At least once per Odyssey we try to boondock, that is, to camp without hookups on public lands and off the grid. We do this partly to experience the feeling of complete independence and solitude that this mode of RVing…
A Most “Pleasant” Fortnight: Lake Pleasant AZ
Waving goodbye to our new Lance Owners Association “Rally in the Valley” friends, we hopped on AZ-303 for the 35 mile drive north to Lake Pleasant Regional Park, another in the wonderful Maricopa County parks system. This was a new…
Tour de Phoenix Part 1 and the Accidental Rally
After Picacho Peak we headed up the road about 2 hours to one of our very favorite campgrounds: McDowell Mountain Regional Park. There’s something special about this place that’s hard to pin down. Is it the solitude? The wide open…
Holidays in Tucson: Kitt Peak, Catalina and Picacho
We left SKP Saguaro and headed to one of our favorite parks, Gilbert Ray Campground in the Tucson Mountains, just west of Tucson. We had timed our arrival for Sunday, on the assumption that weekenders would be checking out and…
New Faces in Familiar Places: Benson, AZ Redux
After our nine day semi-sprint across the middle of the country, we were ready to drop anchor and settle in somewhere nice for a few days. This would give us a chance to rest and do laundry, but it would…
A Slow Sprint to Enchantment: Odyssey #3 Heads West
It’s been a mild fall across almost all of the United States. While it cooled down enough in November to require that the RV be winterized, on the whole it has been a pleasant season, with none of the…
Irma and the Big Pivot: Our Odyssey #3 Plans
“We plan, God laughs” – Yiddish proverb “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley” – Robert Burns We’ve had a wonderful spring, summer and fall. After driving almost exactly 10,000 miles (wow!) on Odyssey #2, we were ready to enjoy the beauty of the Indiana Dunes…
Summer Arrives: The Santa Catalina and Tucson Mountains
Our trip reached its apogee – the furthest distance from home – at White Tank Mountain. Now we turned around and started slowly heading back home, stopping first at one of our favorite places from last year’s Odyssey: Catalina State…
On Finding Happiness: Phoenix and the White Tank Mountains
Leaving Roosevelt Lake and the Superstition Mountains, we descended back into the Valley of the Sun. That’s its tourist name; the real name is the Salt River Valley, which doesn’t sound quite as snappy, but is probably better for the…
Old West Week: Roosevelt Lake and The Apache Trail
After McDowell Mountain our next stop was the Cholla Campground at Roosevelt Lake, a National Forest Service campground. I had heard about Roosevelt Lake last year and wanted to try it out. This was our first time at a Forest…