Traveling Huntleys

Inspiring travel stories, tips, and guides from a couple exploring the world one destination at a time.

USA

Carrabelle, Apalachicola, & St. Marks NWR Florida

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Carrabelle is a small coastal city located in the eastern Florida Panhandle about 70 miles south of Georgia. This is our third stay. Its appeal can probably be summarized by the expression for the area, “the forgotten coast”. It’s relatively undeveloped, has a low population, and minimal commercialization. But it has just enough of the sugar white sand beaches, sights, amenities and restaurants for our needs. The beaches are not only dog friendly, but it’s rare for us to even see another person on one. We were here for a couple of weeks in mid December, so the weather was cold, overcast, and wet.

Sandy and Jake Huntley, Carrabelle, Florida
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Somewhere Across the South to Tampa, Florida

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Somewhere is frequently a rest stop. We’ve grown to appreciate rest stops, sometimes for the view or history, but usually to pee and change drivers. Many states do an amazing job at creating a little highway oasis. We rarely drive more than a few hours to get from one place to another as we look for something interesting along the way. If it isn’t rest stops it’s gas stations with food like Flying J’s, Pilots or Loves truck stops. When we were kids, it was Stuckey’s. Even though we pass Stuckey’s along the way, we won’t stop at one, worrying it will change a fond childhood memory of pecan rolls, key chains, geodes, and scorpions embedded in resin. This time, we just needed to get to Tampa, Florida.

Roadrunner, Somewhere, New Mexico
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Sonoran Desert Life in Three Quarter Time: Tucson, Tubac & the Desert Museum

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Last Updated: May 4, 2026

So much of travel moves at a pace set by logistics — the next destination, the checkout time, the reservation that can’t be changed. The Sonoran Desert has a way of overruling all of that. You slow to three-quarter time whether you intend to or not, because the things worth seeing here don’t reveal themselves to anyone moving too fast. The cactus wren sitting three feet away on a saguaro arm. The bobcat stretched out in a patch of morning sun. The Costa’s hummingbird hovering in front of a blooming aloe, iridescent purple gorget catching the light. You have to be moving at the desert’s pace to see any of it. Continuing our spring stay at Western Way RV Resort near Tucson Mountain Park, we had two more weeks to let the desert set the tempo — with a day trip south to the artist colony at Tubac and daily visits to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum thrown in. Jake set the pace each morning, and it was always exactly right.

Saguaro cactus and spring desert landscape in the Sonoran Desert near Tucson, Arizona
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Spring in the Sonoran Desert: Gila Bend to Tucson, Arizona

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Last Updated: May 4, 2026

Spring is the Sonoran Desert at its absolute best — wildflowers carpeting the desert floor, saguaros preparing to bloom, hummingbirds working every flowering shrub, and evenings that turn the western sky a deep molten orange behind the Tucson Mountains. We drove in from the west in April 2021, stopping overnight in Gila Bend before continuing to our favorite base camp on the west side of Tucson near Saguaro National Park West and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. We needed some minor repairs done on the RV — this was our third stay at Western Way RV Resort — and once the work was sorted, we spent two weeks photographing wildflowers, raptors, woodpeckers, numerous species of hummingbirds, and the kind of sunsets that make you understand why people choose to live in Tucson. Jake was entirely in his element.

Brilliant spring sunset over saguaro cactus and the Sonoran Desert near Tucson, Arizona
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Winter Migrations in our Motorhome

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Winter can be a beautiful transition from fall colors with warm days and cool nights to snow and a winter wonderland. Seems like our yearly migrations take us up to Canada in the summer, experience fall foliage as we make our way back south, spend the winters as far south as we can go, then make our way back north every spring. This is our fifth migration in the motorhome. We enjoy experiencing the USA and have put on an incredible number of miles.

Winter Sunset over a pond in The Crosby, California
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Holidays, COVID and Life on the Road

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Holidays for us have been about visiting and celebrating with family and friends. Life on the road has made that a little bit difficult because most of our immediate family live in cold winter climates not suitable to visit in the motorhome. With COVID, visiting anyone wasn’t a good idea. We have a property in San Diego that has been rented, and in dire need of some TLC, so we spent some time there in social isolation, making repairs until our next adventure.

Sandy Huntley putting a cross on a Christmas tree while Jake watches Holidays
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