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USA Roadtrip 2012
The impetus for pursuing a new way of life, an experiment in nomadic living, an all around life-changing experience. Lindströms on the Road started as a blog about our road trip around most of the USA in 2012 with the tagline “10,000 miles, 90 days, 2 toddlers”. Here you can explore the trip that started it all, including how we made such a trip possible, how we prepared for it, where we went and what we did. You can read about the whole trip chronologically, or choose a state to find ideas and inspiration for exploring with your family!
The first real American Halloween for our kids! It was such perfect timing that we were staying with our friends, so we were in a family-friendly neighborhood and had another family to go trick-or-treating with! What a fun night! The hardest part for our little princess was deciding which princess costume to choose. No surprise, Cinderella won in the end…….
Southbound again to another border town. El Paso is very rarely on recommended road trip lists and responses when we included it in our itinerary ranged from confusion to fear for our safety. No one shared tips for things to be sure to see, but we got a few suggestions of places to avoid. Admittedly, El Paso would probably never……
I had never heard of White Sands National Monument before we started planning our trip through New Mexico. Maybe it’s because I’m from the East Coast and I had never heard anyone talking about going there, but this gem of a park was not on our radar until we started looking for a stop-over to break up the trip between……
While Hurricane Sandy slammed the East Coast, we were high and dry in the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico. Our media exposure was limited and while we’d heard there was a big “superstorm” back east, it took us a few days before we understood the impact the storm would have on our route. Recalculating route… Recalculating route… Our plan……
Because of our visit to the Petrified Forest in Arizona, we didn’t reach Albuquerque, New Mexico until late evening. We were well past our goal of being off the road every day by 4pm and even needed to pick up dinner along the road. Our kids are great in the car, but everyone has limits, and none of us are……
Petrified Forest National Park was another of those stops that was never on our original itinerary. Our next planned stop was Albuquerque, but the drive there was longer than we wanted to do in a single day. As I sat in the little room at the Grand Canyon Community Library and searched the web for a good place to stop……
On… Just not on the part of it that we saw. Admittedly, seeing Route 66 wasn’t much of a priority for us. I confess that I don’t understand the draw. It has American cultural significance I suppose, and perhaps I am too young to quite know what that is. It’s one of those things that I’ve heard of (like in……
There are a number of campgrounds and RV parks along the road as you approach Grand Canyon National Park. I’m sure they all have their advantages, but we loved the idea of being able to just park the car for a few days and get around on foot and using the shuttle bus system. There are several campground options within……
Sometimes shopping secondhand means a great “new” pair of hiking pants for just $5. And sometimes it means you spend your day in the Grand Canyon with your jacket tied around your waist feeling the breeze. But it makes for a funny story later!
Please forgive the long break with no new posts. I still have every intention of sharing the remainder of the trip on this blog. I even have a bunch of follow-up posts planned. The pace and intensity of our everyday, not-on-the-road-anymore lives has picked up a bit recently, and often when I find the time to write, I’m just too……
Meet Lukas. Lukas joined our family on Emelie’s first birthday and has more or less been a part of everything we’ve done since then. Although for over 2 years, Lukas didn’t have a name. Whenever anyone asked Emelie what her baby’s name was, she looked at them like they were crazy and said, “It’s a baby” or some variation of……
Our next destination was the Grand Canyon. But the drive from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon was a little longer than our typical day’s drive (Google maps predicted 4 hrs and 40 min). Adding in our stop at the Hoover Dam, we decided to stop for a night in between and chose the Blake Ranch RV Park in Kingman,……
Heading east from Las Vegas, our first stop was the Hoover Dam. An impressive feat of engineering, to be sure. But to be honest, we were disappointed by the Hoover Dam and in the end we didn’t stay long. It was difficult to find information about visiting the Hoover Dam online ahead of time, and even that which we did……
A little known fact about Las Vegas: there is a campground on “the Strip”. There’s a wall around most of it for security and sound-dampening, so if you’re not looking for it, you probably wouldn’t see it. But nevertheless, there is a large parking lot behind Circus Circus, and it’s run by KOA. Really there’s very little about camping on……
When was the last time you saw a 5-letter word using only the last 3 letters of the alphabet? No? Me neither. It’s in the middle of the Mojave Desert in California, but the car ahead of us exited so apparently people go there. Imagine my surprise when I asked Mr. Google about this word and it turns out it……
