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Can’t Hold Us
With camping finally reopening, we tackle the Final Four in New Orleans, deep sea fishing in Corpus Cristi, and touring Big Bend, Guadalupe Mountains, White Sands, Petrified Forest, Great Basin and Gateway Arch National Parks with an overlanding intervention in
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On the Road Again
Quest for Yes is a mindset. It’s a recipe of optimism, gratitude and naivety cooked up when events inspire neither. When Covid hit big in March 2020, we were 1000 miles away from home with no control over campground closures.
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The Great Migration
Birds fly south to escape the harsh winter. V-shaped formations and the cacophony of squawking is the sign. And when they arrive, they join the droves of Florida wildlife who bask, eat and recreate, causing the native species much dismay.
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Final Four Frenzy
March Madness brings April Badassness in the City of New Orleans, dominated by frats and alums, decked out in team colors, partaking in every debauchery the voodoo city can conjour. You’re more likely to find us hiking a coalwash or
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Imagine Sitting
When are you too old to attend a concert? We’re not talking about a concert at a symphony hall where a patronly usher escorts you to your comfortable velvet seat and everyone around you sits and listens quietly when the
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Chasin’ Cajun
The ringing in our old ears lasted through the night but it was the Macklemore Imagine Dragons adrenaline that helped us pump out a blog before heading to the other side of the Pelican State for a shelter-in-place reunion with
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Fish On
Our first anniversary was an ablation-titration party at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, room 19 in the cardio clinic. Our seventh was sheltering in place at Barksdale Airforce Base in Shreveport Louisiana during the Covid outbreak, Sheri in a
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Blowing in the Wind
Once you set an itinerary, book reservations and start moving, it’s hard to mentally deviate from the plan. In the one week we’ve been gone we pressed 1500 miles west, pulling 10,000 pounds through half a dozen under-construction beltways, plus
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Whipping Wind City
Corpus Christi’s tourism slogan is Sparkling City by the Sea. If that is true and the city is indeed sparkling, it might be because it has been sand blasted clean. After spending 4 days in constant high wind, we propose
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Nice dam view!
A wet, sandy wind chased us out of Corpus Christi early Tuesday morning. The night before we’d done our departure chores to make a pre-dawn escape, including wiping down every surface of the feel-it-but-can’t-see-it granular build-up that sifted its way
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Paint me a picture
The destination has always been Big Bend National Park. 13 days would be more than enough to get there. A night here, a weekend there, a concert, a reunion, a fishing anniversary … more than enough time. Until it wasn’t.
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Big Bend Aliens
Big Bend National Park is bigger than the state of Rhode Island, four times the size of New York City and 20 times Washington DC. The seventh largest National Park in the lower 48, it has five visitor centers, 53
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Boquillas Crossing
We had 16 months to prepare, and yet we left in a hurry. Maybe it was because we secretly thought we would never actually leave. Maybe it was because we lost track of the departure date, or that the date
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Window to Your Soul
If eyes are the windows to the soul then legs are the transportation that get the eyes to where they need to be to see that soul. And after the 6 mile hike today, our legs are sore down to
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Village People
It is Easter Sunday in the Chihuahuan desert. While cool, even cold temperatures blanket our mid-atlantic home, and pickelball-perfect mid-80’s surround the Florida place, we bake in the desert. We have been pushing hard exploring the region and in the
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Feeling Hot! Hot! Hot!
The last time we were at a hot springs, it was St. Patrick’s Day 2020 and COVID had just shut down Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas. A ginger bearded leprechaun in a kilt poured us a Guiness and played
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The Ballad of Scurry and Plod
The last time we met up with Scurry and Plod, they were in Glacier National Park hiking Mt. Brown. They missed the summit, both banged up their bodies and they vowed to thoroughly evaluate vertical hike adventures before embarking on
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Castolon Castaways
On the southeastern border of the park lies the last wilderness. There is no gas. No potable water. No border point of entry. No electricity. The facilities are vault toilets. The visitor center has burned down. This is Castolon. Chisos
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The Gambler (Lost)
A wise gambler once said, “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” After two nights of holding an off-suit 2-7 in Big Bend’s Cottonwood campground, we mucked our hand and ran for our Iives
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Marfa Marfa Marfa
Four years ago, Marfa splashed across the New York Times as the Coolest Art Town in America. It was the story of Shangri-La in the middle of west Texas nowhere. A place where celebrities can disappear and artists can stay
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Decoding Fort Davis
If we didn’t have reservations in New Mexico, we might still be lost in West Texas. Despite the tough conditions in Big Bend, it was worth some heatstroke to immerse in nature’s extremes on the borderlands. Wrapping up in Marfa
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Boulderdash in Guadalupe National Park
Hiking in Guadalupe Mountains National Park is nonsense! There are 11 marked trails, all of them long and strenuous except the two overlooks at two different Visitor Centers. Spoiler alert – the one we chose didn’t end well. It was
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Busted in Carlsbad
It’s hard to wrap your head around southeastern New Mexico. It’s not artsy Taos or wealthy Santa Fe or scientific Albuquerque. It’s a product of millions of years of geology that left a system of massive, intricate and stunning caves
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Fan Camp
The young man with the automatic weapon stated more than asked, “Do you consent to a full inspection of the vehicle and all of its compartments?” Sounded okay to us as two security personnel poked their way through our camping
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Express Yourself in Alamogordo
Our current adventuring wardrobe is strictly function over fashion, a random conglomeration of mismatched gear, perfect for getting the job done but not looking great doing it. Duds. Thrifting our way through small southwestern towns, we’ve been acquiring one western
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Aloft in Cloudcroft
The most direct route from Carlsbad, NM to Alamogordo, NM is to climb straight up one side of the Sacramento Mountains and descend straight down the other. Scenic Highway 82 does just that, climbing over 4,000 feet out of the
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Alamolocal
In the eight days we’ve been hanging out in Alamogordo, NM, we’ve been more active in this town than we’d been in the past 8 months in our Florida hometown. Why is that? Does the house have to be less
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Cinco de Taco in Space
Sitting high above the town of Alamogordo in the foothills of the Sacramento Mountains is a cathedral to the genius of the men and women who designed and built the rockets that flew man into space. This cathedral is disguised
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White Sands 3 Ways
For 86 years, the sugar white gypsum sand dunes near Alamogordo, New Mexico were happy to be designated a National Monument. Sometime in 2019, language got inserted into the 2019 Defense Act and Boom! White Sands got its upgrade to
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Party like a Thunderbird
Birthday 2022 is 55/60 for Sheri and Eric and 75 for the United States Air Force. Unlike us, they seem excited about getting older, throwing themselves a blowout on the ramp this weekend with some serious American Airpower on display.
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