Gnome Is Where You Park It
They say the best place to begin is the beginning, but here we are four years later after completing our fourth cross country road trip. It’s a good thing I’ve kept a handwritten travel journal with daily entries for every trip we’ve taken. They are filled with so many wonderful miles of memories and maybe a few Traveling Gnome Coffee stained pages. I don’t think that Scott or I ever in our wildest imagination dreamed we would see so many beautiful places in the United States and meet so many fun, kind, inspiring humans along the way. Not to mention lots of four legged friends as well.
Scott and I had been campers, tent and hammock for over 20 years. About 9 years ago we decided to buy a small trailer we could pull behind our Jeep Wrangler, so we could have a/c and take our dogs, at the time, Scruffy our dachshund (who has since crossed the rainbow bridge) and Louie the Poodle, with us. It was called a Runaway and was basically an air-conditioned box. Very quickly we decided that was a tad bit small for us and crawling in and out of the Runaway wasn’t all we had dreamed of. We upgraded to a 15 ft Riverside Retro. It had its own bathroom with a separate shower and toilet. No more campground bath facilities for me! Who needs the Ritz Carlton?! I thought I had died and gone to heaven, lol. We really loved that little trailer. We enjoyed some “staycation” trips to Ft. Wilderness Campground at Disney, Turtle Beach in Siesta Key, and Anastasia State Park in St. Augustine. We also traveled to Cloudland Canyon State Park in Rising Fawn, Georgia for some hiking and trail-running, and to Fall Creek Falls in Spencer, Tennessee.
In 2021 we set a course for adventure and decided we were going to travel cross country to visit our daughter in Washington. We wanted to have something bigger to “live in” on the road for a couple of months. Scott had always dreamed of owning an Airstream, so after much deliberation and many, many, many visits to Airstream Tampa looking at every conceivable model, we ordered a 27ft International with a back hatch and begin to plan our adventure for 2022. Since the longest we had ever camped was the two week Cloudland Canyon/Fall Creek Falls trip, we weren’t exactly sure how to pack for a couple of months, but we planned, packed, unpacked, planned and packed some more, until the time came for us to hit the road in August 2022. Scott is a master planner and Camp Leader extraordinaire. We charted our course for Pullman, Washington and guesstimated we would be out for 2-3 months. We didn’t have time constraints and this was a new adventure for us. My goal was to get to my daughter’s and then see how we were feeling after being on the road for a month. Would we continue further or never want to adventure cross country again?!
In the midst of the planning and packing, I was very excited to get tickets for Harry Styles Love on Tour at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles in October (hi, yes, I’m a Harry Styles fan). Worse case, if we didn’t like being on the road that long, we could sell the tickets.But boy oh boy did we love being on the road.
Little did we know we were getting ready to embark on the longest road trip/camping adventure of our lives at that time. I will save you the suspense and sum it up in one word, AMAZING! Every. Single. Day.
We packed for 2-3 months. Never having traveled this long, we realized later in the trip, we packed for more like a year. Live and learn, right?!
We left Florida on August 2nd in a monsoon, ugh! After making visits with family along the way in North Florida, we were on our way! Most of our stops after leaving Florida, were one nighters, other than a couple of nights in Spearfish, South Dakota to recharge our batteries (mine and Scott's not the Airstream). We hiked Spearfish Canyon and drank beer and cider at Spearfish Brewing. Spearfish is an outdoor enthusiast's playground!
After about ten days on the road, we reached our destination, our daughter's in Washington, yay! We love spending time in Pullman. It's a beautiful little town and. a charming community. Needless to say, we were having a wonderful time.
We made a side trip over to Montana to Kalispell, beautiful Glacier National Park, Bozeman, where we boondocked and learned to fly fish on the Gallatin River. Scott was a natural. I may have taken a little side trip into the water, filling my waders from top to bottom with that beautiful, clear, very cold water, before catching my one and only, very tiny, yet magnificent rainbow trout. Soaking and all, we'd do it all over again. We enjoyed a fun stop in Butte where we explored all the many historical buildings, ate at the Pekin Cafe (the oldest continuously family owned Chinese restaurant in the U.S.), at Porkchop John's (started by a Swedish immigrant with a Wagon and a vision over 100 years ago), and met a lot of delightful, colorful characters. Some of which were part of the film crew from the Yellowstone spin off 1923, which had just wrapped up filming there. After a great Montana side trip, we headed back over to Pullman for more daughter time.
Out of Washington, we traveled up the Oregon Coast to California and the Redwoods. The Oregon Coast is absolutely breathtaking, every single mile. We spent time in Seaside/Astoria, St. Helen (where Halloween Town is located) and Coos Bay where we saw sea lions and harbor seals in their natural habitat. Seaside was my first time seeing the beautiful Pacific Ocean.
We spent a week in Crescent City sleeping under the magnificent Redwood Trees and hiking in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. It makes you feel like you're in a scene from Honey I Shrunk the Kids.
On the way to Los Angeles, we spent some time in Garberville at the Benbow KOA. We had dinner at the historic Benbow Inn at the Gable table (as in Clark) . Once in LA, we stayed at Hollywood RV Park, an inner city campground that has been there for a very long time. We really enjoyed our eleven nights there. There is so much to see and do in Los Angeles and we tried to see and do as much as we possibly could. Hiking to the Hollywood Hills sign, seeing the original Bat Cave from Batman, Malibu, Venice Beach, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Sunset Strip, La Brea Tar Pits, Sound City Studio, and my beautiful Harry Styles at the Kia Forum, It was amazing!!!!!! I could have stayed a month, but as much as Scott enjoyed it, he was ready to not have to maneuver our big truck through the narrow winding streets that were not created for big vehicles. We had an amazing time and met so many nice people!
On to Palm Springs, where we visited Joshua Tree. It was in Joshua Tree where my hiking boot laces got caught on the hooks of both shoes and tied my feet together which caused not one, but two face plants before I realized what had happened. All's well that ends well, only a little blood and bruises and a broken finger that reset itself with the second fall. It did not deter my love of beautiful Joshua Tree. Still one of our favorites, and the inspiration for our first Traveling Gnome Coffee, Sunset, inspired by the most beautiful sunset we had ever seen.
From Palm Springs, we traveled through Arizona, spending time in Sedona, Flagstaff and Saguaro National Park which we very much loved. White Sands in New Mexico was really cool (literally because the sand is always cool), as well as a stop in Cloudcroft at the brewery.
After New Mexico, we basically were on the stretch back to Florida. Although we did have a fun stay in New Orleans along the way and got snow cones with the grandkids on 30A in Seaside, Florida, before we returned home early December.
It really was an unbelievably amazing trip beyond words. It lasted four months and one day. We were and still are, so thankful for every mile and memory. We joked along the way that we needed to set up shop in every campground to sell t-shirts and mugs we had accumulated along the way (totally a joke because I'd never part with my mugs) and Scott could make coffee and serve them out the window. Apparently only one of us was kidding because when we returned home, Scott was pitching the idea of starting our own coffee business. Thus, Traveling Gnome Coffee was born. Inspired by our beautiful adventure in our Airstream. It's a way to share great coffee, adventure and kindness around the campfire with friends, old and new and those we've yet to meet. All our coffees are based on our travels, and our artwork is done by a very talented artist, who also happens to be our daughter, based on our travel photos and experiences. We also have Coffee for a Cause that gives back to various charities. For example, Rim to River is inspired by our hike from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon to Phantom Ranch on our 2023 trip to the Grand Canyon. It gives back to Grand Canyon Conservancy. We Love our National Parks! Our 2022 trip finished out with Glacier NP, Joshua Tree, White Sands, Redwoods, Saguaro and Carlsbad.
On December 5th, 2025, we finished up our fourth cross country trip, after six months on the road. I have lots of adventures to share in futures blogs. We are so thankful to each and every person who has been part of them.
We are Traveling Gnome Coffee, Scott, Patty, Louie the Poodle and Coco the Chihuahua. 
