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.

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.

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. 

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.

September 1, 2021

​When I wake up, the first thing I do is pick up my phone, it's 6:45 a.m., and look at the local weather page. It's 49 degrees in Twin Mountain. Welcome to chilly September, y'all.

We drink a bit of coffee and Melanie suggests, since she's off today, we get Miranda ready for travel and find breakfast along the way. We have a relative short distance to travel to day. We're headed south and east to Meredith, New Hampshire for at least two days.

Retracing our travels of a few days back we travel through the Franconia Notch area. This time through the clouds are high and we can see the mountains stretching out before us. Cannon Mountain Ski Resort is also completely visible this time through.

Melanie finds breakfast for us in Plymouth, New Hampshire. We leave the Interstate and travel into downtown Plymouth and park on the street near The Main Street Station restaurant.

As we near the end of breakfast, Melanie declares it possibly the best breakfast she has ever eaten. She shares this declaration with our waitress and explains that since we travel full time and have eaten breakfast in many parts of the U.S., she knows.

Our server thinks it's "sick" we travel full time. I show her a photo of Miranda and she declares it larger than her apartment. We surmise after she leaves she must be referring to her dorm room at Plymouth State University located in Plymouth. Melanie has often compared living in Miranda to living in a dorm room.

After breakfast, Melanie walks to the post office to mail some items and buy stamps. I go to Monte Alto and buy coffee beans.

We travel on. Seeing diesel fuel at $2.84 a gallon is a good reason to top off Miranda's tank at the Citgo on the way back to the Interstate.

We arrive at our campsite at a bit after noon. I go in to the office to check in while Melanie calls her father to check in. 

The folks in the office don't have a record of me making a reservation. I tell them I didn't get a confirmation email as promised, but I do know I've paid as I recently checked our bank account. 

One woman goes to another building to check payments, I go for my phone left in Miranda. I pull up our bank account and, yes, I'm right, I've paid. The woman comes back and verifies I'm paid in full. We finish the check in process and she apologizes for the delay. All I've got is time.

​While it's her day off, Melanie has a Zoom Call scheduled. We'l travel back into Meredith to check things out afterwards.

After Zooming, we travel back into Meredith and walk around town for an hour or so before deciding on an early dinner at Lago Costa Cucina.

We enjoy drinks and appetizers and I order an entree. I eat about half of that and take the remainder back to the van for another dinner.

Once back in the van we quickly set up and move to the back for an evening of streaming. Sleep.

September 3, 2021

Travel day. We're not traveling too far today, less than 150 miles north near the Canadian border so I'm up around 7:00 a.m. for coffee making.

We sip for a bit before remembering we'll be traveling by Plymouth, New Hampshire on our way which means we could have breakfast again at The Main Street Station. 

After I shower, we quickly ready the van for travel and we're on the way by 9:00. The distance to Plymouth is short and we're eating by 10:00. It's another good experience with the exception of the intermittently screeching baby in the booth behind us. 

After Melanie makes a brief stop at the local post office, we're headed north on the interstate again. 

We need to make a grocery store run so we choose the Price Chopper in Northport, Vermont. Melanie works while I go in to restock supplies.

Wanting to ride a local rail trail, I put in coordinates for the trail head of the Beebe Spur Rail Trail. I find the trail head and what looks like a good spot to park Miranda.

We travel a bit farther to downtown Northport and find a nice spot to park. We take a walk around town and on a nice board walk overlooking Lake Memphremagog. It's beautiful here and there are a number of people on the streets on this holiday weekend. And it's Friday afternoon around quitting time.

Afterwards, we travel about 8 miles out of town to our Boondockers Welcome location, Hurdland Farm. Our hosts were dairy farmers up until recently and are becoming retired in methodical fashion. They both enjoy travel and own a nice diesel pusher RV that they've graciously moved to make way for us and another couple.

Their farm is east of the Green Mountains which makes for a most bucolic setting. The sun setting over the Green Mountains and great conversation around a camp fire as the temps dip into the 50's. Perfect.

I've touted the virtues of the Boondockers Welcome service before, but when one gets the warm welcome we got and within minutes has fresh produce and an invitation to join them around a fire after dinner, it becomes camping at it's finest. We, of course, hope to see them again in the future.

We discover we have sporadic connectivity and realize quickly streaming is not going to happen when we retire to the back of the van. Melanie reads some and I finish an essay by Carl Sagan in The Sun magazine given to me a few weeks ago by a friend in Burlington. 

An excerpt:

​I do not consider myself a religious person in the usual sense, but there is a religious aspect to some highs. The heightened sensitivity in all areas gives me a feeling of communion with my surroundings, both animate and inanimate. Sometimes a kind of existential perception of the absurd comes over me and I see with awful certainty the hypocrisies and posturing of myself and my fellow men. And at other times, there is a different sense of the absurd, a playful and whimsical awareness. Both of these senses of the absurd can be communicated, and some of the most rewarding highs I've had have been sharing talk and perceptions and humor. Cannabis brings us an awareness that we spend a lifetime being trained to overlook and forget and put out of our minds.  A sense of what the world is really like can be maddening; cannabis has brought me some feeling of what it is like to be crazy, and how we use that word "crazy" to avoid thinking about things that are too painful for us. In the Soviet Union political dissidents are routinely placed in insane asylums. The same kind of thing, a little more subtle perhaps, occurs here: "did you hear what [comedian] Lenny Bruce said yesterday? He must be crazy." When high on cannabis I discovered that there's somebody inside in those people we call mad.