Frank and Jen On the Road
Since retiring March 1, 2005, we have been living fulltime in our motorhome and attempting to travel and see as much as we can of the country. We stayed at the Tall Chief park in the Redmond area for a couple of weeks after retirement, just to get organized and ready to travel. Then we headed down the coast, with stops at places like Long Beach (Washington coast), Russian River (northern California), San Benito (central California), and Pio Pico (near San Diego). We eventually arrived at an RV park in Tucson near the home of our friends Carl and Eileen.
After a couple of weeks, we started heading back north, spending about a week near Camp Verde, AZ. Then we travelled to Page, AZ, which is near the Utah border and at the south end of Lake Powell near the Glenn Canyon dam. We were amazed at how much there is to see and do in the area, like Horseshoe Bend, desert walks, photo ops in Antelope Canyon, and other stuff we did not get around to doing. We definitely want to go back and explore more of that area. Then a few days in Ogden, UT, with a nice view of the mountains, and a trip to Antelope Island, where there are no antelope, but the buffalo roam free, and it was not quite warm enough for a plunge into the Great Salt Lake. We stayed at one of our favorite campgrounds in Bend, OR, stopped in Pullman to visit John, spent a few days at Soap Lake, finally returning to Lake Connor Park at the end of June.
After a nice summer at our "home base", we had planned on heading out again sometime in September, but were delayed by a couple of things. First, John decided he would graduate from WSU in December, so we decided to stick around to attend the commencement exercises in Pullman. Then Jennifer's rotator cuff problems got so bad that she decided to have surgery a couple of days after returning from Pullman, so that delayed us for a couple more weeks. We decided we had stayed too long when we woke up to snow on the ground, though the dogs didn't seem to mind it too much.
We finally got away on Christmas Eve, planning to head straight down the freeway to LA, then head east to Tucson. We were in rain most of the time, including Christmas Day, until we got to central California. We were lucky to hit the Siskiyou/Shasta area between snow storms, so at least the roads were clear. It took almost an entire day to get through the LA area (we won't be going that way again!), and we finally got to Tucson on December 28. They are enjoying warmer than usual temperatures and it feels great! They are in the middle of a drought, so it is quite dusty when the wind blows, but most days are quite comfortable. The dust helps make for some beautiful sunrises and sunsets. We plan to stay here through February, then head to southeast Arizona for a couple of weeks. After that, we will probably start heading back north, but are undecided at this point as to what route to take.
