Category Road Trip Adventures

We have zig-zagged across the country and, boy-oh-boy, do we have some gems to share! Browse campsites, off-road trails, scenic outlooks, oddities, museums, hiking trails, and more.

Texas Big

The Big Texan Steakhouse is not an eatery to be found. It is an eatery that proclaims its presence with ALL CAPITAL LETTERS and multiple exclamation marks and offers up every reason to make your next meal there. As soon as we crossed into Texas, we knew that there was a massive tourist trap outside of Amarillo that offered a 72 oz. steak to anyone who could eat the whole thing in the course of an hour. We knew this because every other bill board from the Oklahoma-Texas border to Amarillo said so. Given that we were on a quest to experience the delights and uniqueness of each region, it only made sense to eat a massive steak in Texas. Granted, even between the two of us, there is no way we could have eaten a 72 ounce steak. So we decided to keep it simple by just ordering the 40 oz. "Dallas" cut.

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Little Ice On the Prairie

Yes, that is ice on the side of the road in Oklahoma.

With one-stop left in Oklahoma it was time to be introduced to winter camping in the van.  We did successfully graduate from kindergarten so we had a basic understanding that winter is cold and the closer to the equator you get, the warmer it is.  Yet, we overvalued Oklahoma being considered "South."  While we were assured that ice storms are not common this time of year, that is very, very cold comfort when you are sleeping in a van in below-freezing temperatures.  We woke up in a Pilot parking lot, flanked by roaring trucks and with an iced-over windshield.

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Oklahoma!!!

Horses roaming in Oklahoma

Well, looks like winter is rolling in.  We made it out to Oklahoma and a break with friends just before torrential rains came to meet us from the west. We enjoyed one-day leeway of riding around on four-wheelers across an…

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Hot Springs, Arkansas

We are coming back here.

Hot Springs is a National Park.

Hot Springs has historic spas.

Hot Springs has a historic spa that continues to be open to customers.  I want to be one of those customers.  Sadly, we only had time to see, not soak.

Next time.

Next time.

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Smoky Mountains

We may have been rather rash when we assumed that visiting the Smokey Mountains on a weekday would be simple. Possibly, because this was a weekday when the leaves were changing. Fortunately, we only needed a spot for Wednesday night, because Thursday was booked solid.

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Cherokee National Forest

We are taking a mini road trip for a few days in the mountains. After visiting some museums it was dark. Too dark. The kind of dark you get when you are driving on a heavily forested road without street lamps and only very small and infrequent road signs. A rational person—upon discovering that the only thing poorer than the road markings was the cellphone reception—might have concluded that any hopes of camping should be abandoned. Instead, we decided to drive on.

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New York City

We all knew that this was on the agenda, did we not? With all the putzing around the North East, The Big Apple could not be that long in the waiting. In fact, we had intended to visit New York earlier in this branch of the trip. Yet, we couldn't help but delay for the opportunity to house sit for an entire week in the West Village. One of our friends would be away for Burning Man and had a kitten that would be lonely. Thus, the date was set, and we were eager to visit all of our favorite haunts* in the city that never sleeps.

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