About our roadtrip

We are Jim and Patti Bowman and that handsome fellow in the picture on our homepage is Buddy, our 10-year-old yellow lab. Jim and I were both widowed but found each other and were married 2 years ago. Now we're semi-retired and this summer we're packing our camper and hitting the road for a 30-day tour that will cover more than 6200 miles. Buddy loves to camp with us but he's already stressing with the hot weather in PA and we're concerned about his health as we travel thru Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, so Buddy is going to be hanging out with our friends Mike and Bri.

Where are we going? We'll be visiting Virginia, South Carolina, New Orleans, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Monument Valley, Salt Lake City, Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, Ark Encounter in Kentucky, and West Virginia.

Along the way, we'll be seeing the sights -- large and small. We want to see the well-known sights but we also want to see the small off-the-track places in this big, beautiful country.

I should also say that we are definitely foodies -- we both love to cook and eat. This is one of the challenges of this trip. We have a 2-burner cooktop, a microwave and a small gas grill for preparing meals. We want to buy local foods as we travel and hopefully learn about the local cuisines from those who live there. We'll be carrying a small pantry of staple foods but space is very limited in our 17-foot camper, so we'll be buying most things as we go.

We'll also be visiting restaurants, of course, and we have one imperative for this trip -- no chain restaurants. We want to experience the local flavor of each area we visit before the chain restaurants and shopping areas turn the entire country into a single stream of sameness. We want to taste the local food, meet the local people, and leave each area with a taste of their culture.

Our roadtrip leaves Pennsylvania on June 11. We hope you'll come along for the ride.