the day asking myself what number of undies are needed to make it through a month-long trip, not knowing where the next laundry facilities will turn up. As I stood staring a my pile of “serviceable undies,” I did a replay of all the “foul plays” I’ve had on the sides of various interstates and country roads and decided ALL should be packed and I threw in a couple of my “sexy” collection too, as backups. Just to be extra safe, I also packed a bucket, baby wipes and extra plastic grocery sacks for emergency disposal. I’ve actually learned quite a bit from my past mistakes. Hopefully I don’t have too many mistakes or I’ll be wearing a lacy thong by the time we hike through Moab. Yikes!

I also spent way too much time standing in the chip/candy aisle, (it’s an evil aisle!), debating what junk food I absolutely needed for the start of the trip. These are tough decisions for me, as my “junk food mood swings” go between salty and sweet and sometimes require mixing them. The Cheetos we’re definitely calling to me today. Dang it! Then I had to decide whether I needed two bags of Cheetos, as they were on sale, BOGO! UGH, I’m a sucker for a BOGO. I’m ashamed to say that I also got bamboozled by a king sized candy bar BOGO. Next thing I knew, I had a whole cart full of junk food. Even worse, when Ben finds out what I’ve done, he’s going to immediately parallel this situation to one my mom had in her advanced years of dementia, and I’ll start to silently wonder. Even worse than even worse, he’ll be pissed when he opens the one functional food cupboard in the Airstream and nothing but Cheetos and candy bars come pouring out (Note To Self… I need to remember to pack a couple extra pairs of the sexy panties. They’ll have two purposes). As long as he doesn’t open that door before Chattahoochee, we’re all good.

The two old lady wienies are definitely suspicious. They’ve been around long enough and have been tortured way too many times by road trips that they KNOW something is up. They’ve been sitting directly in the path between the house door and the Airstream door. Watching. Specifically taking inventory of what dog items are being taken to the camper, in a mission to confirm whether they’re “in” on this trip or not. I don’t understand the secret language that goes on between Bailey and Pepper but I think the “duh” looks on their faces mean they’ve decided they need to stay on my heels, just in case. By the time I take the dog food bin and the dog dishes to the Airstream tomorrow, they’ll figure out how to surgically attach themselves to me. And then there’s poor Charlie, who is only four years old and has only been out of the state of Florida three times. He’s completely oblivious to any suspicious activity and continues to hunt for things to bark at, just for fun. Too bad for him, because out of the three dogs, he’s the only one that hates riding in the car. The two old lady wienies just continue their 20 hours of napping and don’t care if they’re in a car, boat or a house.

More tough decisions to make tomorrow so I’m off to our king-sized bed, which I’ll only be enjoying for 2 more nights. Then I’ll enjoy squeezing into a “camper queen” with my handsome, but yeti-like, husband. Fun times ahead!

Twelve hours to go until they claim Idalia makes landfall, north of Tampa, but I’m still suspicious! I’m watching this lady hurricane like a hawk because as we all know women are prone to changing their mind. For all I know there could be a cute little sundress in a downtown Venice shop that Idalia takes a liking to and the next thing you know 😳.

The good news is we survived Ian, last September so I think this storm is doable. We already have the island house completely shut down, so we’re now residing at the shop/farm, which we refer to as Basecamp 1, for storm purposes.

We’ve also continued packing up the Airstream, pretending we’re still leaving on our trip in four days. She’s ready to roll with the exception of food, because there was very little left when I ventured out to the store, yesterday. Fruits and vegetables are apparently not very popular during an impending storm because that’s all that was left. Meh, not interested unless those veggies are fried.

Now that Charlie’s hives have settled down, due to a $367 vet visit yesterday (sigh!), we’re enjoying the calm before the storm. With the little free time we have left before the rain hits, the dogs are roaming outside, oblivious that their outdoor pee and poo time is about to abruptly end. Pepper is running around excitedly because the 100% humidity today has reinvigorated the poos she considered were yesterday’s, sun-dried, lost-cause snacks. Yes, if you weren’t privy to my older blogging days, she’s the family’s dirty little secret. A poo eater from birth and she’s not at all ashamed about it even though we cringe, try not to gawk in disgust and always say the obligatory “No Pepper! Gross! Don’t eat that.” Those actions haven’t stopped her once, as she looks me straight in the eyes and helps me with my yard doody duty. By the time I get my rubber glove and the grocery bag, it’s usually only her poos that are left to pick up. Gross I know, but I still appreciate her willingness to help with the chores.

I don’t want to single Pepper out or put the spotlight just on her talents though. Each dog has their talents and gifts shall we say? Pepper is poo detail, Bailey helps out with lizard patrol which is really no help at all and always ends in a catastrophic gurgling of her stomach, for days. Charlie takes on iguana and snake patrol until the job is done, thank goodness. Charlie also takes on the role of barking at the occasional cow that escapes the neighbor’s pasture and he’s all about barking his head off at wild hogs, turkeys and Peaches and Cream, our resident armadillos. He feels his job is to simply make their presence known to us, but not actually do anything about them. He does give Butterballs, our resident turkey tom, a run for his money though, which is entertaining, all the same.

So as for the impending storm, the new PTO tractor generator we bought after Ian is hooked up and ready to go, the vehicles are all tucked away in the shop and everything on the deck is lashed down and ready to take the deck railings with it if it gets ugly.

I’m off to start that last load of laundry, bake some brownies and possibly put a small lunch of tater tots in the oven. Oh! And take a nice hot shower, which is the one thing I regret not doing before Ian hit last year. Until the water and especially the hot water is gone, you don’t realize how much you miss it. Bird baths from the rapidly cooling hot tub water don’t do much to rid the post hurricane odors.

Hopefully we won’t have to deal with any of that this year. With the generator tested and set up, life should be much better, post storm. 🤞

Catch you on the flip side or maybe before, if something interesting comes up!

We’re less than week from heading out on our first month long adventure as retirees. For decades our family vacations have all included many pictures of the family in front of world famous places like the Forbidden City, Eiffel Tower and the Great Wall of China, as Ben yaks on the phone trying to act like he’s on vacation. Not this time. The little birds named Hannah and Chris have flown the nest and it’s a no work, me and Ben adventure. We couldn’t be more excited. The tater tots, chicken nuggets and Coca Colas are packed in the Yeti and we’re ready to roll!

Ben spent the better part of the first month of his retirement obsessing over and planning this Wild West adventure. Where to go, what to do and where to stay in our newly acquired Airstream. I’ve spent months making sure the bed is comfy, not squeaky and we have all the comforts of home like little tiny grills, miniature queen sheets and comforters for our mini queen bed (which is an experiment in itself), unbreakable drink glasses, shrunken pots, pans and cookware that fit our shrunken stove and microwave, as well as pretty smelling items to keep our environment “fresh.” And certainly we made room for Ben’s newest toy, a Jura coffee/espresso/cappuccino machine. It’s not camping without that gadget, for sure, and what better use for 100% of our counter space. Sigh

As I’ve been packing and planning for this trip, I recall how I’ve always dreamed of owning a tiny home with less maintenance and upkeep. As I’ve bumped my head 4 times organizing and putting away dishes or trying to test the shower, I’m not quite sure I meant this tiny. As I have severe claustrophobia, going to the bathroom with the door closed is obviously not going to happen, so we’ll both be closely monitoring each other’s bowel health on this trip (welcome to retirement).

With all that being said, I know one thing for certain and that it’s a tiny tube sized space and not many ways to escape gassy situations that will for sure happen over a month long journey. Just for the record, I’ve trapped myself in my own gassy death twice now, which resulted in a few more bangs to my head in the process, so beans are definitely not on the food list and more air cleaning gadgets were needed. Bottom line, no matter what happens, Ben and I have always considered ourselves to be non-wussies, so you’ll still hear us laughing from Utah. Guaranteed!

So with all the planning and prepping behind us, just days to our departure, this would naturally be the perfect time for poop to hit the fan right? Yes

We now have a few minor hiccups in our plan. Ok one minor hiccup and one potentially major belch. We suddenly have a dog with full on hives, scratching all his fur off and making horrible licking sounds 24/7, which won’t be pleasant in a tiny tube. Hopefully the vet will help with that particular hiccup at 4 pm today. Oh and more importantly, a hurricane is threatening us once again. As if hurricane Ian last September wasn’t bad enough for SW Florida, Idalia is starting out exactly the same way Ian looked. First it’s just a tropical storm with a little rain. Not but a few hours later, it’s a 33 county emergency and it’s going to be a hurricane, headed towards Tampa, the same as where Ian was predicted to hit. Now in the last few hours it’s going to be a Cat 3, all the gas, alcohol, bread, milk and eggs are gone. It’s also not helping the situation when gas tankers of diesel fuel accidentally filled unleaded tanks at several gas stations around Florida. Sigh. If it follows last years plan, next it’ll be a Cat 4 and headed straight for us. So much for our plans to get the heck out of here ahead of the typical major hurricane month in SW Florida. Ugh. Another sigh. Deep breath.

So stayed tuned. We’re determined to take this trip that Ben planned out so well. First stop is Chattahoochee, FL on Saturday night. We hope!