Quite by accident, we started our camping and van travel experiences in 1999 when Barney’s daughter Ellen announced that she would be married in California. Since we were living in Florida, and wanted to attend the wedding, it was necessary to decide our mode of transportation to California and back.

Barney always loved to drive so we decided to make the trip in our 1992 Ford E150 van. We also decided the we would spend some nights in motels, some nights in the homes of friends and relatives and some nights in campgrounds. The campground nights would be spent in the back of that old van.

We enjoyed this first trip enormously and as we chatted our way cross country we decided that further van trips were in order. Both of us thought a road trip to Alaska would be fun. Since we enjoyed the camping part of of our California trip we agreed that an Alaska trip would include many more camping experiences than the California trip. We had learned quite a bit about camping going to California and had several improvements in mind for the next trip.

We had also decided before this first trip that we would keep a daily log of our activities and our progress. The log wouldn’t be kept with the thought of entertaining or educating others as to the ins and outs of van travel but rather it would be for our personal enjoyment and to assist our future recall abilities.

The pictures in this log are, by today’s standards, very poor. Our digital camera in 1999 through 2004, while very large and heavy, just didn’t have the pixel-power of today’s digital cameras. And, over the intervening years, all the pictures have been copied and moved from device to device causing the images to continually lose their quality. Sorry.

Although we didn’t capture the background image ourselves, it is so reminiscent of numerous roads that we have traveled that we decided to use it. You may view the entire picture here.

So, let’s go. Click one of the five trip links above…