Sense and Sensibility...

 First, let me state for the record, that the title of this post will be the last reference to Jane Austen I make.

...or not.

In our travels, we have seen many expressions of how people choose to pursue the nomad life. Some, like us, have reasonable budgets, enough to afford to travel in relative luxury. A few, have much greater monetary means, and as such, travel in large, luxuriant Class As (‘motorcoaches”), or much larger 5th wheels, like ours.

Class A..

Some of these motorcoaches can exceed $1,000,000!

5th wheel…

This is a near-twin to ours.

Some utilize what are euphemistically called, “Toy haulers,” some examples of which are seen in the link below.

https://blog.campingworld.com/find-your-rv/best-toy-haulers/

We gave some thought to this kind of 5th wheel, but one large enough to haul the Maverick would have topped out at 50 feet in length, which would be extremely difficult to get into many parks: some don't allow anything longer than 40 feet. Even then, when you discount the space needed for said toys (or back porch), you end up with less Lebensraum than our 35 foot trailer, not to mention the decreased maneuverability and decreased fuel mileage.

Quite a  few folks use what’s known as a Class B: This is a standard van, like a Ford Transit, or Mercedes Sprinter, that has been kitted out inside for camping.

 Bs usually have no slideouts, but have the advantage of being very maneuverable, and (relatively) fuel-efficient. They are also not much longer, overall, than 20 feet, so can get into smaller spaces, or, if 4WD, have a bit of off-road utility.

A representative Class B…

Then, there are Class Cs, which are usually van-based, but with the ‘box’ part removed, and an RV body attached. They are almost as maneuverable and as fuel-efficient (which ain't saying much!) as Class Bs, but definitely offer more room.

A Class C….

There is a subclass of Class Cs, called, “Super Cs,” which are based on larger pickup truck chassis, like Ford F550)s, or even larger, based upon OTR (over the road) semi-trucks, sometimes called ‘prime movers.’

A Super C…

The other common platform is a bumper-pull trailer, which are more difficult to maneuver than a 5th wheel, but offer the advantage of all the living room being on one level.  

One of the odd things in the RV world is the terminology ("The secret handshake!”): Bumper pulls are often referred to as ‘tow-behinds,’ but 5th wheels also get ‘towed behind.’ 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We went round and round about which of these to choose, and ultimately chose the 5th wheel, for many reasons.

- Cost: used Super Cs can easily price out at $200,000+, so that wasn't an option; standard Cs are pretty popular, but I’ll circle back to why we didn't choose one.

- Utility: 5th wheels are quite plentiful, and consequently, well-priced.

- Backup ability: with a 5th wheel, the towed vehicle can actually pivot more than 90 degrees, whereas a bumper pull is limited to quite a bit less pivoting ability, making them much harder to back into spots, which is a fairly common occurrence in many RV parks.

- Ease of maintenance: any trailer can be serviced and fixed, relatively easily. They aren't terribly complex, so that becomes a point of interest, for me. However, As/Bs/Cs, being a combination of the living quarters and the motive source, if something goes wrong with the mechanicals (engine, transmission, drivetrain), and you need to take it to a service center for that repair, you're now homeless….!

Why not a standard C? Most Class Cs are based on chassis that utilize gasoline engines, and the weights they run at, make the engine work very hard, decreasing the life of the engine, with a concomitant decrease in fuel mileage. If they had diesel engines, I’d have considered one: the only ones that do come with diesel engines are Mercedes, and they are crazy expensive, and their reliability isn't all that great. plus, there are a boatload more Ford, Chevy, and Dodge dealers in the hinterlands than there are Mercedes dealers!

Diesels, by design, are much better suited to carrying heavy loads, and get better fuel mileage than a gasoline engine, in the same chassis.

There is also the facf that..I’m 69! I can still change a tire on The Beast, or the trailer, but on a A/C/Super C? Fuggeddibouddit!

 As it is, to get the spare up and down, off the bed of The Beast, I had to rig up a stowable crane: I discovered when getting ready for the adventure, I can:

- lift a tire, or,

- I can lift a wheel, but;

- I cannot lift a tire AND wheel, as a unit! 

These tire/wheels weigh around 190 pounds (86 kg): an A/Super C wheel/tire, can easily scale in at over 300 pounds (136 kg). If I blow a tire, on the highway, with our rig, I can change it: if that happened on a bigger rig, it’s a $peciality $ervice call, which can range up to $1000-$2000. Not only can a blown tire blow a hole in your budget, but it can blow a serious hole in your travel plans.

Plus, the tires on an A/Super C can cost upwards of $800-$1000, per tire. I got all four rear tires of The Beast replaced for $1500.

Ah..more secret handshake stuff—duallies!

Why even have a dually? Good question, Grasshopper!

Tires have load limits, and when towing, especially large, heavy loads, you must take into account how much load each tire can support. That is, not only is the weight of the vehicle, but the weight the truck is carrying. 

Here are the numbers...

The Beast weighs a total of 11,200 pounds (5090kg), with a 50/50 weight distribution: that’s 5600 pounds (2545 kg) per axle (axle is defined as a set of wheels, left to right, regardless of the number of tires) With the trailer on, the rear axle weight increases to 11,460 pounds (5209 kg).

Each tire has a maximum load rating of 3750 pounds (1704 kg) for a total carrying capacity of 15,000 pounds (6818 kg). That leaves a safety margin of 3540 pounds (1568 kg). Thats a good safety factor. Were we to use a non-dually truck, you can see the issue! 

It would carry it, but the tires would be signifcantly overloaded: not an issue for a few miles, but going down highways, especially in the hot times of the year?

POP!!

Tires, as they do their work, generate heat, and excess heat is the main killer of tires. For that reason, even though I’m safely under the carrying capacity of the tires, if—I pray it never happens, by ALWAYS using proper pressures—stuff happens, the duallies give us ‘backup,’ It’s not at all common for both tires to go pop, simultaneously, but if a single tires does, one can limp along on the remaining tire, to somewhere to get it replaced. On a non-dually, truck? You're stopping RIGHT there...and changing a tire. Doing so while the trailer is on is exceedingly difficult. Duallies give you a safety and comfort factor.

Back to why we chose a 5th wheel: along with the utility, and (relative) ease of backing, we knew this was going to be our home. It wasn't just a weekend jaunt, or even a short two-week journey: we were going to live in it, full-time. A 5th wheel gives you that room, it is fairly maneuverable, competitively-priced, and at the size point we chose, almost all RV parks are able to accommodate it.

Could we have lived in a C or a B? Yea…my wife and I like each other’s company..BUT….we knew that living, cheek-by-jowl, would put a strain on things. A 5th wheel (or any like-sized RV) gives you the ability to ‘escape’ to opposite ends, to do things that would be more difficult to do in a smaller RV.

So there ya have it: Sense, and Sensibility.

Sense, to grasp fully our choices, and do the correct thing that fits  lifestyle choices, and sensibility (“the capacity to respond intelligently, to refined emotions”) to choose wisely.

In our 14th month of living the vida mobile, it seems to have been the correct one!

Stay tuned for more! Feel free to leave any questions and comments on the blog, and we’ll respond as quickly as possible.

The Attiude of Latitude!

 January 20, 2026

Wow.

We made it almost a month past our first year on the road, and what a year it has been. Exhilarating, frightening, challenging, and never boring. We went as far north as Manistique, MI, and as far south as our current winter spot, Yuma, AZ.

The desert does odd things...

45° N. to 32° N. 

We went as far east as Lapeer, MI, and as far west as Yuma, AZ.

                

                  Not Lapeer, but in Michigan!

-114° W. to -83° W.

Why in the world would I do something so geeky, as to tell you the latitude and longitude of some of our travel spots?

I’ll circle back.

We’ve done what we set out to do, which in the RV world, is called, ‘Chasing the 70.” The idea is, you travel north in the summer, where the temps aren't as brutal (but mosquitos and humidity might be), then back down south as the fall and winter approaches. You try to stay in the window of 70(ish) degrees.

We found the patterns of this traveling, the rhythms dictated by the seasons, constantly a thrill. You do the same ‘dance of the seasons,’ when in a sticks’n bricks—as we did for all our lives in Colorado—but the sameness, the ritual, is different on the road.

It’s different than the stationary, non-RV life; it’s discovery, every day. It’s knowing we’ll see new and unknown places, most we’ve never seen before, sometimes on a daily basis.

             

              The vistas are long and beautiful

For Nick!

We ALL know where this is thanks to Forrest…

          Creosote bush: it’s everywhere down here!

A babu saguaro…..

…about 100 years later!

The stark beauty of the desert with its creosote bushes and cactus, the wooded wonders of the Upper Midwest, with forests so different than the ones in our native Colorado, where you can see many feet into the woods: not so much in Michigan’s forests! The crisp, cool mornings in Yuma, where ‘cool’ constitutes 49F°, to the sultry, humid, and foggy mornings outside Chicago.

For M., our EXCELLENT Chicago guide!

The Bean!

Back around….living at 40°N, -105°W, the patterns never change. Oh, there’ll be differences in the timing of seasons, surprises regarding storms, and the like: out here, on the road, we experience sooo many different things, sooo many new places, sooo many interesting folks.

It’s the attitude of latitude, it's the rhythm of longitude. It’s change, it's a rebirthing of sorts, and we STILL relish every day

Seeya on the road!

And Now, The End Is Near….

Strap in: it’s gonna be a long one. We’ve had issues…..

ChatGPT’s take on a new problem...

Now that I have your attention….nothing serious!

As I write this, we’re within one month of having been on The Big Adventure one year; December 28th was when we hit the road, and I thought it would be a good time to look back, and talk with you about just na few of the amazing things that have happened, some amazing places we've seen, activities we’ve done, and places visited, and share some thoughts about the next steps along this path.

Our bottom line?

We have loved it! The sights, the oddities, the great people, have made all the effort, all the hassle, well worth the effort. Just a few scenes along the way…

April 2025, checking in at Yuma

                  The Beast and The Burrow!

Montezuma’s Castle

Odd little tin truck in Yuma

Enjoying a November day!

Have there been some rough spots?

Sure, but whether we lived in our sticks’n bricks (which just set us back almost $5000 to replace the well pump), or in the trailer (where we've had a few rodents-eating-expensive-hydraulic-hose issues), things happen. That’s just life. 

Best to check the time, and relax….:)

When we began this plan eleven months ago, we labored under no delusions that it was going to be a cakewalk. We had done a huge amount of studying, through books, articles, Youtube videos, and talking to our friends who’d done a bit of full-timing. We felt reasonably well-prepared to jump into the lifestyle, and by and large, that assumption has been accurate.

With the benefit of hindsight, we began the trip pretty well-prepared. There were a number areas where we hadn't found much information and it wasn't really a result of us being underprepared, because we didn't do as much research: it was an effect of people reporting ‘the good’ of full-time RVing, and not reporting “the bad.” 

On many websites, folks tend to gloss over the not-so-good, or they are so over-the-top with effusive praise, it can sometimes be tough to discern if they were just ticked, or their praise/bad reportage was accurate. Those details became more apparent as we spent more time on the road.

Details like how ineffective many RV apps are, especially how much of the information reported about places (like freecampsites.net) is really out-of-date. 

Other details turned out to be a bit more opaque, and nothing but actually being there would help: things like where to find local laundromats, the cheapest places to buy propane, and where to find affordable shopping. All those details aren't contained in a guide, but only are arrived at by exploring the area, and talking to other nomads.

Some apps simply are too complex to use, and ofttimes, overlap the functionality of other easier-to-use apps, so in the early process of implementation, we eliminated a number of them.

Another issue we discovered is how sites, like Reserve America and Reservation.gov, though used by many state and Federal parks, are remarkably inconsistent in how the app works across various websites. Nowhere in our research was this ever mentioned, or we certainly never found any mentions of it. It’s one of those cases of, till you jump out of an airplane, no amount of reading about it fully prepares you for the reality of the leap.

Again, that's much of life, isn't it?

Moonrise over South Mesa

We found one of the most valuable things to do was to preplan our routes: where to fill up, where to take occasional rests, and where to overnight. We do try to limit our travel days to no more than 5 hours, and ofttimes, 3 to 4 hours. We’re in no hurry, and when towing a rig this size, the amount of extra concentration really adds up, resulting in making us tired at the end of a travel day. That, and one NEVER wants to arrive at a stop, only to have to set up in the dark!

Another useful method is looking at various campsites on Google Earth: this can be a trove of information, about the terrain, an important consideration for a rig this size. We also will use the same technique for site evaluation as we do for backing up: G.O.A.L.

Get Out And Look!

So, back to the experiences: we have had so many adventures, so many sights, so many people that have made the journey a delight, I thought I’d show a just a few photos for your pleasure.

               Auburn 852, at a car show

Old tractor at Cloud Museum

Beautiful horse sculpture, made of old parts

One of the more amazing things that happened, happened completely serendipitously. 

I participate in an online community of people who love Jaguars: I’ve been a member of that community sine the early 2000s. Though I no longer own the Jag, I hang tyhere becuiase it’s one of the most diverse and intelligent bunch of people I’ve ever coem across. I was in a discussion of planes, and because of the number of pilots and flying aficionados on the website,  relating to them how my Dad had been in WWII, and had worked on planes in the South Pacific, and showed them the photo of Dad, standing next to a capture Japanese fighter plane (see blow).

One of the smart ones indicated that the plane still existed, a fact I never knew, and, sadly, dad never knew either!

Not only that, but that it existed at Pima Air Museum, where I had visited earlier in the spring, and had not a clue of its existence there!

I had to go back…..!

The plane was a captured Japanese fighter that my Dad helped get airworthy again, in Hollandia, New Guinea, in 1944. Dad had told me of the adventure (there’s that word again!) of the plane and had a photo taken of him, standing near the plane.

More info, here…

 https://captured-wings.fandom.com/wiki/C/n_6430

Dad standing by the restored Oscar, Hollandia ,New Guinea, 1944

Me, misremembering exactly where dad stood, 80 years ago!

       My brother Doug and me at Pima Air Museum

Home on the range!

For me, an old geologist, everywhere we go is an adventure, and I love sharing the stories and history with Renee.

              Renee, for scale!

Chicago is a GREAT city! Shoutout to our new friend, Maralyn, who graciously took us on a tour of the city: we’ll be back!

                                            The Bean, in Chicago

These are but a few of the amazing, astonishing, unexpected delights we have had during this first year of—ready for it?

ADVENTURE!

Like Carl and Ellie, we will keep finding our adventures, and hope you will all follow along!

A Few New Bumps In Our Journey….

 

For readers who have followed along our path, what I’m about to report will come as no surprise … Kaka happens. 

Merde. 

Poop…..you know...sh!t!

Full-time Rving is really about a constant process of solving challenges; where to stay, how long to stay, how to get important mail, tank maintenance, battery maintenance, repairing all the high-quality, American-made stuff falling off the trailer. Along with planning routes, calling campgrounds to ensure their policies and prices are as advertised on the internet (and let us tell ya…they rarely are), every day is met with some challenge. 

Some difficult, some perplexing.

Full-timing is an exercise in what est seminar training (of which I am a 1980 graduate) called, “Be Here Now.” If ever you choose to follow this lifestyle, even over the course of a couple of weeks, you will discover precisely how much, how fast, and how well you can think on your feet.

It must be working: we’ve lost a combined 220 pounds! 😂

We arrived at our wintering grounds, near Yuma, Arizona, on October 22nd. As is our norm, we got into our set-up routine: I readied the trailer to get unhooked from The Beast, set out the orange ‘feet,’ under the jacks, got the trailer level, which set in motion Renee's tasks.

The trailer, situated so we can get optimal solar, at Imperial Dam.

She checks the insides, to ensure nothing is in the way of the slides, then gets them deployed. That allows me to commence either hooking up to shore power, or deploying and setting up the portable generator.

Given we are at a BLM (Bureau of Land Management) LTVA (Long-term Visitor's Area), it’s essentially an enhanced boondocking site: there is access to a central dump station, and potable water, but out here, you park wherever you want (within reason: one does not try to park in close proximity to others), and you are on your own for electricity. to that end, we unloaded our new, MUCH quieter generator.

The generator—or genset—we used all the rest of the time on the road was a large, open-cage style generator. I purposely oversized it, relative to our wattage needs, plus, it happened to be the least-expensive one at the time.

But...it is LOUD! 

As is the way of these things, the quieter the genset, the more expensive it is. One of the quietest is a Honda, but at the size we need, they are pushing $3000!

During these past six months I discovered we could use a smaller wattage genset (the old one is 9500w), and that made it a bit easier to find an affordable smaller, quieter one (6000w). We found one that fit the bill for $700, and also has the benefit that Renee and I can load it onto the back of The Beast by ourselves: the old one needed a hoist to get it on and off.

I get the genset up and going, not only to charge the batteries (they did not seem to be charging adequately via solar: more merde to report, later), but also to get the AC running…in Yuma, in October, it still reaches the 90s (for my overseas readers, that’s in the 30s).

Next, so that we have decent cellular service, I got the Starlink set up. Here is where the merde begins…

It’s usually a fast, easy set-up: put out the dish, hook the cable in to the  router, plug in the router, and in a few minutes, no matter where we are, we get stable, lightning-fast internet.

Not this time…? 

It worked less than 2 hours!

I go through the troubleshooting, ensure there’s juice to the router, triple-check the cabling, and...bupkis. So, I put in a trouble ticket to Starlink...oops…remember needing decent cell service?

Unfortunately, we don’t have great service here. At best, you can get one bar of LTE, and that’s if you find the sweet spot. 

I finally get a message to Starlink.

Then I wait.

And I wait.

And I wait…for three days!

We are both getting a bit…shall we say, peeved?… given the fact of this being  near-new equipment (the old Starlink router gave up the ghost about a month ago, and no new bits are sold to support it), plus the fact the monthly charge is...not cheap.

After three days, of bad cell service, no Roku TV (I know, I know..1st-world problems!), and not being able to upload anything to the blog, I receive a call from a friendly Starlink representative. She quickly diagnoses the problem being  likely a bad cable, and tells me they’ll send one right way!

Right away = it arrives on the 30th of October.

Long story made short, we’re back in the Internet business.

Remember the issue with the solar? Well, I had already envisaged a greater charging capacity for the system, and that took the form of four 250w, flexible solar panels. I had them set up at Quartzsite, back in February/March, but wasn’t impressed with how much extra oomph the array provided. This, that, and the other thing kept me from building a support rack and setting the panels up for a more propitious angle, to capture the sun’s energy. It’s a fairly involved process, one I didn't want to tackle for the relatively short stays we had, before getting to Imperial Dam.

I bought some PVC pipe, a bag full of fittings, and fashioned a rack to hold the panels…

Then, I got the panels out of the traveling spot, inside the trailer, and attached them to the rack…

After hooking them into the wiring harness, up on the roof, and knowing there was some issue with the rooftop panels, I hooked the ground array to the system, without the rooftop panels in circuit, and VOILA! We were getting charged! That confirmed there was some issue with the rooftop unit.

A day or two later—when the winds stopped—I got up and began troubleshooting the rooftop array, and found a major problem: one panel had shorted out, and fried its feed cabling! That interrupted the circuit for the remaining 5 panels, rendering them useless. I took the bad panel out of circuit, and for the time being, we're back to having reasonably-powered charging. One problem, sorta solved.

But wait! There’s more!

Thanks to the inability of our current leaders to, ya know, actually lead, we found out that Renee’s ACA-subsidized insurance is nearly doubling. This chucks a bit of a hammer into our travel plans: she will be eligible for Medicare, which will be considerably less-expensive, but…doesn't become eligible till next July.

Recall that part, about solving challenges on the fly?

We will: the plan is, we’ll stay here at Imperial Dam right up to end of LTVA season, which is April 15th, then hustle our way back to the tree row in Oklahoma, where it doesn't cost us a cent to ‘rent’ our spot, until late June/early July, then we can more easily afford to get back on the road.

Would we go back to a sticks-n-bricks? Would we trade our adventures, the new sights, the people, the sunrises and sunsets for all this?

Yours truly, at Kitt Peak!

Guard tower, Yuma Territorial Prison

Cloud Museum, home of more old Fords than I’d ever seen!

Renee, by this precious little church, right in the middle of farm fields near Yuma

Merde, NO! 😋

This song kinda sums it up...

https://youtu.be/soKl1OLsk6s

We’ll seeya along the road!

The Great Maple Syrup Incident….!

 RVing is a sport of many challenges; finding short-term accommodations, not necessarily easy with a rig 63 feet in length; keeping tanks up to snuff, and empty of contents; making sure important housekeeping tasks are done within range of appropriate places to do so (laundry, aforementioned tank service, any mechanical issues that might need periodic attention, groceries, to name but a few), and…making sure stuff stays where it’s supposed to!

Imagine, if you will, towing your home down bumpy roads: All your glassware, all your dishes, all your tschotkes, every dish, every glass, your pills, your razor, your shampoo—you get the drift!—will find the worst place to fall. We thought we’d foresaw most of these future pitfalls..and we did.

Most.

Clothes, normally quite stable on hangers, will leap off their bar, and end up piled on the closet floor. Your neatly arranged medicine cabinet will seem to have been put in a blender, and not-so-gently stirred into a Tetris pile of stuff, ALL of which will fall out when you open the cabinets. Dishes will be disarranged; forks, knives, spoons, all will be blended into a maelstrom of metallic objects, one of which will undoubted keep you from opening the drawer, till you pushitinpullitoutpushitinpullitout, till the offending utensil finally stops laughing at you, and gravity allows it to fall!

Luckily, socks, shorts, and other clothing items, once stowed in a drawer, ride out the rolling, bouncing storm, seemingly unaffected by the road. 

Probably learned to do that in the dryer….

You quickly learn that everything, and I mean E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G, has to be put in small baskets, or bundled together, or stashed in sacks. 

Books much be tightly stacked up, such that there is no wiggle room between the tomes. Ever wonder why pill bottles are often stuffed with cotton? Wonder no more: travel a few thousand miles, with bottles uncottoned, and you will end up with pill powder. Likewise, tools, games, books, DVDs, and food items…more on this, in a bit.

RV refrifgerators have door locks, and you’d think that’d be all you need…you’d be wrong! You have to use what I call, ’squeezy bars” across the shelves.

The two white horizontal bars, holding the milk in: Squeezy bars.

This leads us to…the maple syrup.

Now, we thought we were being pretty clever, minimizing the use of glass containers—for obvious reasons—and so we bought our maple syrup in this nifty little plastic jug, with a snap-on top. Worked fine, for about 17,000 of the 20,000 miles we’ve traveled, this year.

Until it didn’t.

About two weeks ago, we were engaging in what we call “Mission Slideout,” which is exactly as you might think. . Get to the spot we’re staying at, check the level of the trailer (VERY important: slides will not operate unless/until the trailer is balanced side-to-side).

In this instance, we weren't setting up for the night, but just stopping to put some stuff in the fridgeThat requires we open the door, drop down the stairs, and inspect the inside for any—WHAT THE @#$%&! is that???

When I get to the top of the stairs, I see a thick, viscous brown liquid, dripping out the bottom of the fridge, running down, and making a river along the base of the cabinets, and around the cabinet to the stairs to the bedroom. It’s late, we’re tired, and I disgustingly announce we’ll deal with it when we get to the campground.

By the time we got there, most of the liquid had disappeared to places God only knows, under the sills of the cabinets. When we open up the fridge, what had happened was the “RV-approved” fridge had shaken the shelves OFF their ridiculously-tiny ledges, and dumped their contents to the bottom of the fridge. All landed well, nothing broken…except the  nearly-full QUART of maple syrup had turned upside down, and the nifty little snap lid…had become unsnapped.

Maybe about a pint remained in the bottom of the fridge under the rotter drawers (often called, ‘crispers,’ but we know THAT’S a lie), and it was quite thick, being refrigerated. 

Great fun ensued, cleaning it up. a couple of tubs of hot water, an entire roll of paper towels, a few cuss words, and most had been cleaned up.

Except for the n to the unknownth  amount that had drained into the basement…..

That led to me devising a better method to make damn good and sure the shelves don't come off their ridiculously-small ledges. You’d think a refrigerator, used in an RV, would be designed to already have that handy feature.  

You'd be wrong.

And you know what? We STILL love this journey! 

We’ve seen so much, conquered so many challenges, met so many wonderful people, that the occasional spilled syrup, the sometimes-jangled up clothes closet, the shaking of soda as you drive, are small potatoes. 

1st-world problems. 

We have discovered the depths of our love for one another, and grown so accustomed to being in close proximity, almost 24/7, that it’d be hard to imagine the larger confines of a stick-and-bricks.

(PRO TIP: Do NOT open a fizzy drink until your rig has been sitting still for about an hour. You're welcome.)

As we near our wintering grounds of Imperial Dam, nearly a year into this amazing, astounding, challenging, and joyful nomadism…we wouldn't change a thing. Except, put tape over the top of the maple syrup!

Here’s a smattering of places and things we’ve seen!

An emu. In Arizona. On the loose.

The Beast and Harvey

One of thousands of saguaro cacti, around Lake Pleasant

A gorgeous Carefree sunset!

Yrs trly by cacti and elephantii, in Carefree

We hope you enjoy reading this blog, and we will continue to keep all of our fans—all TEN!—up-to-date, for 2026.

A Few Housekeeping bits!

 Just a late note, and apology: I only now got around to moderating comments, but will do so, MUCH more contemportaneously, in the future!

Please leave respectful comments, and I promise to add them!

We are now in our downhill run to our wintering spot, outside Yuma, AZ. I’ll have an updated essay soon. In the meantime, a few happy snaps of some of the gorgeous venues we’ve seen.

Montezuma’s Castle

Jerome, through which I accidentally drove the rig!

Gorgeous Sedona, AZ

Not something you see often, in Arizona...

The rig near Peoria, AZ

Sonoran Sunset and a harvest moon!

Enjoy this beautiful fall!