Highway 395 is my favorite road trip in the Golden State. It runs along the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevadas, from San Bernardino all the way to Canada. I wrote about the central California leg of the road and it was published in issue 3+ of RV Destinations Magazine. My readers get a free … Continue reading Highway 395 on RV Destinations Magazine – Free Copy!
If you’re driving to or from Northern California this summer, you may be following one of the great wagon trails left by our forefathers. Consider taking a little time along the way to learn about the route and the intrepid travelers that built this nation. National Park Service Map of the California and Oregon Trail … Continue reading The California and Oregon Trail
One of the most famous con men to ever venture out on the southwestern deserts. It took powerful wills and strong bodies to settle the west, and a lot of our pioneering forefathers were the stuff of legends. But before the wagons rolled across the plains there were the mountain men, those strong, solitary characters … Continue reading Peg Leg Smith
Part 1: Shoshone and Paiute Tribes Western Slope of the Panamints in winter California's Death Valley is magnificent. Wildly beautiful, strange, remote, awe-inspiring - it deserves these accolades, and more. It is an odd place; nothing quite like it exists anywhere else on this continent. Nothing is on a small scale here; extreme is the … Continue reading The People of Death Valley
Now a state park, Bodie was once an active mining town on the high desert in Eastern California. Here lie the bones of history, in the shadow of the eastern Sierra Nevada, north of Mono Lake between Lee Vining, California, and Hawthorne, Nevada. This is the ghost town of Bodie, California. Once the home of … Continue reading The Ghost Town of Bodie
One of the most effective lawmen of the old west wasn’t Wyatt Earp or Wild Bill Hickok. He was a Federal Marshall who worked out of Judge Parker’s court in Fort Smith, Arkansas. His job was hunting outlaws in the 75,000 square miles of Indian Territory - what is now the state of Oklahoma. Bass … Continue reading Bass Reeves: The Best Lawman in the Old West
When I was young, my folks would take us to visit my aunt and uncle on their Ranch in Wyoming. They had a marvelous old house with a steep roof and whitewashed wood siding. It was huge and warm and always filled with the good smells of baking – bread, cinnamon rolls, cakes, that sort … Continue reading Cowboys
I’d like to introduce you to one of my favorite characters from the west. He’s a prospector from the Mojave Desert called Shorty Harris who lived a few years in the boom town of Ballarat. Ballarat, California is a town on the edge of nowhere, a collection of mud huts and tin shanties in one … Continue reading Shorty Harris of the Mojave
Part 7 of Northern Arizona East from Tuba City takes us through Navajo Land to some of the most magnificent country on the face of the earth. Monument Valley is north of Kayenta at the Utah state line. Further north is the Bear’s Ears, an area with a pair of distinctive, towering buttes that look … Continue reading Monument Valley
Part 6 of Northern Arizona Visiting the Navajo Nation is an adventure. The people are very welcoming, but there are some rules visitors need to follow there. First is, we’re not just crossing a state line or entering a Park when you enter Navajo land. You’re entering a sovereign, self-governing nation with its own tribal … Continue reading Tuba City and The Hopi
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