The plan was to head to Louisiana after our stay on the panhandle of Florida for a two week stay in Bayou Segnette State Park. The park is located just south of New Orleans and is an excellent base for exploring the wonders of the city.

We met up with our friend Kim, a fellow traveler who we met in Texas four years ago.

We had planned to attend a number of events- the St. Patrick’s Day parades, Mardi Gras Indian Super Sunday Parades and Second Line Parade as well as the Wednesday in the Square concerts. All of these events were canceled due to the Covid19 outbreak. On top of this we had to vacate the park after one night. The State authorities took over the park for a staging area for first responders who will have to deal with the coming pandemic. Fortunately, we secured a spot northwest of NOLA along the Mississippi River in Vidalia, LA across the River from Natchez, MS.

The park offers a paved walking/bike path along the River and is a great place to watch the barge traffic.

We booked ten days at this park while we tried to figure out what to do, continue on or return back to Buffalo. After going back and forth and agonizing over our decision we decided to pull the plug on the rest of the trip and slowly work our way north.

The weather was accommodating which allowed us to take in some sights while keeping our distance from potential infection. 

We took a drive on a short section of the Natchez Trace.

One stop on the Trace is the second largest Mississippian mound north of Mexico. Construction of the mound began in 1350 AD. It covers about 8 acres.

We also took to the woods to explore the St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge. We saw no one.

On the way back to camp we passed Mammy’s Cupboard. Not really sure what to say about this.

In antebellum Mississippi, Natchez was home to one of the largest slave markets in the United States. The spot is marked by a slab of concrete with slave shackles embedded.

Other than these short forays away from camp, we spent most of the week like everyone else: reading, binge watching streaming services and walking or biking the River pathway.

We left the Atlantic Coast and drove to the Florida Panhandle. As we headed west the temperature dropped and the clouds moved in with intermittent rain. Our destination was Henderson Beach State Park . The park has a smallish campground and on previous attempts we failed to secure a site. The park is situated along the “Emerald Coast “ of the Gulf of Mexico in the town of Destin. We were happy to finally have the opportunity to check it out.

The draw here is about 2 miles of unspoiled white sand beaches. The weather was iffy but we were ready to check out those crystal sands.

A boardwalk leads you over the sand dunes to the water.

Windy and cloudy skies made for some dramatic gulf views.

Fortunately the weather broke and the sun returned.

This is not a remote beach. On either side of the State beach are high rise resorts.

However, this didn’t prevent us from enjoying the beach and having some quiet moments.

This beach has very few shells but the rough seas did serve up some interesting sea life.

All too soon we were packing up and getting ready to move to Biloxi for a quick visit with our Mississippi relatives. (Sorry -we had so much fun we forgot to take pictures.)

We left the Gulf Coast of Florida and headed diagonally north and east across the peninsula. Anastasia State Park is one of our favorites. The camp sites have good separation and easy access to 5 miles of undeveloped ocean beach.

The beach at Anastasia State Park is a beautiful section of Atlanta coastline, no high rises or other commercial development to spoil the view.

Our stop allowed us to visit with more family members. We hung out with Jeff and Mary who were on their way to the Keys.

Shelly’s sister Andrea and her husband Jeff recently purchased a house about a 1/2 hour from the State Park.

It’s a short walk from the house to the ocean.

The weather during our stay was not always warm and sunny. We experienced some windy and wild ocean conditions. When you have a lot of wave action you get a lot of sea foam which blows up on the beaches. This is not caused by pollutants but is actually dissolved phytoplankton ~ organic material that has been agitated by wave action creating the foam. The “scientific” name for this foam is splume (an apt description in our option)

We took a break from our Florida wanderings to visit our son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren.

Spending time with these little buggers was worth the shock of colder temperatures.

We also hooked up with our friends Al and Anne who were spending a few weeks in St. Augustine. It’s always nice to find ourselves among old friends when traveling.

We’ve enjoyed our stay in St. Augustine but it’s time to start heading West.

We moved south along the Gulf Coast to Marcos Island. This part of our trip was a late add on. As a result we were closed out of the State Parks. The Marcos Island/Naples KOA had one spot left. We booked it.

The empty sites filled up by the end of the day. As you can see the sites are small and close together. Certainly not the most scenic campground you’ll ever see. What it lacks in beauty and solitude it makes up for in its proximity to a number of Gulf beaches and to the Everglades.

We arrived at Marco Island during a record setting heatwave. With temperatures in the high 80’s and low 90’s, the beach or poolside at the KOA was the place to be.

When in this part of Florida we enjoy visiting the Corkscrew Swamp Preserve. The 2 mile boardwalk provides an intimate walk through this cypress swamp without getting your feet wet!

The Bald Cypress found in this swamp are some of the largest trees found east of the Mississippi River. In spite of the hurricane that came through in 2017 which downed several of the large trees, it’s still an impressive stand.

The large branches of these trees host a variety of other plants; resurrection ferns and epiphytes among them.

The swamp is also home to a wide variety of bird life.

We saw Ergrets, Herons, Black and White warblers, Palm Warblers, a Red Shoulder Hawk and a Pileated Woodpecker. The Audubon volunteers were most helpful in helping us identify the warblers.

The Everglades NP spans 1.5 million acres making it the third largest National Park. We entered the park by way of the Tamiami Trail (Rt. 41) and drove along the 24 mile Loop Rd Scenic Drive. The road takes you into the Big Cypress National Preserve for some excellent wildlife viewing.

In addition to the numerous alligators, we saw lots of birds.

At the western side of the Everglades you access the Ten Thousand Islands section of the park. The Gulf Coast Visitor Center is a jumping off place for canoeists, kayakers and sport fisher people. You can also get a ticket for a one hour tour of the area on a catamaran.

The only requirement for island status is enough ground (usually some limestone rocks) for one tree to grow (usually Red Mangrove).

The highlight of the boat tour was our encounter with a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins.

Naples is a very busy area with lots of traffic without many opportunities for biking. We biked along the Gordon River Greenway which meanders through a suburban neighborhood. The draw for us was the 3 mile trail through a mangrove swamp~ out and back made an easy six mile ride.

We also managed to find a local brewery that was producing some fine beer.

Naples has a large city beach that is popular with visitors and locals. It’s the place to be at sunset.

We left our inland camp and set up shop near the Gulf of Mexico and Tampa Bay. Fort Desoto County Park is a favorite of ours. It offers miles of biking trails as well as Bayside and Gulf beaches.

We’ve stayed in this park before but this site is the best we’ve had here. It is reasonably secluded with a water view. The park is very popular so we feel quite lucky to have nabbed this spot for two weeks.

Speaking of visitors, Pat’s brother Mike and his wife Donna camped at a site near us and Shelly’s sister Ellen and her husband Rory booked a condo on St. Pete’s Beach for a sibling meet up.

The Tampa-Saint Pete area has a plethora of small breweries. Of course we needed to check a few of them out.

Part of the fun of camping at Fort Desoto is the bird watching. Most of the birds are common to Florida but are uncommon to northerners. We did get to see a bird uncommon to the area, a Reddish Egret. It’s the first time we’ve seen one. We didn’t get a good picture but enjoyed watching it foraging in the shallows.

Osprey reside throughout the park.

While out viewing some Osprey nests we ran into some other bird nerds who told us about an upcoming birding event, Raptor Fest. The event took place at a bird rescue facility with lots of birds on view.

Most of our time was spent biking and walking on the beaches.

Our family visits overlapped which made for a fun family stroll along the water on a windy and overcast day.

After Mike and Donna returned home the rest of us ventured over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to Sarasota for a matinee performance of Circus Sarasota.

This is a one ring circus that takes place under the “Big Top”. The performances include many outstanding international acts. Circus Sarasota comes highly recommended.

We spent a couple of afternoons wandering around Saint Petersburg.

We love being able to see all the flowers and greenery during the winter months.

Saint Petersburg is home to the Dali Museum. An interesting building housing interesting art.

It’s always fun to meet family on the road and it sure makes time fly by. Our two weeks went by in an instant. Time to move on.

Finding a place to camp in Florida is an exercise in planning and persistence. Myakka River State Park near Sarasota is one of our favorites. When booking spots for our current road trip we thought we snagged a spot at this popular state park. Turned out we booked a spot at Myakka River Forest Preserve. The Forest Preserve provides beautiful secluded spots with no power or water while the State Park has electric and water. Whoops.

Our confusion gave us an opportunity to put our new solar panel into service. It worked great. The campground only has 10 camp spots and is very quiet. Our location gave us access to many miles of hiking and biking trails.

Our stay offered lots of opportunities to observe the wildlife. We saw baby feral pigs, Sandhill Cranes and a Bobcat.

In addition to wildlife and birding opportunities we got a chance to checkout the surrounding towns of Englewood and Punta Gorda.

As nice as the State Forest turned out to be we really wanted to spend some time at the State Park. This is where persistence pays off. After checking back with the park a spot turned up as a result of a cancellation. We were able to get a spot for two days.

The reason to be here is the easy acces to birding and biking.

We also saw a large group of white pelicans (rare to us) , raccoons, red shouldered hawks, wild turkeys, more wild hogs and of course, lots of alligators. With all that wildlife viewing our two day stay just flew by.

It’s been awhile since we added anything to our blog. We decided to spend more time at home in Buffalo this year. However, we did drag the Tincan down to Florida in October to avoid winterizing or driving through a blizzard.

We’ll start this years travels in Florida before we head West. We are always looking for new spots to checkout as we travel so we began our tour of Florida at a spot new to us-Wekiwa Springs State Park in central Florida north of Orlando.

Of course the main draw here is the crystal clear spring.

A lovely boardwalk takes you through a swampy area to the Springs.

The campground is nestled into a sand pine woods with lots of hiking and biking trails.

Pat’s sister Carolyn and her husband Ed drove over to the campground for a bit of a ramble through the woods.

We didn’t know what to expect at Wekiwa Springs but we’re pleasantly surprised by what the park had to offer. Next time we’ll stay longer.

We left Central Florida and headed East to the Melbourne Beach area to Long Point County Park, another new destination for us.

The neighbors (Wood Stork and Brown Pelican)

The park is on a spit of land that juts into the Indian River and is surrounded by mangroves. The park is a good base from which to explore the surrounding area, Sebastian Inlet and the towns of Vero Beach and Sebastian. Plus it is only a mile from the Atlantic Ocean.

Long Point is a short drive to Sebastian Inlet where surfers come to test their skills.

The area is also home to numerous micro breweries. We’re always up for tipping a few pints.

The Walking Tree Brewers specialize in Strong Ales which are aged in whiskey barrels.

The real purpose of this stop was to check out a portion of the Florida Coast we’ve never seen.

From here we moved further down the coast for a short stay at Jonathan Dickson State Park in Jupiter. We’ve been to this park in the past and it’s a favorite. It has good mountain biking and hiking trails. The stop also gets us a visit with one of Pat’s high school friends Lynne.

It rained and was chilly during our stay but we still made the effort to check out the beach at nearby Hobe Sound.

We had an unexpected bonus during our stay in Jupiter. Earlier in the month we made contact with our roommate Jim from the early 1970’s. We spent an afternoon in West Palm Beach catching up on the last 45 years.

The weather wasn’t the best but hey nothing froze and we didn’t have to deal with the snow back home.

We’ll be leaving the East Coast for fun along the Myakka River.

We decided to return East by way of Nebraska and Iowa. Our first stop was North Platte, NE home to the Bailey Yard and the Golden Spike Tower.

The observation deck of the tower gives a commanding view of Union Pacific’s Bailey Yard. They claim to be the world’s largest train switching yard.

The yard covers 2,850 acres and is eight miles long.

The repair shop services 300 locomotives every day.

We left North Platte and headed down US 80 to checkout Lincoln NE.

The Nebraska State Capital Building was built between 1922 and 1932 of Indiana limestone.

Sage advice as you enter the capital building

Entry door detail

Nebraska is the only State with a unicameral legislature. Since we were there on a Sunday, not a whole lot was going on. We did manage lunch at an excellent brewery and a visit to two small museums.

The Sheldon Museum is a small contemporary art museum on the University of Nebraska campus with an excellent collection.

Lincoln is also home to the International Quilt Museum.

The Museum was featuring quilts of India…

…and Liberia

We entered Iowa on US 80 but quickly left the Interstate in search of a few roadside attractions.

We made our way to Elkhorn and it’s working windmill.

The large Danish community purchased the windmill from Denmark in 1970, had it disassembled and shipped to the US. It was reassembled using volunteers and is the only Danish windmill in the country. Shortly after it left Denmark its government outlawed the practice.

No trip through Iowa would be complete without a visit to Audubon and the world’s largest concrete bull, Albert.

As we headed to the Cedar Rapids area for an overnight stay we went through Templeton, home to one of our favorite rye whiskeys.

Sadly they were closed.

Cedar Rapids was a pleasant surprise, good restaurants, interesting architecture, friendly people and an excellent independent bookstore.

Our ultimate destination was Chicago to spend some quality time with these buggers.

As we always do after a long trip, we stopped at the Airstream Factory in Jackson Center OH for some routine maintenance. While they were working on the Tincan we took the opportunity to bag another state high point.

While we love the “road trip lifestyle”, it is always nice get home in time to enjoy summer in Buffalo. We have a few short trips planned over the next few months BUT we are taking a break from the blog until our next trip south. Visit us in Buffalo soon!

Home at last!!

We continued along US70 toward Moab to meet up with our Denver friends Barbara, Roger and Genevifka. US70 enters Utah through the San Raphael Swell, a ruggedly beautiful area.

We arrived ahead of our Denver friends and did a bit of touring in Canyonlands National Park.

The plan was to hook up with Barbara and Roger and two other families at Dead Horse Point State Park. We were unable to secure a camping spot in the park so we booked a space @ the KOA in Moab.

We had a blast with these intrepid campers.

And a Big Apple Getaway…

Our nephew Keegan was selected to be part of the Whitney Biennial. We weren’t going to miss an opportunity to celebrate with him and his family.

Ellen, Rory, Eamon and Keegan

“Blue Door”

“Outside”

“Incoming ”

The work is amazing. The photos don’t really convey the complexity of these paintings.

Detail from “Outside”

Ellen, Kitty and Larry

We took the NYC Ferry from Manhattan to Red Hook to visit Keegan and Eamon’s studio. The ferry is a great way to see the city and couldn’t be easier.

Studio Eamon

Pat, Rory and Keegan

A rare photo of Shelly and sisters Ellen and Andrea.

After a whirlwind four days it was time to fly back to Denver to pick up the Tincan and continue East.

This is what greeted us in the morning. No matter, the road beckons.

Highway 50 runs through the middle of Nevada to the Utah border. The Highway starts in Carson City and passes through five towns (two have gas stations) before leaving the state. As a result the road has earned the title of “Loneliest Road in America “.

We took our time moving through Nevada, being sure to top off our gas tank whenever possible. These small towns had their heyday in the late 1800’s during the area’s mining boom. The town of Eureka at its height had population of approximately 8,000 people, currently about 600 people live there.

Opera was how miners entertained themselves in the 1800’s

At one point in it’s history Eureka had a daily newspaper. It’s former home is now a museum which documents the the town’s history including the newspaper’s.

The only remaining 5 hole outhouse in Nevada.

Our next stop was in Ely – one of the larger towns on the highway, population 4,060. We set up camp just outside of town at the Ely KOA.

The KOA was surrounded by mountains with miles of trails to explore.

We spent a few nights on the road and met lots of friendly locals and fellow travelers. Our main goal was a visit to Great Basin National Park. We arrived on a Saturday and set up camp just outside the Park in the town of Baker, population approximately 385.

The Tincan made some friends in Baker.

Where else would you eat when your on the road? The food was excellent.

The Great Basin is one of four deserts in the US, the driest (an average of 10 inches of rain a year) and highest (5,000 plus ft in the valleys) it extends from the California border in the West to the Wasatch Mountains in Utah to the East. It stretches North into Oregon and South below Las Vegas with the mountains getting as high as 13,000 ft.

The Basin began life as a large shallow lake 500 million years ago. 40 to 20 million years ago volcanoes erupted spewing lava and ash throughout the Basin. Over the past 25 million years the Basin has stretched 50 miles East to West thinning and cracking the Earth’s crust. This resulted in North-South faults with uplift along these faults forming a series of mountain ranges and basins.

Great Basin National Park is home to two groves of ancient bristlecone pines. They grow at an altitude of 10,000 ft and with snow still deep and the last six miles of road to the trailhead closed-we had to content ourselves with this example in the visitor center.

Bristlecone pine is among the longest lived life forms. Some trees live thousands of years, the oldest being 5,000. We hope to go back some autumn to see these elders in their home.

The other big attraction @ the Park is the extravagantly decorated Lehman Cave. We signed up for a tour. The cave was unusually wet this year and the formations were glistening.

In spite of the snow we did manage to get some hiking done.

The Great Basin gets water from snow melt that percolates to an underground aquifer or runs to low spots in the landscape. It doesn’t leave the Basin via rivers or streams. Residents have been in a decades long fight to keep their water local.

The sun sets on the Great Basin and we continue East.