my mom had big plans to come visit us in june in yosemite national park. but, when western new york winter lingered on and on and on, she looked into changing her flight to come see us while we were on the california coast. she joined us while we were at thornhill broome and then […]
derek
channel islands visitor center.

so. the story goes, that anna and i had a trip booked to camp on anacapa islands in the channel islands national park. but, just before we were set to go, we chickened out. an earthquake. no shelter from sun. aggressive birds. no internet. no escape until our ferry came back. winds. low temps at […]
ronald reagan presidential library.

at each new location, we do a lot of research about things to do in the area, and then we plan accordingly, timing the things derek wants to do on the weekends and the things he’s less interested in for our weekday activities. while we were at thornhill broome, the top item on his agenda […]
soledad canyon happenings.

after our two weeks at california state beaches with no hookups, we headed inland for a break at soldedad canyon thousand trails rv park, to clean, do laundry, recover, do some rv upgrades, and so on. as always, when we find ourselves in less exciting places, we try to have a bit of routine with […]
adventures in los angeles

we aren’t superfans of big cities. at least i’m not. i mean. the history and architecture is often pretty cool. and there’s usually so many great places to eat. and museums. but the people. and the traffic. ugh. after our two beach weeks with no hookups, we moved a bit inland to a thousand trails […]
leo carrillo state beach.

beach number two on our california state beach tour was leo carrillo in malibu (which meant we got to do a bit of l.a. traffic driving on our way north). we got in pretty late, and got set up, and then derek had to pack for a morning flight back to north carolina for the […]
san elijo state beach.

after wilderness lakes, it was finally time to kick off our long stretch of california state beaches. derek booked us at four different beaches for five out of seven weeks in march and april. the first one up was san elijo, a little bit north of san diego, near encinitas, california. our campground was up […]
wilderness lakes stuff.

i’m way way behind in blogging, but we haven’t had very good internet lately. so, to kick things off, i’m taking us way back, three campgrounds ago… after our time in palm desert, we spent a week in menifee, california at wilderness lakes. (we stayed there for a few days just before christmas last year). […]
mastodon peak hike.joshua tree national park.

even though palm desert is just south of joshua tree national park, it’s still a good 35 minutes or so to get to the south entrance of the park and a bit further just to get to a few of the maintained trails in the less populated area of the park. the north entrance is […]
salvation mountain and east jesus.

we are currently staying in the palm springs, palm desert, coachella valley area of california. it’s mostly a resort community type of area, so lots of golf courses and shopping and fine dining. but just a bit down the road, the landscape turns into dusty desert and tons of agriculture (thanks to irrigation). tucked away, […]