The Traveling Seniors hope you enjoy this gallery of photos of our visit to the magnificent Grand Canyon in Arizona. All photos were taken by Stu Schaefer of The Traveling Seniors and are available for purchase on SmugMug.
I am no videographer. So, when Stu asked me to video our travel adventures, I was really nervous. After all, he is a professional photographer! I have so much to learn! But, hey, why not try? So I learned iMovie and took my trusty iPhone everywhere to practice taking videos. That’s how I became a video-taking fool on our recent cross-country roadtrip. LEARNING VIDEO WHILE TRAVELING Being a newbie, I took videos of everything. Rocks (note: they don’t move), flowers (not a lot of action there either) and scenery as we drove down the highways (reminiscent of the blurred movies my mom took from the…
Take a coastal trip to historic New Bern, North Carolina and spend some time walking through 300 + years of American history! We were enthralled with New Bern’s many Historic Heritage Tours, including the: Revolutionary War tour Civil War tour Architectural Walking tour Churches & Cemetery tour Historic Homes tour Walk to Remember tour African-American Heritage tour New Bern has four historic districts with homes, stores and churches dating as far back as the early 18th century. Picture strolling New Bern’s tree-lined streets and walking by colonial homes! We felt as if we were pedestrians in early America on each city block! New Bern has over 150 sites on…
If you are like me, certain questions keep you up at night. This is one of them, “Do bears use restrooms?” Take a backroads trip on the Billy The Kid Scenic Byway in New Mexico, one of America’s best backroads trips, and find out! Lore from when the west was more wild with shoot-outs, posses and jail breaks are stories Stu and I truly love. Colorful people are our favorites and the old west had plenty! We can’t get enough and had no idea that the Billy the Kid Scenic Byway and New Mexico is home to so many legendary sights and characters. At the Billy the Kid Scenic Byway Visitors…
While in Tucson, we went to Saguaro Park or Sabino Canyon every night to photograph sunset. WOW, it was incredible! But I digress. One of those evenings, a couple, decked out in wedding attire, was posing for wedding photos among the Saguaro. A beautiful desert setting. We worked around the couple and didn’t give it a second thought. Until…we heard a call for some help. Did the bride fall into the cactus wearing her gown? Did rattlesnakes appear because it was cooling off? Wedding Photographer Mistake No. The photographer, choosing an artsy shot, had put the girl’s wedding ring on a cactus flower about 3 feet above the ground. Suddenly,…
When Stu and I first cooked up a 2018 backroads trip from Florida to the Grand Canyon and back, we had no real idea what it would cost. We researched online blogs and found someone who had posted that a recent trip from Florida (where I planned to meet up with Stu) to the Grand Canyon cost about $3,700. So, we each budgeted about $4,000 apiece for the trip. We didn’t set an end date for our trip or a precise budget. We planned to stay on the road as long as we wanted. This road trip ended up being from northwest Florida to southern Utah and back and lasted 36 days….
Take a backroads trip through rolling grassy hills covered with bluebonnets and other wildflowers on The Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail. See nps.gov/elte/planyourvisit/maps.htm. Once a year, my grandmother, in her 80s and 90’s would take a trip from Kansas City to Texas to see her son and the bluebonnets. Now I understand the bluebonnet part. I don’t think Stu or I expected the beauty of the eastern Texas hill country since neither of us had ever been there. Waving grass, wildflowers, huge skies and curving backroads is the image that comes to mind when someone says, “a perfect spring/summer day.” THAT is the eastern Texas…
Take Back Roads to Explore America! The Traveling Seniors ALWAYS travel back roads. Why? Exploring America and her inspiring people is most rewarding along back roads and scenic byways! Backroads vacations are so easy in retirement travel! The pavement is smooth, traffic is sparse and the scenery is breathtaking. We can drive at our own pace. We can pull off the road to take photos or a break at almost any time. Backroads adventures are just waiting for you! HOW TO FIND BACKROADS One way to find byways is to visit scenicbyways.info. On that site, search by state or follow the dots on the map provided….
8 TIPS FOR BACKROADS TRIPS Two people, eight states and thousands of miles. A recent Traveling Seniors backroads trip was one of the most exhilarating experiences we’ve each ever had! 8 Tips for Roadtrips: Do NOT plan and DO NOT set daily goals! Sound counterproductive? It isn’t! Aside from hotel reservations at places like the Grand Canyon and other high traffic attractions, we simply do not plan by date OR by navigation. As long as we headed toward our ultimate destination, we were fine on a recent 36-day roadtrip with wherever Siri took us. Set the car’s navigation to settings OTHER than “fastest route.” You will head down backroads and…
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