The Adventures of Reba

2022 was filled to the brim with new sights and experiences, visiting 20 states and 44 NPS sites in our RV! December itself was rather eventful, we fried our inverter, Beau hit a milestone birthday, there was a family celebration for someone’s big accomplishment, then the holidays, and finally we said goodbye to my nearly-99 year old grandmother. We took a little break from posting while we were mostly in one spot for several weeks, focusing on spending time with our loved ones. Now we’re back on the road again with big plans for 2023, including spending the summer in Alaska!

After Thanksgiving, Beau and I were reunited and I recovered from my cold. Cue something in our electrical system breaking while we were dry camping, making dead batteries an all too real possibility. And then the rain started in an area prone to flooding. So we traded in cacti for palm trees and no amenities for the resort life. When we pulled into our site and saw this, all* was well again. #RVLife means when things aren’t going quite right, we change things.

*It doesn’t solve everything, obviously, but it can help.

The day after Thanksgiving, Beau took the rental car to Roswell, NM to stay in a missile silo AirBnB with his cousin (first photo is from another silo the owner gave them a tour of), and I took the RV back to Gilbert Ray Campground in Tucson. While I have RV’d without Beau previously, it was with a friend, so this was my first time going solo and I got to do something I’ve thus far managed to avoid - dump the tanks! 💩 All went well on my solo venture until day 2 when I got a horrible cold 🤧 so the rest of my alone time was just lying in bed all week. At least it was somewhere we’d been before so I didn’t feel like I was missing out on too much!

In all my years I think I’ve only spent two Thanksgivings away from family - a Friendsgiving I hosted in college and this year! We went to an all you can eat buffet at the Desert Museum in Tucson, a bit of a drive from where we were staying in Nogales, but since we had a rental car we could leave the RV. I was grateful for the relative ease of the day, just what we needed! Mostly I was glad not to have to cook Thanksgiving in the RV, or do dishes 🤣 Afterwards we walked around the Desert Museum for a bit, enjoying the bobcat, ocelot, javelinas, and other animals, before driving home.

We stayed at Patagonia Lake State Park near Nogales, AZ for part of the Thanksgiving weekend, mostly because we had trouble finding a campsite closer to Tucson or Phoenix with availability. Since Beau was picking up his rental car in Tucson and I’ve never parked the RV at night, I asked some ladies at a neighboring campsite if they’d help guide me in - they were lovely and I was grateful for their kindness. It was windy, and thus a bit chilly, but there was beautiful scenery all around this state park!

After 9 days in Hawaii and a few days with family in Nevada, we headed back on the road again! On our first day Beau worked a full day of meetings and then we drove the 5+ hours (plus a propane fill stop, #rvlife) to our next campground at Cave Creek Regional Park, just north of Phoenix, arriving well after 10p. But we were treated to incredible coyote soundscapes and a beautiful sunset, it was good to be home 🚐 again!

We dragged our feet a bit on the holiday plans and learned people really like to camp over Thanksgiving in Arizona 🤪 so our plans that week were a bit cobbled together / not what we originally expected. But, that’s life on the road - you figure it out, make it work, and hope for the best! 🤞

Just a few more photos to share from Hawaii and then we’ll move on. It really was such a lovely trip! We’re excited to go back again this year 🌺

While in Maui we visited the Maui Ocean Center, an aquarium, and on our last full day in Hawaii we visited Lahaina, where we took a submarine ride, saw the largest banyan tree in the US, ate lunch, and did some shopping! It was such a great trip we’re going back again this year, this time with Caryn’s family! 🥳

Here are some more photos from our drive to Hana and Haleakala. It really was a gorgeous day, but we still had more than a 20 degree difference between the base and summit of Haleakala! To the point we wore our face masks just to keep warm 🥶🤣 Everyhing was so vibrant, the sky, and the sea, and all the greenery!

We drove the road to Hana and visited both the beach and summit visitor centers of Haleakala National Park. It was a lot of driving, 7+ hrs along bumpy, winding, narrow roads, but the views all along the way made it worth it! We visited Charles Lindbergh’s grave since we were in the area and tried to stop at a state park, but didn’t realize they required reservations for day visits, so kept on going. Beau got to do a POTA activation (ham radio thing) at Haleakala, and the sunset view was incredible 🤩