7 Best Road Trips In The Southwest

Above, a sunrise view of the West Mitten in Monument Valley. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Decades before moving to New Mexico, I have always enjoyed traveling through the Southwest U.S., particularly in the Four Corners region. 

There's plenty of places to see and things to do.

Outside Magazine has posted a list of the seven best roadtrips in the Southwest.

They begin it with:

The Southwest always seems to me like a bit of a fever dream. The country’s deepest canyons, wildest buttes, and broadest deserts spread here from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, offering a landscape so unlike any other in the country, you might think you’ve left earth altogether. It is a hot, inhospitable territory that demands respect, but it is also outrageously beautiful, with rock outcroppings that seem painted in shades of red and white, blooming cacti, and shifting dunes that undulate like waves onto the horizon.

The easiest and most efficient way to explore the Southwest is by car, bouncing from one breathtaking adventure to the next, so I’ve created seven different road-trip itineraries, one in each state of this stunning slice of our nation. I’ve driven the majority of these routes, while the remaining few are on my list of dream adventures. And each of these has something for everyone—beaches, sand dunes, cliffs, rivers, hikes, bike rides, fishing holes, and more.

Set your playlist, and pack the sunscreen. Here are the seven best road trips in the Southwest.

To read more, go here. 

Winnebago’s Electric RV Prototype

Above, the Winnebago eRV2 camper van. Photo by Winnebago Industries.

With the automotive industry introducing more and more electric vehicles (EV), it was inevitable that RV manufacturers would follow suit.

But is an electric RV practical? I have serious doubts, considering EV technology as it now stands.

Outside magazine's website (Outsideonline.com) has a review of Winnebago's new electric Class B RV, the eRV2. Writer Robert Annis took it out for a test drive (five day's worth) and gives his opinion.

He starts with:

Minutes after Winnebago introduced their electric concept camper van in 2022, I began hounding the company to let me take it for a spin. Thankfully, after unveiling their latest prototype, called the eRV2, earlier this year, they finally relented and agreed to let me borrow it for a five-day test drive in California.

The state has the most charging stations of any other in the country, so I chose to test the eRV2—which will likely be available to consumers early next year—north of the Bay Area, believing it would likely have the best ratio of chargers to gorgeous scenery. I wanted to test the range of the vehicle, the amenities, and the overall comfort to see if it was a practical vehicle for both weekend road trips and extended jaunts. Here’s what I found out.

To read more, go here. 

Best Scenic View In Every National Park

Above, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Summer vacation season is only a month away and if one has national park visits on the itinerary, here's a helpful article.

Outside Magazine has posted a list of national parks and their best scenic views visitors would enjoy while visiting.

The start it with:

There’s nothing better than rolling up to an incredible panorama in one of our storied national parks. The following views, of high-desert mesas, moss-cloaked redwoods, vast mountain ranges, and more, have something to stoke the inner wonder of just about everyone.

I’ve visited every national park in America, and some the most awe-inspiring experiences in each are the stunning overlooks. So I’ve selected a list of my favorite vistas in all 63 parks, with a keen eye for easy access and geological diversity. Of course, I threw in a couple of leg-busting treks and arm-churning paddles for those among us who like to sweat to earn their views, too.

 To read more, go here.

National Parks' Record Summer Season Starts

Above, expect many people to visit Yellowstone and other national parks this summer. Photo by Armand Vaquer

This summer's vacation season is going to be an interesting one.

The national parks are already seeing an uptick in visitors over the last two years.

Outside Magazine posted:

Blame ongoing international travel restrictions, pent up demand as we exit the pandemic, booming interest in outdoor recreation, or a combination of all three. Our nation’s national parks are already setting visitation records, and it’s only the first week of summer. Here’s what that means for your visit—whether you’ve already planned one or not.

Just how busy are the parks? In May, Yellowstone National Park hosted 483,159 visitors. That’s an 11 percent increase over May 2019, previously the busiest year on record. (The park was closed May 1 through 18 last year.) As of May 31, Yellowstone had already seen 658,513 visitors in 2021, which marks 14 percent growth from that same period in 2019. That’s before summer—Yellowstone’s busiest season—had even started.

Other landmark parks like California’s Yosemite and Montana’s Glacier have implemented caps on the number of visitors they’re allowing through their gates each day. For the first time ever, you need to make a reservation ahead of time to visit them.

To read more, go here. 

America Needs More Campsites

Above, The Beast at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Since the pandemic began, camping has been the most popular and, probably, the safest way to vacation for people.

The rise in popularity is not abating and RVs are selling like hotcakes. 

There's one problem, there's not enough campsites to accommodate all these people. In fact, campgrounds have been closing over the past several years by the government.

From Outside Magazine:

One cold August morning last summer, my husband woke up before dawn, snuck out of our tent, and drove 40 minutes to Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. We’d been sleeping in a nearby national forest for the past few days, driving into the park each morning to try and snag one of Grand Teton’s permitted backcountry campsites, before we finally realized that our only hope was to get there before the park’s offices opened and wait in line for one. But getting anywhere early is tough when you have a toddler, so I stayed behind with our sleeping two-year-old while Jesse drove to Grand Teton. 

When he arrived, however, an hour before the backcountry permit office opened, the line was already snaking around the building. Some people had shown up at 6:30 A.M., waiting in the cold for two and a half hours just to secure a place to pitch their tent. Another 50 or so were queued up for one of the park’s equally coveted front-country campsites. And in the national forest where I waited, the scene was pretty much the same, with carloads of people competing for a handful of campsites like Black Friday shoppers vying for the latest electronics. 

This reminds me of one summer when my parents and I slept in the car in an overflow area so we can wake up early in the morning to get a campsite at a national park (I don't remember which). My mom and I slept in the car (thankfully, it was a 1968 Buick LeSabre with plenty of room) and my dad slept on the hood. We woke up early, headed into the park and, luckily, got a campsite.

Unless there are more campsites created, the problem will only get worse.

To read more, go here.

"Ultimate" Guide To Grand Teton National Park

Above, the majestic Grand Tetons. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Well, here's another one of those "ultimate" guides to whatever.

This time it's Outside magazine's website that has the "ultimate" Grand Teton National Park travel guide. It is worth a read, even if one is not presently contemplating a trip there.

It starts out with:

My relationship with Grand Teton National Park started inauspiciously: I moved to Jackson Hole in northwest Wyoming unaware of the park or the mountains that are its heart. Of course I knew the town had mountains—I’d gone there to be a ski bum for a year, after all—but had no idea these mountains were the snaggled, serrated, rising-7,000-feet-straight-from-the-valley-floor Tetons, part of one of the world’s most intact ecosystems and home to glaciers, shimmering alpine lakes, and wild animals I knew only from photos, as well as more opportunities for adventure than I had the skills or fitness to handle. On my first hike in the park, I got my mom and myself spectacularly lost—and also contracted a case of giardia. 

While floating down the Snake River below Jackson Lake Dam two weeks later, my GI tract still suffering, I knew one year here would not be enough. I’m now on year 24 and have learned that a lifetime isn’t enough to explore this park, even if, at 310,000 acres, it’s only a fraction of the size of its 2.22-million-acre neighbor to the north, Yellowstone. 

To read more, go here. 

Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park

Above, the Painted Desert area of Petrified Forest National Park. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Petrified Forest National Park is only about 92 miles from home. I have toured the park once, and that was just the Painted Desert area. I plan on going back to see the Petrified Forest after all the coronavirus lockdowns are over.

Above, the Painted Desert Inn is now preserved as a museum. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

However, if one is curious about Petrified Forest National Park, Outside magazine's website has an article on one visitor's visit to the park.

It begins with:

At Petrified Forest, in northeastern Arizona, when they say the park closes at 6 P.M., they mean it. After driving eight hours from the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas and through the deserted highways of rural New Mexico, I arrived at a locked gate a few minutes too late, and my plans for a sunset hike went down in flames.

Instead, I had to watch picturesque, feathery clouds turn shades of electric pink from just outside the park’s boundaries. With snow forecast for the next morning, I was going to have a very short window to see the park and make it count. 

After a hearty breakfast at Joe and Aggie’s Café, a down-home Route 66 relic that’s been around since the 1940s, I set off for the park’s most famous area, the Rainbow Forest. Hillsides in every direction were spattered with fluffy, white snow, like a Jackson Pollack painting, a stark contrast to the colorful badlands and deep jewel tones of the area’s petrified trees. 

I elected to hike the three-quarter-mile Crystal Forest Trail as the snow began to let up, sauntering along the paved loop and paying rapt attention to the 200-million-year-old stone logs that lay around me. The place felt spooky and surreal. I tried to picture the landscape as it once was, with Triassic ferns and ginkgoes sprawling across a tropical, green river delta where phytosaurs roamed.  

Petrified Forest can feel like a mind game for most visitors. It forces you to flip your preexisting notion of what a forest is on its head. Rather than straining your neck to take in tall trees, you’re forced to meditate on broken trunks scattered around haphazardly. Once I understood that, the park really came into focus. I began to peer through the petrified trees and the layers of sedimentary rock, envisioning what the place once was: a dense woodland teeming with life.

 The article also has information on where to eat and where to stay.

To read more, go here.

Making The Best of It

Above, yesterday on the deck. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

One nice thing about being out in God's County is having great views and decent weather to sit outside with a class of ice tea if one is under a stay-at-home order.

The mailbox had three magazines in it yesterday, so I poured some Arizona ice tea and brought out the CD player and read.

Two of the three magazines were outdoors oriented, Motorhome and Outside. The third was from AMAC (the conservative alternative to AARP).

My improvised attachment of the old side view mirror of the Jeep didn't last too long, so I have to wait until the new one arrives in the mail. I can still drive it in Six Mile Canyon, but would probably get cited if I try driving to the Flying J.

At least I have plenty of food and other necessities here to avoid trips into Gallup, at least for a week and a half.