Traveling Huntleys

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

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Repairs to the Motorhome, House, & Ourselves

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Last Updated: July 17, 2026

Repairs have a way of accumulating when you live on the road. Emergencies get dealt with immediately — a blown tire, a generator failure, a slideout that won’t retract — but everything else gets quietly added to a list that only grows longer with each mile. By the time we returned to our San Diego home base in summer 2020, that list had become formidable: house plumbing, flooring, landscaping, an aging fountain, RV repairs still waiting from our time in Nappanee and Tucson, and a growing stack of overdue medical appointments for both of us. Three months of work, doctor visits, and Home Depot runs later, we were finally caught up. Mostly.

Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve beach viewed from the sandstone cliffs above as the marine layer clears, San Diego, California
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Life on the Road in Transition from Full to Part Time

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Last Updated: July 17, 2026

Life on the road has been one of the most remarkable chapters of our lives. Over the past four years, we traveled across much of the United States and parts of Canada in our Newmar Dutch Star motorhome, immersing ourselves in each region in a way that no hotel stay or vacation schedule could replicate. We explored remote national parks, tiny historic towns, sweeping coastlines, and everything in between — unhurried, on our own terms, with Jake riding shotgun for every mile. Now, in the summer of 2020, we find ourselves at a turning point: transitioning from full-time life on the road to spending a few months each year back in San Diego, while keeping the adventures very much alive.

Newmar Dutch Star motorhome parked at Santee Lakes Recreation Preserve RV campground, Santee, San Diego County, California
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Saguaro National Park, Tucson: Spring Bloom & Desert Wildlife in a Quiet May

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Last Updated: July 12, 2026

Tucson in late May 2020 was different. COVID-19 had shuttered the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, closed Western Way’s pool and clubhouse, and pushed most snowbirds north weeks earlier than usual. The campground was nearly empty. But the Sonoran Desert didn’t get the memo — it was putting on one of the most spectacular bloom seasons we’ve seen in years, and we had it almost entirely to ourselves.

The catch: it was running about 20 degrees hotter than normal. We’d timed the trip for the saguaro bloom, which typically peaks in late April to early May when highs hover in the low 80s. Instead, we got 100°F every afternoon. Early mornings cooled into the 60s, which made dawn walks and hikes genuinely pleasant — we just had to be done before 9 a.m.

Saguaro cactus silhouetted at sunset in Saguaro National Park's Tucson Mountain District, Arizona
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Willcox, Arizona: Wine Country, Fort Bowie & the Chiricahua Mountains

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Last Updated: July 12, 2026

Willcox sits in the Sulphur Springs Valley at 4,167 feet — cooler and wetter than the desert floor at Tucson or Phoenix, and surrounded by some of the most historically significant and visually dramatic country in southeastern Arizona. We’ve stopped here twice, drawn first by the wine country and again in spring 2020 when we needed a low-key base after a long drive from Elephant Butte, New Mexico. The wineries were closed on that 2020 visit — COVID stay-at-home orders were in effect — but the backcountry around Willcox was very much open, and we spent a week exploring Chiricahua National Monument’s back roads, the Fort Bowie National Historic Site, and the remote Leslie Canyon National Wildlife Refuge. The area more than earned its place on our return list.

California Poppies, Sulphur Springs Valley and open desert landscape around Willcox, Arizona at 4,167 feet elevation in Cochise County
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Eagle Nest, Taos & Red River, New Mexico: Wildlife on the Enchanted Circle

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Last Updated: July 12, 2026

From Amarillo, Texas, we headed west and then north into the mountains of northern New Mexico — a five-hour drive that climbed steadily from the flat Texas Panhandle to the high alpine country around Eagle Nest at 8,300 feet. The drive itself provided an early complication: somewhere along the route, either diesel fuel contamination with water or the rapid change in altitude was causing the engine to run rough under load. Purging the fuel filter helped, but a visit to the Freightliner dealer in Albuquerque was clearly going to be necessary. We filed it away and pressed on. What was waiting at the end of the drive was worth every mile of it.

A young bighorn sheep ram perched confidently on a rocky cliff face near Questa, New Mexico along the Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway
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Orange Beach & Gulf Shores Alabama

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Last Updated: July 6, 2026

Orange Beach sits at the eastern end of Alabama’s Gulf Coast, sharing the same brilliant white quartz sand that runs west from Pensacola Beach and Destin — all of it originating from the ancient Appalachian Mountains, ground fine over millions of years and carried to the Gulf by river systems. We arrived just at the beginning of spring break, which would normally mean dense crowds of college students on the beach. The coronavirus outbreak had already begun to suppress travel, however, and the beaches and restaurants were noticeably quieter than they would otherwise have been at that time of year. A strange and unsettling historical context for what was still a beautiful visit.

Sandy Huntley and Jake the dog exploring the massive brick arched casemates inside Fort Morgan, Gulf Shores, Alabama
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