Forget Covid and enjoy this Cow-vid. My Amazing Molly Mare shows me the ins and outs of cutting cows as I get my first lesson in sorting cattle from rancher, trainer, and rodeo director Will Lann in San Marcos, NM. I promise to be gentler on the reins next time, Molly, since you clearly have …
Join us for the first part of our adventure through eastern New Mexico and the Texas panhandle. PS — if Youtube decides to come after us for copyright violation, please don’t let it be because we used a few seconds of a cheesy song by, of all people, Jimmy Dean the sausage king.
Highlights from our first camping trip in 2019! We spent two nights at Villanueva State Park on the Pecos River—only an hour from home—to see what needs attention on Culutiwa (our travel trailer) before making any longer trips. The weather was great, the scenery was beautiful, and we didn’t find any serious repair issues beyond …
It’s been over a month since we got home from our April trip across Texas to New Orleans and back. As noted in our previous post, that adventure ended abruptly when Mike came down with his first real fever since childhood and Maureen had to drive 10 straight hours from Dallas back to Santa Fe. …
Continue reading ‘What We Learned In (and About) Louisiana’ »
Those who have followed our travel trailer rambles over the past few years know that a persistent “check engine” error code has been a recurring theme. It’s been undiagnosable, but generally indicates a possible overheating situation. It used to freak us out, but after several expensive, failed attempts to address it, we started ignoring it …
We’re in New Orleans for the next few days, but here’s a new video offering a brief look at our favorite things to see and do from our recent time in these two Texas cities.
Moist, savory, smoked brisket that falls to pieces in your mouth. Tangy, smokey, homemade jalapeño sausage. Tender new potatoes swimming in a cup of warm butter. A grilled chicken sandwich served on two halves of a garlicky, deep fried donut. Handmade lemon cream popsicles dipped in white chocolate and dusted with toasted coconut. And we’ve …
Continue reading ‘If We Make it Out of Texas Alive, We May Never Eat Again’ »
As we get ready to leave San Antonio (which has been a ton of fun) for Austin tomorrow, here’s a video with some highlights of our time in Big Bend, featuring three short hikes in different parts of the park.
We are out of the Big Bend dead-spot and finally able to use the internet without waving our iPhones over our heads trying to catch a faint, passing breeze of cellular service and hoping we don’t get whacked with roaming charges from a cell tower in Mexico. That means three things: We are catching up …
We’ve spent the better part (in more ways than one) of a week in Texas, and we like what we’ve seen so far. Davis Mountains State Park and the area around it—including the towns of Fort Davis, Alpine, and Marfa—provided a warm introduction to “Far West” Texas. We saw a historic fort named for the …
…that’s what time we’re rolling out of Davis Mountains State Park in hopes of scoring a first-come, first-served campsite at Big Bend. (We met another R-Pod owning couple here who told us the competition for sites is cutthroat.) Oh, and the WiFi here is a lie. It may be a while before we’re connected again, …
See that gorgeous campsite in the photo above? The big one with a perfect view of the lake, full hookups, a long and level trailer pad, no immediate neighbors, and shade trees for privacy? Yeah, that’s our site. We reserved it months ago, after scouring online campsite reviews, Google Earth, and multiple RV apps to …
After nearly two decades in the Bay Area—much of that time on the coast, where one season looks a lot like another—it’s a big change living someplace with a more variable climate. This is our second March in Santa Fe, and we’re realizing that local meteorologists really have their work cut out for them this …
We’re in between travels right now, but fortunately there are plenty of places to ramble right here in northern New Mexico. Last weekend was sunny and warm, luring Mike out for a hike in a place we can see from our living room but had never visited: Galisteo Basin Preserve. A lot of other people …
Tucson, we hardly knew ye. After a whirlwind day and a half with Maureen’s friend Jana and her family, we left Phoenix for Tucson. A high wind warning made it a white-knuckle drive, but we arrived safely at the Lazydays KOA without being swallowed by a sandstorm or roadside arroyo. The campground was easily the …
There’s not a whole lot to see in Pie Town, NM (we actually missed our turn and sped right through it on Friday night), but there’s plenty to eat. By the time we doubled back and set up camp, however, everything was closed for the night so we had to wait and enjoy our pie—complete …
Continue reading ‘Getting a Big Slice of New Mexico & Arizona’ »
It’s been a very mild winter here in Santa Fe. We’ve only had a couple days with any measurable snow, and the high temperatures have consistently been in the 50s or even 60s. The entire state of New Mexico is experiencing a serious drought, and the lack of precipitation or snowpack is going to be …
Some friends and family who subscribe to “Rambles” (What, you didn’t know you could subscribe?!? Just enter your email address below or to the right of any post, where it says “Never Miss a Ramble.”) have expressed concern that we are lost somewhere in the wilds of Wyoming. So this is a quick update to …
We’ve already sung the praises of eastern and central South Dakota. If you’ve read our previous posts, you know that we had a great time in Sioux Falls and the Badlands area. Well, I’m here to tell ya that the western part of the state is even better! We spent three nights camping at Custer …
Continue reading ‘Black Hills, White Supremacists, and Colorful Characters’ »
A complete recap of our adventures in the Black Hills, Wyoming, and Denver is coming (eventually). But for now, here’s a brief traffic report from Custer State Park in South Dakota.