On the Road

 After decades of backpacking with my German shepherd dogs Montag, Sonntag and Kessie in the Shenandoah mountains, and then in Alaska and Russia (Kamchatka), in 2000, I decided to change my mode of experiencing Nature. When I saw that Sonntag, who used a wheelchair, was getting old, I decided to take him on one last road trip, his favorite treat. I looked at a map and saw that the longest road trip one can take from DC in North America we to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.  Weeks later, we were off. It was my first road trip. That journey was twice the feature piece in two National Geographic cover stories under the title, Incredible Journey. Although backpacking into the wild with my dogs will always be at the top of my list, road-camping is right up there with it.  Since then, I have taken 12 long road trips in my 1994 NAS Defender 90 with Sonntag, Leben, Erde and now Donner.  I now live for these road trips with my dogs.  This blog is really for my own enjoyment so that one day when I can no longer travel the wide-open road, I can sit back, with a fire burning in my fireplace, and relive these journeys on my wide-screen TV as if they were happening then and there. The experiences of these trips are burned so deeply into my psyche, that I now see the world through their prism. 

(Note: I also have the domain www.IntoTheWild.camp, and one day hope to post my journeys into the wild there.)

Menu of Road Camping Trips across North America with my dogs

Click on the links where provided to go to those blogs. To return to this page, just click on the www.OnTheRoad.camp link in the right sidebar on any blog or page.  Click here for a note about my blog entries.

2022 - On The Road with Donner (Shenandoah Valley etc.)

2021- On The Road 11 with Donner on the Donner Party Trail



















 Sonntag's and my 2000 trip was the featured piece in the cover stories of  two National Geographics:  the January 2002 National Geographic ("From Wolf to Woof") and of the 2012 National Geographic special issue on cats and dogs, among other books and publications. After the 2002 issue appeared, the previously-unknown wheel-chair business for dogs exploded world-wide, with the result that many dogs that would have been put down were given new "leashes" on life.

*1998-1999 - "I think my dog is paralyzed." 

Backpacking trips prior to my road trips.

*1997 - Kamchatka!  

*1996 - The Brooks Range: Gates of the Arctic National Park

1995 - Katmai and The Valley of 10,000 Smokes II 

1994 - Katmai and The Valley of 10,000 Smokes II 

1993 - Katmai and The Valley of 10,000 Smokes II

1992 - Alaska!

*Prior to 1992 - How it all all started