…the USA map on the back of our trailer had a lack of states visited in the northeast part of the US.

So we planned a trip for mid-September 2021 that’d take us from Chicago to Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York also adding the cities of Montreal and Quebec, Canada since we’d be going that way.

Since Covid 19 is a concern, we had to have a negative Covid 19 test to cross the US/Canada border. We got out tests near home and headed to Port Huron, Michigan to wait for our results. Luckily the results came in a day and we passed through the border without a hitch and traveled the 520 miles to Montreal.

Then on to Quebec City…

We left Canada at the Derby Line Port of Entry, Derby Line, Vermont crossing and were back in the USA. Cindy was disappointed that the border guard didn’t extend a “welcome back” greeting!

Our first stops in the US included…

We tour boated on Squam Lake in Holderness, New Hampshire. This is the lake where On Golden Pond was filmed. At one point the guide was showing us an eagles nest and the eagle swooped in right on cue.

Making our way down the coast toward we saw…

While chatting with some other campers we learned about a whale watching boat they were going on. We checked it out and were able to get tickets also. The boat took off from Provincetown which was great because we wanted to visit this town also.

Making our way to Newport, Rhode Island we set up the trailer at Fisherman’s Memorial State Park. Newport is famous for its Cliff Walk with the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the estates of Guilded Age barons on the other. You can’t see much of the mansions from the walk but several are open for tours, we did the Vanderbilt’s Breakers and The Elms.

Next stop Glastonbury, Connecticut and another Harvest Hosts stay.

We made our way into New York for a stay near Cooperstown, New York and of course a visit to Cooperstown & Baseball Hall of Fame

As we traveled back west to home we enjoyed stops at…

After a winter stay in Tucson, Arizona we wanted to visit relatives and places in the Pacific Northwest again. Leaving Tucson in April, 2021, one of our first stops was Quartzite, Arizona. Since it was mid-April Quartzite was pretty quiet, many of the shops were on reduced hours. We found a place in the desert a bit north of town and set up for an overnight there.

We moved on to Palm Springs to explore some of the mid century modern architecture. Both and Modernism Week and Desert X were happening while we were there.

A drive of 300 miles got us to Three Rivers, California and the southern access to Sequoia National Park and the Giant Tree Grove, General Sherman tree and the Scenic Highway.

Friends of ours had a home on Bass Lake, California and they kindly invited us to stay with them and tour Yosemite National Park which is about an hour from Bass Lake.

From there we headed to the Pacific Ocean coast north of San Francisco. Originally we had planned on visiting San Francisco, but Covid 19 had us preferring to avoid big cities. Mackerricher State Park was our stopping point, from there we visited Glass Beach which I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

Traveling north on California Highway 1 and US 101 we stopped at Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park in Florence, Oregon. One of the first things to do once we hit the coast is get a tide pool chart. We visited tide pools at Heceta Head Lighthouse then lunched at Luna Sea Fish House in Yahats.

Continuing north we made it to Nehalem Bay State Park for another multi-day stop. There’s a lot to do in the area…

As we turned east, a wonderful stop was Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, several people had advised us to visit there, so we did.

Arriving at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora, North Dakota I was assured by the ranger that we’d see wild life. Well that was an understatement, within five minutes we encountered bison grazing by the side of the road.

Almost home, our last night out was a Harvest Hosts, Zymurgy Brewing Co., in Menomonie, Wisconsin. This was out last night out. When we got home to Illinois, we’d covered 5, 167 miles in the five weeks since we started out in Tucson.

Back in 2016 we visited Joshua Tree National Park for a day. It’s another world, a prehistoric one and no part of it is more prehistoric-looking than its Jumbo Rocks Campground, you literally expect to see Fred Flintstone emerge from around the rocks. We vowed to someday camp there.

So in spring 2019 we headed there with our trailer with a two-night reservation for the Jumbo Rocks Campground, the thing about this campground is that it has no water or electricity for campers. Our trailer has fresh, grey and black water tanks and a single battery for camping without hookups. We figured we‘d last the two nights.

We climbed the jumbo rocks, sat in our private courtyard for dinner, and hiked to the Wall Street Mill that processed gold beginning in the late 1800s.

At the end of two days, we didn’t want to leave Joshua Tree so we moved to another campground in the park for another night, adding water and charging the trailer’s battery a bit while we drove there. We knew we were pushing it with the battery, and sure enough we were out of electricity when we woke up after night three. So it was time to leave Joshua Tree. We never did see Fred.

We visited the Everglades from every angle – the west side Gulf Coast Visitor Center and its Thousand Islands and marshes, the upper east with the fantastic Shark Valley plains and the lower east’s Flamingo Visitor Center and hurricane-ravaged bays.

Leaving the Everglades behind, we tangled with the vast urban-osity of Miami/Fort Lauderdale.
Someone said that this area is getting 10,000 new residents regularly and I guess they all brought at least two cars, but somehow they left their rules of the road book where they came from.

• U-turn? There’s no notice necessary for that!
• In the turn lane? Why waste your blinker, everybody knows what happening.
• Red light at night? If no one’s crossing my path, why stop?

So we tolerate it because once you hit the beach all is forgiven!
They’re just fantastic!!! One evening we visited the Hollywood Broadwalk just after a huge rainstorm, Bars were drying the seats, a rainbow hovered over the Atlantic, and everybody was out strolling again. A bar buddy at Bunny & Reads Toucan Hideway hearing we were hungry, told us about the Taco Beach Shack close by. We went, It was Two for Tuesday Tacos, and with cool guy Martini and a drummer performing.

The day before we visited Miami and Haulover Beach with its sweet warm water and hot sun, plus the deco hotels of South Beach. Next, delicious lunch and great conversation with our Uruguay waiter at a stainless steel diner.

And then there’s Ft Lauderdale… we walked by the Elbo Room Bar seen in Connie Stevens’ first movie Where The Boys Are, and took the fantastic Carrie B sightseeing cruise through Ft. Lauderdale’s canals, gawking at gazillionaires houses and boats.

OK, maybe the city planners won’t program traffic lights to allow cars to actually move a while here, or haven’t realized that traffic circles don’t need stop lights. But wow they do have the beaches down!