Jenny's Travel Blog:

It's that time of year when parents are planning ahead for the end of the school year and readying themselves for the vast open space of summer when the school age children in their lives once again become their all-day responsibility. (God bless you, teachers, every one. We appreciate you.) I'd like to make a suggestion to all those parents: Find a great overnight camp, find it now, do not pass GO, and do not hesitate to register your children for camp today . You may wonder

superbloom  A superbloom is a rare desert botanical phenomenon in California and Arizona in which an unusually high proportion of wildflowers whose seeds have lain dormant in desert soil germinate and blossom at roughly the same time. The phenomenon is associated with an unusually wet rainy season. While traveling in California in April of 2023, I heard about the superbloom from my California friends. Evidently the rainy season had brought massive amounts of precipitation, wh

For my fifth major car camping adventure of my adult gap year I went to the great northwest. Due to jury duty, I had to stay in Wisconsin until mid-October, but then I headed west. Here's a map and overview of the major stops on my sojourn. (I'll go back and tell more detailed stories down the line.)

In 1960, John Steinbeck set out on a road trip across the country. He drove a truck with a camper-shell and brought along his wife's dog. His goal was to rediscover America. The resulting travelogue became the book Travels with Charley: In search of America. Steinbeck and Charley started their journey in Maine. He wrote "I wanted to go to the rooftree of Maine to start my trip before turning west. It seemed to give the journey design, and everything in the world must have des

My son Josh transferred to Montclair State University in New Jersey for his sophomore year of college, so we left our home in Wisconsin on August 21, 2023 to drive him to school. My original plans for a late summer sojourn to Montana were placed on the back-burner. Already in the northeast? Let's explore the northeast! The next 27 days took me through New Jersey, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Canada and Michigan - mostly car camping in the back of my Subaru Outback

I'd left home March 15th and it was now April 2nd. I was car camping my way across America, seeing national and state parks and visiting friends and family along the way. Things were mostly going as planned - but then again, when it came to my time in California, I hadn't planned too much. I had ideas of things I wanted to do, places and people that I wanted to see, but I was intentionally not following a strict itinerary. My sister Susan lived in California for 20 years, and

After celebrating my son Luke's graduation the weekend of May 5-7, I returned home to Whitewater and began packing for my EAST COAST SWING! SECOND CAR CAMPING TRIP - May 9 - 26, 2023 May 9: Packed up, gassed up, got an oil change, then hit the road. Kept feeling like I forgot something. I DID! My dressy clothes for Grace's graduation! (Not on my usual camping checklists.) I was only 15 minutes out of town. Drove back, threw the fancy clothes in the rooftop car carrier, hugg

Austin is just…UNIQUE. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a city like it. And I dig it. There is great food everywhere, tons of cool neighborhoods, and the mural art is out of this world. Even the graffiti I saw was positive. I arrived in Austin on a Saturday afternoon, March 18, 2023 and invaded the home of my niece Maddie. Maddie is pursuing her PhD at the University of Texas in Austin and lives in an apartment in the Hyde Park neighborhood near campus. She and her chill cat

On the night of March 16 I stayed at Fontainebleau State Park in Louisiana. It had been recommended by a fellow traveler from Whitewater as being close to New Orleans, clean and pretty. It was, in fact, a very nice campground and well suited to my needs (i.e. cheap, clean, electric campsite near showerhouse.) When I booked, I liked that it would allow me to drive over the Lake Ponchetrain causeway- which was remembered fondly by my aunt. I found my site and then went for a sh