RV Travel Adventures

Welcome to Just Around The Bend our travel  blog. As we go about our adventures we are hoping to see and experience some wonderful places and meet a lot of interesting people. One of our challenges on the road and living in our little caravan is to stay fit and eat healthy. One would hope that the time factor is on our side and we can be creative in our cuisine keeping it healthy and tasty. Another fun goal is to visit every National Park on our journey in our 24 foot Navion Sprinter. see ya on the road!

We are Jeff and Liz from Bend Oregon. Five years ago we retired and have been traveling and exploring the United States and Canada in our 2018 Winnebago Navion. Our goal is to visit all of the National Parks and State Parks and National Monuments and any and all points of interests.  Our RV is a 4 season ready and so are we. In the past five years we have traveled extensively through the Pacific Northwest into British Columbia and spent the last two winters in The Sonoran Desert. We are ready to head out and see the rest of the country and lots more of Canada. We will keep you posted on upgrades to our RV and life on the road. Happy Trails from JUST AROUND THE BEND.

Happy Trails,  Jeff and Liz   ♥

OREGON PIPE CACTUS NATIONAL MONUMENT

We have visited Organ Pipe National Monument 3 times over the years. It still surprises us with new gems, as the Sonoran Desert can change in an instant due to weather and the time of year. If there is a recent rain fall, like this year for instance, you could find yourself in the middle of a desert flower bloom, which is an incredible experience! A lot of the wildlife stay underground in the cooler winter months, so you might just miss the dangerous rattlesnakes.

We usually start our day checking in at the Kriss Eggle Visitor Center to see what talks will be going on or which ranger led tours we may want to join. They will take you in a van on the Ajo Mountain Drive and the ranger will fill you in on their desert knowledge, local history, and amazing geology of the area. The tour is one of our absolute favorite things to do.

The night talks at the Amphitheater can be about the moon, night sky, or history of settlement in the area. At one time cattle ranching and mining were active in the area and there are several mines you can still hike to.

We were lucky on our last visit to run into YouTube personalities Debbie and John from the YouTube Channel From She To Me. They are the nicest couple and Debbie is quite fascinated by geology and anything to do with rocks. Make sure and watch their episodes on Organ Pipe, NM.

Camping at Twin Peaks Campground is all reservation now so book a day before for your stay. There are generator and no generator sites; check the length if you’re over 25 feet. The restrooms are clean and there are even a few lukewarm solar heated showers at some. This is a dry camping CG with water available at spigots and a sewer dump station.

Our next destination is Gibert Ray a Pima County Campground. Check Pima county for info. Cheers Jeff and Liz.

AJO

AJO  A HIDDEN GEM IN THE SONORAN DESERT

We have driven thru Ajo several times on our adventures, fueled up etc. but never spent any time actually exploring. This trip we had a few extra days to finally stop and see what Ajo is all about. In early history Ajo was a meeting place of several cultures, Native Americans, the Spanish and the Europeans all met here for trading. Later, Ajo opened up to ranching and mining. A 6.8 mile scenic drive of spectacular desert views, vegetation, cactus and wildlife. Also home for many opportunities for dispersed camping. A map and information can be obtained at the AJO Chamber of Commerce visitor’s center located in the historic AJO Plaza. While visiting the plaza be sure to stop by Oasis coffee for a delicious cup of coffee and pastries. A library is also located on the south side of the plaza. Oh and do not forget the farmers market every Saturday at 9 am, supposed to have the best burritos. There is an IGA Market and Ace hardware in the same building ,Gas and propane and a few restaurants with sporadic hours.

We camped about 4 miles from town on Darby Wells RD and found many spaces available. Some are secluded and some with great desert views which we opted for. The site was fairly serene and peaceful except for the occasional vehicles coming down the 30 mph road which the biggest speed violator was the border patrol. As with any visitation to the lower border areas use caution to strangers. We felt secure at our site with about 7 other campers nearby. We travelled down the scenic highway and ended up by the mine museum and some historic buildings. There is a lot of Spanish influenced architecture in AJO . Our friends from Quartzsite View/Navion Rally Marshall and Mel met up with us at our site and made our trip even more adventurous with our new friends to share it with. The people and merchants in AJO are very welcoming and friendly. A lot of snowbirds park here for the winter.

We will see you next at Organ Pipe National Monument. Happy Trails, Cheers from Jeff and Liz.

Indian burial ground
Jeff becoming an artist

VALENTINE – Chocolate Cream Pie

Its no secret its been a long several years of pandemic covid 19 stresses. Some of us have had to learn to cook, eating out has not been a safe option and grocery shopping a whole new learning curve. Who would have thought you would be picking up your groceries in a grocery store parking lot. With Valentines Day and Easter on its way, I wanted to share one of our family’s favorite chocolate pie recipes.

CRUST:

40 graham crackers (10 full cracker sheets)

2 Tablespoons sugar (coconut sugar is also a good replacement for sugar)

2 Tablespoons butter softened

1 large egg white ( 1 use Bob’s Redmill egg replacer-1 Tablespoon)

Filling:

2 Cups almond, oat or soy milk (can use fat free milk also)

2/3 Cup sugar (I substitute 1/2 cup maple syrup)

1/3 Cup unsweetened cocoa

3 Tablespoons cornstarch

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 large egg ( 1 use Bob’s Redmill egg replacer-1 Tablespoon)

2 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

1 teaspoon vanilla

Whipped Cream or a dairy free whipped cream

3/4 teaspoon grated chocolate for garnish

Directions

Step 1 Preheat oven to 350°.

Step 2 To prepare crust, place crackers in a food processor; process until crumbly. Add 2 tablespoons sugar, butter, and egg white; pulse 6 times or just until moist. Press crumb mixture into a 9-inch pie plate coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 8 minutes; cool on a wire rack 15 minutes.

Step 3 To prepare filling, combine 1/2 cup milk, 2/3 cup sugar, and next 4 ingredients (2/3 cup sugar through egg) in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk.

Step 4 Heat 1 1/2 cups milk in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat to 180° or until tiny bubbles form around edge (do not boil). Remove from heat. Gradually add hot milk to sugar mixture, stirring constantly with a whisk. Return milk mixture to pan. Add chopped chocolate; cook over medium heat until thick and bubbly (about 5 minutes), stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low; cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla. Pour into prepared crust; cover surface of filling with plastic wrap. Chill 3 hours or until cold. Remove plastic wrap; spread whipped topping evenly over filling. Sprinkle with grated chocolate.

The substitutes I have given you will make a delicious chocolate-cream pie without the guilt. Both versions are delicious.

The original recipe is from Cooking Light November 1999.

Thank You for following my blog, please check in next week a update of our Boon Docking location and the View Navion Motorhome Rally!!!

Cheers from Liz

Family Favorite

QUARTSITE 2023 RALLY

Hi folks! Guess where we are, in the middle of the winter?

We are at the 2023 Winnebago View Navion Rally, held in Quartzite, Arizona. The weather has been perfect 58 degree days and 35 degree nights; not too bad since when we left home it was 33 degree days and 15 degree nights and snowing. It truly feels wonderful!

The rally consists of hundreds of people getting together in the middle of the Arizona desert to meet and greet, camp together, and just have a good time sharing stories about their rigs. There is an agenda, so it’s very organized, and lots to do, see and learn. Example: first day starts out at 9AM with a BIKE RIDE, 10 AM is a hike to Q mountain or watercolor Sketch with Amy, and then hospitality get together at 5PM. We visited the big white tent on opening day of the RV show, which proved one time is good enough for us but everyday truly is full of fun get-togethers and seminars. Almost too many things to do!

Yesterday we joined the watercolor class (super fun!), today is solar seminars, and tomorrow a pancake breakfast. So far there are over 145 Views parked every which way, with all being unique colors, styles and designs. It’s quite overwhelming with lots to do, super friendly people, and technical information from the attendees at the Rally. We even got to meet the YouTube famous Grammpa Ron at several of his seminars, great fun indeed!

We met the most amazing people who are very friendly and helpful if you had a problem of any kind. We camped between two especially nice couples and quickly became friends. A big shout out to Marshall and Mel and Everett and Diana, which lots of fireside memories were created.

So see ya all next year and many thanks!

Jeff and Liz

Working on Solar
Pancake Breakfast
The Navion Rally
Many Views
Art Class
Gramma Ron
Camping Area

ZION NATIONAL PARK

We opted to drive over from our camping spot in Bryce Canyon N.P. to Zion N. P. as the rangers told us its one of the most visited National parks in the area. They also advised us to wake up at 5 am and head to the park as you won’t get a parking spot at the Visitors Center after 8am. Otherwise you have to drive to Springdale and pay $40.00 to park. I will say of all of the National Parks we have visited this one is a ZOO> Even at 7am in the morning the visitors center parking lot was half full, hikers everywhere. The hikers are headed to The Narrows! All dressed in $60.00 rented orange shoes and waders. Most take the shuttle and a lot rented electric bikes, it was a site to behold. We opted to use our electric bikes and bike the 10 mile round trip to the Narrows and hike the Pa Rus Trail. A wonderful scenic and so much fun bike ride. If you can ride a bike I would highly recommend this choice of travel, you can stop at all the trail heads on your route and stop and just take in the panorama. No vehicles are allowed so you either take the shuttle bus, rent a electric or road bike or bring your own bike. So much fun, we had a spectacular day. The Pa Rus Trail is at the very end of the roadway (trail) and meanders along the The Virgin River for 2.2 miles. At the end is where all of these hikers and bikers wearing waders and orange boots enter the Virgin River and hike 9.4 miles out and back through The Narrows. At this particular time of the year the water is 39 degrees and very swift. There was a lot of people entering the water, taking a picture and leaving, as it was dangerous due to the cold water and swiftness. Tomorrow we are suppose to get snow here so its very chilly.

We definitely woke up to snow including a wind advisory and snow for the next three days. After speaking with the Rangers we opted to head to St George Utah for warmer weather. Plus St George has amazing bike trails, so off we go for another adventure.

CHEERS JEFF AND LIZ

HOVENWEEP NATIONAL MONUMENT

HOVENWEEP: Indian ruins are fascinating and the history is incredible. The harshness of this country makes you wonder how in the world did these people manage. The ruins are mostly destroyed by looters and the test of time, but definitely worth a stop.

Our Next Exploration is Monument Valley, Natural Bridges, Mexican Hat and The famous Goosenecks S.P.

Cheers Jeff and Liz

Arches National Park- Canyon Lands and The Needles

Leaving the Swell we headed for Horse Thief BLM Campground, a beautiful drive 20 miles from Moab heading towards Canyonlands National park on Hwy 313, eight miles off of Hwy 191. The campground is very beautiful, campsites are nestled in amongst pinon pines and Utah juniper with panoramic views of the upper high dessert.

Sites are large and very private and just $10.00 a night. Amenities are again very clean pit toilets’, fire ring and a camp table. Just 8 miles up the road was Dead Horse S.P. and Canyon Lands N.P. and the Island In The Sky Section. Mountain Biking is abundant and the bike trails are everywhere and amazing. Jeep and side by sides are everywhere, but all trail riding and back road jeeping requires a permit.

We decided to bike from Moab to the Arches visitors center on our Blix Electric Bikes, the bike trail is paved and so much fun. Speed limit was 20 miles per hour, to funny because you could go a lot faster down some of those hills and we might have. It was so much fun we continued down the bike trail all the way to Hwy 313, In all we biked 21 miles and found about 8 geo caches ALONG THE WAY.

Arches N.P. requires you to make reservations to visit during the day time. BUT, if you enter the park at 5pm, you dont need reservations. So that’s what we did and worked well for us, less people and parking was great. Arches is so far in our travels a mind blowing experience of amazing wonders. This is our second time to visit, never gets old.

We spent a day in Canyon Land – The Needles and hiked to Indian ruins and lots of petroglyph’s. Very unique landscape and much different from Arches.

We tried out the Plant Based food in Moab and what a treat. It happened to be our 27th anniversary so we went a little crazy finding the best food ever. We first tried Quesadilla Mobilla and ordered the Vegetarian Quesadilla, no words can describe how good these were and I will be making these at home from now on -YUM. Oh no we aren’t finished, we were advised to try the Rainbowls Food Truck and order The Gold Knob Nachos made with plant based walnut taco meat with cashew cheese sauce, incredible. We were so happy we found such excellent Plant Based food. The finale was The Garage, a hip ice cream store we had visited on our last visit. The owner offered to make us both affogatos with their signature coffee, no words again so darn good. What a great Day! After all of that indulging we headed out to hike some trails and find some geo caches.

NEXT: Due to a weather anomaly (THATS WHAT THE RANGER TOLD US) we headed from the dessert to Blanding, Utah and luckily got a RV site at Blue Mountain RV and Trading Post. The wind advisory was 29 to 60 miles an hour and 20 degrees at night. We tucked in and stayed pretty warm, but our RV was litterly rocking all night long with 40 to 50 miles an hour wind gusts, it was scary.

CHEERS JEFF AND LIZ

NEXT HOVENWEEP NATIONAL MONUMENT

The San Rafael Swell Utah – BLM camping

Its April 1, 2022 and we are fully loaded, probably overloaded if you know us headed to our first BLM experience at the Swell. We have given ourselves two days to reach the Swell. Stopping at a truck stop in Winnemucca, Nevada for our fist night and our second night at Rowley’s Red Barn in Santaquin, UT. This was a Harvest Host location and a lot of fun with great ice cream. We woke up early to snow capped mountain views and hurriedly headed to The Bonneville Salt Flats. First impressions, Flat, Vast and super white. Encompassing approx. 40 square miles and 7 miles long, you can drive on the flats as far as you can see. Very unique, you got to visit just once.

The drive from Nevada into Utah is definitely a high dessert experience, rolling hills, sage brush and sand dunes, surrounded by snow topped glacier carved mountains. Its mile after mile of sand and sage yet with this said there is a peaceful beauty. We headed down route 10 to Castle Dale and headed East into the San Rafael Swell. We stayed in a BLM campground named N. Swinging bridge. Amenities were a actual clean pit toilet that didn’t smell and cleaned daily , a picnic table and a fire ring. NO water is available in the whole area and we were twenty eight miles from a paved road. At $3.50 a night not bad, we were very prepared for this and only one other camper in the campground, very peaceful.

The next 2 days we spent exploring petroglyph’s and pictograph’s, hiking through slot canyons and even a dinosaur foot print. The views and the rock formations were incredible. the roads are ruff, wash boarded and dusty. We especially loved the Little Grand Canyon view point.

Next Stop Arches National park

Cheers for Jeff and Liz

PS: Not everything is perfect on the road. We had to buy a new battery for our Honda CRV that we tow, but luckily we were in Santaquin and not in the middle of Swell. Otherwise all systems are working great.

SHAKE DOWN AT THE METOLIOUS RIVER

We have returned to our absolute favorite camping spot at Camp Sherman, Oregon. Nestled along the glorious banks of the Metolious River. This visit is a shake down trip to work out any bugs, possible problems and to make sure we have plenty of supplies and very important kitchen gadgets we (me) think I cannot live without. If you read our last blog you know we sold the Artic fox trailer and Tundra Truck and purchased a 2018 Winnebago Navon.  Our next adventure is Utah, visiting the Big 5 and any other National Park or parks or Indian Dwellings that are along our path.

The weather here in Bend has been a bit chilly -28 degrees at night, good time to make sure heater, refrigerator, hot water, Micro and slide out all work. First night no HOT water, actually no HOT water until we returned home 3 days later.  Ok good thing we were shaking down!

Next day I decided to make bread to see if the solar panels could handle that much power usage. The solar was plenty to mix, rise and bake the bread, the problem was a misty rain came in that afternoon and our solar didn’t get a chance to build it self back  up. The next day was the same, misty cold drizzle, the good part the generator helped us and we were fine for heat and lights. Oh by the way the bread turned out amazing.

Friday the sun finally is out and we have solar and a Ranger at our door advising us they are going to dynamite some trees along the river just down from us so BEWARE. Well let me tell you he should have advised us to wear earplugs, it was the loudest bang we have ever heard or felt, boom it shook us a good one. Later we walked down the river to see the damage, it was extensive..

Except for the hot water all systems are a go, we will spend the next two days exploring the trails and hunting mushrooms, one of our favorite things to do.

Stay tuned for our Utah Big 5 Adventure

Cheers Jeff and Liz

PS: Update on Truma Hot Water Heater- a bi pass valve was turned the wrong direction, simple fix ,der.

Winnebago Navion – Our new Adventure

Hey friends, we have changed gears and shifted in a new direction. For those who don’t know us we are Jeff and Liz and to our loyal followers welcome back. We are excited to share our new adventure with you all. After much discussion, many pots of tea and crunching numbers we decided to put our 25P Artic Fox up for sale. After many miles, many great memories and RV Adventures we found just the right buyer to continue the Artic Fox’s Journey. Now your wondering what the heck did we do!!! WE purchased a 2018 Winnebago Navion, 24 D on a Mercedes Chassis. Jeff had been shopping and crunching numbers searching all over the USA for just the right fit and price. We found our dream Winnebago, no not in Oregon or even a couple of States away, but in Florida. We have never been to Florida and didn’t really realize at the time how gosh darn far Florida is. But being crazy adventurers that we are, we packed our Honda, notified our family of our crazy idea and set forth to Florida. We decided if we were going to drive that far to pick up our RV we would make a grand trip out of it. It all turned out quite wonderfully as we got to spend a night with our cousin Denny in Arizona, our Son in Law, daughter and grand kids in Ft Worth, Texas and finally arriving in Florida.

My first reaction at seeing our new NAV in person was oh my its really Bougie. We were both so pleased that our purchase was everything we hoped and in perfect condition. Now our first NAV adventure begins. We decided to work our way down the coast to Pensacola Florida and stayed our first night at the Elks Lodge to work out how the heck all of these fancy new buttons and switches work. That took two days, I told you its fancy. We used our Honda to day trip in Florida , visiting The Blue Spring State Park, famous for viewing over 300 manatees, spectacular and explored the Gulf Gulf Islands National Seashore, National Park. From Florida we headed to Goose Island State Park in Texas spending several days exploring the Aransas National Wildlife Area. We were on a little bit of a time line as we wanted to make it to Ft Worth Texas for our Grandsons golf tournament and of course Christmas with our family.

Heading for home in our new RV, we left Ft Worth a day before New years Day as a storm system was heading our way. We spent our first night in Davis State Park, getting to view our first wild javelina’s. I’ll give you a list of of our journey to home, instead of going into such detail for each stop.

Rock Hound St Park, New Mexico – Gilbert Ray Campground, Tucson, Arizona – Joshua Tree, California – Our daughters in Waterford, California – Lake McClure, California – Chacewater Winery, California – Brookings (Elks) Oregon – Florence (Elks) – Oregon – Tillamook Blue Heron French Cheese Factory, Oregon and finally home!!!

We soon became very familiar with our new NAV and I had to say I personally love to drive it. I am only 5 feet tall and to find a vehicle to fit me with comfort and safety is very important. Its loaded with amenities making our lives easier. Our next adventure is a shack down trip to Camp Sherman for a few days, but right now its snowing so as soon as it gets a little warmer than 20 degrees we will head out. Then comes the next big trip, I am so excited, we are headed to the big 5!!! Please stay turned as its going to be exciting.

Cheers – Jeff and Liz