Today is the BIG day!  The Ayres' Minnie Winnie, the Draper's Airstream, and our Komfort are almost packed and ready to depart for a 13,000 mile camping trip.  Many of you have commented "that is a lot of miles".  I agree, especially when our destination is north by northwest to Denali National Park near Anchorage, Alaska and our 1st campground is southeast of Tucson.  It seems we have packed everything we could possibly need except a compass.
We have no definite plans, only one reservation for today at Kartchner Caverns and the rest will be by the seat of our pants.

One of my jobs was to start a BLOG....it looks like a mass email will have to do!  Look for occasional updates.  Thanks to all of you who have offered your suggestions on where to go and more important where not to go.

As we begin our trip, we hope you enjoy a wonderful summer wherever you may be.

Bruce, Kim, Dave, Jeannine, Phil and Linda


 
Day 3, Blog 2    5/15/14
We are at beautiful Elephant Butte State Park in New Mexico! Actually headed in the right direction for our final destination in Alaska. Yesterday we found a terrific road called Emory Pass- full of curves, vistas, huge loss of trees due to fires in the last couple of years but beautiful nonetheless. Phil warned us that there were lots of curves. He lied!  There were lots and lots and lots of curves, enough curves that everything inside our trailer found a new spot while navigating the beautiful pass.
After spending a relaxing evening, we now head to Bandelier NP outside of Santa Fe. This will be our 1st dry camping or "roughing it" experience. We will also see a significant temperature drop from the low 80's into the 60's. We are hoping to view some bear and coyote but not see any snow.

Thanks Brent for helping us set up this Blog!

Day 6, Blog 3    5/19/14
America the beautiful!  On this trip we will be visiting many of our countries national parks. Bandelier Nat’l Monument in New Mexico was our first and it was spectacular! We all enjoyed the interpretive trails, cliff dwellings, and learning   how the Ancestral Pueblo people lived. Bruce,Dave and Jeannine climbed 4 different ladders to see the kiva located 140 ft above the Frijoles canyon. The six of us enjoyed a campfire, complete with smores the first night. Appys and wine at the famous “silver bullet” the second.  After two very interesting and peaceful days we will be moving on to Santa Fe.

Here we are now in Santa Fe which has 7000 feet elevation and the Rocky Mountains as a background.
This city is known for its art galleries and adobe architecture. We learned that the adobe style structures prevalent in this area goes back to the natives entering their homes through the roof, therefore they were flat.  The group enjoyed the Santa Fe cuisine at Robert Redford’s favorite restaurant, Maria’s. Along with our dinners, fresh sopapillas with honey were a hit!  Learning more about agave and tequila processing. We all ventured off to explore the city coming back with different experiences to share at the end of the day.  Bruce and Kim traveled down the Turquoise Trail finding “Tinker Town”.  Phil and Linda discovered a “hidden gem” in town viewing the state capitals 6 million dollar art exhibits.  Newbies to town, Dave and Jeannine gathered some facts while viewing the city during their city tour. Waking up to blue skies and sun knowing that this may be our last day wearing summer attire while we travel north.