The last leg of our summer trip found us in familiar territory: southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. Several members of my family moved out to the San Simon Valley over a dozen years ago and we love visiting them; not only for their wonderful company but for the gorgeous views. The rhyolitic Chiricahua Mountains [...]
After our mammoth of a drive from St. Louis, Missouri to southern New Mexico over the weekend we were in need of a quiet week. Especially since Mound City had kept us so busy during our stay. We had heard good things about St. Louis from our friends Rich and Karen but we were still [...]
When we left off last time, St. Louis had witnessed the safe return of the Lewis and Clark Expedition from their journey to the Pacific Ocean. In September 1806 the small town was surprised to see the men again as many had assumed the worst of their long absence. Though the local citizenry hosted a [...]
It wasn’t intentional but for our time in the St. Louis area we ended up in Collinsville, Illinois on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River. Talk about a happy accident—our RV park was located less than a mile from the largest prehistoric settlement in North America: Cahokia. Since I had studied the ancient city [...]
After an interesting time in Iowa we dropped down into Missouri, the last state along the Big Muddy that we would have time to visit this summer. As we traveled along the Upper Mississippi River we often ran across quotes from Mark Twain, the author who has been indelibly linked to the river. We agreed [...]
Leaving Red Wing we drove south along the Great River Road. The name is a bit of a misnomer as it is not one continuous road, instead it consists of numerous small highways and byways in the ten states that border the Mississippi River. We started out that morning on the Minnesota side of the [...]
To wrap up our summer adventure we thought it would be fun to start at the headwaters and then follow the Mississippi River south before turning west toward home. Truly, it was a great idea and we were both excited about the trip. However, we soon came to the sobering realization that we just didn’t [...]
I’ll admit it, I am a Cheesehead—in more ways than one. First of all, I love cheese (all kinds, except maybe Limburger). Then there’s the fact that I lived in northern Wisconsin for a short stint in the early 90s which is directly responsible for my being a Packer-Backer. So I was more than [...]
We were up early Sunday morning, eager to get under way. Our endpoint in Ohio was over 1500 miles away and while we knew we could not drive our RV that distance in one day, we wanted to knock off a considerable portion of it. The drive went well: we had sunshine, no wind and [...]
For our first stop of this summer’s road trip we didn’t have that far to go. We left Tucson Thursday evening—it was still in the triple digits as we headed out at 7 PM. We figured it would be better to drive through the low, hot depression that is Phoenix at night rather than during [...]
This site chronicles the Travel Adventures of Lance and Erin Willett. We are traveling across North America in a 34’ RV—living and working from the road. Contact us or read more about us.
Where are we now? Tucson, AZ.
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