Category Archives: Travels with Maria

Blogging from the road.

Prepping for My Next Boat Trip

Posted on by
2

I start gearing up for my next crew member gig.

Just a quick note to let regular readers know that I’m gearing up for my next boat trip and will be blogging a lot less here and a lot more on My Great Loop Adventure blog. The posts there are not automatically copied here, although they are listed in the sidebar of this site. If you want notifications about new posts there, be sure to head over to the Home page there and use the Subscribe form to sign up.

This new trip is as a single crew member with Capt John on his 36′ Carver as we navigate north up the Intracoastal Waterway from Charleston, SC. Capt John takes things slower than Capt Paul did, so in the five weeks I’m on board, there will likely be fewer stops and less distance traveled. But I’ll gain a lot of new boating experience, as I detailed in today’s post on that blog. A quick visit to the site and you can also learn how I met Capt John and got this amazing opportunity to join him.

I hope to be blogging this upcoming trip on a day-by-day basis as I did for my summer trip along the Erie Canal and Great Lakes. But I’m also hoping to do a lot more videos; I might post links to them here, but I’ll definitely share them there.

I’m excited about this trip and the things I’ll be learning along the way. Although I’ll miss my pups, my home, and my jewelry shop — where I’ve been getting a ton of work done lately in preparation for a Mother’s Day art show right after my return — I always welcome the opportunity to do and learn new things. This trip was too good to pass up and I’m really looking forward to sharing what I learn with others.

I hope to see you in the comments there!

Snowbirding 2022: A Visit to 5 Palms Hot Spring

Posted on by
Comment

Tracking down another California Hot Spring — with some difficulty.

In mid January 2022, I departed my campsite at the Holtville Hot Spring and headed toward Salton Sea where I had a campground reservation at a state park. Along the way, I tracked down and visited the 5 Palms Hot Spring. This is the video I made of my campground departure and Hot Spring Visit.

It took me a while to put this together because I originally planned to turn the whole day into one video. It was going long and I didn’t like the way it was coming out. So I cut a bunch out and reworked it for this. I’ll likely have another video from that day soon — I visited a weird place on Salton Sea and took a lot of video clips there that are definitely worth seeing if you like to see weird, abandoned stuff. How about subscribing and turning on that notification bell so you know when I release new videos?

Please don’t be afraid to share your thoughts or questions in the comments for this video.

Snowbirding 2022: In Historic Downtown Ajo, AZ

Posted on by
10

A quick stop in an historic mining town.

After two nights boondocking out in the desert south of Ajo, AZ (see my previous video), I decided to stop at Ajo Plaza on my way out of town. Due to poor planning on my part, everything was closed. And, of course, since I didn’t really expect to stop along the way, I didn’t do any research beforehand, so the audio includes me babbling about the area.

Ajo is a small mining town with a year-round population of about 3000 people (per the 2020 census). You can learn more in its Wikipedia entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajo,_Arizona) or on its Chamber of Commerce website (http://www.ajochamber.com/).

I’ve love your feedback about this style of video. Short, narrated views are easy for me to shoot but lack the polish you might find in more produced videos.

Snowbirding 2022: My Travels To Date

Posted on by
Comment

A map of where I’ve traveled so far.

I’m in Tucson now, in the Ringtail dry camping lot of Catalina State Park. I love this park, which is nestled into a little canyon where I can easily fool myself into thinking that the nearest Walmart isn’t less than 2 miles from my camper door. I’m not terribly fond of the campground, though, since the sites are tiny slots and, for some reason, my picnic table and fire ring seem to be located more conveniently for the slot next door. I will admit that it’s a lot nicer than the gravel parking lot I stayed 5 nights in in Quartzsite last week. At least there’s desert out my back yard — instead of a yahoo with a toy hauler and dogs that won’t quit barking.


Here’s where I stayed last night: at a dispersed forest service camping area southeast of Apache Junction, AZ. It was wonderfully quiet — until the shooters camped about a half mile away woke up and started shooting again.

I was trying to visualize where I’d been so far on this trip and decided to enlist the help of GoogleMaps. I took a screen shot of the map covering the area I’m in and drew in lines for the roads I’d traveled, then red dots for where I’ve stayed and blue numbers to indicate how many days at each place. The numbers don’t add up — there’s about 4 days unaccounted for — so I likely spent a few more days at certain locations than I think I did.

Anywhere, here’s the map: