It was 4:00 in the morning. An angry wind buffeted the side of our truck. I peeked out the window and it was snowing. What the ???!!? Glancing at the outside temperature gauge, it was a bitter 33°F. Inside it was a toasty 65°F as our Espar Airtronic purred away in its “maintenance mode”. I could only feel sorry for the hundreds of people surrounding us sleeping in ground tents, rooftop tents and pop-up campers. This was late Spring and it wasn’t supposed to snow or even rain.

We are in Japan now and our trusty Turtle V expedition truck is on its way to California from South Korea. We will be celebrating another unique Christmas in historic Kyoto and later, since our flight to Sacramento leaves Tokyo on December 31, crossing the dateline and arriving on the 31st, we will enjoy the […]

Turning off the Wakhan Corridor, we breathed a little sigh of relief, but really, compared to the roads we had driven through Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan just to get to Khorog, the Wakhan had been a drive in the park. Now we headed west again, back to Khorog to resupply and to experience […]

People in the foreign countries we are visiting are part of the joy of overland travel, and for sure, the children are the most fun. They have no fear, no set opinions, no religious or political concerns. They are just curious that strange people in a strange vehicle from a place they may never have […]

We had been playing Blog Tag with Rob and Nina Blackwell for months as we made our way across the US, shipped to Belgium, and proceeded to drive through Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. Meanwhile, Rob & Nina had started in Vladivostok, Russia and had come over many of the roads we would […]

Having spent a couple of days exploring the excavated ruins uncovered after the Vesuvio volcano wreaked its wrath on Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD, we felt obliged to see what this monster looked like up close. We made the fortunate choice to NOT drive The Turtle V to the trailhead on the mountain. Hopping […]

Christmas 2013 We’re playing catch up again. In case you wondered where we were and what we did for Christmas, here’s a brief report. Leaving Pisa behind us we followed secondary roads through beautiful Tuscany of Italy. The scenery was truly everything we could have expected from this famous region, even in wintertime. Chief navigator […]

Arriving in Barcelona, we had three goals: Finding a safe parking place for The Turtle V, and revisiting both the Mercat (Market) de la Boqueria and the Basilica La Sagrada Familia. Carefully following our GPS instructions, we spent a good half-hour wandering around in circles following one-way streets through the chaotic traffic until we finally […]

We are in Granada now, a city that always had sort of a magical ring. “Welcome to the Monumental Complex of the Alhambra and the Generalife”. That’s what the brochure reads we picked up at the gate. Certainly “monumental” and “complex” are accurate terms to describe this maze of towers, palaces, windows, arches, fountains, intricate water channels and gardens.

So here we are at the most western point in continental Europe and in fact, the most western point of the Eurasian landmass. If you have been following our blogs for the last few months, you know that we have shipped our expedition camper and truck, The Turtle V, to Europe, and we have wandered […]