Tag: travel

WheRVe we been? Our travels 2nd quarter 2022

Well how ’bout that? It’s not often you see my legs sticking out from under the truck (and please observe that they are crossed, so everyone knows that all those swear words are coming from a lady).

One reason is that Tim doesn’t have the same… photographic priorities?… as I do, so there just wasn’t a picture of me in said position until I asked for one.

Another is that a few years ago, he started getting wicked strong vertigo from jobs that involve lying on his back looking up at something close. Seriously. Like, he’s had to roll over and puke on the pavement, and then spend a few hours recovering from the dizziness and nausea. Not fun.

So as situations warrant, I take one for the team, scootch and wriggle my way under truck or RV, and do the best I can while Tim coaches from above. There’s typically lots of ratcheting and wrenching and volatile cursing, way more grime than I care to have touching me, and sometimes I earn bruises and busted knuckles as payment. True love.

In the photo above, I was installing the tow bar hitch thingie that makes it so we can put our bike rack on the front of the truck, instead of behind the camper, where it would block our one and only door. Having to remove the bike rack every time we need access is also not fun.

Why am I explaining this? Because it was the last thing we did in central Texas before we finally got underway in Road Island in April, and I can tell you right now, almost 3 months in, that buying the truck camper early enough to take it out for a test season before next year’s trip to Alaska?

Rather brilliant move.

By which I mean a fair amount of stuff has already broken, and we’ve fixed it. And a fair amount of stuff we’ve brought along has been deemed unnecessary (mostly kitchen items and clothing), but that’s greater than the amount of stuff we didn’t bring along but wish we had, so overall we did fairly well, and we already kind of knew there was no way we’d get it right the first time. Maybe next year.

So how about I get to the map and the whirlwind tour now?

13 states, 2864 miles — only as measured directly between overnight stops, not all of which are on the map.
We put way more miles than that on the truck, sometimes with the camper on, sometimes without, as we ran errands and visited people at each location.
(Map does not reflect actual routing.)

The really cool thing is that 4 of those 13 states completed our RVing map of the Lower 48!

Although we made stops in TX, LA, AL, and TN for quick overnights on the way, our first real destination was VA, so that’s where I’ll start.

Slide Show 1: VA-MD-DE

  • VA: Our friends’ kids are all getting married these days. Open bars help me feel less old.
  • VA: Tim upgraded our off-grid living options with lithium batteries and solar panels.
  • VA: Appalachian Trail day hikes for me; several overnights for Tim.
  • VA: The Big Oops. Gasoline in the diesel tank. Damage confined to our bank account.
  • MD: We’ve got friends who make brick oven pizzas at a winery all summer.
  • MD: Friendship, wine, and pizza make a perfect trio.
  • DE: Our 45th state, in the park where we first took our boys camping in 1998.

Slide Show 2: NJ-PA-CT

  • NJ: Skipped the drive; took the ferry
  • NJ: State 46 offered lakeside tranquility
  • PA: Moochdocked with friends we made at an A Year To Volunteer project in 2021
  • PA: Stayed a little longer than planned, because the fridge required a major repair.
  • PA: But while we waited for the part to arrive, we did the Philly thing.
  • PA: Cheesesteaks too.
  • CT: Our 47th state, and more A Year to Volunteer friends with driveway space!
  • CT: And a dog who rather liked the taste of my coconut curl creme. Oh, Marshall.

Slide Show 3: NY-RI-MA

  • NYC: We took the train from CT into the city for a day. Tim had never been there!
  • NYC: We crammed a lot into our 10 hours, but we definitely need a few return visits.
  • RI: Site 746 in State 48. Done! We hit Rhode Island in Road Island, and could not have planned it better than that.
  • RI: Our Harvest Host farm offered much quieter neighbors than that state park did. Enough said.
  • MA: We spent 4th of July weekend housesitting for friends. Came with a dog!

Where to next?

I’m publishing this in New Hampshire, then we’ll spend a few days in Maine, and then we’re crossing the border to visit our Canadian neighbors, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, for a few weeks. That means we’ll celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary outside the US this year, and I’m pretty sure that hasn’t happened since 1993, when we marked our 1st anniversary in France thanks to a US Navy port call.

And there we were, married one year, posing in the hallway of our inn in Cannes.
I was 24; Tim was 27.
If you haven’t read our “how we met” story, or want a refresher, it’s here. You probably won’t need a hankie, but be warned that you might catch yourself grinning like a total sap.

The internet says that this is our Pearl Anniversary, and we’ll be staying in a waterside village in a province famed for its fresh North Atlantic seafood, so I’m thinking that wherever we eat out on July 18? I shall order the oysters.

Close enough.

We started full-timing in August of 2015, but I didn’t think to do an annual review until the end of 2016, and it was just a listing on Facebook of places we’d visited. After that, I started using a quarterly format.

WheRVe we been? Our travels, 4th quarter 2021

December sunset on our friend’s property near Boerne, TX, our current home

As the sun sets on this year, we are looking toward a 2022 in which we will not be full-time RVers.

Eyebrows down. It’s really not as dramatic as all that.

We’re not coming off the road; we’re just exploring it via alternate means for a couple of months, and I’ll get to that in the “Where to next” section, I promise. No clickbait here — just a little suspense.

Let’s start like we usually do, with a map of our travels since the last quarterly update.

We spent the first few nights of October dry camping at a nondescript county fairgrounds complex in OR, just killing time until our next reservation.
From there, we traveled to UT, then NM, then TX, where we’ve been since Nov. 1.
RV miles traveled this quarter: about 2360  
(Map does not reflect exact routing.)

Utah/Virginia ~ October 4-14

Tim and the RV babysat each other at Hill AFB, while I flew to coastal VA for my 27th (mostly) annual girlfriends’ weekend — at which no babysitters are allowed even though there is no actual adult in charge. We eat, drink, and spend too much, don’t sleep enough, laugh until we pee, and regret nothing.

  • There were 7 of us this year. Blurry photo deliberately chosen to protect the tipsy.
  • Having a fire pit at your rental house is a good way to learn which of your friends are pyros.
  • This year’s theme: mermaids
  • And here’s Tim’s view of the hills at Hill. Autumn leaves and snow at the same time!

Hobbs, NM ~ October 18 to November 1

The minute registration opened for the Escapees Habitat for Humanity Hangout back in June, my fingers were on the keyboard. Two weeks of construction work for the greater good? Sign us the hell up and take our money.

There were two main projects at the affiliate in Hobbs. Not only did Hangout attendees get the home building experience that everyone pictures when they think of Habitat for Humanity, but we also helped move the ball significantly forward on renovating a recently purchased church building into their new multi-purpose headquarters (offices, meeting spaces, and a ReStore) — all of which will help further their mission and benefit the Hobbs community.

Many of us learned entirely new skills: tiling, mudding & taping, hanging drywall, reading blueprints, framing and standing up walls, and more. We also had a team of kitchen volunteers who prepared and served hearty hot lunches, the cost of which was budgeted into our Hangout fees, on most work days.

It was emotional, exhausting, and gratifying, and in addition to bonding with so many new friends, we all have an open invitation to return to Hobbs on our own, park our RVs, and raise our hammers any time we want to put in a few days or weeks of work.

  • Hangouts Director Rob delivered the orientation and safety briefing.
  • New tees! Yay! We are forever rotating out the old ratty ones.
  • Tim inspecting the drywall
  • Me on Day 1 of mudding & taping. My skills had improved somewhat by Day 5, but I have to admit it’s not a favorite.
  • When we arrived, the concrete slab hadn’t even been poured. Ten days later? This.
  • The whole crew beside the duplex we helped raise. (photo: D. Knowles)
  • A Habitat tradition: writing prayers and good wishes in the walls.
  • The family gets to read the messages before the drywall is hung over the many blessings, each one a permanent reminder of loving, helping hands.
Our friend, Dan, created this clever trailer-style video to capture the feel of the Hangout in one perfect minute.

Texas ~ November 1 to present

We spent a week at one of the crown jewels of the Texas State Parks system, Palo Duro Canyon, which is near Amarillo. But… the black tank valve got stuck, necessitating a multi-day, messy and expensive repair effort, leaving us with only one day to go on a hike, on which we got separated, and Tim spent an hour searching for me because I thought he’d know I’d return to the truck, but it turns out he didn’t know that at all. We are almost to the someday of “someday we’ll look back at this and laugh.”

After that, we rolled onto a friend’s ranch property near charming Boerne, TX, and other than two brief side trips, we’ve been here ever since. From here, it takes us only 40-60 minutes to get where we need to go in San Antonio to visit family, doctors and dentists, plus we get scenic views and quiet nights, with almost no traffic on our little ranch road.

We really hadn’t expected to be here this long (our original plan involved spending more of this winter boondocking in the desert), but lengthy gaps between follow-up appointments are keeping us anchored to San Antonio through January. Thankfully, the issues are merely pesky and not serious, and we’re near tons of family, friends, tacos and margaritas, so what’s not to love?

  • Tim on the trail at Palo Duro Canyon while I could still see him…
  • … and me on the trail while he could still see me. Sigh.
  • Home, home on the ranch, where sometimes there are cows in that field behind us.
  • An extra thankful Thanksgiving: both of our sons were with us for the first time in nearly 4 years.
  • A side trip to Canyon Lake brought peaceful views…
  • … and Christmas dinner with friends, most of whom we’d met at the Habitat Hangout in October. (photo: D. Knowles)
  • Glad tidings from my Frosty the Dough Man, a Christmas potluck hit.
Have to admit it. That man I married looks pretty damn happy with ranch life.

And then there were the dogs

As I was reviewing photos for this post, I realized we got to give lots of ear scruffles and lap snuggles over the past three months. Here. You can meet them all too.

  • Yellow
  • Molly
  • Ghost
  • Brownie
  • Gracie
  • Penny (with Gracie on the table trying to look taller)

Where to next?

Did you think I’d forgotten that thing I said up there about not being full-time RVers in 2022? It’s true. We’re leaving the truck and RV here on the ranch and flying to Mexico for two months — at least, that is the plan unless things become utterly f*cked by the continuing pandemic, in which case I might not be writing the quarterly update I expect to write come April 1.

But if it happens, we’ll be spending February on the mainland near Guadalajara, and March on the Baja near Cabo. I’d love to tell you more, but in our typical “meh, it’ll all work out” fashion, all we’ve got locked in so far are our one-way tickets to Guadalajara on Feb. 1, which leaves me with just one thing left to say.

Hasta la vista. Maybe?

We started full-timing in August of 2015, but I didn’t think to do an annual review until the end of 2016, and it was just a listing on Facebook of places we’d visited. After that, I started using a quarterly format.