Traveling Huntleys

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

Road Trip

Spring in the Sonoran Desert: Gila Bend to Tucson, Arizona

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Last Updated: July 31, 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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Last Updated: July 31, 2026

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 reflected over a tranquil pond at The Crosby Estates, Rancho Santa Fe, San Diego, California
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Holidays, COVID and Life on the Road

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Last Updated: July 31, 2026

Holidays for us have always been about visiting and celebrating with family and friends. Life on the road made that complicated — most of our immediate family live in cold winter climates that aren’t practical for a motorhome visit — and during COVID, seeing anyone wasn’t a good idea regardless. We have a property in San Diego that had been rented for years and was in serious need of some TLC, so we settled into social isolation there through December 2020, working through a long list of repairs and medical appointments while trying to make something warm and festive out of a very strange holiday season.

Sandy Huntley placing the angel topper on the Christmas tree while Jake the dog watches, San Diego, California
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Bighorn Sheep in Zion National Park

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Last Updated: July 31, 2026

Desert bighorn sheep are one of the most thrilling wildlife encounters in the American Southwest. Found throughout rugged canyon country from western North America to northern Mexico and Baja California, these remarkable animals have evolved to thrive in terrain that seems almost impossibly steep. We love photographing them because they occupy dramatic rocky ledges with sweeping desert backdrops, are surprisingly tolerant of patient observers with long lenses, and their massive curling horns make for extraordinary portraits. Zion National Park in southwestern Utah is one of the best places in the country to find them — and on this January 2021 visit, we had an encounter we will never forget.

Desert bighorn sheep ram on a rocky ledge in Zion National Park, Utah, photographed by Dr. Michael Huntley physician and travel blogger
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Snow at Bryce Canyon National Park

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Last Updated: July 31, 2026

Seeing a national park under fresh snow has always been one of those experiences we have chased from a distance — stunning in photographs, rarely practical when you are traveling in a 40,000-pound motorhome. Snow and big rigs don’t mix well without chains or a dumped tag axle, and we have learned over the years that the best approach is simply to stay put and let the Jeep do the work. After the snowfall that hit us in Kanab in January 2021, we did exactly that — loaded Jake into the Jeep and drove an hour north to Bryce Canyon National Park to see whether the hoodoos looked as extraordinary under snow as we had always imagined. They did.

Fresh snow blanketing the hoodoo formations and rim of Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, in January
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Kanab, Paria & Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, UT

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Last Updated: July 31, 2026

Kanab, Utah was about an hour and a half drive north from Page, Arizona, and we had been in the area before without ever spending much real time exploring it. The name Kanab comes from the Paiute word for “place of the willows,” and the town sits at the junction of US 89 and US 89A in the heart of canyon country — surrounded by five national parks and some of the most dramatic desert scenery in the American Southwest. We arrived in January 2021, still moving through the COVID-era landscape, and found an uncrowded, strikingly beautiful corner of Utah that rewarded every direction we pointed the Jeep.

Our Willys Jeep parked among the canyon country near Paria, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah
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