Alan's Family Reunion: Food, Wind, and Memories
Sometimes the best stop of a travel year has no visitor center, no trailhead, and no entrance fee. For us, Stop 10 was Alan and Karla's place, and the occasion was the kind that puts everything else in perspective: a family reunion. Five days of food, wind, and catching up with people we love but see far too seldom - the same people we full-time RV partly to stay close to, and partly because we are never close enough.
The Occasion
Alan and Karla went all out putting this together for everyone. If you have ever hosted a family reunion, you know what that sentence costs: the planning, the shopping, the cooking, the yard work, the beds, the logistics of herding a family that is scattered across several states into one place at one time. They pulled it off with warmth to spare. There was lots of food, as expected at one of these - the tables groaned - but more importantly there was time. Time to see things in the area together, and time to just sit and visit, trading stories and saving up new memories of each other.
The Weather Report (A Family Tradition)
It was the Fourth of July week in the high plains, and the weather obliged with drama: 86 degrees, windy, and lots of blowing sand. If you have read this far into our 2026 season, you know the wind has been a recurring character - it rocked our trailer at Nat-Soo-Pah, chased us down from the mountains, and here it was again at the reunion, throwing sand across the yard like it had opinions about the guest list. Nobody minded. Family reunions are like RVing that way: the conditions are never perfect, and the memories do not care.
Why We Log These Stops
Our trip notes for this stop are short, and deliberately so. "A fun time hanging out with family," we wrote - because some places you measure in miles, and some you measure in minutes spent with people. This whole 2026 journey has been built around stops like this one: making our way back toward the kids and grandkids in Arizona, then out again for more adventures, with the good days stacked between. The reunion was the point of the summer's first half.
To Alan and Karla: thank you. The bar is set. Next year the reunion is at our place - somebody bring extra stakes, because the wind is invited.