The End of 2025

The year has come to its end and we are on our last camping trip of the year. Each year for the past 5 or so years we have taken our last trip of the year immediately after Christmas. It is a time when our kids are spending time with their in-laws and we get time to ourselves. Makes perfect sense to us to take a short trip. In the past we have done, Panama City, Biloxi, Outer Banks (a couple times), Fort Pickens in the Panhandle and this year it is Wilmington, NC.

We are staying with a Boondocker for 3 nights in Bolivia, NC. We arrived about 5:00 and set things up. It was already getting dark so we stayed in, had some leftover pizza and played some scrabble. John actually used all 7 tiles in the 2 games we played. In all the years we have played scrabble, neither of us has ever used all the tiles in one turn. I think he cheated.

We had a good nights sleep and headed to Wilmington to explore. We wanted to go to Airlie Gardens but dogs were not allowed so we headed to the Riverwalk.

From there we headed to the other side of the river to see the USS North Carolina. Which served during WWII.

After walking around the USS North Carolina we were getting pretty hungry and we really wanted to see the beach. Needless to say NC allowed everyone to build on the beach side so you can’t see the beach as you drive along the road closest to it. I hate that. I love riding along the water. After studying the map we headed toward Jack Mackerals Bar and Grill toward the end of the island. We had lunch, which was delicious and decided to head to the tip of the island and catch a ferry back to the mainland.

And then we took a ride on the ferry. Just a cheap thrill for both of us. Oh, and while we were at the restaurant we started looking up lighthouses because we were on coastal land so there had to be lighthouses somewhere near us. Sure enough there is one that can be see from the ferry. Score!

Had a great day and heading back to camp to fix some dinner and beat John in scrabble!

Zion National Park (part 2)

We stayed right down the road from Zion so we could hop on a bus and go into the park. Zion has very limited parking and you cannot drive through Zion so the bus is the way to go. This is the gang before they did the Narrows River Trail. I did not go on this hike as I already knew it would be hours long and walking through the river. I rode the bus in with them and then went back to the camper to chill with Chanel.

Oh, but let me not forget to tell you about our arrival at the campground. As we were backing into our campsite something broke and the tire was coming off. We were so grateful we decided to stay the extra couple of days because this would have been a disaster on the highway. Whew! Talk about a close call. And we were fortunate enough to find a place with the part John needed to fix it. It took us nearly an hour but we got the part and John had it fixed in about 30 minutes. Just in time to make dinner. Close call for me too. I thought I was going to have to cook. Just kidding, we went out to eat.

This was such an amazing trip. Can’t wait for the next one. We headed home after Zion. It was a long trip home but we made it with no more instances.

Highlights from our trip.

Monument Valley and Arches

I am so far behind. We have been home for months and I still have not finished blogging about our last trip. We left Arizona and drove through Monument Valley where apparently I didn’t take any pictures. Seriously I can’t find them. I know I did. I even have a video of John running through the street like Forrest Gump. That is why you need to blog as you go. Either way, I need to finish this so I can make my book.
After driving through Monument Valley we headed to Arches National Park. We stayed at Sun Outdoors Canyonland Park. All Swanky camping when we travel with the kids. Mike had to leave us at this point and we really hated to see him go but, our adventures were not over.

I lied. Just found these pictures of Monument Valley. Yay, didn’t lose them.

Back to Arches. We camped right down the road–like within a mile of the entrance. This is going to be somewhat short and sweet because my memory is failing me. I am pretty sure we went in that night and then the next. We did go inside for sunset pictures. I watched as the rest of the crew climbed the rocks and sat in the opening of the Arches. Just a beautiful sight!

And now for some sunset shots

With all our mishaps on this trip, John was ready to go home but, the kids wanted to go back to Zion to do another hike that we missed out on earlier. So we agreed.

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