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Last summer we took a break from our permanent vacation to go to Orcas Island in Washington for a week with friends and family. It was my first time in this part of the world and I loved it. The week was filled with fun…hanging on the porch watching the light on the water and islands, visiting with one of Patti’s friends from back in the day who happened to live within walking distance of our rental, eating well, walking, and going to view whales. Spoiler alert: we didn’t see any and I still believe they are mythical creatures. We must be the only people in the world to have spent time in not one but two prime whale watching areas (French Polynesia and the Pacific Northwest) and never saw so much as a fluke. Maybe next time.
So, here’s a handful from that trip. It was awfully nice.
Hello. Anyone there? Yeah, it’s been awhile. Sorry. The writer decided to take a break. Artists. We’re about to come out of winter hiatus so I thought I’d step in to catch this up before starting a new season of travel.
The last post is from Wisconsin. We were there in June of last year. There are a lot of miles (and time) between then and now so here’s a list of where we’ve been since.
- Wabasha, MN (for July 4th; lovely little town)
- Sioux Falls, SD (another ER trip)
- Belvidere, SD (overnighter)
- Spearfish, SD (like this town a lot)
- Sheridan, WY (rodeo and polo)
- Garryowen, MT (next to Little Bighorn)
- Reed Point, MT (took a road trip to drive a bit of the Beartooth Highway)
- Bozeman, MT (almost like home now)
- Orcas Island, WA (left the trailer in Bozeman and spent a week here with family and friends in a beautiful house with a stunning view)
- Livingston, MT (more family time)
- Billings, MT (overnighter)
- Cody, WY (Buffalo Bill Museum)
- Casper, WY
- Cheyenne, WY (feeding bison!)
- Longmont, CO (Rocky Mountain Nat’l Park)
- Woodland Park, CO (Garden of the Gods)
- Alamosa, CO (Great Sand Dune Nat’l Park)
- Santa Fe, NM (Georgia O’Keefe Museum)
- Tucumcari, NM (fighting bulls)
- Shamrock, TX (nuthin’ much)
- Shawnee, OK (horses)
- Sallisaw, OK (Fort Smith)
- Hot Springs, AK (hot springs)
- Memphis, TN (MLK and Blues Hall of Fame)
- Starkville, MS (overnighter)
- Tuscaloosa, AL (beautiful COE)
- Auburn, AL (nice little college town)
- Bainbridge, GA (nice COE)
- Mayo, FL
- Melbourne, FL aka winter quarters
We’ve been in Florida since the end of October with a 4-week interlude in January/February. We spent a couple of days in Myrtle Beach, SC, then 10 days in Hatteras, NC with family. Followed by 2 weeks on the west side of Florida for more family time.
We are about to pull up stakes again, starting with a trip to France. The trailer will go into storage while we’re overseas. When we return, we hook up and hit the road for some more adventures. Stay tuned!
(Well, I think that about sums it up. Over the next few days I will post some random photos from those travels prior to our trip overseas. Hopefully I will be able to post from there, also.)
After the Shenandoah, we headed to Gettysburg for two weeks. This post is not about the battle itself, which was horrific, or the private horseback tour we took, which was an experience we’ll remember for an awfully long time. Rather, it’s about my personal connection to those events.
One of my great-grandfathers was Orlando Porter. On August 22, 1861 he enlisted in Company I of the 7th Regiment, Michigan Infantry on the day it was formed. The 7th Michigan got around quite a bit during the war, fighting at most of the significant battles in the Eastern Theatre, including Gettysburg. Today at Gettysburg, there are monuments to virtually every unit, northern and southern, that was present during those three days. While we were there, we found the monument to the 7th Michigan and I, of course, took some photos.
Orlando went on to have an interesting time. He was eventually made a sergeant and acting sergeant major in another Regiment. And on August 22, 1864 (three years to the day of his enlistment) he shot a private of the 11th Maine Artillery dead. The shooting took place on a train platform in Beltsville, MD and occurred in the line of duty while defending soldiers and civilians from the rowdy, and possibly drunk, private. He was incarcerated in the Central Guardhouse in Washington, DC, and eventually exonerated of all charges. He mustered out of the service on December 20, 1864 at the age of 32 when his enlistment expired..
My family has a bunch of documentation, including 5 witness statements, his acquittal letter, a letter of recommendation from the Commandant of the prison, and various other documents from his life but unfortunately no photos of him are in my possession. Reading these documents provide a strong link for me to the historic events that took place so long ago.
If you get a chance, visit Gettysburg. If nothing else, it’s a beautiful spot for long walks on cool spring days. And a beautiful spot to remember awful events.
Orlandos Mustering-in Certificate
The Monument to the 7th Michigan
The letter releasing Orlando from confinement.
We have been posting about our wanderings in a chronological order, until now. This post is a bit different. We are in San Diego, our final destination for the year and where we will remain until late January. We’ll spend this time relaxing, visiting with friends and family, and getting some much needed repairs to Sybil. We thought we’d take this opportunity to look back at our journey thus far.
Since we pulled out of our home county back in April, we have:
- Spent 230 days on the road,
- Put 6,196 miles on the RV,
- Made 42 separate moves,
- Spent the night in 14 states,
- Visited 8 national parks and many national memorials, recreation areas, forests and conservation areas,
- Took 2 unplanned and 1 planned flights (ya gotta love the expense of buying a plane ticket two days prior to departure),
- Visited 1 emergency room (here’s a solid recommendation for the Sheridan, Wyoming ER),
- Visited one RV service center (Reno) and were visited by 3 RV mobile technicians (for a price),
- And saw tons of cool sights and had many, many awesome experiences.
We’ve had some difficult times, mostly concerning issues with the RV, but the good times by far outweigh the bad. We’ve learned how to drive in the mountains (a non-trivial lesson for someone who has lived at 14′ elevation for almost 40 years), how to plan a route that includes an easy truck stop to fill up the gas tank, how to find good places to stay, and how to take a walk 4000-7000 feet higher than we’re used to (answer: slowly). We’ve learned to appreciate the benefits of humidity and have suffered from the lack of it. We’re learning that there are interesting things to do and people to meet in even the most rural spots. Most importantly, we’re learning how two people can live in very tight quarters without driving each other batshit crazy (answer: respectfully).
So, a traveling season behind us and another ahead. All we know about next year’s journey is that we have a wedding to attend in Montana in May and Florida friends to rendezvous with in June/July. Other than that: we’ll see. If you stay tuned, you will, too.
Now, a sample of sights we’ve seen from inside the RV in no particular order:
We love Corps of Engineers campgrounds
Green! Much green!
Snow! Much Snow!
We’ve even seen outhouses! Hopefully this one is not functional.
Horses!
Elk!
Hail!
Sleeping horses!
If you look at the map that we’ve recently been including, you’ll notice that we seem to be making a beeline in a general northwest direction from our start in Florida. No loitering in any specific area, just a few days stay here and there, always NW when we move on. This is because our first “milestone” stop was the Winnebago factory in Forest City, Iowa, for a long list of warranty work on Sybil, mostly minor but a couple of significant issues we need to get resolved. We made the appointment many months ago and, after a few minor adventures getting this show on the road, we made it on time and relatively unscathed. We’re holed up in a motel while the work is taking place, so this seems like a good time to look at what we’ve done so far.
- We pulled out of Brevard County 40 days ago. It seems much longer when you’re doing new things every day.
- So far we’ve averaged just under $28/night for our spots. Our first year goal is under $50/night. Whoo-hoo!
- We’ve covered 1,869 miles averaging 7.5 mpg. That sounds pretty bad, but between Lady Sybil and the F150 we are over 40,000 lbs rolling down the road. I’m satisfied. Fun fact: our mileage has improved since leaving Florida. We seem to gain more fuel efficiency coasting down these hills/mountains than we lose going up them.
- We have risen roughly 14.5 degrees in latitude. 90 degree weather is far, far behind us and the days are noticeably longer. (As I type this, the day’s length is 13 hours 30 minutes in Cocoa Beach. Here in Forest City, it is 14 hours 38 minutes.)
- We have crossed one time zone, which initially complicated matters. We missed several TV shows before we got used to prime time starting an hour early. We’ll be crossing another shortly after pulling out of here. More confusion ahead.
- We’ve taken close to 500 photos. Many are what I refer to as being snapshots or memory shots, but there are some gems in there too. I’m happy to be shooting more frequently and I can’t wait to head west into truly target rich environments.
So there ya go, some numbers for you. Stay tuned for our tales of the west which we’re sure will include adventures in mountain driving, big skies, family visits and who knows what else. We sure don’t.
The Town Square, Forest City, Iowa, 5/13/10
A quite modern Veterans Memorial, Forest City, Iowa, 5/13/10
An older veteran, Forest City, Iowa, 5/13/10
The 1st of our many new homes, Wickham Park, Melbourne FL, 3/18/19
Yesterday we finished up packing the RV, pulled it out of storage, and set it up at our site in Wickham Park, our home for the next 3 weeks.
We are now full-time RV’ers.
Holy crap.
We’ve been considering doing this for almost 8 years, planning it for 6, and, since my retirement almost a year ago, implementing the plan. We’ve been busy scanning a lifetime of photos and documents, giving away or selling most of our belongings, and trying to figure out how we will fit the 10 lbs of our stuff (clothes, kitchen, gear) into the 5 lbs of available space on Sybil. We seem to have succeeded, but only time will truly tell. Now it’s time to execute the plan.
Waxing philosophic for a moment, this is obviously a huge change and challenge for us. It wasn’t easy disposing of a lifetime worth of stuff but the difficult decisions have been made. It was easier than we thought. Now we face the reality of living in (very) close quarters with each other pretty much 24/7. The reality of not being quite sure where we’ll be next week/month/year. The reality of needing to find a place to stay when we do decide where to go. The reality of closely monitoring the weather in case we need to run away or hunker down. The reality of dealing with significant obstacles while on the road. It will be a lot more work than simply hanging around the house. We understand all of this and believe we’re ready to embrace the new lifestyle we are throwing ourselves into. Again, time will tell.
On the other hand, we anticipate great rewards as a result of this choice. Beautiful scenery. Interesting people. Adventure. Swashbuckling.
OK, maybe not that last one.
We are pretty excited to be heading out finally. We will miss our most excellent friends and family, but it’s never been easier to stay in touch and have them share our journey. Some of them we may run into out there on the highway. Others not until we swing by wherever they may be. We’re never farther than a cell call or internet reach out away.
In the immortal words of the great scholar and author Dr. Theodor Seuss Geisel: “Oh, The Places You’ll Go”.
The view from our home. Thanks to the Bradys for the gift that keeps on giving…quality rum. Wickham Park, Melbourne FL, 3/17/19
I know, I know, it’s been too long since I posted. The main purpose of this blog is relating our travel adventures and showing some pretty pictures and we just haven’t been doing much of either this summer. That’s about to change, and in a big way. Tomorrow we depart for almost 3 weeks of journeying about the islands of French Polynesia: Tahiti, Bora Bora, Moorea, etc. We’ll be spending a few nights at the Pearl Resort on the island of Moorea seeing the sights before heading to Raiatea where we’ll board a 55′ catamaran for two weeks of sailing with family and friends! To say we’re excited is the understatement of at least the decade.
I will be trying to post when able, but internet access (at least access capable of uploading my posts) will be … spotty. This, of course, is an attraction for me, since three weeks with no work email and no cell coverage is seen as a feature rather than a bug. Although I WILL be monitoring, as best I can, the Orioles path to the World Series.
For some obligatory photos, here are some shots I took the other night of a 2 month old lion cub (and a couple of his future roomies). For background, see here. He’s as cute as a button and still able to be around people. That will change, of course, but before it does I hope to get over there with my “real” camera (these are all from my iPhone in low light, so the quality isn’t very good) and get some better shots. After Tahiti, of course!
Mims, FL, 9/14/14
Mims, FL, 9/14/14
Mims, FL, 9/14/14
Mims, FL, 9/14/14
We drove to Baltimore a couple of weeks ago to attend a wedding. Although we had known when we were going for a long time, it wasn’t until a few weeks beforehand that we realized that, with a tiny bit of planning, we could pull into Annapolis at a perfect time to take Patti’s mom to lunch on Mother’s Day. Knowing this, I planned to drive from Central Florida to Roanoke Rapids, N.C., in one shot. It put us just a few easy hours from our destination and there are a lot of hotels and restaurants in the area. Hoping to find a way to burn some energy after a long day in the cab of the truck, I did a bit of googling and found what seemed like a nice walk to stretch our legs.
If you find yourself traveling I-95 in southern Va. or northern N.C., the Roanoke Canal Trail is perfect. We found the River Road access without a hitch (maybe 10 minutes from the I-95 interchange) and headed up the trail, happy to be out of the truck. The weather was hot and humid, and the skies to the west were threatening. There were a few sign pedestals along the way telling us about the flora and fauna and whatever, but then we came across the one pictured below.
Roanoke Rapids Canal Trail, 5/10/14
In 1949, an F-80 on a training run had crashed close to where we were standing. The widow of the pilot had placed “the marble marker here,” but we didn’t see anything like that in the immediate area. A bit of exploring revealed a new-ish trail of pavers heading into the bushes, leading to the marker.
Memorial Marker, Roanoke Rapids Canal Trail, 5/10/14
Roanoke Rapids Canal Trail, 5/10/14
Apparently they had recently cleaned it up and added the pavers (full story here). We’re glad they did, as it’s an interesting little tidbit that would never have hit our radar. We kept on down the trail for a short ways, but there was thunder in the distance by this time and we had to cut it short. Next time we come this way we’ll know this nice little walk is waiting at the end of the day and plan on more exploring.
Roanoke Rapids Canal Trail, 5/10/14
Roanoke Rapids Canal Trail, 5/10/14
The Intrepid Pilot & his new toy.
Merritt Island, FL, 6/8/13
The other day a friend called and asked if I’d like to take a quick flight above Cocoa Beach. It seems he has a buddy that needed some photographs of his property. He knew I had expressed an interest in going up in his new (to him) plane so he gave me a call. Of course, I jumped all over that, so I found myself Saturday morning in a tiny plane taking off from the Merritt Island airport for a quick jaunt over the beach. It was a fun 45 minutes.
His new plane is a Liberty XL2, a two seater with exceptional visibility. It is a peppy little thing and fairly leaped off the runway. We were over south Cocoa Beach in just a couple of minutes. He pointed out the property of interest and circled it while I shot it from all four sides. He then asked to see one of the shots to ensure I had got the right building. I hadn’t. We made sure I had the right one and made a few more passes until I assured him that we were good. For real, that time.
We took a short hop up the beach…I shot our favorite watering hole, The Beach Shack, and got a few of Port Canaveral before we had to head back for other commitments. I had a great time and hope to head up again when he has more time. I also learned a few things about shooting from a small plane to apply next time. While I feel that there’s room for improvement in most of the shots I got, the ones we were after are “good enough” to answer the mail. Here’s a few that are OK.
(PS: If you are in the need for an air charter in or around the Florida region, drop me a line in the comments and I’ll hook you up with these fine folks.)
Beach Shack on the right, Coconuts On The Beach on the left
6/8/13
Cocoa Beach Golf Course
6/8/13
South Cocoa Beach, Patrick Air Force Base in the distance
6/8/13
Submarine pen at Port Canaveral, launch complexes in the distance
6/8/13
Cruise ships in Port Canaveral
6/8/13
The Intrepid Pilot, his S.O. & their roomier plane
Merritt Island, FL, 6/8/13
I spent most of 2005 in Washington, D.C., working at NASA HQ. While there I naturally took advantage of the chance to visit many of the iconic sites around the nation’s capital and, in late May, several days before the Memorial Day holiday, I went to Arlington National Cemetery. Turns out it was the day they placed flags at each and every grave. Sadly, there are a lot of graves. It was quite a moving experience.
They had a lot of flags to deploy.
Arlington National Cemetery, 5/26/05
They had a process, place foot against marker, push flag in against heel.
Arlington National Cemetery, 5/26/05
There were a lot of soldiers working at this on a very hot day.
Arlington National Cemetery, 5/26/05
Tomb Of The Unknowns
Arlington National Cemetery, 5/26/05
Tomb Of The Unknowns
Arlington National Cemetery, 5/26/05
Columbia Memorial
Arlington National Cemetery, 5/26/05
Challenger Memorial
Could this look any worse?
Arlington National Cemetery, 5/26/05
The World as We See It 