TX, NM, CO, UT,

 Those initials are for the next part of our summer journey. Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah.

We are in Soap Lake, Washington for 2 weeks to visit the "Scablands"

Here's some highlights of our trip up to this point:

AMARILLO BOTANICAL GARDENS

Small but beautiful gardens in Amarillo. One of the best we've seen. Spent over 2 hours taking photos and enjoying the different parts of the garden.

Gorgeous Columbine display at the entrance.

Common Morning-Glory

Fishtail Palm Tree that was located in the indoor tropical part of the garden.

CHACO CANYON RUINS

We were here years ago but the last visit, we were stopped by the roads being washed away. This year, we got to get back here. Pueblo Bonito is the most thoroughly investigated and celebrated cultural site in Chaco Canyon. Planned and constructed in stages between AD 850 to AD 1150 by ancestral Puebloan peoples, this was the center of the Chacoan world.  More than 600 rooms towered four and five stories above the valley floor, covering 3 acres.

Present day aerial image.

Image showing how it became after construction years and years ago.

Notice the rock face that tumbled down to the upper left.

Here's what it looks like present day while walking through.

Original wall construction

Imagine placing each and every one of these rocks?

MESA VERDE

Even after coming here for five times, it's still amazing that people built and lived in these cliff dwellings.

MONUMENT VALLEY

Even though we've been here twice before, and swore we wouldn't take photos this time, we still took so many photos. It's difficult to only put in a few here. The place is just too gorgeous! 

Kayaking in the desert?

The clouds were magnificent this day

The dirt road is the best way to see the park. It's 17 miles and the worst road we've ever been on. It's gotten worse over the years. Potholes, side-to-side bumps...had to go 5 mph part of the way. But...it's was worth it.

More wonderful clouds

GOOSENECKS STATE PARK

This is an amazing view of three "goosenecks" on the San Juan River. It's over 1,000 feet to the river surface.

Don't get too close to the edge. It's over 1,000 feet down!

Okay....the rest of these highlights will have to wait until next blog entry.....too many fantastic sights to share.

VALLEY OF THE GODS

GOBLINS STATE PARK

CAPITOL REEF

BURNS TRAIL ROAD

HIGHWAY 12

DRUMHELLER CHANNELS (SCABLANDS)

KAYAKING

We trust you enjoyed this one. We sure are having a ball in our 13th year of RV travelling.

Steve/Kim/Katie

Florida, Alabama, Louisiana

We left Florida April 19th on our latest trip, this one going out west for the summer/early fall. This is going to be 6-7 months of adventure! Here's our journey so far.

We are currently west of Fort Worth, Texas for 4 nights to see the Zoo, the Botanical Gardens and, most of all.....to eat Texas BBQ !!

From the top going clock-wise, we have a half-eaten pork rib, in the upper right - pickled red onions and below that is the apple coleslaw, then... three more ribs, sausage, brisket with BBQ sauce, then pickled cucumbers and red potato salad. 
Oh, and there's an interested party looking in from the left.

...not sure what Katie is thinking...you can make up your own caption for her, but the food is absolutely delicious! And we still have Friday and Saturday to try two more BBQ places. And we're hiding the weight scale for a few days.

We stayed at Ocala for one night, then, on the way to Tallahassee the next night, we stopped at the Forest Capital Museum State Park for a visit to an original Florida Cracker House. Those old settlers sure had to work from sunup to sundown. Imagine building all these building from scratch? Nice stop.

Walk Around the Homestead | Florida State Parks

This is the museum which has many exhibits all about the forest/lumber industry back in the day. VERY interesting.

Excellent diorama depicting the early turpentine business.

Model scale of the cracker house and all its outlying buildings, all of which had a specific purpose, like chicken coop, outhouse, wood, etc. All had to be built by hand.

Pine needle walkway leading to the main house where the family lived. The state moved this house from its original location to here for the museum.

After taking two days to get used to travelling again in Tallahassee, we headed down south to see the Possum Monument at Wausau, Florida but, unfortunately, there was a lot of construction so we couldn't even stop. But, for those who are saying, "What the heck is a Possum Monument"? Here's a link and a couple of photos.

A tribute to the furry local heroes who helped get residents through many tough times.

Possum Monument – Wausau, Florida - Atlas Obscura

Then, down to the Gulf to see the Choctaw Beach hopefully to put our feet in the water. 

We forgot to take any photos but here, on the left, is where we parked the coach so we could see the water. It was a nice place to take a break. I couldn't resist so I took off my shoes and waded into the water up to my shins. Then I went over to the dock to help Kim and Katie off the beach and sliced open my big toe on the coral. Ouch. It's taken all this time to heal. 

Alabama. We love this RV spot because they rent us a hot tub that we can sit in at 103 degrees whenever we want! We just hung around, did not see anything. Worked on inside coach projects...getting it ready for our trip. Relaxing.

See the hot tub to the right of the passenger door? We were in it constantly.

This gentle lake is our "front yard" view.

Last entry: We've stayed at Cajun Palms many, many times over the years. As a matter of fact, this is where we wintered over our first two years of travel. This time, we decided to book a covered site. Good thing we did, because a big ol' storm came through, lightning, thunder and everything. But we were protected. 

All covered up

We had the place to ourselves for the first 4 days.

Kim made some fabulous deviled eggs that disappeared instantly!

We'll post some more detailed visits to Poverty Point, a 10,000-year-old Indian settlement in Louisiana and other spots but, for now, this will keep you informed as to our progress. 

We're sure thankful that you all are following us.

Kim/Steve/Katie

Kayaking again...finally!

Finally, we got back on the water. This time at Meacham Lake in upper state New York, just on the north edge of the Adirondack Mountains (you can see the push pin on the map). 90 degrees hot so we wore our sun-umbrella hats. Launched from the river that came out of the lake. And, of course, all three of us got in the warm lake.

Launch point looking upriver

Nice cloud cover kept the heat down.

Katie likes to sit in back sometimes and take a nap.

But, every now and then, she wants to see what's going on.

Quiet, still waters and very, very peaceful.

No bird sounds, no traffic sounds, no airplanes....

It's hard to take a selfie with these hats on so Kim had to stand way back. They really work too!

All done for the day.

This was a very nice paddle. We could not believe how quiet it was. Restful.

steve/kim/katie

Acadia National Park in Maine

This Scoodic Point is one of our favorite places to visit when we're up here in Northeast Maine. Something about the rocks, the fog, the remoteness of it is very appealing. 

You can see the Red push pin to the right of the map with Acadia National Park right in the middle on Mt. Desert Island.

With the parking lot to the top, you can see how large an area this encompasses. And look at the stripes of black rock. I'll show those in another photo below.

Of course, Kim and I get all geeked out when we see Geology stuff so, naturally, this was one of our favorite sites.

Here's the explanation for those stripes of black rock.

This stripe is not as wide as others but very prominent.

Here's the diabase rock and granite next to each other

You can see that the diabase rock erodes much quicker than the granite thus making these attractive pools of water.

I'm standing on the largest one....it's probably 75 feet wide.

It's remarkable how cleanly the rocks sit next to each other.

There were also lots of waves crashing while we were there. We took our portable folding chairs and just enjoyed the action.

These were all accompanied by large thunder as they hit the rock so we knew that a wave was about to put on a show the minute we heard the thunder.

These purplish cones are from a Black Spruce. Kinda different looking.

Kim's Zen garden photograph.

Very foggy day when we were there but it makes for good photos.

On the way home, we stopped at a cove where, in the fog, these fishing boats just were begging for us to take their photo.

Notice there's no back in the stern. That's so they can pull up the lobster traps right into the boat easily.

This one has the traps already in the boat.

This boat has some old-style traps made out of wood instead of the metal ones used today. It just makes for a terrific picture.

Thanks for watching!

steve/kim/katie