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Maybe we got lucky, but the best part of about the Badlands was the thunder storms. There is an amazing free dispersed camping area just outside the national park, up on a plateau where you can see in 40 miles in every direction. We had some amazing lightening and hail storms, and at night you could see a lightning strike in the distance about every 60 seconds all night long. Check out the pictures.

My favorite activity in the Badlands was doing a 28 mile bike ride past about 1000 bison, 10,000 prairie dogs, and about 1,000,000 grasshoppers, along with some amazing scenery. I got stuck behind about 100 bison on the road, but luckily a big truck with a very loud horn came along and scared them all off.

And what trip to the Badlands is complete without a brief stop at Wall Drug in Wall SD. It’s just as touristy and tacky as you imagined.

The nearby Minuteman Missile Museum was cool, but unfortunately most of it was closed due to COVID-19.

Full set of photos are here.

After waiting out a storm in an RV Park in Idaho Falls for a couple days, we went on to Grey’s River Valley in the Bridger-Teton National Forest outside Alpine, WY. We wanted a quiet area to avoid the 4th of July holiday crowds. We found a really nice spot right on the river. The only negative was at times RVs on the nearby road kicked up a lot of dust. We were surrounded by wild flowers everywhere. And cows that wandered through camp periodically.

The hiking options in this valley were rather limited, but I did find a couple great great hikes. One of the trailheads was 2.5 miles from our campsite (Stewart Peak Trail), and the other 5 miles (Middle Ridge Trail), which with my eBike felt quite close. For this sort of camping, I can’t recommend the advantages of having a eBike to get around enough. It’s really nice not having to take the van everywhere.

On the first hike the only people I saw was an old cowboy and his granddaughter on horseback. They were very friendly. The 15(?) year old granddaughter was wearing a t-shirt that said “Rock, Scissors, Gun, I win”, similar to this one. I might have to get one of those. On the second hike I only saw 1 other hiker.

Next we did a quick 2 hour stop in Grand Tetons National Park. All of the park is over 7000ft elevation, which Christine’s asthmatic lungs were not happy with, so that was the longest we could stay. There is now a bike path from the park all the way to Jackson, WY. I’d love to come back and ride that some day.

Then on to Badlands National Park, with an overnight in a free campground in Glenrock, WY. I have to say, the drive across the eastern half of Wyoming is pretty darn dull.

Photos from Grey’s River area are here.

Photos from the Grand Tetons are here.

This is the first blog of our summer 2020 COVID avoidance trip. We were supposed to be in Alaska this summer, but when they cancelled all ferry service between Alaska and the lower 48 (and closed the Canada border), that clearly was not going to happen. Maybe 2021?

After overnighting in a quiet canyon outside of Elko, we spent a night at Crater’s of the Moon National Monument. Worth checking out of you are in the area, but overall I liked Lava Beds National Monument in Northern California better. On the way we stopped at Shoshani Falls, which is definitely worth a detour if you are in the area.

Next on to the South Fork of the Boise River, past Featherville, ID. This is a very popular area for camping and fishing. There are roughly 5 official campgrounds along this road, and literally 100’s of dispersed camping spots, most of which were already full when we arrived on a Friday morning. We did manage to find a really nice spot right next to a swimming hole, and a short bike ride to a Baumgarter Hot Springs, and next to a great trail head. I could only stand to be in the very cold river for about 30 seconds, but we saw many hardy Idahoans in the water for up to 30 minutes. But the hot springs were a perfect 102 deg F. Our camp spot even came with a very friendly skunk who came by to visit 2-3 times / day.

This river is also very popular for trout fishing. From our camp spot we saw many people fishing, and only saw 2 catch anything, both too small to keep. I could never be a fisherman. I just don’t have the patience.

I think Idaho has some of the best camping infrastructure in the US. Really nice campgrounds are $10-15, compared to $25-35 in California, and official free dispersed camping areas are everywhere, often with nearby pit toilets. The National Forest Service even offers free trash, black water, grey water, and fresh water services. In general there is way less litter in the dispersed camping areas than you’ll find elsewhere. Trails are also well maintained and well labeled, at least in the areas we were at. Both the National Forest Service and the BLM just seem better at supporting recreational use than other parts of the country. I wonder why that is?

Next on to Stanley, ID for some of the best hiking anywhere! We met up with some Bay Area friends, who happened to be in the area, and also my brother who lives in Idaho Falls. There are 100’s of great dispersed camping sites south of Stanley along the Salmon River and all the creeks feeding into it. We found a fantastic spot along Alturas Lake Creek near Pettit Lake to use as a base for hiking. We did the 12mile hike to Alice lake, and the 10 mile hike to Sawtooth Lake, both 2000ft of elevation change. Wow!!! Both fantastic hikes with incredible scenery. HIGHLY recommended. Some day I’d love to come back to this area for about 1 month. One could even work from here if you stayed up on Nip’n Tuck Road, which has strong LTE coverage.

Next on to an RV park in Idaho Falls to wait out a big cold front for a couple days before moving on to Wyoming for the next leg.

Photos of week 1 are here.

Photos of the Sawtooth Mountain area (week 2) are here.

After the Hopi Reservation, we went on to Saline Valley (part of Death Valley National Park) with an overnight in the parking lot of the Alien Cathouse Brothel / Area 51 Alien Cafe and Truck-stop, which was a surprisingly quiet place to spend the night.

I’ve heard about Saline Valley for years, but this was my first time there. Wow, what a wacky and awesome place! Image a free, clothing optional hot springs resort in the middle of a national park, complete with herd of wild burrows that eat everything in site, including someone’s guitar case while we were there. There are two sets of developed hot springs within a 1/2 mile of each other, each with two really nice soaking areas (around 102 degrees) big enough for 8-10 people comfortably, and some of the cleanest pit toilets I’ve ever seen. Both areas have a bunch of palm trees for shade, and one area had a big lush green lawn. There were probably around 50 people there between both sites the nights we were there, including several families with kids. We were told the Thanksgiving potluck attracts around 500 folks. The entire valley was surround by beautiful snow capped mountains, and we were lucky enough to get a big thunderstorm one of the days we were there.

Sounds like heaven, right? The problem is that its long brutal drive down a rocky road driving 5-10 mph. The gravel road part of the drive took us 6 hours on the south road on the way in, and 3.5 hrs on the north road on the way out. I’m not likely to do this drive again any time soon, and definitely not in a Sprinter. It would probably be much better in a Forerunner or similar vehicle. But 4WD is not required, a I saw few regular passenger cars there. But it’s a good thing its hard to get to, as otherwise the place would be too popular, and the NPS would likely close it down or restrict access.

My photos are here, and more information and history of the springs is here.

Our next stop was 2 nights in Slab City, CA, near the Salton Sea. On the way we stopped off at the “official center of the world“, a particularly wacky roadside attraction.

There is a lot to love about Slab City, and a lot to hate. This article sums it up pretty well. The folk art in “East Jesus”, an art community on the edge of Slab City, is very impressive and worth stopping by if you are anywhere nearby. Every Saturday night the local outdoor nightclub called “The Range” hosts an open mic night, which was about 50% locals and 50% tourists the night I was there. Some were quite good, and some quite awful. I got to sit in a play drums for 4-5 songs with a group of locals. While we were there someone set their neighbors RV on fire, which was clearly full of live ammo.

Then on to Anza-Borrego State Park to meet up with our very good friend Elizabeth. Anza-Borrego is the largest state park in California, and you can pretty much camp anywhere in the park, so long as you are near one of the 500 miles of gravel roads. The amount of plant, animal, bird, and insect life in the park in March is staggering. I got the van stuck in some deep sand, but Mike the tow truck diver had no problem getting us out.

Photos:

• Slab City
• Anza-Borrego

Christine spent a few nights in a great AirBNB in Tempe while I flew north to see Mott the Hopple! Before I flew out we got to see the incredible “Electric Desert” exhibit at the Phoenix Botanical Garden. This video summarizes it well, and the photo link below has some of our videos. I’m looking forward to see what Klip Collective, the company that does these sorts of shows, does next. The Heard Museum in Phoenix is also recommended if you want to learn more about the area’s Native Americans and their art. We also checked out Don Parks collection statues and stuff and got to meet Don.

When I got back to Phoenix I did an amazing AirBNB experience in a biplane, a Stearman, used for training in WWII. Wow!

Then on to Sedona area for a week. We found an incredible free camping area along Forest Rd 525 in the Coconino National Forest, about 25 minutes from town. There were at least 100 RVs, vans and a few tents scattered along this road camping.

Sedona is incredibly beautiful with all the red rocks everywhere. There must be more hiking trails per square mile around Sedona than anywhere on earth. Highlights for us included Baldwin Trail, the Plataki Heritage Site, and the West Fork Trail. We also went to the historic copper town of Jerome (we did a great history tour of the town), and treated ourselves to fantastic massages at Page Spring Cellars winery.

Then on to the Hopi Reservation for a full day tour with “Hopi Tours“. This was very interesting and informative, and highly recommended if you want to learn more about the slowly dying Hopi culture. Most parts of the reservation require you to be with a registered tour guide, and Micah our guide was fantastic. Photos not allowed in the villages, but we could take some of the petroglyphs site. Many homes on the Hopi reservation do not have water, sewer, or electricity.

We were there the day of the bi-annual women’s “basket dance”, where some of the village women wear traditional ceremonial clothes, dance, sing, and throw out a variety of items. Traditionally they would throw handmade items like woven baskets and pottery to the crowd, but now it looks like they just did a huge Walmart shopping trip and bought as much cheap crap as possible. There were lots of plastic laundry baskets, plastic kitchen items, junk food, toilet paper, children’s toys, and more. Around 8 women busily danced around tossing baskets mostly crap to the 500 or so onlookers. Our guide said there was still a good amount of traditional handicrafts in the mix, but we didn’t see any. It was fascinating to observe, and I think we were the only tourists there. They do their ‘dance’ every couple hours from dawn till dusk, tho we only watched about 30 minutes of the late afternoon dance. It reminded me a lot of Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans, where everyone is trying to grab the throws from the floats, most of which are even more useless crap, with 1% good stuff mixed in.

Photos:

• Phoenix area
• Sedona area
• Hopi Reservation (some pics are from the internet, as we could not take photos)

After Casas Grandes, MX, we drove to Bisbee, AZ, a 7 hr drive over terrible roads, tons of construction, and a mountain pass in a blizzard. Bisbee is a picturesque former copper mine town, and the Queen mine tour is highly recommended. After Bisbee we drove to Tombstone, which is basically a Hollywood Western theme park, and quite fun for a 1/2 day. The re-enactment of the shootout at the OK Corral is silly, but fun. We though the most interesting museum in town was the the Tombstone Epitaph newspaper museum.

Chiricahua National Monument was stunning! One of the best hikes I’ve ever done! See photo link below.

We then drove to Tucson to spend a few days at a friends house, do hiking around lots of cool Suguaro’s, and biked a good part of the Tucson loop bike path. The Titan Missile Museum was fascinating (Christine got to turn the launch key!), and the Degrazia art gallery was worth checking out.

After Tucson we planned to head to New Mexico, but decided that it was still too cold there, so headed west to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument instead. I went to an interesting talk by a Border Patrol agent on what its like to protect the border in this part of Arizona. He said about 1/3 of the arrests were drug runners, and 2/3 illegal immigrants, but that these days many of the illegal immigrants are ‘give ups’ (people who walk across in large groups and immediately surrender, and ask to apply for asylum. Clearly the US needs to figure out a better long term strategy for dealing with the 10s of 1000s of asylum seekers.

Photos:

• Bisbee/Tombstone
• Chiricahua National Monument
• Titan Missile Museum
• Saguaro National Park, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and Tucson

We spent a bit over a week hanging out in the state of Chihuahua Mexico, mostly at our friend’s house in Casas Grandes.

Casas Grandes is the home of a UNESCO World Heritage Site called Paquime, which was a short walk from my friend’s house. While there, we went down to the town of Chihuahua, and got aboard the “El Chepe” train to visit the Copper Canyon.

Most households in town seem to have 1 or more big dogs (usually German Shepards) and 1 or more small dogs (usually Chihuahuas). It’s a very relaxing place to hang out and stare at the desert.

If you want to take the train to the Copper Canyon, the best time of year is supposed to be September, when the canyon valleys are much greener and the waterfalls are flowing. We took a first class car one direction, and a regular class car the other direction, and actually liked the regular class better. Half the price, same size seats, and many more snack options from vendors wandering through the train.

Photos of the Copper Canyon train trip are here.

Photos of the Casas Grandes area are here.

Photos of the city of Chihuahua are here.

The first real stop on our 2 month road trip from New Orleans to Grass Valley was Big Bend National Park, right on the Texas/Mexico border along the Rio Grande. February is a great time to visit this amazing park, when the wildflowers are all in bloom, and it’s not too hot. Most days were a high of around 70, and a low of around 40.

Big Bend is a rather complicated park to camp in, as only about 50% of the regular camping spots are reservable, the rest being first-come-first serve. At peak season (Feb-April), the park is 100% full 7 nights a week, so its tricky to get a spot, as spots are gone by 10am. So a lot of people stay in an RV park just outside the park the first night, so they can drive around the unreserved sites at 9am, looking for people packing up, and grab their spot.

The park also has about 50 amazing ‘backcountry’ camping spots scattered around the park on gravel roads, many of which require 4WD, and all of which require a reservation made “up to 24 hrs” in advance. The rangers will tell you what day a given spot is suppose to free up, so you can come back and try to claim it the day before. The first ranger tried to tell us most of the roads were too rough for a Sprinter, but we drove down a couple of them, and decided they were fine. The second ranger was willing to reserve us an amazing backcountry spot (see photo link below).

We ended up doing 2 nights in first campground, 4 nights of back country, and 2 more nights at the last campground. While it is pretty hard to find a campsite this time of the year, the park still feels very empty. At our backcountry spot, we could see no sign of civilization for as far as the eye can see. The week we were there the wild flowers were in full bloom, apparently one of the best wildflower years in a long time.

It’s very easy to cross from Mexico into the National Park (you just wade across the Rio Grande), and we heard that 30+ illegal immigrants were caught in the park while we were there. It seems like it would be very hard for them to get anywhere though, as there were lots of Border Patrol vehicles and checkpoints outside the park.

We also spent one night in Terlingua, a small town of artists and misfits, which is definitely worth a visit. They let us stay in the parking lot behind the bar/restaurant for free.

Photos are here.

Our final stop in Colombia was Cartagena, a UNESCO world heritage town on the coast built by the Spanish in the 1600’s. Cartagena has a strong Caribbean vibe, and reminds me more of Jamaica and Belize than the rest of Colombia.

Many people we met said they did not like Cartagena, but we loved it. It probably depends on where you stay. Here are the areas that tourists typically stay:

• Bocagrande: Reminds me of Miami Beach or Waikiki beach. If you like that sort of thing, there are some really cheap AirBNB apartments there.
• Old City / UNESCO zone: basically only tourists, shops, restaurants, hotels, and vacation homes. Very few people live in this part of town full time.
• Getsemani: former poor part of town, now the “hip” up and coming neighborhood.
• La Matuna: just north of Getsemani, and less touristy.

We stayed in Getsemani and loved it. I suspect most folks who didn’t like Cartagena stayed in the Old City or in Bocagrande, and got tired of the constant stream of people trying to sell you something.

Our AirBNB was on the famous ‘umbrella alley’ (Callejón Angosto), which is still full of local families that have lived here forever. Everyone hangs out on the street listening to music ’til late at night, and it was fun watching the tourists pose for pictures with the umbrellas. Instead of cars, we had donkeys, horses, and fruit carts going up and down the street. Christine made some chocolate coffee and shared it with the oldest grandma on the street.

As in most of the Caribbean, there was music everywhere. I discovered some good new (for me) bands ( thanks to the Shazam app), including Joe Arroyo (Colombia), Wilfrido Vargas (Dominican Republic), Ismael Rivera (Puerto Rico), Oscar D’Leon (Venezuela), Orquestra Broadway (NYC), Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz (NYC), and Tommy Olivencia (Puerto Rico). Yes, I realize most of the music I liked best is 30-50 years old, but what else is new. I even got to see a Wilfrido Vargas concert, which reminded me of a Tom Jones concert (a mostly old crowd who knew all the words). (Video here).

We did a mix of activities and tours, some great, and some pretty awful. Our AirBNB experience to a nearby island was really nice, except the snorkeling was bad. Brian did a great 40km bike tour with a super interesting guide whose father started the Cartegena Film Festival, the oldest film festival in South America for many years. Christine, as always, loved her cooking class. We did the WORST old city walking tour of our lives, which we snuck out of 1/2 way through because the guide was just reciting facts from Wikipedia. Maybe some of their other guides are better, but I would avoid that company for sure. We were also very disappointed with our tour to San Basilio de Palenque, which sounded really interesting, and we were told there would be demonstrations of music and dancing, but there was not.

A final comment on Colombia: Venezuelan refugees. They were everywhere! 1 in 10 Venezuelans have fled their country in the last few years, mostly to Colombia. You see them at most major intersections trying to sell snacks, wash your windows, juggle knives, anything to make a few cents. In general they never just asked for money, but offered something in return. Several even spoke English. Hopefully they will get to return soon.

Photos from this week are here.