Huntington Beach, SC

After over a week of short stays we were ready to settle in for a while. Huntington Beach State Park on the shores of South Carolina was the perfect place. A nice campground with a mixture of sunny sites out in the open and large private sites nestled in the trees (we chose the latter), situated south of Myrtle Beach, in Murrell's Inlet, on miles of white sand beach. Temperatures in the 60's and 70's made it possible to kick off the jeans and sweatshirts and don our shorts and tees.

At least a mile of beach was dog-friendly, so we took most of our walks there, enjoying the sun, the salt air, the surf and seagulls.




The hard packed sand below the high-tide mark was great for bicycle riding too.

Seafood markets were in abundance, so we made most of our meals from the ocean's bounty, mostly local shrimp:


We had a couple of less-than-perfect moments, though, to spice things up. Firstly, Toby took a break from being cute & good, found a nasty festering heap of shit in the woods, and rolled and rolled and rolled. The reek preceded him as he emerged from the brush at the edge of our campsite! Gagging, we turned the hose on him, then shampooed him all over. The smell still lingered, so we shampooed him again, and this time he was allowed inside. Vile beast!

The other misadventure began at 4:30 one morning, when I slowly came to realize that the cracking and breaking sounds I was hearing in my dreams were not dreams, and I bolted upright in bed. I ran out into the living room and could tell that the sounds were coming from the roof, specifically from our air conditioner. Something was tearing the plastic shroud to pieces! I ran outside with a flashlight, but it was gone before I got up there. In the morning's light, this is what I saw:


The chunks of plastic, still laying there on the roof, were large, and showed few, if any, tooth marks. The hole was around 4 inches wide and 6 inches tall. I believe that it was a raccoon that did the damage. Perhaps it smelled the aroma of the shrimp that I'd boiled for dinner earlier that evening. I removed the shroud, collected all of the pieces, and found that I could fit them back together. So I superglued all but the smallest pieces back in place. Then I cut a coathanger up into pieces that would fit in the groves formed by the plastic, and bedded them in place with 5-minute epoxy.


The repair came out well, and is hardly noticeable from the ground. It'll save me having to find an RV dealer who could order one for me, and the hassle of figuring out where I'd be to receive it. Now I can deal with it when we get back home.

So, back to the fun stuff. We biked down to the town of Murrell's Inlet,a fun mix of small town and tourist destination. A shoreline shopping & dining area called the Marsh Walk featured lots of seafood restaurants with names like The Dead Dog Saloon, Bubba's Love Shack, and Drunken Jack's. All along the frontage was a nicely made boardwalk, following the shoreline contour, and providing dock space for waterborne patrons and fishing vessels. It was nice - exactly the kind of thing our home town should do with its waterfront.





Another nearby attraction was Brookgreen Gardens. This place was really great - we went twice. The first time we walked all around through the various planned gardens, admiring the indigenous plantings, the pools, fountains and sculptures:





The second time we went to their zoo of indigenous animals, all of whom were either born in captivity or rescued and unable to survive on their own. There were herons, otters, 'gators, foxes, and birds-of-prey.

This is a black-crowned night heron:

A white ibis:

A 10 foot long alligator:

It was a great and relaxing time on the Carolina coast. We could stay there for a very long time. Maybe someday we will...

Colonial Williamsburg and Newport News

It was a short drive from Fredericksburg down to the Newport News Park, so we skipped the manic interstate and instead drove on more secondary roads - a more peaceful, less frenetic pace. Upon arrival we found that our site was perfectly level side-to-side, but front-to-back required us to use every inch of our front jack's adjustablility to get the Whale level. Still, we got trued up OK.

We weather was poor during our stay, and it limited our activities. We had both been looking forward to taking our bikes out on the mountain bike trails within the park, but it was either raining, or had just stopped raining, or was just about to start raining, so trail conditions were too poor.

We went in to see Colonial Williamsburg, but between work and rain got their mid-afternoon. Tickets to get into all of the staffed old-timey buildings were expensive, so with only a couple hours left in the day, we opted to wander around and look only at free stuff. They've done a nice job creating an island within the town that is true to our colonial times. If you took away all of the ambling tourists, the iPhone wielding parents trailing wild-eyed kids, all hopped up on root beer and swinging plastic swords and rubber band pistols, you could really imagine yourself in 300 year old Williamsburg. Most of the structures are private residences, but there are no visible indication of modernization. Cars are kept enclosed in garages, exterior lights look oil-fired, electric wires are underground. The staff manning the museum buildings (the taverns, blacksmith, chair-maker, armory, etc.) are all in period costume, and in character. They speak loudly of political issues, like that rumor about the folks up in Boston throwing tea into the harbor (that's hahbah, if you're from Boston). They wear powdered wigs, knickers and stockings. They side-step horse poo, bathe once a year, might die from a splinter, and are lucky to live past 36. Anyway, it's a fun place to visit, and we didn't do it justice. Speaking of justice:


Scenes from about the village:




The next day we went into Newport News to the Mariner's Museum, which was really good. Having grown up in and around boats, this is my favorite type of museum. Others of note are the Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, and the Maritime museum in Astoria, Washington. This one had a section devoted to Chesapeake bay, which was appropriate, and showed some of the shallow draft sailing work-boats of the day, like the sharpie, which was the basis for the boat that my father built:


Another section focused on the maritime aspects of the Civil War, a big focus in these parts. We spent most of our time, though, in the area which followed man's seafaring endeavors through history, from Indian dugout canoes, early China's first cargo vessels (junk), Arabic Dhows, to the heyday of Britains Navy and the career of Admiral Horatio Nelson. The exhibit also went on into modern times, submarine warfare, luxury liners and even cargo freighters.

There was one amazing room full of the models of Winnifred & August Crabtree: incredibly detailed and beautiful ship models, encased in glass, and ingeniously illuminated. It was magical.



Lastly was the small-craft exhibit, which featured examples of craft from an Eskimo skin kayak to an Italian gondola to an experimental sailing hydroplane (clocked at over 35mph!):


I enjoyed seeing a catboat, similar the one in which my family cruised the coast of Maine when I was young...


...and the coracle, a small "wearable" boat, that you could carry on your back when you weren't desperately trying to keep it afloat and pointed in a direction loosely approximating that in which you'd like to travel:


This area of Virginia certainly deserves a dedictated trip all its own. There's so much to see and do, and we hardly scratched the surface. Didn't get to Jamestown or Yorktown at all. Next time... But now, we're hellbent for South Carolina and warmer weather.

On The Road Again...

Funny that the title of one of my least favorite recordings, Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again", would be too perfect a title for this first post of our second tour...

But indeed we are back on the road, having pulled Gigantor and the Whale off of the market so that we can do it all over again in 2012! Most of you readers will know that Nancy sold her business, Network-IT, and plans to start classes towards an MBA in September. Then there's me, back at work designing for Mark Levinson audio, and requiring only an internet connection to be productive. So, once more, we saw the opportunity to live "location independent" and began preparations to depart. But this time...it's all about the girl!

It was Nancy who was hunched over a keyboard, her face illuminated in the cold blue light of a computer monitor, stressing over her business, trying to earn enough income to pay for our campground fees and diesel fuel. I was the one planning our stops, preparing meals, doing dishes, cleaning house, walking dogs, going for hike and bike rides, until she was free for the day. This time it'll be reversed, mostly. I'll be the one clicking a mouse, poking at keys, designing audio components for the super rich, earning our keep, and Nancy will have her turn at enjoying more of the scenery and life about camp. This is for her - it's only fair!

My remote office:
She's got an awesome new mountain bike with which to attack the trails - a Trek Mamba hardtail 29er. Sweet! We put it to use at our first stop, Lums Pond State Park in northern Delaware. But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. First, we had to get there...

So, Gigantor and the Whale were both all shined up for sale. It was nice to have them both so showroom perfect, but I couldn't help wish I'd known we'd be going back out when I spent a week unloading, and now spent another week loading it all back in! Anyway, the day of departure dawned, with just a few simple tasks remaining to put the house to bed. But it wouldn't be that easy...Gigantor refused to start! It was a cold morning, in the low 20s, and the old girl doesn't like to get her diesel going when it's chilly out. But she's never failed. Now it seemed the batteries were spent (it takes two big ones to get her started, if you know what I mean). I tried every trick I knew, but nothing worked. AAA came when called, and still she put up a fight. Not until I laid down my money to replace the one bad battery did the engine roar to life. So, two hours delay, still enough time left in the day to make it to our destination, so Nancy, Kinsey, Toby and I hopped in the truck and off we went...

...down the Connecticut coast and right through New York City.
Seemed like a good idea at the time, but let me tell you this: I've driven this rig all around, coast to coast, through 38 states and 5 provinces, towing 24000 miles, and no where (NO WHERE!) are the roads as thoroughly disgracefully miserably disgustingly rough, potholed and uneven as those in the greater metropolitan area of New York City. We took a beating! Anything that wasn't nailed down in The Whale was scattered throughout. Our bikes beat each other up and the new bike-rack's bolts all loosened. One of the storage hatch doors came unlatched. It was brutal. Never again. It's like the song, you know the words:


-
-
-
If you can make it (through) there, you'll make it (through) anywhere, New York, New York!


But we did make it through, and I never thought I'd say this, but it was with great relief that we settled into a comfortable cruised down the New Jersey Turnpike...

...to arrive at the nearly deserted campground at Lums Pond State Park, in Bear, Delaware. Here we got set up and began tallying the list of items that we forgot to bring! Nothing critical. Then Nancy managed to slip on the steps in the camper and injure her pinky toe, so she was limping around.


During our day at Lums Pond SP I had my first work-day away from my home office, and had no problem getting my hours in and still taking time to walk dogs and go for a nice long mountain bike ride around the pond with Nancy. She did great. It was mostly level, but had a few spots criss-crossed with roots, and some rutted mudholes, all of which she powered over and through. One short, steep climb she cranked up, passing an older man who had just walked his bike up. He was impressed!


Our next drive took us farther south, around Washington D.C.'s beltway, and into Virginia, where we set up camp in Fredericksburg. The next day we were to tour around the copious Civil War attractions, but it rained like end of days, so we hunkered down, working and watching the puddles rise and become one, and the rivulets of water passing through camp become babbling brooks. I dangled a line out the front door and caught a trout! OK, that didn't happen, but the rest is true...

The next day was sunny and 70 degrees, and it felt soooo goooood! I forced myself to put in a few hours of work in the morning, then we headed back to Fredericksburg to check out some of the living history, like Doctor Hugh Mercer's Office and Apothecary...


...where we learned about the medical practices of the 17th century. (Bleeding by leaches, anesthesia by drunkenness, purging with antimony or mercury, etcetera). Then we checked out the National Park Service's Battlefield Visitor's Center and walked along the site of a bloody civil war battle, Mayre's Heights, where Confederate soldiers hunkered down behind the sturdy stone wall along Sunken Road and mowed down advancing Union divisions. Not a good day for the North.



The house situated along the wall was perforated with gunfire, but survived, along with the lady who lived in it, even as war raged around (and in) her home:

And we strolled through the graveyard where over 15000 soldiers, or fragments thereof, were laid to rest. All but a few hundred were unidentified at the time of burial. It's a sobering sight, and as Robert E. Lee is credited with saying "It is well that war is so terrible lest we should grow too fond of it."

Best Of Gigantor and The Whale

Here it is, my list of lists, the best stuff experienced on our grand tour. Each category has a top five, in no particular order. Some categories were easy, and some, like Landscapes, was really hard. So hard, in fact, that I had to divide the country into five sections and then put our five favorites in each region. So...here they are:

Top Five...

Landscapes

in the Northeast:

Mount Desert Island
Monhegan Island
Hopewell Rocks New Brunswick
Peggy’s Cove Nova Scotia
Cape Breton Nova Scotia

in the Southeast:

Outer Banks
Cataloochee Valley, Smoky Mtn NP
Cades Cove, Smoky Mtn NP
Blue Ridge Pkwy
Manatee Springs

in the Southwest:

White Sands NM
Arches NP
Bryce NP
Sedona, AZ
Mesa Verde, NP

in the Northwest:

Northern CA (Trinidad)
Oregon coast (Boardman & Harris)
Olympic NP coastal
Bend, OR
Banff NP (Lake Moraine)

in the Central states:

Glacier NP
Yellowstone NP (caldera)
Grand Tetons
Black Hills
Badlands


Top Five Best Communities - places we'd consider living

Durango, Colorado (favorite)
Asheville, North Carolina
Astoria, Washington
Wellsboro, Pennsylvania
Bend, Oregon


Top Five Campgrounds - the ones we remember most fondly

Frisco Campground, Hatteras National Seashore, Hatteras Island, NC
Whale Cove Campground, Digby Neck, Nova Scotia
Edisto Beach State Park, Edisto Beach, SC
Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs, NM
Custer State Park, Black Hills, SD


Top Five Mountain Bike Rides - flowy singletrack, adrenaline fueled downhill runs...

Kingdom Trails, Burke, VT
Kokopelli & 18 Road Trails, Fruita, CO
Slickrock & Porcupine Rim Singletrack, Moab, UT
Sandy Ridge Trail System, Sandy, OR
Whistler singletrack & downhill, Whistler, BC


Top Five Hikes


Cadillac Mountain, Mount Desert Island, ME
White Point, Cape Breton, NS
Cathedral Trail, Sedona, AZ
Angel's Landing, Zion NP, UT
Castle Trail, Badlands NP, SD


Top Five Kayak Paddles


Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick
Glen Margaret, Nova Scotia
Manatee Springs, Florida
Rio Grande River, Big Bend NP, Texas/Mexico
Clackamus River, Estacada, OR


Top Five Dining Experiences

Kitiyama (sushi), Newport Beach, CA
Elote Cafe (mexican), Sedona, AZ
The Salt Lick (barbeque), Austin, TX
Fresh oranges & strawberries, grove country, CA
Tie: Bowpicker (fish & chips), Astoria, OR - Matthew
......Brit's Pub (fish & chips), Minneapolis, MN - Nancy

Journey's End

Over the last eighteen months I would sometimes look around me and marvel at where I am and how I got here. Two years ago I would get up in the mornings, go to a job that I didn't like, and try to squeeze all of the rest of my life into nights and weekends. Then one November day a casual conversation changed all that. Next thing I know I'm waking up in a different place every few days, looking out over vistas I'd only ever seen in picture books or in movies. How lucky I've been! No...no...it's not luck. It's something Nancy and I were able to do because of we way we lived our lives up to that point. Something that seemed crazy and impossible at first, but on closer examination was not only possible, but was the best possible thing for us to do at the time.

From the east coast...


...to the west coast...


...in the mountains...


...across the prairies...


...we've covered a lot of ground. We're often asked questions like: "What's your favorite place so far?" or "Have you been somewhere that you'd like to move to?" Check back soon: I'll be posting a "Best Of" list-of-lists of all of the favorite things we've done and seen along the way.

It was with mixed feelings, and not a little sentimentality, that we made our final camp of this trip. As we went through the familiar routines of set up, preparation of our evening meal, bed-time, and pack-and-load, we were acutely aware that it was the last time we'd be doing these things. Some things, like dumping waste tanks, will not be missed! The final drive, down the familiar roads of the home stretch, were bittersweet as well. One one hand there was comfort in the familiarity; on the other, there were competitive New England drivers and periods of stop-and-go traffic from pure congestion.

One really cool thing happened on the drive home. I got a call from my friend Gene, who commutes up I-91 from New Haven. We realized that we were on converging courses, and amazingly I merged from 691 onto 91 just a few car-lengths behind him! We pulled off into the Rest Area that was conveniently located 1/2 mile later, and we had the first reunion of the many that we look forward to upon our return.

So, all good things must come to an end. Occasionally we'd ask ourselves "Why must it end?", and truth be told, we could probably continue for many more months, even years. But it has to end because without a limit it loses its meaning. Without an end date we wouldn't have been driven to extract the most from each day, to get out and see the sights we'd travelled so far to see. No, this trip, the way its played out, was just right. We've done what we set out to do. We will now get back to the life that we put on hold eighteen months ago, and be content.

Or will we?

Thanks for following along!

State College & Ithaca, NY

The pull of home gets stronger, like gravitational attraction. Just a few more stops to go! First off was State College, Pennsylvania. We've heard good things about this place, and it seemed a proper destination for Nancy's birthday. Bald Eagle State Park, 20 miles north of town, served as our base for a couple of days. Another good park with nice big sites and electricity. This time of year we don't need leashes or fences for the dogs, although we'd have been better off if we had used them, but more on that later...(and when I say "more on" I mean "moron").

Nancy's 29th birthday (Ha!) got started when I prepared her favorite breakfast: biscuits and sausage gravy. The day's weather turned pleasant enough, so we took the dogs for a nice walk and then headed down to State College for the afternoon and dinner. We drove through the Penn State campus, impressed with its magnitude, and with the throngs of students that we saw on the move throughout. We parked downtown, which is always an adventure in Gigantor, whose massive bulk is not well suited to city street parking. Anyway, once her ample hips were squeezed into a spot, we disembarked and explored the town and campus on foot.






For dinner we went for sushi, but first got set up with a pair of mai tai's, one an old school cocktail, and one the common fruity version:


We enjoyed our dinner, and Nancy continues to expand her repertoire, now including the delightful avocado...


Back at camp, Toby provided us with a less celebratory activity: bathing him thoroughly after he went after a skunk! This is what I get for letting him out to pee off-leash!


The last thing we wanted now, or anytime for that matter, is a skunky dog. His instincts in the aftermath of his anointment were to rub his face on everything. We did the best we could to shampoo the smell away, but this particular aroma is tenacious, and we feared that it would attach itself to the carpet and fabrics of The Whale's interior. Thankfully, it seems that the lingering odor follows Toby, and will not be a lingering issue for our interior. Ah, the joys of dog ownership!


We had planned to overnight in Wellsboro, PA, a town we visited early in this trip, and which we liked a lot. The state park campground where we planned to stay had closed for the season, however, so we revised our itinerary, and just stopped in town for lunch. Truck and trailer were a bit much for Main Street parking, so we found a gas station and got permission to leave the Whale there while we drove the truck in for lunch. We went to the same sandwich shop we'd eaten at before, and once again had a nice lunch.


From there we headed into the great state of New York, and eased ourselves into the driveway of my grandfather's home in Ithaca:


We had a nice visit with my Uncle Jake...


...and with Grandpa , who will be 96 in December.


Grandpa, with his dog Brownie on his lap, spends a lot of time reading, his mind just as hungry for information as always. We share many great memories of times gone by.

And speaking of memories or times gone by, in a few days such will be the case for Nancy and I and our North American Tour. One more stop to empty our tanks, and we're home! Wow....home...