Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 22:39:21 -0500
Reply-To: Joy Hecht <jhecht@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Joy Hecht <jhecht@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Trip
In-Reply-To: <008301c4fd73$41737ad0$1d8ceb18@jerrylaptop>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
I've just been in some of those places. Here's a few of my suggestions:
Louisiana - if you're going to be in southern Louisiana, I did some splendid
bike riding south of a town called Houma, which in turn is south-west of New
Orleans. It's very empty country, flat as a pancake, mostly water with a
few stretches of solid land, roads, and houses running through it. Splendid
birds, hardly any cars, occasionally guys parked on the side of the road so
they could fish for a bit, lots of drawbridges. It was great biking, and so
probably good mopeding too. Bring lunch - there was almost no place open to
buy food when I was there.
Texas - I really liked Austin - it's a cool town. I didn't think much of
San Antonio, unless you want to see the Alamo or something.
I stopped briefly in a state park way in western Texas right near El
Capitan, which is a famous mountain. I'm blanking on the name of the park,
but you'll see it on the map. It looked like a lovely place to camp, on the
side of a mountain, with some great hiking country, very open - it's very
arid, so no trees. The wind was blowing something absolutely fierce when I
was there, and they said it does that much of the time. It was around 30 or
40 miles south of Carlsbad Caverns (in Carlsbad, New Mexico), which is a
pretty neat place to visit if you are into caves.
Hot Springs - there are a lot of hot springs in New Mexico and Arizona.
There's a book that is a guide to hot springs in the west, and also a
website, for which someone recently posted the URL, that lists many of them.
www.soak.net, that's the website. If the weather is cold, the hot springs
are a delight. I stayed in a private one in Faywood, NM, which was much
more expensive and developed than the ones elsewhere on BLM land, but it was
nice to be there - big pools, and it was really cold when I was there. Hot
Wells Dunes, south of Safford, AZ, was more fun, though, and only $3/night
to stay there.
Pena Blanca Lake - around 15 miles north-west of Nogales, AZ - was a really
lovely, quiet place that I camped for a couple of nights. It's some kind of
public land.
I went out to Organ Pipes Natl Monument in western AZ on the Mexican border
- that was lovely. It's a national facility, with very organized camping and
you can't just park and camp, but I really liked it there.
If you want a truly weird experience, go to Quartszite, AZ, near the
California border. It's a tiny town that swells to 250,000 every winter
with snowbirders. Many of them bring junk to sell, so the whole town is a
massive flea market. You can camp for free on BLM land around 10 miles out
of town. It's truly bizarre.
Phoenix - do visit Karl Wolz, one of the truly nice people on this list.
And of course you will go to the Grand Canyon, yes? You don't say when
you're leaving - remember that the north rim isn't open until the snow is
gone, they don't plow the roads. The south rim is always open, more
developed, and more crowded, but hey, it's still the Grand Canyon! If you
haven't seen it, you can't miss it.
Have a great trip!
Joy
****************************************************************
Joy Hecht
and Matilda, 1989 Burgundy Vanagon
For musings about life and the vanadventures:
http://users.rcn.com/jhecht/gypsy
****************************************************************
:::-----Original Message-----
:::From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM] On Behalf
:::Of jerry baldwin
:::Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 10:35 AM
:::To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
:::Subject: Trip
:::
:::Hi All
::: I'm just starting a 3 month tour from Peterborough ON to Florida
:::Keys,Louisiana,Texas New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California to British
:::Colombia, Alberta and back to Peterborough. I'm driving a 87 blue westy
:::with a 71 Peugeot moped on the back. I would like to hear about must see
:::places along the way, preferably lesser known as compared to places like
:::Bush gardens etc. I hope to meet some list members along the way Please
:::reply to pmail jlbaldwin52@gmail.com
:::
:::Jerry
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