Happy New Year and welcome to 2026! We were on the road through the end of 2025 and rung in the new year in the camper. I hope you had an equally good way to welcome in 2026 and say farewell to 2025. It’s well past time to look back and see what messages 2025 had for us, or shall we say, what signs we saw. Here’s our annual look back at a few fun, ridiculous, useless, or apt signs we ran across over the past 12 months or so.
Years that is. Yes, Occidentalist turns 10 today! This site has been following our travels for the past ten years! A few of the stats over those ten years: two Four Wheel Campers, two pickups, two fishing boats, about 200,000 miles, 3 countries, 38 U.S. states, two states in Mexico, 4 Canadian provinces, and about 700 nights spent in the camper(s). It’s been quite a ride over the last decade.
There has been some nice color the last few weeks in north central Idaho. The hardwoods (birch, mountain ash, cherry, cottonwood) along the rivers have been especially vibrant this fall. The western larch has been a little slower to change but seems to be hitting its peak as we turn the calendar into November.
