Wednesday August 14th 2019

The overnight low clouds hung around longer this morning. It was almost noon before the bright sunshine dominated the sky. The cloud bank never got very far off shore. Dark sky was visible toward the coast all afternoon. A strong wind out of the northwest rounded out the major weather characteristics of the day. The temperature barely made it to seventy.

I was in travel planning mode today. I’ve had reservations through the middle of September for a few weeks now, but I needed to work on the fall and winter. With the exception of three single night stops on long travel stretches, I have reservations through the middle of April 2020. This is probably the longest contiguous block of reservations I’ve made.

The longest stop will be for four months in Las Vegas. I’ll be staying at the same place I spent the 2017-2018 winter. Las Vegas isn’t the warmest place to spend the winter. Last winter it had a couple of snow events, but most of the time the daytime temperature is in the fifties or higher. The advantage is the resources of a city and all the entertainment options.

Before I park for November through February, I’ll finish visiting the Oregon Coast, and re-visit the Columbia River Gorge in salmon season. To get to Las Vegas, I’ll spend a week on the west side of the Cascade Mountains north of Bend Oregon, two weeks in Reno Nevada and two weeks in Pahrump Nevada. The Reno stop should coincide with some fall colors on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Lake Tahoe area. The Pahrump stay will serve as a base to visit Death Valley.

In late February I’ll leave Las Vegas for the Phoenix area. I have two reservations for a total of four weeks in the middle of Baseball spring training season. I hope to see a few good games. As March ends and April begins I’ll be in the Cottonwood/Sedona area of Arizona for two weeks and then I’ll move north to the south rim of the Grand Canyon for a week.

The remainder of 2020 is still in the planning stages, but I am already in the year out reservation window for a few popular places. My rough plans are to go north along the east side of the Rocky Mountains then cross through the Dakotas to the mid west before turning south toward Florida for the winter of 2020-2021.