The Saga Continues (National Parks Trip #3)

This post represents another installment in the series documenting our West Coast National Parks trip in the summer of 2017.  Alan and I, along with our 18 year old daughter, Kyra, logged a total of 8,513 memorable miles of adventure over the course of five and a half weeks during the months of July and August.

Alan, Kyra and I were stuck in the customer waiting area of the GMC dealership in DuBois, Pennsylvania.  It was Day #2 of our 39 day cross-country trip, and we were waiting for a mechanic to change the transmission fluid in our 2013 GMC Sierra 1500 pickup truck.  The truck’s transmission was failing.  We found ourselves with a truck that would get us home (if we drove carefully and didn’t tax it), a travel trailer that wouldn’t be coming with us, and five weeks of camping reservations ahead of us.  Sprinkle in a fair amount of stress and a whole lot of disappointment and, at that moment in time, life was not a pretty picture.  It was time for some creative thinking.

Strike Two! (National Parks Trip #3)

This post represents another installment in the series documenting our West Coast National Parks trip in the summer of 2017.  Alan and I, along with our 18 year old daughter, Kyra, logged a total of 8,513 memorable miles of adventure over the course of five and a half weeks during the months of July and August.

There are only two photos in this post because I know nobody wants to see pictures of people sitting around crying.  Bear with me, please, and things will get better.  I promise.

On our first day out of the starting blocks, we added an additional two hours of travel due to our return home to pick up the extra contact lenses Kyra had neglected to pack.  Our seven and a half hours of drive time turned into nine and a half, so we knew we had a long day ahead of us when we left home for the second time.  We just didn’t know how long that first day would be.

Out of the Starting Gate (National Parks Trip #3)

This post represents the first installment in the series documenting our West Coast National Parks trip in the summer of 2017.  We logged a total of 8,513 memorable miles of adventure over the course of five and a half weeks.  Read all about it here – the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly.

Previously, on Reflections Around the Campfire . . . In 2007, one year after we bought our first travel trailer, Alan and I recreated our honeymoon travels with our two kids during our family of four’s first cross-country National Parks trip.  The second followed in 2010.  This third cross-country National Parks trip would be our final one.  Not our final trip, of course, but the last one dedicated to visiting as many National Parks as possible.  Once this trip was completed, Alan and I would have hit all of the Parks designated “high priority” on our Bucket List.  Following this trip, we would continue to visit National Parks and Monuments, but at a more leisurely pace, fitting those visits into future trip itineraries that focused on more than just National Parks.

In 2017, our daughter, Kyra, had just graduated from high school and had no employment commitments over the summer, so the timing was perfect for her to join Alan and me on this third National Parks trip.  It had been on the planning board for years, while we waited until the time was right to execute those plans.  Unfortunately, our son, Ryan, five years older than his sister, was already working full time, and his allotted vacation days wouldn’t cover the extended trip.  This was the only one of our cross-country National Parks trips that didn’t include both kids, and we missed Ryan (and his good luck) immensely.

Born Lucky

Wow!  You guys must think that I’ve fallen asleep at my keyboard!  Truth be told, blogging has taken a back seat to a couple of more pressing matters over the past few weeks.  We are up to our ears in planning for our son and future daughter-in-law’s summer wedding.  They’re sweet to include us, and we’re having tons of fun.  I know that 40+ years is a long time to think back to our own wedding but, try as I might, I honestly don’t remember there being . . . So.  Many.  Details.  On top of the wedding, factor in the pending sale of a rental property and the paperwork and ongoing communications that accompany it, and Alan and I have our hands full at the moment.  Nonetheless, blogging is never far from my thoughts, and I plan to begin the recap of our West Coast National Parks trip very soon.    

What follows here today is simply a personal reflection.  I’m not ignoring the devastation in the Ukraine and the many other extraordinary difficulties that society faces today.  My list of nightly prayers is lengthy, and our lives have not been without medical crises or loss.  Please, take this for what it is – a bit of circumspection and a look-back at what has transpired in my teeny tiny corner of the world.

I Failed Michigan Travel Planning 101

This post is the final installment in the series documenting our trip to the states of Minnesota and Michigan back in the summer of 2015.  Our daughter, Kyra, was 16 and out of school on summer vacation, so she joined us on our two week whirlwind tour of the M&M states.

Sometimes, when the title of a blog post catches your eye, you have to wait until the end of the post to reach the punchline.  Not so today, my friends.  I’ll clue you in to the moral of the story first, and then follow up with all of the sordid details later.

How did I fail Michigan Travel Planning 101?  It’s actually quite simple.  I just didn’t allow enough time in our itinerary to truly enjoy this magnificent state.  In fact, we weren’t even all the way home before I was envisioning a return trip to really do Michigan justice.  I did a lot of things right when planning our short stay in Michigan, but I made some rookie mistakes, too.  That’s tough to admit for someone with more than 40 years of travel planning experience.  Read on for the details of my successes and failures.

Voyageurs National Park - and More Minnesota Adventures

This post is another installment in the series documenting our trip to the states of Minnesota and Michigan in the summer of 2015.  Our daughter, Kyra, was 16 and out of school on summer vacation, so she joined us on our two week whirlwind tour of the M&M states.

It wasn’t until I escaped from the work force almost six years ago that I made documenting our travels a priority.  Yes, I always took tons of photos and kept all of my planning documents, but with working, running a household, raising kids and supporting their extracurricular activities, taking the time to write about our adventures was never high on my list.  Over the past few years, I’ve been s-l-o-w-l-y catching up.  Putting pen to paper after the fact stirs a couple of different emotions – chagrin (because I’m just so darned far behind) and pure pleasure (because reliving our adventures always generates a rush of delightful memories).

Itasca State Park and the Mighty (Little) Mississippi

As an addendum to my last post entitled “My Bucket List is Overflowing,” I thought I’d share with you that yet another item has been added to our Bucket List.  Last week I received an email from our friend, Kevin, which included a comment that he and his wife, Maddison, had added the Rocky Mountaineer to their list.  Of course, Kevin included a link to the website so that Alan and I would start drooling over the company’s train excursions through the Canadian Rockies.  The domed rail cars of the Rocky Mountaineer offer superb views of the dramatic and magnificent mountain scenery, and several different route options are available.  So, our Bucket List runneth over even more, but this time it’s Kevin’s fault, not mine.

When it comes time to write a post, I am easily distracted by anything even remotely related to RVing – or regular travel, for that matter – so I wasn’t surprised to see that my last post documenting our 2015 trip to Minnesota and Michigan was published more than three months ago.  Today’s post will get me back in the saddle, so to speak, and it details our visit to the headwaters of the Mississippi River – the actual destination around which the entire trip was built.  Yes, it was a Bucket List item and, yes, we decided that it was absolutely, positively worthwhile.  Come along, my friends, and join us on the adventure!