Words/No Words
Sunrise, South Rim, Grand Canyon
 Miranda On The Street in Savannah, Georgia A few facts and figures from 2021.
Miles traveled: 20,564.8 Number of unique places we parked: 139 or an average of just over 11 different places per month Number of States in which we traveled: 29 Cost of Campgrounds: $832.00 monthly (includes periodic stays at Harvest Hosts, Boondockers Welcome and the places of friends and family) RV Diesel Costs: $4,350.66 or $362.56 monthly average RV Propane Costs: $221.73 or $18.48 monthly average Sprinter Mileage per gallon average: 16.4 (never drive more than 60 mph) Dining out represented 28.5% of our flexible costs budget. Groceries 19.2% of flexible costs. Health Care was 34.5% of our fixed costs budget. Connectivity (phone and hotspot) represents 17.2% of fixed costs. RV Insurance 7.3% of fixed costs. 15.3 % of our fixed costs are from Subscriptions (Hulu, HBO, New York Times, Washington Post, ITunes, Costco, Netlix, etc.) We spent $1,480.00 for Periodic Maintenance on the Sprinter which included transmission service. Our windshield was cracked and we had it replaced at no cost to us because insurance paid. We replaced our lead acid batteries with lithium batteries. We replaced our step motor and our side door locking mechanism (for the second time). We had our black and grey tanks cleaned so our gauges would read accurately (beware the hard waters of the west). The black tank is still squirrelly on occasion.
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 Site 53 @ Huntsville State Park, Waverly, Texas A good afternoon and Happy New Year to all from our spot for a few days in Huntsville State Park in Waverly, Texas. The park is north of Houston, Texas and a place Melanie and I camped in December of 2019. I'd planned on posting a kind of retrospective of our travels and began curating photos from our three years as nomads back in December 2021. When I opened our Travel Journal this afternoon, I saw I'd only progressed through a few months beginning when we began living in Miranda on October 27, 2018 and then began traveling full time on January 6, 2019. Today posting highlights from three years of traveling the country strikes me as too time consuming and isn't something I want to spend time doing. At least not at this juncture in our travels. Instead, as we move into our 4th year of full time travel, I give you links to our Instagram and Missingpersonsrv websites. Peruse if you've time, skim at will. While we are both vaccinated and boosted and the new variant of the COVID virus has us taking all precautions we feel are necessary to avoid becoming infected, we continue to enjoy traveling the country. At the moment we have no plans to find permanent bricks and mortar housing. We love this life. Our New Year's plans were changed when our dear friends from Birmingham who were to meet us at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park texted bad news that one of them tested positive with COVID. We missed catching up and spending time with them, but found ourselves battling ants we'd picked up at a campsite along the Alabama River just prior to our arrival at Topsail where we'd met and camped with friends from Florence, Alabama. While I found a few more in a storage bay recently, we think the ants are well under control now. The past years have found us heading west after being at Topsail during New Year's, but this year we traveled to Atlanta for the funeral service of one of our extended family's father who passed away during December 2021. While we were saddened by his loss, the service enabled us to see family again before we are hopefully able to see them once again in the Fall. After Topsail, we stayed in Pine Mountain Valley, Georgia a couple of nights before the funeral camping at F. D. Roosevelt State Park. We made a trip into Warm Springs and visited Roosevelt's Little White House one day. I grew up in Columbus, Georgia and made many trips to Callaway Gardens nearby. I'm also sure we visited the Little White House, but I had no recollection of the museum or the buildings there. The museum is worth a visit as are the grounds. Our intention then was to travel back through Birmingham, Alabama, after the funeral, stay a few days, see a few more people we know and love, and then make our way towards the southwest. We received news the day of funeral from Birmingham more extended family members had tested positive for COVID and we quickly made the decision to pick up mail forwarded there and move along. I would say after almost two years this feels almost normal, but while it may indeed be the new normal, it still doesn't feel good to miss spending time with people we now so rarely get to see. Moving through Birmingham, we stayed in a travel park in Tuscaloosa, Alabama overnight, moved relatively early the next morning and got Miranda washed at a nearby truck wash before traveling south to Spanish Fort, Alabama just outside Mobile, Alabama. In Spanish Fort, we stayed in Meaher State Park. Meaher is the nicest Alabama State Park at which we've stayed. It offers concrete pads and full hook ups for RV'ers. Meaher also has several nice piers and walking paths. It's very convenient to I-10 and Mobile. One of the highlights of staying at Meaher was spotting a newly rehabilitated and released Bald Eagle that kept flying around the area. We missed out on dining at Southern National. We received a voice mail from Chef Reginald Washington giving us the bad news. While the message didn't elaborate, we surmised their closing and cancellation was most likely COVID related. Next up was our annual pass through New Orleans, Louisiana. The past few years we've come from the beach at Topsail to NOLA, staying one night in the Basin Street Visitor Center parking lot. The French Quarter is about a half block from where we park and a police precinct is just across the street from the parking area. The parking this year cost us $20.35 for a 24 hour period. The past few years we've made a reservation in NOLA to eat dinner at Bayona, but because we weren't sure when we'd be traveling through NOLA, we had to wait and could not get a reservation this time. We arrived in NOLA mid-morning, made a stop for groceries at Whole Foods Market, traveled to our parking spot and began an afternoon trek into the Quarter. We quickly decided to find lunch first. Melanie spotted Antoine's a restaurant I'd not visited in many years. Lunch was quite good. Melanie had gumbo that was honestly the best I've tasted in recent memory. I chose their 3 course winter lunch consisting of Soup du jour, Soft Shell Crab and Bread Pudding. Very nice. Afterwards, we walked around the Quarter and took in the scene for a time before walking back to Miranda for an afternoon nap. I found a dinner reservation at La Petite Grocery. Chef Justin Devillier was the James Beard Best Chef South in 2016. Dinner there did not disappoint. Recommended. We were up early the next morning and after coffee was made and a few cups consumed, we headed west to Sulfur, Louisiana. Sulfur is just beyond Lake Charles, Louisiana where a number of refineries are located. We stayed a night at A+ Motel and RV Park in Sulfur. A heavy rain was falling as we arrived, but was soon gone and we parked temporarily near their laundry facilities. I did our laundry while Melanie worked. Not too far off of I-10, A+ is one of the nicer parks we've stayed in recently. I'm not sure what one does in Sulfur, but the park made for a nice evening's rest. We got a pretty early start yesterday, traveling first to Costco in Conroe, Texas for a few items we needed and then on to our current location in Huntsville State Park. We'll be here another day before traveling on the San Antonio, Texas, another of our favorite spots. Cheers, y'all.  Sunset Along 30A, Santa Rosa Beach, Florida Birmingham, Alabama Good morning from our friends' home in Mountain Brook, Alabama where we'll be (off and on) until the end of the December. I've not posted since the middle of last month when we were also located here. Shortly after posting last month we traveled to Faunsdale, Alabama, where Melanie grew up and where her father still resides. We spent a couple of very pleasant and mild days there for the Thanksgiving holiday. In past few years when in Faunsdale we've been able to park Miranda in a local church parking lot (thanks, George McKee) located behind the church sanctuary off the main highway and where we also had access to electricity. This year, thanks to overhanging limbs removed by the power company, we were able to drive Miranda down her father's driveway and park beside the home in which Melanie grew up. Melanie pre-ordered the Thanksgiving meal to be picked up in Birmingham at Whole Foods. We got Dreamland BBQ to be eaten the day before and a few subsequent days afterwards. After the holiday we left Faunsdale on Friday afternoon headed East towards the city where I grew up, Columbus, Georgia. Friday night was spent about halfway to Columbus in one of our favorite campgrounds near Montgomery, Gunter Hill Campground. It was chilly, but we got a nice walk in after our arrival. The campground is located on the backwaters of the Alabama River and, as with most all Corp of Engineers campgrounds, the spots are nicely spaced and well maintained. Gunter Hill even offers full hooks ups. I ordered lithium replacement batteries for our van from Costco just before thanksgiving and was able to place our remote thermometer in the battery bay to check the temp inside the bay when the ambient temps outside dip below freezing. The temp inside the battery bay was 45 degrees the next morning at around 6:00 a.m. That works for lithium battery performance and I was then even more excited about replacing Miranda's batteries.  Reverend Grace Burton Edwards, Rector at St. Thomas We arrived in Columbus, Georgia on Saturday (11/27) morning. We'd made arrangements to stay in the parking lot of St. Thomas Episcopal Church for the weekend, but after I reminded our friends, the Tomlinsons, we'd be in Columbus for the weekend, they offered to allow us to park Miranda in front of their home and stay with them. I was in touch with our friend Allison Kennedy Owen on Friday evening about the possibility of a bike ride on Saturday. She'd said she was available and so once we were parked at the Tomlinsons, I texted her, she was close by and within a few minutes we were cycling off headed towards Columbus' fine Chattahoochee River Walk Trail. Saturday started out below freezing, but by the time we got to the river walk it had warmed to the 50's. We rode out to the a Dog Park along the trail and then back to the Tomlinson's house. Round trip 20 miles. Very nice ride along the river with Allison. On Sunday morning, Melanie was at St. Thomas for Adult Formation telling those in attendance about peace and peace-making and giving folks an overview of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship. After the morning services, St. Thomas' Rector, Reverend Grace Burton Edwards, Parish Theologian Denny Clark, his wife, Toni, took Melanie and me to lunch in downtown Columbus at The Animal Farm. It was great to break bread, make new friends and find out more about St. Thomas while eating some very tasty lunch. We recommend The Animal Farm. During the evening hours, we were in St. Thomas' fellowship hall for a soup supper where Melanie discussed gun violence prevention. The fellowship and supper were outstanding and the discussion was very interesting. We owe a debt of gratitude to Rick and Marquette McRae McKnight for introducing us to the folks at St. Thomas. Rick and Marquette make things happen in Columbus. We hope to catch up with them again over the New Year. We left Columbus early afternoon on Monday and headed south to Eufaula, Alabama. It had been years since I'd been to or through Eufaula. We found a very nice Corp of Engineers Campground, White Oak Creek. Most of White Oak Creek is closed during the off-season, but we were able to get a great afternoon walk in and enjoyed our Lake Eufaula campsite for adult beverages. We'd booked two nights there but decided another day at the beach would be better so we headed out the next morning for Top Sail Hill Preserve State Park, one of our very favorite campgrounds along the Gulf of Mexico. We got to Topsail relatively early and before official check in time so we made our way to Destin and the Whole Foods market for a few items we needed. Making our way back to Topsail and after we set up in our campsite, Melanie took a walk to the beach and I got our bikes out. I rode to the Timpoochee Trail which begins directly across from Topsail and made my way towards Seaside, Florida. Due to bridge construction ongoing as I type, the trail and road are blocked off about 7 miles along. A 14 mile round trip was fine for my first time out. Day two found us walking down to the beach in the morning hours. In the afternoon, Melanie worked while I took my bike out once again on the Timpoochee Trail intending to make my way to Seaside via the detour around bridge construction. I made my way away from the trail along 30A on Old Blue Mountain Road and out to Highway 98, along 98 to County Road 283 South and into Grayton Beach. There's a nice bike trail along County Road 283 South that connects with the Timpoochee Trail at Highway 30A in Grayton. From there I rode into Watercolor stopping at Happy Beach Cafe for an IPA before making my way back to Topsail. Round trip just over 30 miles. We drove to one of our favorite local restaurants for dinner during the early evening. Dinner, while fine, wasn't what we were used to experiencing gauged by our past dining experiences there. The pandemic has closed many restaurants, those that remain open sometimes struggle to achieve their former greatness. Thursday found Melanie and me riding into Seaside along the same route. We stopped in at Bud and Alley's for an afternoon glass of rose' and made a purchase of wine at the Modica Market there. Friday was a travel day as we made our way back to Mountain Brook, Alabama to our friends' home. Saturday, the 4th, was Melanie's birthday and she spent some of the day celebrating at the home of a long-time friend who invited other friends of theirs for a nice bit of celebrating. We watched the SEC Championship game during mid-afternoon. Our lithium batteries arrived while we were away at the beach and my friend Wade and I spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out how to install them. Without going into too much detail about the install, my takeaway from the idea that the lithium batteries which replaced our deep-cell lead acid batteries are "drop in" is somewhat misleading. But the important point for me is I should pay attention when I've asked for advice in an online forum about the install and then promptly forgotten the advice given. I'm fortunate more damage wasn't done to the electrical system and components when we initially set the batteries up in parallel instead of in series like our old batteries. As of now, the only items I know of that were damaged are LED lights and our WIFI booster. Now that installation is complete and up and running a few days, I can report the effort was worth the trouble. From all appearances we'll have much more capacity with the two new lithium batteries and I won't have to check water in the batteries periodically and the batteries should outlast our use of the van. Saturday we'll drive Miranda to the Mercedes-Benz dealer in Hoover, Alabama to have our wheel sensors replaced. Our van is part of a recall for the sensors. Thursday (hopefully) we'll get our cracked windshield replaced at Safelite in Homewood, Alabama. We'll be traveling again Tuesday next headed east for a few days towards Savannah, Georgia before returning to Birmingham for another stay leading up to Christmas. Happy Holidays, y'all.  Birmingham, Alabama as seen from Red Mountain (Nov. 17, 2021) November 18, 2021 Good afternoon from Mountain Brook, Alabama where we've been in residence for the past few days. Since we arrived, we've celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary (16th) and my 68th birthday (17th). The weather has been stellar and we've gotten to catch up with old friends and eaten in a few of our favorite restaurants. It's been nearly a month since my last posting while we were in Columbus, Georgia for my 50th high school reunion. There's not much to report about the reunion. Those responsible for organizing and making it happen during these pandemic times deserve much praise and thanks for making the gathering of classmates happen. The venues and weather could not have been nicer or more appropriate for the times. I was very pleased with all the in person contacts made with old friends and acquaintances which, while fewer than I may have wanted, were nice nevertheless. I had no real expectations of what would happen and had a nice time catching up with folks. Because of the pandemic we'd been unable to visit with our longtime friends, part of our extended family, Trip and Teresa Tomlinson and John Woodward. We're very grateful for the Tomlinsons hosting us in the mountains of North Georgia and their home in Columbus during the reunion festivities. John is currently living in North Georgia so we were able to spend some extended time with him too. Trip, John and I have a long and rich history and it was more than great having some extended time to be with them again. It always feels like being home to me when I'm in the mountains of North Georgia at Trip and Teresa's home. As we moved south out of Vermont in September, I admit to doing some spoiled-camper-traveler pouting about missing Fall in New England where we'd spent our summer, but getting to see Fall happen in the mountains of North Georgia more than made up for what ever lingering entitlement I was experiencing. One of the many benefits of this life on the road is the extended seasonal changes we often experience as we move about. Moving from the southwest, for example, where we spend winters to more northern climes, we get what seems like a never ending Spring. Likewise, moving from northern climes where we spend summers south we get an extended Fall or leaf peeping on steroids. Leaving the Tomlinson's home, we traveled towards Nashville to spend some time with one of our sons, Tate, and his girlfriend, Zoe. Melanie also had a work obligation in Baltimore so she flew from Nashville and spent a few days working with fellow EPF'ers. Another benefit of full-time travel is being able to spend extended time with friends and family without being in their space for too long. We spent some time in a campground not too far away from Tate and Zoe and even spent a few nights sleeping in Miranda on the street outside their apartment in Hillsboro Village. We were able to house sit for Tate and Zoe this time through and get some great time with our/their beloved Gus (and Poppy). We'll pivot back to Nashville for a continuation of my birthday season tomorrow. We are fortunate to have a most wonderful place to park Miranda while visiting Birmingham. Another part of our extended family, Jennifer and Wade Anderson (Drury and Martha), have the perfect driveway space in Mountain Brook and they are gracious and generous in allowing us to spend time with them while we're in and about Birmingham.
We'll leave Nashville this coming Monday and travel back here for a few days before spending some time with Melanie's father for Thanksgiving. We have work in Columbus, Georgia and are looking forward to again connecting with some of my high school classmates and their wives and, as most always happens, making new friends at St. Thomas Episcopal Church there. Thanks to Rick McKnight for making that happen for us.  Miranda @ The Lodge @ Shook Branch October 13-22, 2021 After leaving Wilmington, North Carolina, we landed in South Carolina at Dreher Island State Park and spent a great few days there. The park is located on an Island within Lake Murray a 50,000 acre man-made lake. We walked our immediate campground and to the one located a few miles away on the other end of the State Park. If you like fishing and have a boat, this is your kind of place. Also a great spot to just relax for a few days. From Dreher Island we traveled to our friends' home, The Lodge At Shook Branch, in Tate City, Georgia, located in the mountains of North Georgia near the headwaters of the Tallulah River. We spent a week there enjoying really nice Fall weather, taking nice walks along the Tallulah River on the Tate City Road and even hiking the Holden Cove trail to the Appalachian Trail one day. We had lunch at the Muskrat Creek Shelter along the AT and then made our way back. While we're currently located in Columbus Georgia for my (Steven) 50th High School class reunion tonight and tomorrow, Miranda remains in the mountains at our friends' home under the watchful eye of our friend, John. We'll return for a few more days in Tate City after the reunion is finished. I'll pick up our day-to-day nomadic existence once we're moving again. Cheers. October 6-7, 2021 We spend three days with our friends at their great spot Sunrise Over Salvo before heading off Hatteras and south again. During our time on Hatteras I'm able to bike ride from Salvo to Avon one day and our friends took us on a ferry ride to Ocracoke Island for a day trip.  Cook @ Grits Grill October 8-9, 2021 We're awake around 6:00 a.m. or so. I'm up, gather a few items to take with me to the van and then I'm out the backdoor of our friends' home and down the stairs to Miranda to make coffee. Back in our room we sip a bit of coffee before more packing up ensues. It's a travel day for us and we have a 160 miles ahead of us. After we're packed up, we find breakfast in Nag's Head at Grits Grill. It's a popular place with the locals and there's a wait for a table so we choose the no-wait-bar in front of the griddle. Breakfast is good and we're on the way in good time. We arrive at our campsite at New Bern KOA, set up and go for a walk down to the Neuse River and enjoy some of the afternoon there. Returning to the van, we prepare to move again. We're going into New Bern for dinner at Captain Ratty's. There's a Mum Festival going on in New Bern and we're glad to find parking relatively easily. Dinner is as good as we remember when we ate at Ratty's years ago now. We were dropping off our son, Richard, for an Outer Banks kayaking adventure then. We make it back to our campsite and set up the van, stream some and sleep. Saturday morning finds us up around 7:00 a.m. We sip coffee, have breakfast and Melanie begins her work day. Saturday is full of college football for me and intermittently, for Melanie after work. I manage enough energy to clean and empty the grey and black tanks in anticipation of further travel tomorrow. Melanie is asleep at about the half of the Alabama football game with Texas A&M. I'm finally asleep just after midnight.  Looking out on the Neuse River from the New Bern KOA  American Sasquatch October 10-11, 2021 Melanie is awake before me, but I'm up at around 7:00 a.m. Not enough sleep, but I'm feeling pretty good as I'm up to make coffee. We're traveling again today headed farther south to Wilmington, NC. We drink our coffee, eat breakfast and read some. Melanie begins her work day. I leave for a bit to get a shower using the campground facilities. Shortly afterwards we've prepared the van and are on our way. We've got about 90 miles of travel today. I mistakenly put in wrong geo-coordinates and we travel about 20 miles out of our way before stopping to make a correction. The trip is otherwise uneventful and arriving in Wilmington decide to go for lunch at Wrightsville Beach. We ate at Oceanic located there the last time through Wilmington and found it good. The last time the weather was very rainy, this time cloudy and windy, but pleasant. Lunch is good again and we take a walk out on the pier to watch surfers catch a few waves afterwards. We travel to our campsite at the Wilmington KOA and check in. We quickly set up and Melanie works a bit and we get a bit of exercise walking around the camp. I've made a dinner reservation at PinPoint for 6:00 p.m. We take our first Uber ride in a while to downtown Wilmington. We realize that despite being in Wilmington a few times before, we've never been downtown. We have a nice dinner. Melanie starts with Raw Oysters on the half shell, I have the Local Lettuces. Melanie's entree is a bone-in Pork Chop, mine Softshell Crab Carbonara. We Uber back to the van, stream a bit and sleep. It's Monday and Columbus Day for some, Indigenous Peoples' Day for some. It's a work day for Melanie. We sip our coffees and have breakfast. Afterwards we both take a walk around the campground. Many folks are leaving this morning. We make a grocery run to the local Publix late morning and then we make our way to lunch nearby at Cape Fear Seafood Company. Lunch is fine and we're back to our campsite around 2:30. I spend most of the afternoon catching up on my journaling and photo processing. Melanie gets a walk in and works a bit more. We both walk in the evening and snack a bit before more streaming and sleep.  Dump Truck Jesus & Travel Day October 12, 2021 The alarm sounds at 6:00 a.m. For whatever reason, I was awake for a time during the night and so the alarm is unwelcome. I snooze through a couple of intervals and then I'm up making coffee. Travel Day. We'll move 250 miles to our south and east today to Dreher Island State Park in South Carolina. We'll be positioning ourselves to then move into the mountains of North Georgia and our friends' home in Tate City. I have a bit of breakfast and Melanie goes for a shower in the campground. I finish and move outside to empty and clean the black tank and empty the grey tank. We leave our KOA before 9:00 a.m. There's a bit of traffic moving into downtown Wilmington, but we're out of that soon enough and head west. We stop after a while a get breakfast for Melanie (and me too). We eat fast food biscuits and hash browns in the van and are moving in about 30 minutes. Highway 74 intersects with I-95 going south and we don't get very far until we reach roadwork and traffic that has us stopped. Traffic is merging into one lane down the way and we're delayed about an hour getting to the other side. We decide to wait until Columbia, South Carolina for lunch. Miranda also needs fuel and all the places along major roads are selling diesel in the $3.50+ range. I check my Gas Buddy App and see prices at $3.19 and lower, but all of the places are well off the interstate and not worth the extra time and expense involved getting to them. I've been getting 17+ MPG the past few times we've moved and doing some calculations I figure I most likely will be able to wait until we are in Columbia for lunch. Melanie finds us BBQ in Columbia at The Pot Smoker BBQ. By the time we arrive it's nearly the middle of the afternoon. We order at the counter and find a nice spot on their porch. We're the only ones eating. Lunch is good and we're soon on our way again. We still need fuel and I'd spotted a place not too far away as we looked for our lunch spot. The price on the marquee was $3.11 a gallon. That, however, is the cash price. I forgo the cash price and pay $3.19 a gallon still $.30 less than along the interstate. Miranda, like most vehicles, has an indicator when she's using "reserve" fuel. A light and "reserve fuel" readout comes on when there's about a quarter of a tank left. You can track how many miles of travel you can make, but when the fuel level gets down to about 2 gallons remaining, the indicator stops giving a reading for the number of miles you can travel and simply says you need to get yo' ass to the nearest place for fuel. Now would be the time. The only other time that's happened was when we were traveling to a campsite on the western side of Rocky Mountain National Park. We'd left our camp in Fort Collins very early (5:00 a.m.) so we didn't have to have a reservation to get into the national park. You could enter without a reservation before 6:00 a.m. Very early meant no filling stations were open around Fort Collins and I made the decision to try and make it through the park. We were just about half way up on our climb to 12,000 feet in the park when the reserve light came on. We hadn't quite stopped climbing when the readout no longer allow me to gauge how many miles of travel remained. It was beautiful that time of day, but it was stressful not knowing if we'd run out of fuel. We made it to fuel in Grand Lake as we had a very long downhill run on the western side of the park. Two times of being close to empty in nearly three years. We get to our campsite before 5:00 p.m. and I get us hooked up while Melanie has a work call. She sets up the inside afterwards and we sip an adult beverage and enjoy the cooling evening with a nice view of the Lake Murray. We walk around the campground and retire to the back of the van for streaming and sleep.  Pot Smoker BBQ  Brooks Overlook, New River Gorge National Park and Preserve September 29, 2021 We're up around 7:00 or so, can't remember even though it's just yesterday now. Travel Day again. This time we'll move east and south for just over a 100 miles. Melanie gets out for a brief walk around the campground then readies the inside while I move out to unhook us. I won't empty the tanks this morning, they're still relatively empty as we were living outside Miranda for three days. Our fresh water is also reading 100%. We move and on the way out encounter another couple from Iowa driving an Leisure Travel Van (LTV). They're headed to Virginia to visit a son who lives there. Nice to see fellow LTV owners. We're a precious lot. 😜😎 Melanie finds breakfast for us at a local Milton, West Virginia haunt. Shonet's comes with all the "patriotic" decor one can muster. Flags and remembrances of those who have served in various conflicts and wars. Breakfast is fine and we're on our way. Melanie suggests we travel a few miles past Little Beaver State Park to New River Gorge National Park and Preserve to check out our newest National Park. We arrive at the Sandstone Falls Visitor Center and check out the displays there. We get directions to Sandstone Falls that, much to Melanie's chagrin, are 20 miles away when, looking at the map, they appear to be within rock throwing distance of our current location. We drive the 20 scenic miles to the falls and enjoy a nice walk along a boardwalk the park service has constructed there. A nice diversion it is. We drive back towards our campsite at Little Beaver State Park, check in and set up. Melanie goes for a walk and I follow her after a bit. We both enjoy a nice walk around Little Beaver Lake as the sun heads for another setting. She's snacking when I return, breakfast apparently left her some time ago. I make a cocktail and snack a bit. Tate texts and suggests he'll be ready for our weekly FaceTime as soon as he showers. FaceTime happens and I make dinner while Melanie enters a Zoom Call for one of her board members who is being ordained a Deacon in the Episcopal Church. We have a nice, if simple, dinner of short rib ravioli we purchased in Summit and a salad. Once the dishes are clean, we stream and sleep. September 30, 2021 After a very nice sleep in Little Beaver State Park I'm up just before 7:00 to make coffee. It's 49 degrees outside so I close our windows and crank up the furnace to knock the chill off. We enjoy a beautiful morning sipping coffee. We decide to get the bikes out and ride 7+ miles to the Main Overlook at Grandview in New River Gorge National Park. Late morning I get our bikes out and ready them for the short run up the road to the overlook. The ride is scenic and the road not too busy. We arrive at the overlook and find there are not too many folks around. Locking up the bikes we walk the 100 or so yards to the spectacular overlook which gives us a view of the New River and the new National Park. Grandview, indeed. We're hungry and options in the van are slim so we decide to try the diner on the way back to the state park. Note to self. Have better options in the van. I sometimes get lazy when it comes to grocery shopping between camp spots and should have stopped along the way to Beaver. 😐 We return to the van and take an afternoon walk around Little Beaver Lake. We get back to the van and enjoy the evening a bit before walking 50 yards up the hill to the very nice and very clean bathhouse for showers. Since lunch was later in the day, we snack a bit, stream and sleep.  I-77 in West Virginia October 1, 2021 The alarm is set for 6:30 a.m., but I'm awake before it goes off. I'm up making coffee, closing windows and again cranking up the furnace. It's 45 degrees this morning. We've another travel day ahead of us. We'll be traveling 229 miles to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to a Boondockers Welcome location in the city. Lucky us. Our campsite in Little Beaver State Park is a water electric so, since we've been camped for a few days and we'll be off grid for a the next few days, I fill our fresh water before unhooking. We travel the short distance to the park dump station and I empty our black and grey water tanks. We sip coffee and move along. Melanie will find breakfast for us off the interstate. It's a beautiful drive along I-77 through the mountains. There's fog in the lower lying areas. Breakfast this morning is Bojangles. Melanie likes their chicken biscuits. I opt for a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit. Meh. Miranda hasn't had a bath since the middle of August when I hand washed her in Maine at our friends home in Georgetown. She's not too dirty, but could use a good wash nevertheless. I find a Blue Beacon truck wash off I-77 in Fort Chriswell, Virginia. We arrive and are 13th in line. They have two bays going. Melanie has a work call and I read as we inch our way forward. Even with two bays it takes about two hours to get Miranda washed and back on the road. We decide to eat in Winston Salem, North Carolina. One of our favorite restaurants, Mooney's is closed permanently, another casualty of COVID. Melanie finds another spot nearby, Mojito Latin Soul Food. We secure a table outside on a really beautiful day. Lunch is outstanding. I have a Cuban Deluxe sandwich and Melanie has Steak Sandwich. I have Red Beans and Rice as a side, Melanie has Mashed Plantains. Recommended. Moving along we briefly stop by the downtown postoffice. Melanie has a poster she intends to use for the Women's March protesting the Texas Abortion Law in Durham, NC on Saturday afternoon to pick up in Chapel Hill. It's busy in downtown Chapel Hill when we arrive at the FedEx location for her poster, but I manage to luck out and find a temporary spot close by to park Miranda while Melanie goes in for the poster. She quickly returns with her prize. We move along to our Boondockers Welcome spot about 2.5 miles away. We're greeted by our hosts and give a quick tour of Miranda to them and then we're parked near one of their horse pastures. Late lunch means a snack for dinner. We stream and sleep.  Women's March Durham October 2, 2021 I awake, look out Miranda's window and can't believe we've landed only a few miles from downtown Chapel Hill, N.C. We're staying on 8 acres inside the city limits where horses once roamed. There's a barn and the pastures are nicely fenced. We're only a few short miles from downtown Chapel Hill. I make our coffee and we eat breakfast. Melanie gets into her work day. Two deer run by and I catch the briefest of glimpse of them. We get the van ready for travel. Melanie will march with one of the members of the Palestine Israel Network, Donna, and other women in Durham to protest the Texas abortion law. While she's at the protest, I'll ride a portion of the American Tobacco Trail (ATT). We drive into downtown Durham and find a great spot with plenty of sunshine for our solar panels to use. Melanie leaves me to grab a bite to eat and I get out my bike travel a short distance to the terminus of the ATT near the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. The ATT runs 22.2 miles south out of Durham. It's an asphalt surface until New Hope Church Road. I ride out for 15 miles, sit and eat a protein bar, drink some water and make my way back to the van. I arrive to find Melanie giving Donna a Miranda tour. They move outside and chat for bit while I settle into the van to watch a bit of football and drink more water. It's a warm Fall afternoon in Durham. I eventually turn the van around facing the opposite direction on the other side the street so we can sit in the shade outside and watch the first half of the Alabama game. Game well in hand we decide to make reservations for dinner at Jujube in Chapel Hill near where we're camped. Jujube is located in a strip shopping center and we find a convenient spot in the back of the shopping center where we feel comfortable leaving our generator running and air conditioner on. It's still a bit warm out. We enjoy a great dinner outside on their patio. We started with Pan-Fried Chicken and Shittake Mushroom Dumplings and Vietnamese Salad Rolls. Melanie's entrée was Crispy Chicken, I had Jujube Bolognese. Great service, friendly folks. Highly recommended. We make our way back to our spot next to the pasture, stream a bit and sleep.  Site # 20 Goose Creek State Park, Washington, NC October 3, 2021 We're up around 8:00 this morning..., well, I'm up around 8:00. Melanie is awake before me and tells me she's seen a couple of foxes pass the van. She shows me the very grainy images of them taken through Miranda's window. Coffee gets made and we skip breakfast and get the van ready to move. Travel day. We'll move Southeast to just outside Washington, North Carolina. We'll stay in Goose Creek State Park tonight. We camped at Goose Creek last year in December on our way to the Outer Banks. So, less than a year has passed. We make a stop in Chapel Hill at Whole Foods where I shop for food that'll get us to Salvo, N.C. We decide to eat lunch around noon and Melanie finds Marty's BBQ in Wilson, North Carolina. We drive off the main road for what seems like an inordinate amount of miles. I'm thinking (to myself) this better be good and trying to remind myself traveling is not always a linear experience so stop with the thinking we're too far off the beaten path business. We arrive at Marty's and find there's a line of cars all the way around the building and for several blocks down the street. Damn. This must be the place. There's overflow parking around the back of the building and we park Miranda there and crank up the generator and the AC. It's getting warm. We walk in and make a to-go order, wait maybe 10 minutes and go back to the van to eat. Several people in the line of cars queuing up for BBQ ask about our van. She is, after all, a beaut. I ask if the line of cars is always this way. I'm told on Saturday and Sundays, yep, it is. The BBQ is worth driving a few miles out of the way. Recommended, if you find yourself in Wilson, North Carolina. We decide to travel to Washington, North Carolina, close to our evening camp, and park on the street in downtown. Melanie has a work Zoom call at 4:00 and we're unsure of connectivity at our campsite. Washington is located on the Pamlico River and Pamlico Sound. Melanie gets on her Zoom Call and after a few minutes I exit the van and walk around downtown Washington eventually finding Two Rivers Alehouse. I drink a beer and watch a bit of Sunday football, then make my way back to the van as Melanie is finishing her call. We travel the 12+ miles to our campsite at Goose Creek, set up and take a walk out into the marsh on a boardwalk nearby. I'd been looking forward to this all day, but much to my chagrin, the boardwalk has not been repaired from damage suffered last year during hurricane season. Drat! It's a nice walk regardless. We walk back to the van and snack a bit before moving to the back of the van, stream and sleep.  Site 19 in B Loop, Oregon Inlet Campground October 4,2021 We're up just before 7:00 a.m. There's a nice sunrise out Miranda's window this morning. It's not as cool, but nice regardless. We're in the low 60's with highs today reaching the low 80's on Hatteras where we'll be this evening. We have breakfast and I go for a shower. Melanie prepares the inside of the van and I top off the fresh water tank, empty and clean the black tank, and empty the grey tank. We're camped at Oregon Inlet on Cape Hatteras tonight. Dry camping (no water, electric or sewer). We find a good price for diesel in Plymouth, NC on our way and make a quick stop at the post office there. Melanie finds lunch for us in Kitty Hawk, NC, I've Got Your Crabs Shellfish Market and Oyster Bar. Food's good and it appears to be a favorite for locals. We travel south after lunch and make a quick stop at Publix for a few items. We reach Oregon Inlet Campground around 2:00 p.m. There's a momentary pause as we try to figure out why our connectivity is not what it should be when all indicators are we should have good Verizon service. Melanie is able to get online to do some financial work for EPF and I sit and look at the NYT which tells me Facebook is having problems. That's what we checked for our connectivity when we arrived. All other sites are good. We FaceTime with our friends, the Hicks, at 3:00 p.m. and have a nice chat catching up. We've only been away from Louisville a week since a memorial service for their daughter. It is still an emotional time for them and for us. Melanie has a work call at 4:30 p.m. and I journal and process photographs. We enjoy a couple of adult beverages and walk out to the beach to see what's up. There are a number of vehicles on the beach with fisher persons near them. The temps are now pleasant. Back at the van, Melanie makes us a nice dinner salad complete with left-over shrimp she had from her lunch. We eat outside. I clean up the dishes and take the trash to the camp dumpster. We stream and sleep.  Sunrise Over Salvo with Miranda October 5, 2021 We're awake at 6:00 a.m. in hopes of catching a sunrise at our beach location. Alas, it's not to be as a line of rain showers and accompanying clouds has moved off the coast and blocked the sun. After coffee and breakfast, we prepare the van for our next move. We don't have far to go to our friends' spot in Salvo, NC, but Melanie wants to first take a tour of Duck, NC and eat lunch before we go to Salvo. We crank up the generator, turn on the AC in the van and travel to Duck. We make a brief stop at a grocery store for toilet paper and milk. Just north of Duck we turn back and arrive at The Village Table and Tavern as they are opening for lunch. We'd eaten here in December of last year before vaccines and in the off-season. Today we enjoy lunch outside on a pleasant Fall afternoon. We then make our way south to Salvo and park in our friends' driveway. They have a great AirBnB, Sunrise Over Salvo. Highly recommended. We're here between guests for a few days to catch up and enjoy their great space. We enjoy a nice light snack "dinner" with them in their home upstairs and catch up over the evening hours. Melanie and I go to our room and stream and sleep.  Coffee Shop Opening Soon September 22, 2021 We're up around 7:30 and I make my way out to Miranda from our upstairs bedroom location in our friend Diana's home in Summit, New Jersey. Happy first day of Fall. It'll be partly cloudy and may make 80 degrees by afternoon. There's a slight chance of rain. We sip the coffee I've made when I return and Melanie has a cup of yogurt. Late morning we make our way over to a local bagel shop where she gets a bagel and I have one with lox, cream cheese, tomato and onion. Orange juice to drink please. We check out the various pasta dishes that The Meat House has on our way back for future reference and our freezer when back on the road. We decide to walk about 3/4 of a mile to Reeves-Reed, a local arboretum and check it out. The walk from Diana's home is pleasant and the arboretum proves to be a nice morning adventure. There are still blooming things and the trees are beginning to show the colors of the season. We stroll back to the van, then Melanie goes to a local store to find a needlepoint project. I leave her and walk around the corner to the Trek bike store to check the status of our bikes that are being serviced. I'm told late today or tomorrow for the bikes. Melanie has her project and we make our way the few blocks back to Miranda. Melanie gets into her needlepoint project and I journal and process photos in the van. She eventually makes her way back to me and has a bite of lunch. She and Diana work inside and I remain outside during the afternoon hours. I set an appointment in Louisville to have our windshield replaced. The good news is there's no deductible for the replacement or recalibration that has to happen. I also contact Cummins in Gainesville about a part for our generator. I've just been informed that Buffalo and Gainesville disagree about whether the part is still covered under our warranty. Since the only thing I've ever done is check the oil, someone needs to pony up. I'm not happy about this, but I'm willing to wait until I get final word. Melanie and Diana make a salad for us for dinner. I'm on FaceTime with Tate and eat after we're done. We walk into downtown Summit after I finish dinner and go for ice cream. Melanie and I finish watching a series and sleep.  September 23, 2021 I'm up around 6:30 a.m. and make my way to the van for coffee making. We sip coffee and eventually dress for the day and go for bagels again in Summit. Why not two days in a row? When the bagels are good and fresh and you don't often indulge, you go for bagels. After breakfast we walk back to the van and I begin doing our laundry. Melanie works downstairs in Diana's house. Melanie has an eye doctor appointment at 11:30 and just before she's to leave, I get word from Trek Bikes Summit that our bikes are ready to be picked up. I walk with Melanie and she peals off at her designated spot to get her eyes checked. I ride the bikes back to the van and store them away just as it begins to sprinkle rain. Melanie makes her way back to the van and shortly afterwards we go for lunch in Summit. We eat pizza slices at Village Trattoria. Good. We make our way back to the van and at 2:30 Melanie goes for a hair appointment. Afterwards we take one of Diana's cars to do some grocery shopping at Whole Foods nearby. Once we're back we walk to get coffee beans at Boxwood Coffee Roasters. They're a known entity to me and, as I've mentioned, nomads who love coffee don't pass up an opportunity to stock up on beans when they are close at hand. One the way back to the van we almost make it before the monsoons hit. We've got our raincoats on which helps, but my shorts are pretty soaked when I enter the van. Melanie makes her way into the house. She too is soaked. Diana and Melanie go for Ethiopian food takeout and we dine in Diana's kitchen. We move what few things we have inside to Miranda and I ready the inside of Miranda for an early departure. We stream and then sleep.  Vista traveling through the Allegheny Mountains September 24, 2021 The alarm sounds at 5:00 a.m. I can't remember now whether any snoozing happened, but regardless, I'm up and out to the van shortly thereafter. After making coffee, I return inside and we visit with Diana for a few minutes over a cup of coffee. We're on the road just after 6:00 a.m. We both enjoy traveling as the sun is coming up. Today we're fortunate to be traveling west out of Summit so the sun will rise behind us. It's been a long while since we've broken our no-more-than-200-miles-and-stay-for-at lest-2-days rule, but today we'll be traveling nearly 500 miles. We want to get the majority of what will be 700+ miles in two days behind us as we need to be in Louisville, Kentucky on Saturday. We'll be traveling Interstate 78, 76, and 70 to Buckeye Lake, Ohio, through four states. We stop in Washington, Pennsylvania for fuel and DEF and Melanie has a Zoom Call which takes about an hour. We stay in the lot of the filling station and hop back on the interstate afterwards. We're both hungry by then as it's after 3:00 p.m. and our Cracker Barrel breakfast is long gone. Melanie finds lunch in Wheeling, West Virginia at a local barbecue restaurant. Hangover BBQ is a small operation with no inside seating. We order and Melanie sets up the table in Miranda and we, or I actually, enjoy our late lunch. Melanie's miffed because, while they said chips were available with her sandwich, they only had Goldfish and Chex Mix. Her BBQ sandwich is sliced, not pulled. Who eats Goldfish with a BBQ sandwich, she explains. And who in their right mind eats Chex Mix? Plus, she says, fuming, I ordered pulled pork and I have a sliced pork sandwich. Is it good, I ask? Does't seem to matter. No chips is a real deal breaker. I, on the other hand have most wonderful Cuban sandwich which was one of the several specials offered. Great pork and great ham on the nicely pressed sandwich. While I wait for our order I spy a freezer full of ice cream sandwich treats made in Pittsburgh. The Coffee/Snickerdoodle is too much for me to resist. Returning to the van, I stash it in the freezer for later consumption. Back on the road we travel to Buckeye Lake, Ohio and check into our campsite, a KOA. It's a nice, well-kept park about 2 miles off the interstate and near Buckeye Lake. I make an adult cocktail and we take a walk around the park to empty our trash and check out the shower house. We're both very tired after our travels and we stream for a short time then sleep soundly.  Downtown Cincinnati; Vine Street September 25, 2021 We're up and coffee's made by 6:45 a.m. There's another travel day ahead of us. This one's only 235 miles and I feel well-rested. We shower using the campground showers that are nice and we're able to park Miranda just outside the building making it quick and easy for us. We skip breakfast and opt for brunch in Cincinnati. Melanie finds Sacred Beast in downtown. The food is great. We both have the Diner Breakfast consisting of three Lemon Ricotta Pancakes, Soft Scrambled Eggs and Pork Belly. Recommended. Highly. The drive into Louisville is uneventful. We park next to our friends', Jess and Ziggy's, in Deerpark. We are in Louisville for the memorial service of our dear friend, Jess' sister, Jamie. We'll be staying with their parents, Pif and Chip, at their condominium. The service is on Sunday. We have dinner at Jess and Ziggy's and meet new friends of Jamie's. Afterwards we return to Pif and Chip's and catch up a bit more over a glass of scotch and then retire.  Political activist par excellence September 26, 2021 We're up and having coffee in our room around 7:30 a.m. The condos where we're staying have hotel-type rooms for the guests of the residents who live here. Pif and Chip arranged for us to have a room while we're in Louisville. We also have Jamie's car to use while we're here making traveling between spots very easy for us. The Memorial Service for our friend, Jamie Hicks, is today at 2:00 p.m. in Willow Park across from the condos. There's a brunch before the service at Jessica and Ziggy's home which is very nice. Melanie and I get to meet and make new friends who were long-time friends of Jamie's. We're grateful for the time we also have with old friends, John and Kathy, we've not seen in a while since being on the road. The service is moving and the speakers and musicians provide a most wonderful remembrance of Jamie. Afterwards, we sit in the park and eat pizza with a few remaining folks and, in Jamie's honor, shoot tequila. 😎 Returning to Pif and Chip's condo we talk and, after a while, eat a bit more before parting ways for the evening. Melanie and I stream a bit before sleeping.  Flower Offerings and John September 27, 2021 Monday after the memorial service for Jamie finds Melanie working and us sipping coffee in our big ol' king-sized bed. I go up after a while when Pif texts and drink coffee with her for a while. In a bit I go back to our room, dress and drive over to Jessica and Ziggy's to show off Miranda to Bill and Hanna. The tour complete and a bit of breakfast eaten in the van, I drive back to the condos and bring a bit of breakfast to Melanie. I journal a bit before we have to drive about 17 miles away for an appointment to have Miranda's cracked windshield replaced. I sit in Miranda and await my turn for about an hour before the reception person comes out to inform me they don't have a part that was expected to be delivered that day. They won't be able to perform the replacement. I had nothing for her, not anger, not what the fuck? who runs a business like this. The afternoon was warm and it was after 4:00 p.m. and all I could think was what a waste of a fine afternoon. The windshield remains cracked and I'm not at all certain I'll allow Safelite to do the repairs. Upon returning to the condo, parking Miranda on the street in front this time, I journal a bit more and we then travel over to Jessica and Ziggy's for a light dinner. Afterwards, back at the Willow condos, we visit for the last time with Pif and Chip. Melanie eventually returns to the room and I remain watching the first half of the Dallas Cowboys game, Ziggy in attendance. Sleep.  David in Downtown Louisville after dropping Kathy and John at their hotel  Leaving Louisville a reminder of who we should be September 28, 2021 We're up around 7:00 a.m. Travel day. We've decided not to trek north again. Instead, we've contacted our friends who live in Salvo, North Carolina and they've said yes to their wonderful driveway and a visit. Cape Hatteras, we're on our way. We make a few trips out to Miranda with our stuff and, after checking the room one last time and turning in our keys, we take our leave. We're traveling over 200 miles east and south to a KOA in Milton, West Virginia. Melanie finds breakfast in Louisville for us at Wild Eggs just off Interstate 64. Okay. Just. There are high clouds present as we drive east and the temps stay pleasant for a bit. We stop at a rest stop along the way and make coffee and continue. Another hour passes before I decide the generator needs to be cranked and the air conditioner in the van utilized before we get any warmer. The outside temp will reach the mid 80's today. Better to get ahead of that. I find the cheapest fuel I've seen in some time in Grayson, KY at 2.99 a gallon. We stop just inside the West Virginia line at the Welcome Center for an afternoon Zoom Call Melanie has for EPF. I find lunch for us in Huntington, WV. Huntington has a university and appears to have a very large medical complex. Lunch is at Navarino Bay inside what's called The Market. We each have a good salad with added protein. Melanie shops for post cards. She's Miranda's corresponding secretary for which I am grateful. I get coffee ice cream with hot fudge. The remainder of the drive is pleasant and we reach Milton and easily check in. Melanie sets us up inside and I hook up the outside and get our chairs out. She walks and I sit for a bit before she comes back and we walk over to a lake at the campground. It's pleasant out as the sun goes down. We leave when the mosquitoes insist. Late lunch means we have light snacks for dinner. Stream and a good nights sleep. September 15, 2021 We awake to a rainy day in Essex Junction. Melanie has the day off so we borrow a car from the Heermans and take drive north to Montgomery, Vermont, to Jay, Vermont and back to the Heermans. Checking out the lay of the lands in Vermont. We're gone most of the day. We get back and the Heermans make a very nice dinner for us. After dinner, we stream, we sleep.  Dog Head @ Dog's Head Falls September 16, 2021 We're up around 6:15 a.m. and after coffee and breakfast we get the van ready to travel. We've made a plan with the Heermans to ride the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail. We've decided to ride from Johnson, Vermont to the end of the trail as it now exists in Morrisville. Lost Nation Brewing is in Morrisville where we will have lunch. It's another splendid Vermont day for a ride. We start out in the low 60's and the temps get into the low 70's. Our lunch is great and the beers John and I have are also a treat. The ride is about 20 miles round trip. We stop for maple creamies on the way back to Essex Junction. Once we're back Melanie and I make a quick Costco run. She wants to stop at Michaels to get crocheting materials and we do that too. We shower and I snack in the van then we do a bit of streaming before sleep.  Headed South on I-89 September 17, 2021 The alarm is set for 6:00 a.m. and I'm up shortly after it goes off. Travel day. After a few sips of coffee I'm dressed and we start to get the van ready for travel. Melanie readies the inside while I go outside to check tire pressure and store a few items we purchased on our Costco run yesterday. We make our way south out of Essex Junction, Vermont to Waterbury, Vermont where Melanie finds breakfast at Hender's Bake Shop and Cafe. Hender's is a take-out only bakery. We order our breakfast, Melanie, Silver Dollar Pancakes, me, the Hender's Salami Sandwich, both quite delicious. Recommended. Highly. I also order an Apple Maple Walnut Scone for my breakfast tomorrow and Cold Peanut Noodles to accompany tonight's roasted chicken we picked up from Costco. We drive through Montpelier and pick up another bag of coffee from Capitol Grounds. You don't miss an opportunity to purchase great coffee beans when you can. We're then off to meet our friend John and his girlfriend, Kathy at Quechee Gorge. We meet them at Snackbar at the Gorge and walk down into the gorge catching up with John and getting to know Kathy whom we've just met. Afterwards, John, Kathy and Melanie have lunch at the Snackbar. We say our goodbyes and travel to Springfield, Vermont. We do a bit of grocery shopping before traveling to our Boondockers Welcome location just outside of town for the evening. Melanie works and I journal for a bit before she makes dinner. I clean up afterwards and we move to the back of the van and stream a bit before a really good night's sleep ensues.  September 18, 2021 I'm up around 7:00 a.m. and make coffee. Melanie is still sleeping when I come back to bed with the morning's brew and begin reading. We located in a pasture next to a barn. It was a very quiet night for us with the occasional hoot of an owl nearby. Melanie eventually is up and sipping coffee as begins her work day. We each eat a bit of breakfast and Melanie suggests since we're traveling through Bennington, Vermont that we stop and have lunch at Madison Brewing Company. The drive to Bennington is great with splashes of Fall color along the way. Melanie tells me just before we get to Bennington that our friend, Kevin, is in town getting work done on his car. I text Kevin when we arrive and get a great parking spot just down from the brewery. He calls me and says he'd like to join us. We have a great visit and lunch and my beer, an FBomb is good too. After lunch we travel a short distance and park on the street again in Bennington. Melanie has a Zoom Call at 3:00 p.m. and we'll stay in Bennington for the call then travel a short 10 miles to our evening's campsite. Melanie finishes her Zoom call and at half-time of the Alabama-Florida football game, we drive the short distance to our campsite at Pine Hollow. Alabama hangs on for the win and we have a light dinner of Lean Cuisine. I indulge in a gin and tonic or two and watch Georgia annihilate South Carolina and Auburn lose to Penn State. And Sleep.  Pine Hollow Campground, Pownal, Vermont September 19, 2021 I'm up at around 6:45 a.m. and make coffee. We sip some it, have breakfast and each go for showers using the campground shower house. Melanie expresses interest in attending church in Williamstown where the website indicates we'll need to be parked for her to go in at 10:30. We're less than 10 miles away from church. Arriving at 10:30ish, we wait until close to 11:00 and Melanie exits and walks away towards the church which is about a block away. I leave to run a brief errand. I get to the spot of my errand and the phone rings. Church services are about to be completed. Apparently, their website hasn't been updated to reflect a change in time for service. I retrace my drive and pick her up. We run my original errand and I find a place for us to have lunch. We eat in Williamstown at Water Street Grill which bills itself as the Best Tavern in the Berkshires. Food's good. While we wait on our lunch, I purchase tickets to Mass MoCA located a few miles away in North Adams, MA. We're in the parking lot of the museum while I'm composing this as we have about 30 minutes before our tickets' times. Today is the last day of our time in Vermont, at least for a while. Tomorrow we head south to Summit, New Jersey for a few days' visit with our friend, Diana, on our way to a memorial service for a dear friend who recently died in Louisville, Kentucky. Our visit to Mass MoCA is great fun. We spend most of Sunday afternoon there. We return to our campsite. Melanie has a Zoom Call and we then sit outside and enjoy the evening for a bit before she goes and prepares a simple dinner of Costco chicken and a side of summer salad made by our friend, Cece, in Essex Junction and given to us before we left there a few days back. I clean up dishes after dinner and together we take the trash. Along the way I notice Georgia and Alabama license plates. We strike up a conversation with those campers and find out the Alabama plates belong to folks who live in Trussville, Alabama. Not only that, but they are the parents of a former associate who worked at Cabaniss Johnston where Melanie practiced law for 30 years. Small world. We return to the van, stream and sleep.  Chrissy and Tim's Dinner, West Coxsackie, New York September 20, 2021 My alarm goes off at 6:00 a.m., but I linger and doze through a couple of 10 minute snooze periods. Coffee is made and sipped, but only briefly. We've got the longest travel day we've had in a while today at 195 miles. We'll travel south to Summit, New Jersey to our friend, Diana's, home there. I top off our fresh water as we'll be parked in Diana's driveway in Summit for 4 days. I empty the black and grey tanks and reset the flow of our toilet to low. We're gone from our campsite around 9:00 a.m. After about an hour or so we stop in Coxsackie, New York for breakfast at Chrissy and Tim's Diner. It's a hole-in-the-wall place in the best sorta way. Solid breakfast and local color eating their breakfast. We retrace our path back to the interstate and then south again. We make Summit and have time to unload our Trek EBikes and take them to Trek Bikes Summit. I'd used them before when they first opened. I had my front disc brakes replaced and they did a great job taking me in on short notice. This time around and since we're nearing three years owning our bikes, they will replace my tires and give both bikes a major tune up and cleaning. Melanie's bike needs her lights repaired. My chain needs replacing. They agree to have them done by Thursday. We travel on the Diana's home which is a couple of blocks away. She catches up a bit with us then she continues her work day while Melanie and I enjoy the cooling afternoon on Diana's front porch. Diana and Melanie put together a very nice dinner as we continue to catch up a bit. We off to bed not too long after Diana and Melanie clean up.  Miranda's Location in Summit September 21, 2021 We slept in Diana's home last night. That's the first time we've slept out of Miranda in a good long while. It was the suggestion of a new mattress that cinched the deal. 😎 That's a joke, but the new mattress provided us with a good night's rest all the same. Diana leaves for the morning walking of her dogs. We're up around 7:30 a.m. and I go out to Miranda and make our morning brew. We sip coffee in bed and then get into our respective days. Melanie and Diana work downstairs and I remain upstairs reading. I'm up around 10:00 a.m. and get a shower and move out to Miranda for a bit of journaling and photo processing. The afternoon finds Melanie and me walking in downtown Summit. We find a place that does pedicures and indulge. A pedicure is something we haven't done since we began traveling. It reminds us that in Birmingham we would show up at our local place and sometimes run into our friend, Martha Jane Patton. We miss Martha Jane. We make our way back to Diana's home and wait until she's finished her work day. We all go to dinner at Ani Ramen House in Summit. It's a favorite of ours. After dinner, we walk back home and spend some time together before going our separate ways. Melanie and I stream and sleep.  Cornerstone Restaurant, Barre, Vermont September 8, 2021 After breakfast, I finish a bit of journaling and Melanie prepares for a Zoom call she has scheduled. We're both still reeling a bit from the news our friend, Jamie has died, but it's a nice day in Vermont and we decide after her work call, we'll get the bikes out and ride into Barre, Vermont to check out the Episcopal church at which she'll worship on Sunday, have lunch and check out the town. Barre/Graniteville, Vermont is the granite capitol of the world. We checked out the Hope Cemetery while we were in town. Great headstones carved by artisans. September 9, 2021 Not much going on today in Graniteville. We walked over to Rock of Ages quarry mid day to check out the visitors center. Grave stones, various granite gift items, famous epithets, and various structures made from the granite quarried here. There's a tour offered of the active quarry site not far away. Melanie expresses no interest in it so we walk back to Lazy Lions Campground. I grab a quick snack before walking back over for the 2:15 tour. Take aways. They've taken a very large amount of granite from this quarry since inception. A Canadian company now owns the quarry and a number of others in the U.S., Canada and France. They work from March until Christmas each year. There's still enough granite at the site for another 4,000 years of extraction. The price of admission was inexpensive so the meh quality of the tour was palatable. I'm really not into being buried when I die so a granite headstone isn't in my future, but some of the ones I saw at Hope Cemetery in Barre, Vermont were pretty amazing.  Our favorite engineer is 25 today September 10, 2021 We have our usual coffee and breakfast in the van. Melanie begins her work day while I continue reading in the back of the van. It's laundry day for us. We haven't done it in a minute so there's a bunch of clothes and we'll also launder the bedding too. With Melanie's assistance, we make it over to Ruby's at the campground in one trip. I sit and listen to Ezra Klein's podcast from the New York Times website and check social media while the machines do their magic. The podcast is worth a listen. He interviews the economist, Tyler Cowen. It's also our favorite engineer's and our youngest son's birthday today. He's 25. We talk briefly with him before he's going out for dinner with his girlfriend, Zoe. The evening is spent talking with our campground neighbors from Black Mountain, North Carolina around a fire I put together for us to share. They are relatively new to the camping experience having just taken possession of their 5th wheel camper three weeks prior to us meeting them. They turn in around 9:00 p.m. and we stay around the really nice warmth of the fire until it's mostly out. September 11, 2021 We've set an alarm so we can be up and moving. After I make coffee, we move towards the Cross Vermont Trail (Montpelier & Wells River). I've chosen a parking spot in Groton, Vermont where Melanie can be on Zoom calls while I ride the trail. We arrive in Groton with about 30 or so minutes to spare before Melanie's first call begins and..., there's no cell service. This does not set well with me because we can't pull up a map quickly on our phones to try and figure out where next to try. Melanie goes into the post office in Groton and is told there's a truck stop about 5 miles away and there's cell service there. We quickly move towards Interstate 91 and what we hope is cell service. As luck would have it the post person is correct. I park the truck in the back of the truck stop, Melanie sets up for her call and I have a bite of breakfast. I check the rail trail map and see that I'm not too far away from the rail trail I wanted to ride, but much farther from what looks like is the most rideable section. I'm a bit disappointed, but hey, it's a beautiful day with temps hovering in the 60's. A perfect day to be out riding. My ride on the trail proves to be a bit of bust as the section is, as mentioned in reviews, in need of some TLC. I ride portions of the trail, but directional signs are not great and I end up riding more on Vermont 302 than not. I get in a nearly 30 mile ride and I'm back in the van before 2:00 p.m. We get lunch from the truck stop which turns out to be better than expected. After Melanie finishes her second Zoom call, we travel back into Barre, Vermont for groceries we need before traveling to our evening Boondockers Welcome spot in Orange, Vermont which is very near Barre. There's no cell service at the Boondockers location so we sit and talk outside the van and enjoy the last bit of a beautiful day.  Balloons descending and Green Mountains September 12, 2021 I'm up around 5:45 a.m. after my alarm goes off. It's Sunday and Melanie will attend services at Church of the Good Shepherd in Barre, Vermont. Reverend Kooperkamp has invited her to talk about the Episcopal Peace Fellowship during service. She wants to take a shower before the service so after making coffee I remove items we usually store in the shower as we travel. We keep a bag of shoes, a cooler with bottled water and few other miscellaneous items. It takes no time to get the shower ready and after she's done I wipe away excess water and restore the items. While we booked our current campsite for two nights, we decide to move along to South Hero, Vermont and camp at Apple Island Resort, a place we stayed a few months back, since we don't have cell service at our Boondockers Welcome location in Orange. We travel into Barre and park close to the church about an hour before services begin. I stay in Miranda and catch up on a few things I need to do. After services are done, Melanie texts and lets me know there will be visitors to the van. I show the van to a number of people and afterwards we are invited to have pancakes in the parish hall. We sit and talk with Elizabeth and Earl Kooperkamp over our pancakes and afterwards one of the parishioners who has also joined us for pancakes, Tess Taylor, offers to show us an historic landmark, the Socialist Labor Party Hall. It's a brief and very interesting tour of the famous meeting place of the once powerful socialist labor movement. We then travel to Montpelier for coffee beans and brunch at Oakes & Evelyn. It's a very delicious meal. Recommended. Our trip to South Hero, Vermont is then only about 50 miles. Enroute, we decide to check out North Hero before we check into our campsite. It's a great drive onto North Hero and back. We drive by several State Parks and make a note to check out Grand Isle State Park. We travel on back to Apple Island Resort and check in before 5:00. The nice person checking me in asks if I had a reason for choosing the particular site I've chosen. I mention the bathhouse close to the site. She says the site isn't to her liking and she upgrades us at no additional charge to another site also close to a bathhouse. We are very pleased with the upgrade. Late lunch equals no dinner and we enjoy the evening outside overlooking Lake Champlain and the Green Mountains. Streaming and sleep follow.  Miranda in downtown Burlington September 13, 2021 After a bit of coffee and breakfast, Melanie goes for a shower and I begin by cleaning our ceiling fans' screens. That task doesn't take too long and I move outside to fill our water tank, empty and clean the black tank and empty the grey tank. We'll be off grid for a few days in Essex Junction, Vermont at the home of Cec and John Heermans. We leave our spot at Apple Island Resort and travel north to Grand Isle State Park. We are granted permission to enter and check out the campground there. We're happy we did as many of the sites are very nice and the park is situated on Lake Champlain. We travel into Burlington and have lunch at The Shanty on the Shore situated overlooking Lake Champlain. We're both pleased with lunch and our spot on their deck outside. It's a beautiful day in Burlington with temperatures in the high 60's. After lunch we make a quick stop for wine and tonic at a local 802 State Store before driving to our friends' on Jackson Street in Essex Junction. We get settled in our regular space in front of their barn. Melanie works a bit and we both get ready for a protest march and Burlington City Council meeting. We travel with our friend, John, to another friend, Louis' home in downtown Burlington. Louis is going with us, along with a couple of others to the protest which begins in front of the First Unitarian Universalist Church. There are a few speeches and the media interviews a number of participants. We then march down Church Street to City Hall where a few more people speak. The assembled crowd then moves into City Hall where a council meeting will take up a resolution asking that the U.S. stop military aid to the State of Israel. There are many speakers and the meeting goes on for hours. In the end the resolution is withdrawn. We end the evening at Louis' home for drinks and dinner, then back to Essex Junction. September 14, 2021 The alarm goes off at 7:00 a.m., but since we weren't in bed until 12:00 midnight, I'm wondering why. We sleep a bit more before I'm up making coffee. We sip coffee, eat breakfast and Melanie works. I catch up a bit on my journaling and John comes out after a fashion and says Louis is up for a ride around 2:00 p.m. Melanie takes the Heermans' Honda for her haircut appointment which is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Once she's back, she works a bit more, and we eat leftovers for lunch. After lunch I get our bikes out for a ride we'll take with our friends. Everyone assembles at around 2:00 and before long we ride. We make our way to Indian Brook Park and reservoir. We take a brief break, talk to a local man and then we're off again. A couple of miles later three of the five riders make the decision to ride back to Essex Junction leaving Louis and I to ride farther out and back. We are enjoying a great ride when, going up a rather steep incline on a highway, Louis' chain comes off and becomes lodged such that we can't free it. He pushes the bike up the hill and into the town of Westford, Vermont. After making a few more attempts to free the chain, he calls John and John says he'll come get him and the bike. I ride on. I make it back to the van before Louis and John and FaceTime with our son Tate. Louis and John show up with Louis' bike chain still stuck. We all have a nice dinner prepared by Cec. John makes a fire for us to enjoy. It's a very pleasant Vermont evening. |
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November 2021
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