‘‘Tis the season...

A shout out to friends and family, happy holidays!

Happy Thanksgiving...

A short thanksgiving message to friends and family! 🙏

1 Year on the Road...

Update - Kentucky...

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any content, so I thought I’d bring you up to date...

Back to Kentucky...

I kind of had in my mind that once I left the Oregon coast I would be heading east to Kentucky in order to visit with my family and friends, as well as to make repairs and perform maintenance on the van...

I anticipated a leisurely journey, spending a few days at each campsite before moving on eastward, but circumstances warranted (limited camping areas in the regions I traveled) that the trip be quite a bit faster, so I’m now camped out at my daughter’s place.  Luke, my son-in-law and a talented tech, will be performing most of the repairs and maintenance (thank goodness!!), and in the meantime I also get to spend time with T (my nickname for my daughter Tabitha since birth), and my 14 year old granddaughter AJ, (Alexandra Jane), who I barely recognize because she has grown and matured so much since I saw her last...

I’m camping on a nice spot off the front of their land (see pic) and enjoying every minute of the time I get to stay here.  I don’t have a lot to share about my trip east, like I said, it happened rather quickly, but I’ll post what I do have as soon as I can...

There’s a lot of friends I’d like to see, but it seems a bit awkward for me to reach out and make first contact, so if you’d like to touch base just comment below, or send me an email, or text, I think most of you have my contact info...

Much love, much peace... 😊

Willow Springs Road BLM campground, Moab UT…

After leaving Willow Canyon I headed south east towards Moab UT.  Now I have been to Moab before and I really liked the place.  I knew of a campground just about 12 miles from town that I had visited before, so that’s where I decided to go.  Below is a short video of one section of Utah I traversed on my way to Moab…

It was late in the day when I arrived and there were lots of other RVer’s and campers already nestled into the area.  I made a short trip back the main road of the campground and then decided to try out another site nearby.  However, on the way out I noticed a series of campsites off to one side where no one was camping.  I pulled off and walked the area to see if I could find a good camping spot and I did.  The area is too rough for most RVs to navigate, which was to my benefit, and I pretty much had the area to myself.  Some overnight tent campers did setup nearby, but it was a great place and although I only planned to stay a day or two, I would have enjoyed a longer stay…

Prickly Pear cactus are in bloom...

The elevation is about 4,200’, so the sun still has that high altitude intensity, but the weather hovered in the low 80s, with mid 50s at night, and the stars were beautiful at night.  This is one of my go-to campsites if I’m in this area.  It was one of the first I stayed at back last fall when I was traveling from Colorado to Arizona, I will be back…

South Willow Canyon Campground, Tooele, UT...

My friend Wade is the camp host at the Willow Creek Canyon campground, just outside of Tooele, UT, and I wanted to drop by on my trek back eastward to say hi and to catch up on things since the last time we camped together in Quartzite AZ.  I had texted him earlier in the day to let him know that I would be arriving later in the afternoon, but I was somewhat delayed because Google Maps took me straight to the middle of a new housing project still under construction and gleefully announced, ‘You have arrived!!’.  No Google, this isn’t it, but it didn’t care… 

After running around for a half-hour or so trying to find some kind of signage for the campground or even a gas station or someplace where I could ask for directions, I ended up googling the name of the road the campsite was supposed to be on, went to the road, and headed south which thankfully took me right to the campground… 

Wade has to come down out of the canyon at least once a day to get phone messages or make phone calls due to the poor cell reception in the canyon.  As I traveled further down the road I saw a red pickup truck parked off the side of the road, and since I was still unsure whether or not I was on the right track, I decided to stop and ask the person in the truck for directions.  When I hopped down out of the van and started walking in the direction of the truck, I recognized Wade as the driver.  Thankfully he had come down out of the canyon and was waiting for a text in case I needed help finding the place, and obviously I did…

We chatted for a few minutes and then I followed him back up the canyon road.  He would stop and point out certain features of the area along the way, and he had already found a couple of dispersed campsites that he thought I might like so he showed me them too.  I picked one of the sites up on top of a little rise just by the road and pulled in.  Wade was off work so I got out a couple of chairs and we sat down to chat for a while…

I setup camp, it was a beautiful day, sunny and warm.  The next few days the weather was mixed due to a slow moving low pressure system in the area.  So I had great variety of weather conditions while I was there, from hot and sunny, to cloudy, sometimes there was rain, sleet, hail, and/or snow, I experienced a full array of conditions, but I enjoyed them all.  I will admit though, when the temperature dropped, day or night, it was cold inside the van and I used the heater quite often.  The sun is intense when there are no clouds, most days were in the 60s and 70s during the day and in the 40s at night.  The elevation at the campground is around 6,300’ so if you had sunshine, it was hot and intense, but if you get in the shade you had to put on a shirt or jacket to keep warm.  It wasn’t unusual to be in shorts and a T-shirt, but then in a few minutes, I’d have to change into jeans and a heavy shirt or jacket.  I guess that’s the way it is at higher elevations like this…

I walked around during the times when I had good sunshine to snap some photos of the place and I captured a lot of the wildflowers that were blooming too.  Right across the road from my campsite was Willow Creek, which runs though the canyon, there are a few shots of it below.  I took a lot of pictures because as the sun was in different positions in the sky every feature of this area took on a new beauty…

Kind of a 'Lover's Leap', a trail leads you right up on top...

Some of these flowers are smaller than the size of a dime...

Wade thought these were called  Indian Paintbrush, they are beautiful...

Even with the challenging weather conditions at times, I thoroughly enjoyed this time at the campground.  I couldn’t walk out the door of the van without feeling a sense of awe at my surroundings.  I highly recommend this one, I will be back soon…

The morning I left I stopped off at the ranger station where Wade was camped to thank him for his hospitality and tours of the area.  Wade had been telling me about all of the hummingbirds that seem to follow him around, and they did.  While I was there I got to see one of the hummingbird’s mating rituals up close and personal… 

Wade had noticed that the male hummingbirds would sit high in the top of a tree, start to preen themselves and put on a kind of show, then suddenly they would fly straight up for about 60 feet or so, then dive fast and hard back into the tree and then come zooming out the side.  They did this several times while I was there and it’s really incredible to watch.  I’d never witnessed this behavior before and it was fascinating.  The males also kind of whistled as they flew along, at least that’s what it sounded like whenever they were near, and I’d never heard them do that before.  I found out that this is also part of the mating ritual, very cool…

It seems that this is the way the male attracts his mate, by showing his agility and power.  He flies down into the tree where the female is perched and about an inch or two above her, he veers out at a 90 degree angle and shoots out the side of the tree, and he does this over and over.  If the female accepts his advances she will prepare herself for mating, which according to the information I found, takes about 4 seconds, and then they part ways and he starts looking for another female to mate with and she takes care of the nest and the babies.  I know what you’re thinking ladies, but just to clarify, the males are not being negligent, the females forbid them from visiting the nest since they are so brightly colored they will draw attention from predators.  That’s the story, and I’m sticking to it…

I didn’t get any wildlife pictures, usually I was caught off guard and didn’t have time to snap a shot, but the deer were beautiful and I heard the wild turkeys callout in the morning.  Just an incredibly beautiful place.  This last short video is one I shot on my way down out of the canyon as I was leaving, and a panoramic shot as well, enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by!