Because we had a long weekend that included the MLK holiday, we decided to extend our stay from the previous weekend through the week, enabling us to take cocktails and dinner each night at Cloud 9 while returning to “work” at Hampshire at the start of each day. The unexpected 11-day staycation gave Chef Cliff…
We arrived at Cedar Hill State Park on a mild Friday afternoon under overcast skies. The cloud cover, which lasted throughout the weekend, kept temperatures in the 40s and 50s, making for chilly meal preparations on the Big Green Egg and Blackstone grill. While preventing us from dining al fresco, the weather was perfect for…
When we heard the weather forecast for Christmas weekend, with high temperatures in the 80s, we decided to cancel our winter getaway to Galveston and stay closer to home. Instead of dedicating more than 11 hours of our holiday time to driving, we went to Cedar Hill State Park, where we managed to get a…
This weekend, Jon closed one chapter of his professional life and prepared to start another. After more than seven years with the Department of Radiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, he will introduce the role of Communications Coordinator in the Department of Internal Medicine on Monday. His new department is more than three times the…
We spent the weekend recovering from our recent 1,200-mile road trip to visit Jon’s family in Illinois, which included replenishing our supplies and checking for wear and tear on Cloud 9. The exceptionally warm weather was ideal for enjoying gentle breezes through open windows and spending an entire evening at a crackling campfire under starlit…
Our Thanksgiving visit with Jon’s family began the weekend before Turkey Day, as we readied Cloud 9 for its long road trip. We camped at nearby Cedar Hill State Park, where we enjoyed mild weather ahead of what promised to be an unseasonable cold snap in the St. Louis area. Preparation included checking the tires…
This weekend brought an end to Daylight Saving Time (DST) and a return to Standard Time, giving us an extra hour of sleep and providing the commentariat an opportunity to argue for and against its continuation. We were surprised to learn that we were clinging to a few myths about DST. For example, we had…
Our weekend began a day early, when CJ from Dalworth Cleaning Services told us we wouldn’t be able to walk on our newly cleaned and waxed hardwood floors for 24 hours, so as to allow the wax the time it needed to “cure.” The campsite we had reserved for the weekend wasn’t available on Thursday,…
On this same weekend seven years ago we placed our order for Cloud 9. We traveled to Dublin, Texas, about two hours from Dallas, to Bayer RV, where we had purchased our first Airstream. Because we were repeat customers, we hoped to get a good deal. And we did. We were told that our new…
Sorry not sorry is a sarcastic way of acknowledging that someone might not like whatever you’re saying or doing…but you don’t really care. That phrase came to mind this weekend as we encountered a camper who apologized for opening and closing his car door about 100 times. We said we weren’t nearly as bothered by that…
Anyone who spends time in forested areas throughout North America will have to deal with spiders. Every time we encounter a particularly menacing arachnid, we remind ourselves that spiders are our friends. They eat other bugs, including mosquitoes, so they actually protect us from pests. On Friday, as we were taking our sunset walk, we…
With a weather forecast of cool nights and low humidity, we eagerly headed to Cedar Hill State Park, a gleaming Cloud 9 in tow. Since returning from our Desert Southwest Adventure, we spent several days cleaning the rig inside and out, top-to-bottom, bumper-to-bumper. We’ve pulled the Airstream about 50,000 miles over nearly seven years, and,…
We decided to start our second full day in Flagstaff with a hardy breakfast at Mary’s Cafe, a fixture on Route 66 since 1961. As we’ve come to expect from these old-time roadside diners, the food was great, the service was better, and the coffee kept flowing. After a brief return to Cloud 9 to…
Having left Joshua Tree National Park to bake in the triple-digits, we decided to explore Walnut Canyon National Monument, 10 miles east of Flagstaff. The 20-mile long, 400-foot-deep canyon is home to hundreds of cliff dwellings built in shallow caves between 1125 and 1250 by the Sinagua people. Sinagua is a Spanish word for “without…
In an attempt to escape the searing southwest heat, we headed north to Flagstaff, postponing our visit to Joshua Tree National Park for another time. When we planned this trip earlier this year, we started by checking the average daily temperatures for September at each park. We could not have anticipated the record heat at…
Garinns on the Go 