The Swticheroo

  • Presto Chango

    Presto Chango

    We don’t know about this trip. It might just be one trick too many. We should probably make the most of the Florida shoulder season before the epic summer swelter makes outdoor life oppressive. There’s what we should do and


  • Cherry Picking in D.C.

    Cherry Picking in D.C.

    In 1912, the Japanese dropped 3,000 Cherry Bombs on Washington DC in a celebration of friendship. More than a hundred years later, the explosion of cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin draws millions of festival goers to marvel over the


  • A Dozen Reasons to Visit Fallingwater

    A Dozen Reasons to Visit Fallingwater

    ONE. It’s anniversary-worthy.   A twelve year anniversary is the hidden gem of wedding anniversaries. According to The Knot, the celebratory gift is the pearl, a hidden treasure symbolizing one-of-a-kind love. BTW, thirteen is warm and fuzzy faux fur –


  • No Escaping Comfort-25

    No Escaping Comfort-25

    It happened again. Next time we quarantine like Apollo astronauts before the big moon shot. Did the Jamestown settlers have one last hurrah in England before bringing their brand of infectious disease to the New World? Were they sick and


  • 240 hours in Aurora

    240 hours in Aurora

    It’s easy to have a media driven opinion of Aurora, Colorado. Thirteen years ago a madman Joker wannabe killed 12 and wounded 58 Batman moviegoers, fueling a nationwide debate on gun control. Today, Venezuelan gangs are taking over the apartments.


  • Colorado Springs Trouble

    Colorado Springs Trouble

    The last time we were in Colorado Springs, Eric slipped off the truck and cracked a rib. That was 2020, a few weeks after Sheri fell playing tennis and broke her fibula in Shreveport then fell off her bike and


  • To Summit All Up

    To Summit All Up

    Who doesn’t love a good cliffhanger? In our last post we were hanging out in Colorado Springs, recuperating from a pickleball mishap, 72 hours on the clock, deciding if we were eastbound and down or loaded up and truckin’. As


  • Seeing Red at Colorado National Monument

    Seeing Red at Colorado National Monument

    Close your eyes and the wind sounds like class 5 whitewater crashing on rocks. It feels like a ghost, shape shifting around your body, in your face, down your back, into your ears. It smells like dry dirt in your


  • Rattlesnake Bites!

    Rattlesnake Bites!

    If you want to see the world’s largest collection of Mother Nature’s natural arches, go to Arches National Park in Utah. It’s an easy one. It’s right in the park’s name. Be sure to arrive early and have your day


  • Monumental Chores

    Monumental Chores

    We’ve been on the road nearly a month now. It doesn’t feel like it. Leaving DC on our anniversary, it took 3 days, 2000 miles and a side trip to FLW’s Fallingwater to get to the West. After two weeks


  • Burning in the Black Rock Desert

    Burning in the Black Rock Desert

    Crossing Nevada on Interstate 80 is hypnotic. Unlike the Colorado Plateau, the landscape is devoid of exits, travel plazas, and otherworldly geography like the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon or Slickrock of Moab. Instead there are dark looming mountains in the


  • Turning Around

    Turning Around

    Twice as many climbers perish on the descent after summiting Mt. Everest than on the ascent. They don’t perish trying to summit, they perish because they miscalculated when to call it quits. One of the harder things to do in


  • Into the Bisti Badlands

    Into the Bisti Badlands

    Looking out over the canyon we deliberated with Rand McNally, looking for routes that might provide a combination of visual euphoria, temperate weather and ways to satiate our thirst of high desert culture before returning to our snug, sea level


  • Rest in Peace, Madrid

    Rest in Peace, Madrid

    The New York Times gave us 36 hours in Santa Fe which we compressed into 18, but their suggestions for lodging were incompatible. Finding tent camping close to a major metropolitan area is tough once you rule out the overpasses


  • Blame it on Hatch

    Blame it on Hatch

    You might think it was the night of the living dead in MAD-rid, New Mexico that ended our #tentlife journey. A few zombies don’t bother us. In truth, we were already heading east towards home, at the mercy of the