Our second national park ever started with our most stressful travel day yet: mountain turns, a first tunnel with the RV, rain, and a last-minute campground switch. Then the Smokies gave us waterfalls, a snake on the trail, and the climb to Arch Rock.
Our first national park ever, and we brought 40 feet of fifth wheel up steep mountain roads and a gravel campground drive to get there. Overlooks, the Endless Wall Trail, and tacos and tequila to close it out.
One more Ouro Preto day before we fly back to the rig: hauling suitcases up wet cobblestones, touring a palace with its own gold mine, and learning how colonial Brazil washed, pressed, and policed its gold.
A foggy day in Ouro Preto, the UNESCO hill town in Minas Gerais: feijão tropeiro for lunch, a soapstone market, a guided gold mine tour, and a climb to an overlook that was entirely inside a cloud.
A slow day in Marquette: chicken on the Blackstone, a hike at Presque Isle Park that turned into a cliff-jumping show, another round of trailer light detective work, and finally scratching our first states off the travel map.
Moving day in the middle of our 15-day boondocking challenge: a failed water stop at Love's, our first CAT scale weigh-in, exotic animals at Safari Wilderness, and Fabiola's first drive in the F-350.
A week in Dallas: murals in Deep Ellum, manatees downtown, dinosaurs at the Perot, brisket at Terry Black's, and a zoo day that ran long. Here's everything we hit and what we'd repeat.
A day in Michigan's Upper Peninsula: a roadside Mystery Spot that talked us onto a zip line, wolves and bears at Garlyn Zoo, and the clearest water in the state at Kitch-iti-kipi.
We took on the Dune Climb at Sleeping Bear Dunes to answer one question: can we actually make it all the way to Lake Michigan? Sand, regret, and ice cream followed.
No cars, a working 1780s fort with live cannon fire, more fudge shops than we could count, and a hike to Arch Rock. Mackinac Island was not what we pictured.
Root-beer-colored waterfalls, five miles of bridge, s'mores on a Lake Huron beach, and a late-night gamble on the northern lights. The first episode of our Michigan trip.
A comic convention, a dolphin show, a water taxi, and a funhouse that genuinely scared Fabiola. We tried to fit all of Chicago into one day and mostly succeeded.
We ate a whole chicken with our hands, screamed for the yellow knight, and got the VIP treatment at Medieval Times outside Chicago. Zero regrets, some hoarseness.
We moved our Chicago road trip to the Sheraton Suites Chicago O'Hare so Nathan could attend PHP TEK 2024, then spent the week finding out whether one hotel room could hold all the stuff we packed.
We went to Mackinaw City for a quiet weekend and a bonfire by the lake. Then the sky over the Mackinac Bridge turned pink and green, and the bonfire lost our attention completely.
