We spent 2 years traveling in the Wee Rover from Vermont to Florida to the Arctic Ocean (twice) to Baja and the Yucatán Peninsula. It was a trip filled with adventure, fun, frustration, and many many many firsts (but not the lasts). Unfortunately, in the end were chased home by Covid which added a bizzare end to our trip. Overall, it was a life changing experience in more ways than I can write.
This blog was a fantastic way to stay in touch with family and friends and document the trip, but the time has come to close it down. Fear not, this is not the end of our travels. Our adventures are just beginning and while the Wee Rover has moved into retirement our new rig Huddy McBruce is just getting started. To follow our future adventures, please visit our Instagram account under….you got it MacKenzies on the Road.
For now it is farewell, or see you down the road, or tata for now.
The Wee Rover back where she started with a map of her Adventures. Not bad for a vehicle built in 1962.
Death Valley was surprisingly beautiful, if a bit hot!
I had no idea what to expect, except heat, as we approached the turn off of 395 towards the valley, but Darrin wanted to go so off we went.
My first surprise was that it is a national park. I had no idea. I thought it was just a back road through a desolate piece of unforgiving land. My second surprise was that it isn’t all flat and dry. We had to traverse fairly high passes to get in and out of the damp, yes damp, salt valley floor, another salt flat. Another surprise was the beautiful colors and designs of the rocks. Who knew? I couldn’t stop taking pictures.
No surprise was the heat. We road with the windows down in the 100 degree heat, a great way to get the full effect. I can’t imagine what it is like in the summer.
Overall, we had a very enjoyable, or perhaps memorable, visit. I think it is what we refer to as ‘a one and done’ because of the heat, but definitely a place everyone should visit.
Yosemite was awe inspiring, majestic and crowded. I’m not used to sharing Mother Nature with long lines of cars, buses and RVs. It was beautiful and I am glad we went, but I think I prefer the quiet woods and bubbling streams.
In the movie Twister the main character, Jo, can’t understand why a tornado will take one farm and not the next. Skipping across the landscape in a pattern of chaos indecipherable to the human mind. I’ve never really been around tornados so it really didn’t mean that much to me, but today I couldn’t get the idea out of my head as we drove through the hills and valleys of southern California.
Last summer in the far north, we had our first experience with wildfires. We saw huge expanses of forest burnt to lonely echoes of their former selves. It was eerie to drive for miles and miles amongst the burnt remains of such majestic souls. We knew cabins and homes were probably lost. We heard stories of whole towns evacuated for weeks. It never really sunk in until today.
As usual, we searched google maps for roads ‘off the beaten path’ which lead us through the dry foothills of southern California. As we rounded a corner into another remote valley, we started to encounter the remains of a recent forest fire. It was sad and eerie, but similar to what we had seen up north. Then we started to notice blank spots where a house should have been, or a store, or a cabin. But these blank spots were in between houses and stores and cabins that were untouched by the flames, little onassis where the fire swerved or dipped. Why? Why did the fire take this house or that cabin and leave the next? Why swerve around one and take the next? I suddenly understood Jo’s statement from the movie.
Why one and not the next?
Gas station, store and bar gone…100ft away a building (now the make shift store) was untouched.The make shift bar while they rebuild.Burn here, but not thereA current wildfire in Utah seen through the remains of a previous fire.
Every fall, when the leaves peak, we take our motorcycles and do our ‘Gap Ride’. We ride north, cross Brandon Gap, north and cross Middlebury Gap, north then Lincoln Gap, and finish with Appalachian Gap. A spectacular, if long day, of criss-crossing the spine of the Green Mountains.
Well, it’s fall here in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the range that divides Nevada and California, and we are working our way to Yosemite. Let’s do a west coast version of the ‘Gap Ride’. Up and over, and back again we went taking every pass from Route 49 down to Yosemite (except Route 80…way too many fast cars for us). We even had lunch at Lake Tahoe.
We had heard the west coast had a large homeless population, but we were not prepared for the reality of it. We have a small homeless population in Vermont, small perhaps because of the harsh winters, but out here the mild weather and the resources for the homeless, so we have been told, make it an attractive place for the homeless to be. Everywhere there is a gathering of population, there is also a population of homeless and you can’t not see it. People asking for hand-outs on corners, people living in makeshift shelters under roads and overpasses, people sleeping in parks and behind garbage bins, signs warning you not to leave anything valuable in your car or bikes on car racks and on and on. You would have to be blind not to see it and heartless not to be affected by it.
When we flew to Florida last fall, we had just started to see the homelessness and we talked about how we felt homeless; our house rented and the Wee Rover and all our camping gear in storage. We had 2 backpacks and that was it. We felt adrift and somehow a bit more sympathetic to those without (and then felt totally foolish because we shouldn’t relate at all since we had the money for a flight and rental car….).
But, when we arrived back in Oregon and the Wee Rover went to the garage for her engine transplant, we again felt displaced. We didn’t have our home, or our home on wheels, we were still living out of 2 backpacks and going from place to place staying in other people’s homes and motels…and along the way fully realized the homeless plight and population in the area. Again, we felt we could relate (and then felt awful since we had a rental car, a roof over our heads and food on our plates…).
We handed out a few batches of peanut butter and crackers when we shopped, some shampoo and soap samples from motels and clothes and shoes we could leave behind. A very small bit thrown at a very large hole. We couldn’t in anyway fix the problem, but perhaps we helped someone have a better day.
Fast forward and we are back in the Wee Rover. The past is behind us. We have our ‘home on wheels’ again and a friend has reminded us of our home waiting for us in Vermont and the skills we have to be employed again when we return…but the homelessness still haunts us. It has crept into our journey and is hard to shake.
Today, we are sitting in a beautiful place with amazing views and blue skies, but we still talk about the homeless and how we felt a bit of what it must be like, but not really.
I couldn’t bring myself to intrude on anyone for a picture, so I leave you with a bit of beauty.
Today we said goodbye to Crescent City, a place we thought to pass through and ended up staying for a while. If you only you drive through Crescent City on 101, you see a depressed town who’s main industries have moved on. But, if you venture down the side roads off 101 you find history, redwoods, beaches, bluffs, rocky overlooks, 2 amazing lighthouses, and seals and sea lions, oh my. We thoroughly enjoyed our time and recommend this gem to everyone.
The top of rocky Whaler Island in the middle of the outer harbor was our go to place to enjoy our afternoon coffee and tea.Battery Point LighthouseAll hail! These noisy, smelly utterly adorable creatures have stolen my heart.The disaster of the Brother Jonathan.Redwoods in the Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park. Lunch breaks with ocean views on St. George Point.St. George Reef LighthouseAnd we made new friends!
Tidbit: Visit the previous posts for more on our adventures around Crescent city.
The Grove of the Titans is the soul of the Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park. A circle of immense trees that embrace you with their energy and give you the feeling you have shifted to another plane or reality. After an hour in their presence, it was hard to break their trance. We returned somehow altered, changed, energized. A fitting end to our time in the redwoods.
I know…more trees. We just can’t get enough of them. They are magnificent! Stout Grove in the Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park, said to be the most scenic stand of redwoods, is on the northeast end of Howland Hill Road, just 1.5 miles in once you enter the redwoods. The trail through the grove sits on the bank of the Smith River, is only .7 miles around and is easily accessible to all levels of hikers.
Howland Hill Road in the Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park is 6 miles of pure redwood bliss. The gravel, sometimes muddy and sometimes dusty, road is not for RVs or trailers. The sharp turns and narrow passages around potholes and trees is not for the faint of heart, but a must for anyone who wants to really experience redwoods. It takes you into the heart of the Jedediah Smith Park linking you with hiking trails like the Boy Scout Trail and the Mill River Trail that take you upclose and personal with redwoods that have witnessed hundreds of years of history. We highly recommend adding it to your “Bucket List”
