After a long journey that took us through Seattle and Korea, we finally arrived in Bangkok, Thailand.  Our flights went smoothly, though I was hoping I’d sleep a bit more than I did.  Mona may have gotten a bit more sleep, but we were both pretty spent by the time we reached our small hotel in downtown Bangkok.  We got checked in, and tried to get some rest.  The significant time zone change always seems to make this rough!

The following day we made it to the Wat Pho temple, which was quite impressive.  The buildings and statues are extremely ornate, and very interesting to visit.  Mona was given some additional garb to wear in order to meet the dress guidelines required to enter most temples.  Not surprisingly, we squeezed in a Thai massage, and also started to sample some Thai food (which was spicy, but good).  The city is a sprawling and bustling place, with people everywhere.  Unfortunately, they also have the pollution that goes along with such a big metropolis.

After just one day in Bangkok, we headed out to Koh Samui (one hour flight) and stayed in a quiet part of the island at the Humble Villas.  We had a great room to stay in with our own tiny pool to cool off in, and were only 50 yards from the beach.  We did some exploring in the area (by foot), and found some places to get good fruit smoothies and snacks for the hot days.  We didn’t encounter too many Americans – there were definitely people from Europe (Germany in particular), but Americans seemed to be few and far between.

We also got to know the staff (Tea and O’o, not sure on spelling) at the tiny seaside restaurant where we stayed.  The were very kind and actually fixed us a number of special Thai dishes that were remarkably good.  The staff, at least where we stayed, worked long hours, with very few days off – often working every day of the week.  To maintain their level of kindness and friendliness is pretty remarkable.  We felt very lucky to be in a foreign place were people still treated us very well.

After a bit of recuperation, we spent a full day going out to a nearby national park (Mu Ko Ang Thong National Marine Park) and did a bit of hiking.  The scenery was quite spectacular – good enough to be the location for movies of the past including The Blue Lagoon.  The weather was very cooperative, and most of the rain we experienced was brief (and of course warm).

We also hired a driver for a day and toured a big portion of the island.  We visited a number of temples and some beach fronts that were interesting to see.  Through all of it, we managed to get over our jet lag from the trek over, and to find time to relax and continue to get Thai massages!  We found that getting a 60-minute massage every other day suited us well.    The prices here have been a welcome relief from the USA.  A 60 minute massage can be had for well under $20 (with tip).  Food is also cheaper, as are places to stay. We have stayed in nice places, all for less than half of what you would pay for the equivalent place in the USA.

It was a sad to leave the great location and what felt almost like friends at the resort, but it was time to move on and head to Chiang Mai, which we expected to be a very different experience. 

We took a short (~1 hour) flight up to Chiang Mai, and made our way into the old city square.  Traveling has been fairly easy despite the language barrier – we can typically make our way around the airports without too much difficulty, and finding a taxi (or equivalent via “Grab”) has been a pretty smooth experience.  For our first week in Chiang Mai, we stayed at another boutique (i.e., small) hotel located right in the city square.  It had a pool area for hanging out, and we had a comfortable, air-conditioned room that was very pleasant.  We have also had pretty good internet connectivity, which helps us out a lot as we make plans, look at maps, etc.

One of our first experiences in Chiang Mai consisted of walking to a flower festival which was just wrapping up.  The flower displays were amazing, and covered the majority of a large city park.  We enjoyed walking around seeing the wide variety of flowers, and also did a bit of exploring around the old city square walls (about 1 mile on each side).

The city is a bustling place – there are tons of scooters on narrow roads, with thousands of small vendors all competing to make a living selling many of the same things.  There were also lots of restaurants to choose from, and open-air markets to enjoy as well.  The language barrier is very real here, with very few people speaking more then just a smattering of English.  A lot of young people do have a chance to learn some in school, but as with anything, if you aren’t practicing it, you quickly lose it.

We found a massage place near our new hotel that we thoroughly enjoyed.  With low prices and great service, we continued with our tradition of getting a Thai massage every other day.  This particular shop was a place we went to a number of times, where they served a cool drink to start, and a light snack after the massage.  Time spent getting massages was very therapeutic, and the women doing the work earned their pay and then some!

Our first week in Chang Mai, we were still on our own while we waited for Karen, Adam, and Drew to arrive.  We enjoyed our location, and went out to experience a number of both day markets and night markets.  They are very busy places, with hundreds (or more) of shops all selling about the same thing.  Lots of food and flower shops, and lots of clothing as well.  There were also specialized areas selling meat, etc.  You can see why these markets could (and likely are) breeding grounds for all sorts of things.  Lots of tight quarters, and lot of ‘intermixing’ of all sorts of things!

We did take one day and adventured to the suburbs of town, where we did some running.  The suburbs were definitely more laid back and less crowded, but it was still hot!  We did our run, but were left somewhat exhausted from the heat of the late morning day.  Getting a taxi to and from turned out to be fairly easy, though it’s easy to worry about that a bit when you realize you’d be faced with quite an arduous trek if you could not get ahold of a taxi.

We had a lot of fun exploring the city, getting massages, and also had some down time at the hotel where I worked on my computer by the small pool, and Ramona did more planning for our upcoming trips.

After our first week, Drew managed to make it into town after a long journey from Salt Lake City.  He didn’t seem too exhausted, and managed to make it out to the night market and a few other day markets before Karen and Adam were to arrive.  There’s a lot to take in, and I think Drew found the city quite the fascinating place, much like we did.  We had moved over into a house before he made it into town, and had a lot of room to spread out and take advantage of a full house.  The manager of the house would occasionally bring us various food items, and kept the fountain filled with water out front.  Thankfully, the house had AC in pretty much all the rooms, as the afternoons continued to be fairly hot.

One thing worth mentioning about Chiang Mai this time of the year was the air quality.  Sadly, it was not very good on several of the days we were there.  It was particularly bad a couple of days – to the point where it would have been hard to do anything very physical even if it wasn’t so hot.  There is a lot of burning (field/forrest) outside of town this time of the year, which really adds to the pollution problem.  This is likely not an easy problem to solve, but most definitely something to be aware of if deciding to go to the city again!  The city is well aware of the issue, and seems to be making an attempt to educate people and see if they can’t do some things to alleviate the problems.  

A day after Drew arrived, Karen also made it into town without any problems.  Like Drew, she didn’t seem too horribly tired from the journey, so we went to what was left of the flower festival, and enjoyed walking around a bit.  Karen also got her first taste of night market food, which was an experience!  There are dozens of small vendors trying to sell lots of various food items.  You pretty much had to view what you wanted, and point to it when ordering, as most of the signs were definitely not decipherable.

Mona and Karen took a cooking class where they learned more about Thai cooking.  It took most of the day, and while they were busy doing that, Adam also made it into town.  We started to go to a few of the more major sight seeing highlights in the town square, which mainly consisted of temples and just seeing how the local people live.  People were always friendly, and we could visit most places either for free, or for a very small entry fee.  Things could be a bit crowded, but we could always get into the places we wanted to go.

After everyone had arrived in town, Ramona had arranged for us to have a few free days, and to also have a few “planned” things to do.  On one day, we took a mountain biking tour into the jungle and had a chance to see some sights that were once again out of town.  It was a nice chance to get out of town and see the local country, but it made for some warm bike riding.  The air quality was a bit poor as well, but we all had a good time, and no one experienced a bike crash!  Even out in the jungle, there were shrines and other places where small numbers of people would leave offerings, etc.

On another day, we went on a tour to see….. Elephants!  This was a lot of fun, as you could get up close and very personal with the elephants that were in the group this particular family cared for.  We fed them bananas (hundreds of them actually), and even had a chance to go swimming with them.  They were very pleasant to be around, and while I’m sure they could hurt you if you did something to provoke them, they were very friendly with us, and clearly a very intelligent animal!  The pictures (found below), will likely say more than my words will here!  We also had a chance to celebrate Adam’s birthday, and the outfit we had booked through even came through with a birthday cake at lunch time!  Once again, we all had a good time, and it was truly a unique experience.  Covid was not an easy time for the elephant herds…  It takes a lot of food to maintain an elephant, and with tourism being non-existent, some elephants ended up getting into toxic farm fertilizers, etc. and did not survive.

After about a week in Chang Mai, it was time to head to Railay Beach!  We flew down to our destination, and Mona had arranged for us to get to a pier were we boarded a small “long tail” boat to take us out to Railay Beach.  As we made the short journey in the boat, it was clear that this would be quite a magical area – again, pictures will do a better job than my words here.  The water was warm, and the surrounding landscape was beautiful.

When we arrived at the beach, we went right up to a house that most of us thought was just a check-in area – but it turned out to be our own house right on the beach!  It was an amazing place with a lot of ornate wood work, and many decorations that made it feel very “authentic”.  We had dinner made for us one night (it had a nice, working kitchen), which was very good.  We also had breakfast delivered which consisted of fresh fruit, eggs, cereal, etc.  We lived like kings in that house, with immediate access to the beach, and very nice, roomy accommodations. The yard and surrounding grounds were manicured and very nice as well, with monkeys to be found right in the back yard.  It was a great place to just unwind a bit from the city and enjoy Thailand.

While at Railay beach, we found time to do some paddle boarding, and also went on a night paddle boarding tour to see bio luminescence. We had a good time doing that, and fortunately saw both ocean life and the bio luminescence we were curious to observe.  As you put your hand in the water, the stuff would really light up, and it was quite interesting.

With the towering walls surrounding the beach, there is some climbing to be done, and we booked a half day trip to the nearby walls with a guide to get some climbing in.  We had a good time climbing.  Karen just took some pics and decided to skip, but the rest of us all had a good time, even if it did seem a bit hard!  That night, we had Indian food in one of the local restaurants, and I think this is where Adam may have started to get hit with some food poisoning.  Adam started to get beat down with everything that goes along with food poisoning, but still tried to make the best of the time!

In what felt like a very short time, our time ran out at Railay, and we got on another boat for a trip back to the pier near the airport.

We had 2 nights booked in Ao Nang, which was more of a small mountain town.  We had a great place to stay – complete with our own pool.  The “house” was laid out with a kitchen and living room, and then the rooms surrounded the pool.  The pool was a salt-water based pool, so it was easy on the eyes and fun to swim around in during the hot afternoons.  The scenery couldn’t match Railay beach, but we had great accommodations and also found a little store and restaurant to buy things at. Adam was definitely feeling under the weather and started to take some meds to get ahead of things prior to flying home, and the rest of us largely lounged and just took it easy.

Alas, our time at Ao Nang also came to a close, and we flew back to Bangkok for our final bit of time.  Drew only had enough time to see a few things in Bangkok, but at least he was able to make it into the city before taking a taxi back to the airport.  It was sad to see our time coming to a close….  Karen left the following morning very early, and then Adam left in the afternoon.  Thankfully, Adam was starting to feel a bit better before starting to make his way back to the US.

We had a great time in Thailand, and it’s hard to cover everything we did in just a few short pages.  If I had to summarize, I’d say that the people were very friendly, and the places we visited were very interesting!  The prices were very reasonable, which was a nice break from US inflation.  The air quality is something to be mindful of, but is offset by the very cheap (but good) massages that you can find!

The food was great, though you have to be prepared to eat a lot of Thai food – options outside of Thai food were a bit limited.  With lots of planning, there’s some amazing beaches to see, activities to do, and things to experience.  The elephants were definitely an experience highlight.  There are lots (!) of temples to visit, with an incredible amount of ornate and intricate work having been put into architectural details and the furnishings.

Are we glad we visited Thailand?  Absolutely.  We would come back and spend more time here to enjoy the scenery, the food, the people, and those Thai massages!

Today consisted of two big things: taking a tour of the Sault Locks on a boat; and getting ready for our backpacking trip to Isle Royale.  Our locks tour took about two hours, and was very well done.  The boat we went out on wasn’t very full, so we could easily move around and check out the scenery, as well as the locks when they filled/drained them to match the height of the “top” of the Sinclair river, and the “bottom” of the river.  We got lucky and saw several big ships pass through, and learned more about future plans, etc.

Prepping for backpacking isn’t too exciting, but… if you’re going to backpack, one of the keys is to plan well up front, in order to ensure that time on the trail is enjoyable.  We went through our checklists, ran to the grocery store, and had everything pretty much ready to go in a few hours. 

We also had some neighbors come over and invite us over to their evening fire – people really have been very friendly across the USA, and especially in Canada.  We went for a run, and stopped by to visit with them.  By then it was time to clean up, fix a little food for dinner, and call it a night!

Wednesday September 14

Today was a fairly big drive day, as we had a little over 4 hours to drive between Sault St Marie and the Hancock area where our sea plane calls home.  We got up at a decent hour and got underway so we could visit the National Park visitor center before they closed at 4.  We had a nice scenic drive, and even had a chance to try a pasty at a store along the way.  Pasties are a nice combination of a pastry with a filling that is typically some type of meat, potatoes, and spices.  We enjoyed that, and made it to Hancock in time to have a rock chip repaired at a local glass shop.  The person that fixed our windshield was raving about how good the mountain biking was up at Copper Harbor (only about an hour away), so our plan is to head up there for a while after we finish up our backpacking trip!

Thursday September 15 – Sunday September 18

Our day finally arrived to fly out to Isle Royale for a planned 2 night backpacking trip.  We got up early to do our final checklist, and arrived with plenty of time to get checked in at the “office” (just a small shed out by the water) and for our bags to be weighed.  The office manager went through a few safety items and precautions – mainly around weather and that they can’t fly in fog or lightening, and once our schedule time arrived, we met the pilot, got our life jackets on, and… away we went!

The takeoff and flight were very smooth.  The flight only lasted about 45 minutes, and we were never that high up off Lake Superior that you could not see the water clearly.  Our view of the island coming in was good, and the landing was also very smooth – you could barely tell you touched down.  We made it to the dock, and were quickly off the plane and on our way to a self-checkin area for backpacking.

After registering, we bought a small canister of stove fuel (they won’t let you carry that on the plane), and put our rain gear on.  We fully expected some rain on our trip, and it was not letting us down (unfortunately).  We decided to hike into an area known as 3-mile, which turns out to be just a bit over 3 miles away.  The hike was easy as hikes go…  There was not that much hill climbing to do, and our packs were relatively light as we were only staying for 2 nights.  However, by the time we reached the camping area, the sprinkles had largely turned into steady rain, and we were very happy to find an open-faced shelter that was close to the water, and with great views.  Later in the day, more people arrived to other shelters.

We didn’t do a lot more that day due to the rain. We did get camp set up, filtered some water, and explored the immediate area to see other camp sites, etc.  After an afternoon nap, a hot (and surprisingly tasty freeze dried concoction) dinner, we went to bed early, hoping for better weather the next day.  We could tell through the night, however, that the rain was continuing to come down.

The next morning, the rain had let up a bit and we decided to stay in the shelter we had, but to do a day hike of roughly 3-4 miles each way.  The scenery along the Superior coast was very pretty, but the trail was definitely slippery and muddy in areas, so we didn’t move very fast.  We made it out about 3 miles, had lunch, and then came back.  By the time we got back, the rain was coming down again.  On this evening, we had quite a bit of wind as well.  It was cold enough and wet enough that we set our tent up right in the shelter to avoid getting even more wet, and we were glad we did.  The wind howled at times, and we would have certainly gotten wet without our tent.

One Saturday morning, it was time to walk back to the visitor center and sea plane area.  We were still somewhat confident that we’d get out that day, just based on the weather. We were wrong.  We hung around once we arrived, and things continued to get backed up, with a number of people having waited around for over a day to get off the island.  One guy thought he was getting out and gave up his shelter (and food!), so we were lucky to get another shelter, expecting that we’d have to wait until Sunday to get a ride back to Hancock. It wasn’t long when he came back and asked if he could bunk with us…. His hopes of leaving had been dashed, and he was stuck for at least another night.

The weather wasn’t too bad on Saturday night, so we played a card game, had our last (spare) dinner that we’d brought with us, and hoped for better luck on Sunday.

Early Sunday we had some thunder and lightening, which made us question whether we’d be staying another night!  Thankfully, that broke a bit, and before you know it we learned that we’d probably be able to leave at around 10 that morning.  We quickly packed up our gear, made it to the takeoff area, and did not have to wait long for our plane to arrive.  As luck would have it, we had the plane to ourselves, as the few remaining people (including our bunk mate) were going to other locations.  The flight back was smooth and the weather actually seemed to be getting nicer. We made it back, had breakfast, drove to Copper Harbor for our next camp site, and got all our gear organized and put away.

Despite the inclement weather and delayed flight, we had a great time, met some very nice people, and got to see the island when it was relatively quiet (as compared to peak season).  It didn’t have some of the “grandeur” that some of our other backpacking adventures have had, but it was still a great experience, and a chance to see a park that relatively few people make it out to – especially via sea plane!

Monday, September 19

We got up this morning and made our way out to a mountain biking trailhead just outside of the small town of Copper Harbor.  We had scoped out the location late Sunday afternoon, so we knew where we were going, and were happy to see that we were the only vehicle in the parking lot.  We rode about 6 miles out to a point on Superior, and the trail was great.  It wandered through forest with a great flow that was just hard enough to be fun, but easy enough to where you never had to walk your bike (an easy “blue” run).  We had a good time, and… good weather!  We made our way back, and then set out for the drive back to Pictured Rocks Michigan.  It was a pleasant fall day in the “U.P.”  The weather is definitely starting to cool down, but… there are still crowds in the campgrounds.  It would seem that there are quite a few older (mostly) people that arrive to check out the colors, and of course many of them are not on a schedule like so many others.  We’ve found places to stay, but have been a bit surprised to see a lot of places 90% full.

Tuesday, September 20

We found a campground near Pictured Rocks, and Mona had arranged for us to take a tour out to Pictured Rocks via a boat.  We arrived in the morning, and found the boat to be fairly full.  It was a fast-moving boat, and the captain did a nice job narrating the sights as we made good time out to the most scenic areas.  We had great weather as well – the water was smooth, and we made good time.  We found that standing near the back of the boat and taking in the sights worked best for us.  Mona really enjoyed the scenery.  We also saw people out backpacking along Superior, and decided that if we were ever in the area and had time, it would be something worth considering.

All in all, we had a good time in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but our time was drawing to a close and it was time to begin making our way down to Detroit.

Wednesday, September 21

Today was primarily a drive day down to Bay City, Michigan.  I took Ramona around Saginaw and the surrounding area, as I’d worked there many years ago.  The area that I’d worked had changed quite a bit – it’s no longer a GM owned factory, but has been taken over by a company that (likely) provides parts for GM.  The city of Saginaw is (still) struggling, and there’s definitely a feel of poverty in the town – it was sad to see.

I was also a bit distracted, as I lost a pair of reading glasses on our backpacking trip (grrr….).  We went to a Costco that was located in the area, and I was hopeful that I could get a replacement.  After a bit of confusion on things, I realized I was probably wearing an old pair of glasses!  So… will wait until we’re in one spot for a longer period of time to get my eyes re-checked, and a new pair of glasses.

Thursday, September 22

As we continued our way down to Detroit, we found a Harvest Host business that was an apple orchard, and spent the night there (located in Montrose, MI).  The little store was very nice, and we had tons of space all to ourselves that evening as we had apple cider, and some fresh donuts that they were selling.  We didn’t do lots of things today, and… that’s OK!  Some days turn out to be slower than others, which can be a nice break to just catch up on things and have a bit of down time.

Friday, September 23

We finally made it down to the Detroit area, and decided to spend a few nights north of Detroit up near Pontiac.  We took the long way and stopped in Lansing so Mona could see where her parents lived while they were there for school. She remembered her mom saying the train ran right behind their apartment and was noisy. We showed up and the timing was perfect as a train was going by. The buildings have been abandoned, which is too bad since they seem like solid brick buildings. 

We then looked around Pontiac, and I took Ramona to see the first apartment I’d lived in up in Detroit, as well as the first house I’d ever bought.  The Pontiac area had changed a lot!  A lot of the older building had been torn down and replaced with newer places.  It was certainly much nicer – to a point that I barely recognized it.  The neighborhood where my house was had not changed too much, so that looked much more familiar.  We drove around a bit, and made our way out to our campground.

Saturday, September 24

We had a bit of time in Detroit, and decided to do a tour of the Ford River Rouge vehicle assembly plant.  We drove down to Dearborn (a bit of a drive), and headed off on the tour.  It was well done, and we got to spend some time on a cat walk above some of the assembly areas to see exactly how they put together the F-150’s.  It was well worth the time, as we got to see a mix of automation and good old fashioned labor by people working on the lines.  We’d recommend this to anyone visiting Detroit.  We had a late lunch, and then decided to check out the downtown Detroit area, as there has been talk of the city going through a bit of a “revitalization”.  Alas, much of what we saw was still struggling.  It’s always sad to see poverty in such broad swaths of a city.  We drove up Woodward Avenue all the way to Pontiac, and then I took Mona to a lake where I used to do some water skiing (Lake Oakland).  We had a little time to view the lake, and then made it back to our campground.

Sunday, September 25

Much of today was spent visiting my old roommate Rance.  We had a great time catching up after many years, and he caught us up on things happening with his kids, work, the surrounding area, etc.  I had not talked to him in many years, so it was nice to see him and hear about things going on in his world.  We had a nice lunch with him, and before long it was time to head to a new campground for our final night in Michigan.  We typically try to arrive in new campgrounds before dark so we can get settled in without quite so much guess work.

We stayed in a nice state park in Leonard MI, and planned on getting up at a decent hour so we could head to Indiana.

Monday, September 26

The early part of our day was spent driving from north of Detroit down to Beverly Shores Indiana, which is not too far from Gary Indiana.  Our plan was to check out the Indiana dunes.  We made it down, and had a bit of time to look around and see the dunes.  That area on Lake Michigan is pretty, and you could see Chicago in the far distance from where we did some hiking.  The weather is starting to change a bit, and after looking around, we headed back to our campground for a bit of time to read, do some computer work, etc.

We stayed in the area for a couple days, and got some hiking in, and had a chance to just “hang out” and enjoy the area.  While it’s not something we’d likely rush back to do, it was a nice place to visit and explore for a bit.

Wednesday, September 28

We’re off to Wisconsin!  Mona found a climbing gym in Madison to stay at for the night.  Mona was feeling a bit under the weather, so I enjoyed the gym, and she relaxed in the van to recuperate a bit with the hopes of getting to feeling a bit better.  We found a small pizza place with good reviews, and had dinner and an early evening.

Thursday, September 29

We drove into Madison to see the capital today and stop and get some cheese at a popular cheese store. We also drove by the U of W campus which was in downtown Madison. It’s a big school and the campus was really nice. 

Mona found another campground for us to check out – the Cox Hollow campground – which was in Dodgeville Wisconsin.  It was a nice state park, but not too much to blog about today.  Some days are all about covering some distance and a few chores – and typically getting a bit of a workout in as well.  We enjoyed the state park, and have enjoyed the cooler weather.

Friday, September 30

Today we toured a Frank Lloyd Wright house and grounds.  It was a very interesting place, and nice to get to know a bit more about him.  Mona enjoys the style of a lot of his homes, and this helped us understand much more about his history and what he was all about.  He grew up on a farm, but was always drawn more to design and architecture then all of his assorted farm chores.  One thing that struck us about his places were the low ceilings – he wasn’t very tall, and was a believer in building things that “fit” the people in the building.  For me, this didn’t work so well!

As we continued our journey through Wisconsin, Mona found a small vineyard outside of River Falls WI where we could stay.  It was school-themed, as they had converted an old one-room school house into a small store selling their wines and a few other goods.  They also had live music for the evening, so we enjoyed some music, and just spent a bit of time at the vineyard after a fairly full drive day. 

Saturday, October 1

Today we continued our drive and made it to Valerie’s house without problems.  She was quick to greet us, and we had a nice visit in the evening with her husband, and also had a chance to meet her daughter and her boyfriend.  We had a great visit, and it was good to connect after so many years.  The area they live in was pretty rural and peaceful – we had plenty of room to park and enjoy their large yard.

Sunday, October 2

We managed to get out and go for a bike ride with Valerie and her husband in at some nearby bike/running trails.  The fall weather is changing the colors quickly, and we really enjoyed all the colors and the cooler air for being outside.  Val’s husband Don even got a crack at trying to mountain bike on some narrow, dirt trails (which happened to be rated “black”).  I think he was glad to have tried it, but also glad he didn’t fall and get banged up!  There were lots of trees to dodge, and when you’re not used to it (and on someone else’s bike), it’s not for the faint of heart.

We had dinner with them at a local Mexican restaurant, knowing that our time was coming to a close with them.

Monday, October 3rd

On Monday morning, it was time to once again hit the road, and head to…. North Dakota!  It’s hard to believe, but we’ve now visited almost every state in the lower 48.  North Dakota is one of those states that’s a bit “out of the way” with not a lot to do, but we found a very interesting missile control underground base that offered tours (in one of the decommissioned control sites), and enjoyed learning more about the cold war and all that went into “fighting” the cold war. 

Most of North Dakota is definitely farm land.  It’s harvest time, so we’ve seen lots of combines and people out in the fields.  It’s been dry as well – I’ve been surprised at just how dry and dirty the land feels right now, given the lack of water.  We learned that it’s been one of the driest Septembers on record, which is a bit scary.

Tuesday, October 4th

Before leaving North Dakota, we found some mountain bike trails to try out up near Hankinson ND.  We were a bit skeptical, but we actually had a really good time riding the trails. They were quiet as well – we saw no other bike riders, and just one older guy out doing some bird watching. 

We’re now able to do some boondocking again as well – once nice thing about being further west and in areas of the country that are much less populated.

Wednesday, October 5th

Today we headed out of North Dakota and started driving to Ruthton MN – the small town where my moms parents farmed many years ago.  We drove to their old farm and looked around.  Time and the environment have not been kind to the buildings there – the barn, shed, and house are almost all completely gone from various weather events.  It was nice to show Mona the home place, and to look around a bit.  After walking around where the buildings used to be, we headed over to Tracy MN to spend some time with my aunt Lois and her husband Tyson.  They fixed a nice dinner for us, and we found a good place to park in her yard where the van was flat and a bit out of the wind.  The weather was definitely changing, and we came close to using our little van furnace for the first time this season.

Tyson and Lois were doing well, though they’re both spending some time dealing with Tyson’s sister who is very sick and in the hospital.

Thursday, October 6th

Tyson had class in the morning and most of the afternoon – both he and Lois are taking some university led classes that keep them busy and continuing to learn.  I took the opportunity to drag my laptop inside Lois’s house to work on a project that has been on my mind, and Mona spent time working on labs associated with the biology class she’s taking.  Some of her school work can be tough to do in our van, so having a bit of a break worked out very well.

We continued our visit with Lois and Tyson, and today Lois and I spent some time in her yard starting to prep some areas for the winter season.

Friday, October 7th

I continued to work on my computer projects today, and Mona continued with her biology labs.  Both Lois and Tyson have fed us well, and it has been nice to have a little break from constantly being on the go.

We also did a bit more yard work, as there was a bit of tree trimming to be done, and some plants to bring in from the cold weather in the forecast.

We also went to an Eagles fund raiser in town for a steak dinner.  We enjoyed a good dinner, and had a chance to drive around and see a bit more in Tracy.  Sadly, Tracy is not thriving that well these days, and a number of shops and stores have closed over the past number of years.  There’s still a number of people that live there, but Lois felt like it was becoming a bit more of a bedroom community for the bigger town of Marshal nearby.

We also continued to catch up on all the happenings with Lois, and just spending some time after so many years.

Saturday, October 8

Today we ventured out to visit my aunt Leonne out at her farm.  We stopped at a farmers market on the way for a bit of fresh produce, and then had several hours to visit with Leonne and see her place.  Leonne let us take her ATV out to check out her farm, and we also got a ride in her ’70s vintage Lincoln.  That evening, Dean (her son) came over and Leonne was kind enough to fix us all Chilli for dinner.  As with Lois, it was good to see Leonne in person after so many years, and to hear more about what she has been up to.

Leonne is now 95 – she’s still going strong, but did have a health scare a year ago with a lung infection that wiped her out for a while.  She has recovered from that, and is back to mowing her large yard, as well as keeping up with several farms that she owns and manages.  Working hard and staying active has definitely served her well!

Sunday, October 9

It was time to get back on the road, and we headed to Iowa!  Our first stop was the Amana Colonies, but given how much of a drive this was, much of Sunday was a drive day for us.  We found a campground outside of Oxford IA to spend the evening, and made plans to head to the colonies in the morning.

Monday, October 10

After having a rather leisurely morning having some coffee and doing some reading, we made our way to Amana for some good German food!  We looked around a bit before having lunch, which was served family style, and was tasty.  We also stopped at a museum that had a video explaining more about the colonies, and also had quite a few old artifacts that helped paint the picture on what it was like to be a member of the Colony years ago.

Amana is still going strong, but the communal structure now allows for more individualism (more of a co-op now), while at the same time having people come together as a community.  As with many of our travels, there has been a lot to learn!  It will be hard to remember the many details of what we’ve seen, but thankfully there’s great information on-line, and this blog will hopefully jog our memories’ a bit to remember back to these days!

We once again found a nice campground to stay at, and enjoyed a nice peaceful evening near a lake.  The weather continues to hold out for us, which has been nice.

Tuesday, October 11

We stayed right outside Pella IA, which is largely known for the Pella windows that are used throughout the country.  That said, they’re also known for some fine dutch pastry shops!  We found a highly rated shop, and left with far more sweets that we should have!  We enjoyed looking around the town, but as we had a fairly long drive, we started heading for Nebraska before too much of the day got away from us.

Once again, today was mostly a drive day for us.  We did managed to drive by Warren Buffet’s house in Omaha Nebraska (no sign of him!), got a workout in at an Anytime fitness center, and drove to Lincoln for some dinner before heading to our site for the night. Our small (and pleasant) surprise tonight was having a chance to check out the Nebraska capital building located in the heart of Lincoln.  All too often, we will see things that we didn’t think to plan, largely because we’re not so rushed to always just be going from one stop to the next. 

Our biggest surprise of the evening was the storm that passed through. It seemed to hit pretty suddenly. The wind was howling, then the rain hit and then the hail (luckily it wasn’t too big). The electrical storm that accompanied the storm lasted for a few hours and it was the craziest electrical storm either of us had seen. We were glad it wasn’t as bad as the weather warnings were saying it was going to be, but nonetheless and exciting end to our day.

Sunday, August 28th

Today saw us leaving Maine and driving to Canada! We had a really pretty drive up through northern Maine, and arrived in the small port town of Saint Stephen right at 2:00.  We had filled out our paperwork, mainly regarding Covid, and were a bit surprised at just how small, and smooth, our entry into Canada was.  It was a small bridge with a single customs/security guard on the Canadian side (same story on the US side), and after few questions for us, we were welcomed to the country of Canada!  We drove a ways to our first campground, and were glad that things were so smooth.  We stayed in a nice campground near some mountain bike trails, and got some mountain biking in – the trails were hard!  The black trails were truly difficult, and even the blue trails were tough.

Monday, August 29th

Today we made it to Halifax and decided to stay in town.  After going back and forth about where to stay (and the fact that some places were full), we ultimately decided to just stay in a parking lot near the train station, and near a big port for ocean cruise boats.  We rented some scooters, explored the downtown area of Halifax, and had a nice dinner.  It was a bit noisy in the parking lot, so we didn’t sleep the best, but it still worked out well.

Tuesday, August 30th

Today we did some sight seeing, which included driving over to Peggy’s Cove.  Before we did that, we stopped at a Tim Horton’s (for internet) so Mona could take her first 2 quizzes.  She aced both of them!  The area was beautiful, and we hiked around on huge granite rocks near the sea shore.  We also learned more about an airliner that crashed just off the shore back in 1998 due to an internal fire. We come across various things like this in our travels, and have learned a lot about various random parts of history that can be very interesting.

People here in Canada have been very friendly.  We feel like a number of people we’ve encountered have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome, and to help us out.

Wednesday, August 31

Today we did the “Tidal Bore” adventure in the Bay of Fundy.  We went out on 8 man zodiac boats, did some mud sliding on the banks, and then waited for the tidal bore to come.  We didn’t have to wait long, and could see it arriving.  We quickly got back in the boats, and met the head wave head-on.  From there, water came in rapidly – more than all the rivers on earth combined in terms of flow!  We rode big waves, and got thoroughly drenched.  It was a great time, but by the time we were done, we were both starting to feel chilled. A woman on the boat with us was shivering it was so chilly.  When it was done, we drove to our next campsite with full hookups so we could take long (and hot) showers, and Mona got some laundry done.

Thursday, September 1st – Saturday September 3rd

Today we drove to the northern most part of Nova Scotia and found the Meat Cove Campground – a truly unique campground right on the cliffs of the ocean with incredible views and a very remote feel to it.  We quickly decided to stay at least 2 nights since it was such a nice place to spend some time.  We ran/hiked in the afternoon, and pulled our fire pit out because it was starting to get chilly at night.  Our time at Meat Cove was really nice, and we enjoyed just having a little down time to be by the ocean and enjoy all the scenery.  If we were ever in Nova Scotia again, this is definitely a place we would go back to.

Saturday, September 3rd

We hated to leave Meat Cove but we had reservations at a hotel in Quebec City, and we also had to be mindful of our backpacking trip coming up in Isle Royale mid-September as well.  We drove our way down to Cheticamp, stopping along the way to run the Skyline trail, where we stayed at a nice RV park overlooking the ocean.  As luck would have it, the “boondocking” sites (no hookups) were closest to the ocean, and basically empty, so we had a nice place to park.  We also squeezed in enough time for another whale watching tour.  It was a bit of a boat ride out to the last sighting, but… sure enough, when we got there, we were lucky enough to find a whale up near the surface and feeding.  This was a “Minky” whale, and perhaps not quite as interesting to watch as the humpbacks over in Iceland, but… still very enjoyable.

Sunday, September 4th

Today was kind of a long drive day for us over to a place called Pictou.  We stayed at a campsite near the water once again, but didn’t have a lot of time after a pretty full days’ drive.

Monday, September 5th

This was another relatively long day of driving, as we wanted to make it Quebec City the following day.  Since we’d never before stayed in a Walmart parking lot, we decided to save some time and money and give it a shot!  It actually worked out pretty well for us.  The spot we parked was level, and fairly quiet until early morning.  If you just need a place to sleep while you’re on the road, it’s honestly not bad.

Tuesday, September 6th

Today we drove to Quebec City and checked into an amazing hotel right in downtown Quebec City – the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac.  Driving into that part of town with the van was a little stressful, as the streets were crowded and narrow.  We drove past the province parliament buildings, and then through a part of “old town” that had a very European feel to it.  We were a little nervous about parking the van at the hotel as well – it generally will not fit in any type of underground parking.  Thankfully, the attendants pulled the van up on a little brick parking pad right in the front of the hotel, and… she got a primo parking spot.  It was nice because we could actually look down from our room and just check to make sure everything looked to be OK (the bikes still on the bike rack, etc).

For our first afternoon in Quebec City, we decided to go for a run in a nearby park that was essentially just on the side of Parliament.  We had a nice run, and after that it was time to find a place to eat.  Restaurants were busy… Thankfully we found a place that had a menu we thought we’d enjoy, and had a pretty good meal after a long day.  Many of the restaurants serve rabbit, duck, and a few other “delicacies” we weren’t that interested in (e.g., tartare, etc.).  We decided that we were going to enjoy the city well enough that we booked the hotel for a second night.

Wednesday, September 7th

Today we looked around the city and spent time really exploring the wall that was built around the old part of the city (war defense), the shops and restaurants in old town, and wrapped up our sight seeing with a tour of the Parliament buildings.  We enjoyed our time in the town, and learning a bit more about their government (which turns out to not be that much different that many of the things you’d find in the USA).  We ended up eating at a little informal crepe shop that really was a treat. Especially the dessert crepes!

Thursday, September 8th

Today was our day to head to Montreal.  Thankfully it’s not that long of a drive, and we arrived at a decent hour.  We got lucky, and once again were able to park the van very close to the front door of a Marriott that was located right in downtown Montreal.  We got checked in, and then went and explored a bit of the older parts of town.  It didn’t have quite the same European feel to it as Quebec City, but we still had a good time, and we made it a fairly early evening.

Friday September 9th

Today we explored more of Montreal.  We started by going to the Olympic Park area, which was quite an impressive place.  Unfortunately, a lot of it was closed for renovation, so we didn’t get to go into all the buildings / arenas that would have been fun to see.  It was still well worth seeing, and we enjoyed checking it out.  The weather was almost perfect – even a bit hot – and the subway system was easy to use despite most signs, etc. being in French.  We also found a great place to eat (and stuffed ourselves), and ultimately wrapped up our day by going to a (very) large farmers market where we picked up some things for dinner.  We ended up staying in our hotel room that evening and made up a dinner from the farmers market goodies that we found, and Mona also got a lab and some of her biology schoolwork done!

Saturday September 10th

Our time in Montreal was good, but it was time to keep making our way to Michigan, so we got packed up and headed out to Ottawa.  We spent some time in the national capital of Canada (Ottawa) looking that their parliament buildings, and also rented some scooters to get around downtown.  We were favorably impressed with Ottawa – it’s not as big as Montreal, but it had a nice “vibe” to it, and perhaps seemed a bit more quiet due to it being a weekend.  Our scooter experience was not as fun as in the past, as our scooters would effectively lock up if they thought we were going out of the riding zone, and they would beep while in motion (apparently some type of law).  We spent several hours looking around, and then decided to drive a couple more hours to another Walmart in Pembroke.  This helped us get closer to Michigan on schedule, or even a bit ahead.

Sunday September 11

Today was a very long drive day (8 hours, which for us is long), as Mona found a train ride for us to take out of Sault Ste Marie on Monday. We packed up and left the Walmart where we stayed at a decent hour, stopped and got water for the van, and then set out for a fairly long distance drive.  The roads were good, and we had a smooth time just touring the country as we drove.  It was very pretty country with lots of woods, and lots of greenery.  The roads weren’t too busy, which made for easier driving as well.  They’re also in pretty good shape, which is nice in the van.  About an hour before reaching Sault Ste Marie, we stopped near a walking/cross country skiing area right off the coast of Lake Huron, and got a run in.  It was nice to get out after being cooped up driving all day.  We then finished up our drive, and ended up staying in a casino parking lot right across the street from where we would take our train the next day at 8:00 AM.

Monday September 12

Today was spent mostly on a train! As a last minute thing, we decided to take the Agawa Canyon train up to the canyon, which is about a 4 hour train ride each way.  The train was very relaxing, and busy, but… not too busy.  The area is *very* wooded, which made it a little hard to see much from the train, but the scenery was very nice, and not having to drive of course made it nice as well.  We had an hour and a half to hike around up in the canyon, and then returned to Sault St Marie on the Canadian side.  We crossed back over to the US, had fish for dinner at a small restaurant near the locks, and then made it to our campground right at dark.  We always find getting set up in daylight makes our camping life much easier, so we try to make it to places by daylight.

8/4/2022

Today was a fairly mellow day for us in northern Iceland. We were able to check out of our room at 11, so we enjoyed a rather late breakfast and got to sleep in a little bit. Most of our lodging has included breakfast, and the food (and coffee) have been good, though they don’t vary too much. We’re particularly enjoyed the jams with toast, as well as the variety of things that are on most of the menus. We then drove a short way to the Godafoss waterfall. When we got there, we were a bit surprised to see that it was quite crowded. We walked the short distance after parking, took a few pictures, and continued on our way. We decided to drive quite a ways today before eating, since we knew we were staying out of town on the coast, and could not easily go anywhere for dinner. We found a nice little local place to have fish and chips in Hofstadhir, a small fishing village that had a lot of charm. The food was good – it has been hard to go wrong with fish and chips in Iceland. Many places have fish and chips, or baked cod, on their menus.

After leaving Hofstadhir, we had to go through several long tunnels. As it turned out, once of the 4 km tunnels was one-way, and there was quite a bit of traffic! Every few hundred yards, there were turn-outs for cars going “our way” to turn out and get out of the way of oncoming traffic. Not knowing exactly how that worked was definitely a bit nerve wracking. But… we survived, and had a great drive along the sea with the mountains in nearby view. Iceland is most definitely mountainous and rugged – more so than I thought it would be.

After driving quite a distance in the remote country, we made it to our “hotel”, which turned out to be a house with four rooms. The location was quite spectacular – located yards from the ocean, down a winding dirt road several miles long. It had a very remote and fairy-tale like feel to it. We went for a walk on the beach where there were lots of birds, and spent several hours with a couple from Richmond VA and a man from Italy (who lives across the lake from George Clooney) in the common dining room / living room area of the house. We had a great time, and it was midnight before we knew it. With the very long days of light, it’s easy for time to creep by, and it can be late before you know it!

8/5/2022

Today saw us driving a fair distance again to a new place to stay. We saw some very pretty country in the northern part of Iceland, as we continued to make our way counter-clockwise around the “Ring Road”. We have been impressed with how clean the country is, and how safe it feels. We see next to no trash by the roads, and bikes are routinely left unlocked by their owners in front of shops and houses. We’ve been impressed by the constant beauty of the countryside as we drive along, typically at 90 km/h (about 55 mph). Many bridges are one-way, which requires slowing down and yielding to oncoming traffic. Fortunately, there’s not much traffic!

Today’s main event was… whale watching! We had good weather, and were finally able to make it out to see if we’d see anything. We had a good guide, and sure enough…. we had not been on the boat for long when she thought she spotted a whale. We traveled around the fjord, and were able to easily spot at least 5 or 6 whales – several of which we got close to and followed for a bit. They are quite the magnificent animal. We saw humpback whales, and when they bring their tail up in the air, it means that they’re going to dive. Most dives last at least 5 minutes, which leaves one to patiently wait until they re-appear (which can be some distance away). There were about 25 people on our boat, and we had a good time being out with the whales for several hours. It was definitely a good tour, with plenty to see! We would definitely do this again.

Our hotel for the day had a good reputation for a large and very warm outdoor pool to enjoy. When we arrived at the hotel, I went for a 4 mile run up a dirt road, and when I got back we decided it was time for either some time in a hot tub, or in the pool. We decided to drive up the road to check out some hot tubs right next to the ocean, but when we got there, they were busy. So…. we headed back to our hotel, got our suits on, and went to the pool. It was a nice big pool (roughly Olympic sized or even bigger) with few people in it. We spent some time in the pool, but also some time in a natural hot pot right next to it. The hot pot was too hot for me, so I spent most my time in the pool. Mona did the same, though she managed the hot pot a bit longer than me! After spending the better part of an hour swimming, we went back to our room and relaxed. The “hotel” felt more like a dorm, with shared bathrooms and some common areas for eating and just lounging about.

8/6/2022

This morning we got a quick breakfast at the hotel and were on our way. As with most hotels we have stayed in, breakfast was included, and was served buffet style. We typically eat a pretty hearty breakfast, largely snacks for lunch, and then eat a full meal at dinner in the evening. After breakfast was done, we headed to the western fjords to see everything they had to offer. We again found some amazing beauty, with hills of green, mountains of lava, and ocean fjords that looked almost like glass, as we did not have any wind to deal with. We made it to a number of waterfalls in the afternoon, and decided to hike into at least the closest of the falls Valagil (2km). Of course, as we got moving, we decided to do the further falls as well, and ended up covering over five miles and 1,000 feet of elevation by the time it was all done. The scenery is truly amazing – lots of waterfalls, very green hills and mountain sides, grazing sheep, and streams fed from nearby snow still on high slopes. We thoroughly enjoyed our hike, only encountering one other couple on the hike. I’ve also really enjoyed the remote feel that so much of Iceland provides. You really do feel like you’re in a remote and isolated part of the world when you venture out on these more difficult and lengthy hikes! That evening, we checked into our hotel, and found a nice place to have a burger and fries. As I mentioned earlier, the food has been good (but certainly not cheap), and we’ve enjoyed having fish (mostly cod) on many occasions, but also the occasional burger, etc at some of the places we’ve eaten at.

8/7/2022

Sunday was going to be a day of Mountain Biking in the western fjords, but alas… the weather thwarted us. We woke up to cloudy, rainy, and chilly weather – in the low 50’s with fairly constant rain. As a result, we decided to check out some back roads, and did some driving on roads not traveled as much. Getting off the primary roads is easy, particularly as we had a four wheel drive, and google maps does a pretty good job at identifying dirt and gravel roads. For the most part, you can get internet access across Iceland as well, which makes it easier to find attractions, restaurants, etc.

After doing some backroad driving we made our way to the Dynjandi waterfall, which was truly spectacular. It wasn’t very busy (which was nice), and you could easily walk up to smaller falls, and then the main fall itself. The water was perfectly fanned out across rock, and came tumbling down the rocks generating a lot of white water and mist. Pictures likely won’t completely capture the beauty, but it really was well worth the time seeing it – even though we’ve now seen – literally – hundreds of waterfalls.

After spending an hour at the waterfall, we had a quick lunch in the car, and then continued on our way to our next hotel in the western fjords. The roads in this area have been very scenic, but they can be slow, and even a bit treacherous in places! Even the main roads had miles and miles of gravel / dirt, sometimes running right along a cliff edge leading directly to the ocean far below. It’s very beautiful, but you can’t expect to go too far too quickly when in this part of the country.

Before checking into our hotel, we went to a free hot pot about 20 minutes away. The temps were great, and you could look right out over the ocean as you soaked. After spending 45 minutes there, we went back to the hotel, cleaned up, and then enjoyed another excellent dinner of fish and chips at pretty much the only restaurant in the town of roughly 150 people. The days are long here in the summer, meaning that you have plenty of time to explore and do whatever outside before you can’t see. We’ve continued to be impressed by this part of the island, and if we had to choose between the more popular “ring road” and just coming up in this area, we’d probably pick coming up here. Tons of scenery, nice small towns with little traffic and no crowds, things to do (e.g., biking, hot tubbing, hiking all over), and the hotel we stayed in was really a nice welcoming place.

8/8/2022

Today was another cold and rainy Iceland day. We decided to adjust our plans a bit and take a 2 hour ferry ride over to a town closer to our ultimate return point (the capital), in hopes of visiting a national park where the weather might have been a bit better. Mona was able to get our plans changed, and we had a really enjoyable ferry ride for several hours (note that getting on and off the ferry was very smooth – no passports required, etc. riding the ferry saved us a little over an hour’s driving time as well). Alas, we made it over, started our drive into the national park, and the rain just would not relent. We drove around to see a few sights, and just decided to check into our hotel a bit early and look around town.

We stayed in a hotel that used to be part of a hospital (but had been done up nicely) and offered us nice views and a central location in town. We were able to make reservations for a small restaurant that got great reviews, and had a great dinner trying out their “tasting” menu. We enjoyed our time there, and had a quiet night at the hotel.

8/9/2022

Our plan for our final full day in Iceland was a full one: we wanted to visit the volcano that erupted while we were here (this made headlines across the world), needed to get a little shopping done, and wanted to visit a large hot tubbing venue just outside the capital (Sky Lagoon). We hadn’t gone far, and learned that the hike into the volcano was once again closed for the day due to weather. With weather once again thwarting some of our plans, we spent a little extra time shopping in the capital and having lunch. This also gave us plenty of time to go soak in the hot tubs, which for me included some time in a cold pot (one of the pools was 50 degree (F) water, so was quite brisk to say the least). After our time in the hot springs, we found another place to have our final fish dinner in Iceland, and also got checked into a hotel that was close to the airport.

Weather can play a big role in what you can (and can’t) do here in Iceland. We sure are glad for the dry and relatively warm days we had when we first got here! Otherwise, it would be harder to do many of things the island has to offer. We have seen people out bike packing, and staying in tents, and it looks pretty rough!

8/10/2022

Wednesday was a big travel day for us. We got up early and got our rental car returned without any problems. We had a little time to kill in the Iceland International Airport, and before long it was time for our long(ish) trip home. The flight was full, which wasn’t a surprise (our flight out was as well). We had a good flight, though a guy behind us was coughing and sneezing the entire flight – we were pretty sure we’d likely have COVID after listening to him the entire distance.

We made it back to JFK without any problems, retrieved our luggage, and caught an Uber back to my cousins place in New Jersey. We had a quick dinner with Karen and Booker, and then decided to get to our campground before it got too dark. We needed some groceries, and ended up in a suburb in New Jersey that was more foreign than anything we’d seen in Iceland – it was a neighborhood comprised almost entirely of Hasidic Jews – street signs were in Hebrew, and only formal wear was seen on men, women, and the kids. It was like being in a suburb of Jerusalem, and we definitely stuck out! Thankfully, they had a few grocery items that we needed, and we made our way to the campground. After a long flight, we were ready to be back “home” and to get some sleep!

Today we drove from our Harvest Host site (a farm stand that sold donuts – hurray!) outside Indianapolis over to Berlin, OH – Amish country! The Amish are largely of German descent, which likely explains the name of this fairly small town (Berlin, OH). The countryside here in Ohio is nice – the Amish country in particular is well manicured and it’s clear that most Amish work hard to maintain their property and lifestyle. We stopped at a restaurant that got good reviews just outside of Berlin and had a classic Amish meal (mashed potatoes, stuffing, chicken, etc.) which was good, but… way too much food! We’re staying in an RV park tonight with full hookups, and the weather has been really cooperating for us – almost chilly at night! Interestingly enough, while out running this evening an older Amish woman went flying by me on her bicycle. It was certainly somewhat humbling, even if I was on a bit of a downhill slope. She just smiled… :-)7/14

After spending some time in Amish country, we headed to Cuyahoga Falls for a Jack Johnson concert. It was a big venue, with well over 15,000 people in attendance! There was not a mask in sight (for the COVID situation), though we learned just a couple days ago that Mona’s mom came down with it. She’s doing ok, and it seems like some of the medications available for it are helping. The concert was enjoyable, and we had a nice campground to stay in that was close by.

Today (7/15/2022) we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, which was interesting. We also looked around Cleveland on a Friday evening, and it was pretty shut down even by 4pm. The downtown areas that center on office space still seem pretty empty, likely partly due to the COVID situation with more people working from home. We stayed in a persons yard listed on Harvest Host. In general, we’ve had good luck with our Harvest Host stays, and this was true of this stay as well.

Next up was some biking at Cuyahoga National Park. We had hoped to do some mountain biking in the park but rains from the previous night kept the trails closed to bikers. Instead we found a long trail, almost like a “rails to trails” type bike/walking path, and we rode 20 miles on that. The area was filled with canals and locks that were used to move a lot of freight around in years past. The park was organized, clean, and not too busy, so it make for a really nice bike ride. After biking, we drove a good distance to another Harvest Host, this time a farm about a half hour away from Pittsburgh. We bought a little produce, and settled in for a nice dinner of veggies – Ramona’s favorite! During the night, we were both awakened with an amazing electrical storm, along with a significant amount of rainfall. Some of the lightning was close, in one case between the lightening and the crack of thunder, it felt almost like the van shook a bit!

Next up was Pittsburgh. I had hoped to tour a steel factory, but unfortunately all the tours were already booked. Instead we parked near Three Rivers stadium (home of the Steelers), and then did some sightseeing around downtown Pittsburgh. Having spent some time working in Pittsburgh many years ago, it was fun to see some of the same buildings, and also nice to see that the city has gone through a bit of a renaissance! There was a large festival of sorts happening, aptly named Picklesburgh. Heinz (the company) was a big sponsor, and Mona was able to buy a few things with Heinz prominently displayed! After our time in Pittsburgh, we drove close to 3 hours and stayed in a campground just outside of Gettysburg. It rained a lot again today, so it was nice to reach our campground with no van leaks or water problems of any sort.

After Pittsburgh, we spent some time in Gettysburg and largely just toured around the area looking at all the civil war memorials. There’s tons of history in Gettysburg, and if you’re into the civil war and associated history, this would be a required stop! It was warm while we were there, so we didn’t do as much as perhaps we would have done otherwise. Once we’d seen the key points around the area, we continued to head east and made our way over to Amish country near Lancaster. Mona had found a bed and breakfast for us to stay at where we could actually visit with the owners to learn more about the Amish.

Our bed and breakfast was outside of town and was considered a “farmette”. The owners (and elderly couple) had a big garden, as well as a few animals that included some horses, goats, and sheep. They were very pleasant to talk to, with the woman being quite focused on getting everything done while there was still light (as there was no electricity in the house other than a few battery powered lamps and fans). The elderly man was difficult to understand at times due to an accident from years past, but we were still able to learn a lot from him. Their life is simple in some ways, and hard in others. By not using a lot of today’s technologies (e.g., cars, electricity from the grid, etc.), the amount of work to simply “live” certainly goes up. It keeps the Amish people very busy, that was clear. Of our two Amish visits (one here in PA, and the other in Ohio), we found the Ohio location to be a bit nicer – further from major population areas, more buggies on the road, etc. Both were nice, but that was our general feeling.

After our time with the Amish, the weather forecast was calling for increasingly hot temps, so we decided to rent an AirBnB in Philadelphia to get out of some of the heat. We found what turned out to be a nice place in “Old Germantown”, and made our way into the city. One thing we constantly have to be watching for is if places have suitable parking for our van – ideally something off the road, and big enough to accommodate a fairly large vehicle. Thankfully this place had off road parking (not easy to find in big cities), was close to public transit, included a washer/dryer, and was just a really nice place to stay. We enjoyed our time in Philadelphia, and spent one day going downtown to visit the Liberty Bell, and to look around the city. Unfortunately, it was so hot that walking around was not as nice as if the weather had cooperated – we found ourselves ducking into various buildings just to beat the heat! We did enjoy looking around, and learning a bit more about the history that unfolded in that area.

We also got a few errands taken care of – namely getting the van in for a routine oil change and lube. We also ended up having the rear brakes replaced, which wasn’t too surprising given the miles we have put on, and the weight of the van. We also had a nice visit with Karen’s daughter Ashley and her husband David and kids. They just happened to be in the area, so we met at a small Mediterranean place and enjoyed getting some lunch on yet another hot day!

After our few days in Philadelphia, we headed to the Promised Land state park for some camping and paddling. The weather had eased off a bit, and we had a couple nice nights at this campground, on what turned out to be a nice spot to paddle.

Our break from the weather was a bit short-lived, and we ended up going to one more bed and breakfast in a small town called Stanhope, NJ. We were in a small room, but had the run of the house and made ourselves comfortable for an evening, just catching up on some internet time, and getting out of the heat.

At this point, we were coming up on our trip to Iceland! We decided to spend our last couple of nights before the trip in another campground in New Jersey. It turned out to be a nice place, but buggy in the woods! It was a peaceful place which seemed a bit odd knowing that we were only about 50 miles from New York City. We got a few of our last minute chores done before our Iceland trip, and Mona spent time planning “down the road” for our time next winter. More on that to come, but suffice it to say that the planning part of traveling never ends!

We also hit our 1 year anniversary as van lifers (7/25/2022). It’s hard to believe that a year has gone by. We’ve covered a lot of ground, and a lot of states, and we feel extremely lucky to have been able to do something like this! We enjoy everything that comes with our travels – seeing new places, trying new food (ahem, too much at times), meeting new people, and just having the flexibility to do things we could never do if we were working full-time. We’re excited about the next year coming up as well!

This blog post picks up where we last left off in Cocoa Beach, Florida. After a nice visit with Adam and our time starting to draw to a close in Florida, on a whim we decided to see if there were any cruises that left from that area that would work with our upcoming schedule. We had seen quite a few ships off the coast, and I had never been on a cruise ship before. It sounded like something fun to do, even if it did border on the impulsive!

Sure enough – Mona found two cruises that would work, and we ultimately decided on a Carnival cruise that went to three islands, and would be out for about a week. It had a stateroom with a small deck overlooking the ocean, and the price seemed pretty reasonable, so… we did it! We did have to get a last-minute COVID test (which came back negative), so that Sunday morning found us in line waiting to get on our cruise ship – along with about 3,000 other people (the ship was quite full).

We started off by exploring the ship – I don’t know the dimensions, but it had about 12 floors, and a wide variety of “venues” both inside and outside. They clearly strive to keep things entertaining and light, with of course a ton of focus on the food and drink side of things! And, we clearly saw that many people on the ship were there to EAT!

We got a quick workout in Sunday night on the ship, which was equipped with a nice workout facility – and not in much demand based on the fact that nearly no one was there! It was located in the high front of the ship, which is a pretty ideal location for looking around, etc. Late that night, Mona started to develop a bit of a cough, and by morning it was getting worse. To make a long story short, Mona ended up spending a large majority of our cruise in our stateroom, quite sick. Bad cold-type symptoms, along with some chills, aches, and pains. It wouldn’t be until weeks later that we started to realize that it may have been COVID, despite our negative test from just one day prior. More on that shortly.

With Mona largely laid up, I found myself exploring the ship, working out regularly, and spending quite a bit of time on my computer. Life on the sea was relaxing in many ways, with no cares around meals, where to park, where to get water, keeping up with chores, etc. Our room was conveniently located just a few floors from the main buffet restaurant, where I could easily get food for Ramona and myself, etc. The first island we reached, we decided to just stay on the ship. It was going to be a bit of an ordeal to get off with throngs of other people, and Mona was not feeling well at all.

After another day on the ship, we did get off on Grand Turk island for a look-around. We were lucky enough to find a guy that rented us a golf cart, which was a great way to get around the smallish island. We found Mona some cold medications, and then found a nice beach were I tried my luck at snorkeling. Mona hung out on the sand, and I went in search of ocean life, but with very limited success. Grand Turk was an interesting place – a small economy centered largely on the tourist trade, given the port there for several cruise lines. Life on an island is frequently romanticized, but for most of the people living there, it’s not that simple – there was a lot of poverty to be seen, and I’m sure they’re very dependent on weather and one industry – tourism.

Our next island stop was the Dominican Republic – another beautiful place, but as you start to look around, poverty exists in abundance there as well. Mona decided to stay on the ship as she wasn’t feeling well, and I got off and walked to the nearest village – only a couple of miles. Incidentally, I was the only cruise passenger I saw walking that far. Most people that got off either stayed in a very small spot, or took taxi’s. But… walking is still a great way to truly see a place. I got to the village and tried to discuss life on the DR with a waitress at a restaurant, but between my broken Spanish and her broken english, we didn’t get too far! With that, it was time to walk back to the ship – our port stays were generally fairly short (4-6 hours), so you did not have a lot of time to truly explore.

After the DR, we started the ship journey home – the seas were a bit rougher, but on a boat that size, it would take some truly large waves to really be effected. We made it back to Cape Canaveral without any real incident, through Mona was still not feeling great. We were both a bit surprised that I hadn’t come down with what she had, given how much time we spent in a small state room!

After our cruise was complete, it was time to head down to Savannah, Georgia. We expected it to feel quite a bit like Charleston, but we were honestly a bit disappointed. Staying “in the thick of it” was going to be expensive (and difficult to park the van), so we stayed on the outskirts at a Marriott Courtyard. We made our way into the downtown area for some site seeing and for dinner, but felt like Savannah just didn’t have the charm of Charleston. Nonetheless, we had a nice stay, and Mona was starting to recover a bit more from being sick on the cruise, and we even got in a nice bike ride. We only stayed a couple nights, and then it was time to make our way to Chattanooga, Tennessee.

We arrived in Chattanooga on April 25th, and stayed at a low-key campground out of town that was there primarily for hunters. There were a few other campers, but we didn’t have a problem finding a spot to park and stay. We liked the “vibe” in Chattanooga – we had a nice dinner in the downtown area after we arrived, and then went to a climbing gym that was right in the heart of town. By pure coincidence, we met the parents of a guy that was a coach for the University of Utah’s climbing team back when Drew was on the team, and I’d actually met their son (Casey) a number of years ago! We had a short visit with them, and also had a good time climbing (though our fitness level for climbing made it none too easy).

The following day, we went up an “incline rail” that took us from a lower part of town up to an overlook. After buying tickets, we had a 10 minute ride up a steep slope to get to the top. There was a nice park at the top that spoke of the history around the high point during civil war days, and we had time to walk around and see the city and surrounding areas. After our time doing the incline rail, we spent a bit more time downtown, and then headed to my cousin’s house in Dayton TN. One of the joys of traveling like we are is that we allow time in our schedule to explore and simply look around. There are tons of resources on-line that make finding things easy, especially the more popular things. However, sometimes we’ll come across smaller things that don’t get mentioned nearly as much that are a lot of fun to see.

My cousin Susan, her husband (Jim), and kids live in Dayton, and it just so happened that their youngest daughter was part of piano recital the day we arrived, and we had a chance to go. After her recital we went and parked the van at Jim and Susan’s, and had dinner with them, as well as breakfast the following morning. It was nice to catch up with them and to see where they lived. I had not seen Susan and Jim for many years when they’d made a short stop in Salt Lake City, so it was good to catch up.

From there, it was time to head to the Smokey Mountains! We had several campgrounds in mind, and Ramona had also lined up several hikes for us to do once there. Before getting to the “official” Smokey mountains, we spent a couple nights at the Douglas Headwater campground. We had a nice spot overlooking a very clear, clean, large lake, and also had the chance to get out and do some paddling with the SUP’s. The campground was very clean, and the lake was great for paddling. We had good weather as well, which always makes van life much, much more enjoyable.

We then proceeded to the Cades Cove campground, and ultimately made our way to the Elkmont campground in the Smokies. We spent most of our time hiking while in the Smokies. It was a great opportunity to experience small parts of the Appalachian Trail. The scenery, while pretty, is not as “majestic” as what you experience in a place like Colorado or Utah, but it was still really pleasant. We met a very helpful trail worker one day that gave us some tips on parts of the Appalachian trail to consider for future backpacking, and also met some young people from outside the USA that were out exploring Tennessee. While we enjoyed our time and the scenery in the Smokies, it wasn’t a park that we thought necessarily deserved to be the most visited national park in the United States. The rolling hills and vegetation are nice, and you can certainly enjoy time there, but it doesn’t have the “wow” factor that goes along with so many of the other national parks across the country.

The campgrounds were nice in the Smokies, but not super memorable (as I sit here and write this up more than a month after we were there, it’s hard for me to remember a lot about them).

After the Smokies, it was time to head to Florence, SC to visit my sister, and to prepare for our journey back to Utah, where we planned on first going to Oregon to climb Mt Hood, and then to Hawaii for some time with our kids.

We made it to Lynne and Doug’s place on May 5th, and planned on spending several days there before flying to Utah. Our plan was to leave the van at her place for nearly a month while we were off doing other things. While at Lynne’s, Mona started to have a few more symptoms similar to what she had on the cruise, and chalked it up to allergies from the dogs, and perhaps the vegetation in the area. We enjoyed checking out the new house that Lynne and Doug had built! It’s a great house on some acreage, and a definite upgrade from their previous place. We had a chance to catch up on a few errands, order a fan part for the van, get my hair cut, etc. We also had a chance to visit with Lynne and Doug, and towards the end of our stay, even made it out to a concert starring a number of “b-rated” black soul bands. We were, quite literally, the only white people in the audience, with a gal sitting next to us even asking us if we were OK (I’m sure she thought we were crazy). It was a fun night, and a chance to experience some culture that we don’t often come in contact with.

Alas it was time to fly to Utah, and Ramona was ready to escape her allergies. I was starting to feel a bit “off” as well. Doug was good enough to drive us to Columbia, SC where we had a flight to Salt Lake City. By the time our flight landed in SLC, I was starting to wonder if all we had were allergies… We decided to rest up that first night in Salt Lake, hoping to sleep off whatever was ailing us. Unfortunately, the next day wasn’t much better. As we knew we were going to be seeing Ramona’s parents after climbing Mt Hood, we decided to take a COVID test just to be on the safe side. After waiting just seconds for the in-home tests to complete, we learned what was ailing us… COVID. We made it a long time through the pandemic without contracting the nasty stuff, but our turn had finally arrived.

This put an immediate kink in our plans to climb Mt. Hood in just a few short days. Based on how we both felt, it was unclear if we could even accomplish the climb, not to mention the fact that we would have been exposing others in the process. We made an easy (but hard) decision to cancel our plans for the climb, and managed to find a condo up in Park City where we could hunker down for a week and work on our recovery.

The condo we stayed in was very close to the Park City Ski Area, and came complete with a hot tub. As this was off season for Park City, it was a quiet place to say, and we were able to rest and recuperate without coming in much contact with many people. I managed to run several times, but between the elevation and COVID, it felt like I was doing more harm than good even trying to exercise. We honestly didn’t do much – we caught up on a little TV watching, read, and did a lot of Sudoku puzzles! There’s not a lot to write about, other than to say that by the time we were due to leave, we were feeling better, and had a high level of confidence that we were no longer contagious.

After getting everything packed up from the Park City condo, we headed up to Rexburg on May 20th for a short stay with Ramona’s parents. We both enjoy our time with Don and Marsha. For me, it’s a bit like going home to a small town where farming is still a big part of life, and the community takes on a different feel as compared to the big cities. It’s alway very nice to hear the latest Rexburg news, and to catch up on things. We made it out to Don’s farm, and also went to see the house Marsha grew up in, as it will not be there for much longer (Marsha and her siblings sold their home place last year). We spent some time catching up, and also had a chance to see Amy and Eli for Sunday lunch.

From Rexburg, we made our way down to Bluffdale to see Stephanie and Dan. We had dinner with them (along with Ally, Cory, Jack, and Adam), and the next day it was time to depart for Maui! Thankfully both Mona and I felt like we’d largely recovered from Covid, though we both felt like we’d lost some level of fitness from having to sit around and do very little for an extended period.

On Maui, I’d arranged to do a downwinding run with a well-known SUP racer (Connor Baxtor). I was excited for the run. Mona decided to sit it out as she still was not feeling strong, and the downwinding run is not something you can easily bail out of once you’re out on the ocean. We met Connor at the launch point, and he turned out to be a very nice guy that had some great paddling advice for me. The run was hard – one of the hardest things I’ve done in quite some time. It was likely some combination of having had COVID (the big thing), Connor pushing me to move faster to really leverage the waves, and me repeatedly falling with the race board I was on. By the time we’d finished, I could not consistently stand up, and was forced to my knees. That in turn rubbed the skin off the tops of my toes, so by the time we got out of the water, I was a bit of a mess. A good lunch helped, and we decided to enjoy a drive around Maui as a way to just relax and enjoy the island.

Our first drive had us driving around the island counter-clockwise, up to Kahakuloa. We found a small shop (more of a house, really) to get some banana bread and shave ice, where we visited with a woman that had lived on Oahu literally streets away from where Ramona grew up. As we made our way around the island over to Kanapali and Lahaina, we felt a bit drawn to the north-east part of the island. It’s not overrun with the tourism scene, and also is quite green and beautiful. In addition to those things going for it, it’s also close to some things we love to do – downwinding, kite surfing, beaches, and not even that far away from some mountain biking. Add in that it’s not very far from the airport, Costco, and other things that are very handy, and it just felt like a good place to perhaps explore a few properties. We’re not in the market to buy anything quickly, but… it’s always fun to look.

That night we found a few interesting things to go look at the following day, and Grant also had a place he thought we should look at. We found an empty lot that we really liked as we drove around north of Wailuku. It was a very unique place with stunning views and no close neighbors. It was 7.4 acres, so this was not just your typical residential lot in an existing neighborhood.

We were lucky enough to contact a realtor on short notice that took us on a tour of the property. We liked it well enough to get excited about it, and started to form a list of questions we’d have to answer before getting too serious about it. The item that bubbled to the top of the list was a building assessment – a way of understanding just what could be built on the place, and what it could entail. The realtors put us in contact with a builder that they thought could help us out, and… he was willing to do just that, but was going on vacation for 2 weeks, so we’d have to wait. As this blog is largely chronological, we’ll come back to this a bit later.

One other thing we did on Maui was take the ferry over to Lanai for a few hours. It was fun to see another one of the islands and one that Mona had never been too. We hung out on the beach, did a short hike and walked around the Four Seasons, then back to Maui.

After Maui, it was time to head to Kauai and meet the kids! We made it to Kauai via a short flight on Southwest, and our first stop was… Costco! Costco can always be a bit of a life saver for us – food and staples are almost always priced quite a bit better than the grocery stores, and with 3 boys, we knew we’d need quite a few things! After stocking up at Costco, we made our way up to Princeville. Kauai is truly a beautiful island. The landscape and the greenery are truly stunning. It reminded both Mona and I of our time there a few years ago when we backpacked the Napali coast, and we were glad to be back to spend a week in such a rich tropical setting. We made it to the condo we were staying at and we were very happy with what we found. The condo had a big kitchen, plenty of living space, nice rooms, and also some beach items that we could use, including a surf board. No sooner had we gotten settled into the condo, and it was time to drive back down to the airport and pick up the kids.

After picking up Adam, Jack, Carmen, and Drew from the airport, we made it back to Princeville and planned on spending some time at the beach the following day. The day after traveling is sometimes a bit “sluggish” since it’s a long haul over to Hawaii, and the time zone change always seems to leave a person just a bit off. We spent some time at the beach just hanging out, and also did some surfing and boogie boarding. We didn’t have very big waves, but it was still fun to play in the ocean.

We also hiked up to the amazing Hanakapai’ai waterfall on the trail that leads into the Na Pali coast. It was hot, and just far enough in that we were feeling pretty sweaty and dirty by the time we made it. The water was cool, and swimming over to and under the waterfall was a real treat! We spent some time at the waterfall before making our way back to the trail head. Hiking in the jungle is always a nice mix of beauty and sweat! We still felt mildly weak from our bout with COVID, and the walk in felt like a full day. Everyone had a good time.

On another day, we took a boat ride out to the Napali coast that departed from the west side of the island. The ride out was beautiful, as we had a chance to see the coast from the ocean, and we were also lucky enough to see quite a few dolphins. We had a small(ish) private boat, and had great weather on the day we went out. We were able to go into some of the caves that exist as you get to the “heart” of the Na Pali coast, and learned more about the ecosystem from our boat captain. We managed to get some good pictures of the coast, and on the way back we stopped at an excellent snorkeling spot abundant with wildlife. We swam with dozens of turtles, and really had a nice time in the water before making our way back. The tour took the better part of a day, and was well worth the cost and time it takes to drive to the other side of the island.

We also had a chance to go up to Waimea Canyon and did some site seeing in that area. As we were relatively close to the sugar monument Ramona’s dad oversaw, and we stopped so the kids could check that out, and did just a bit of shopping in town.

Our time in Kauai went by fast. We also managed to do a bit of running, snorkeling, and site seeing around Princeville, and everyone had a good time just relaxing and being on a fairly open and flexible schedule. Kauai can feel like a small island, but its beauty makes up for the small size. As our week came to a close, we got the kids back to the airport for a morning departure, and then went back to the condo to get everything wrapped up, and to check out. We had all day to bum around the island, as our flight did not depart until that evening. As usual, the flight back to LA was long, and the cabin was cold! Mona was cold the entire time, but did manage to sleep a little bit. We had a very long haul for the return, as we were heading all the way back to Columbia SC, where Doug had graciously volunteered to pick us up. By the time we made it to Lynne’s house the following evening, we were ready for a long sleep. Mona was surprised when she slept in to 1:00 the next afternoon!

Early March saw us continuing our trek in the south, and slowly making our way further east.  On March 2nd, we managed to make it to Jackson Mississippi.  I was napping on the way in – our drive over from Hot Springs AK was 3 or 4 hours, and it was a good time to take a bit of a nap! Mona commented on the fact that the city felt a bit poor – though perhaps that was a function of the roads we were on. We stayed at a place called LeFluers Bluff State Park which was pretty much right in the city.  It was a nice place, and right in town, where we even managed to see a few baby gators!  We also checked out a civil rights museum, as this is definitely a place with lots of civil rights history.

On Thursday (March 3rd), we went to a “house” referred to as the Auburn House, which is really more of a mansion in Natchez that was owned by a wealthy doctor with many hundreds of slaves.  We got a great tour of the house from an older man that clearly had put some work into researching the house and the people of the time.  They had a significant number of items in the house from many years ago as well – furniture, paintings, etc.  It was crystal clear that it was a time of the “haves” and the “have nots”.  There was essentially nothing remaining from the hundreds of blacks that brought so much wealth to people like this mansion owner.  But for the wealthy, furniture and other household items still exist, not to mention detailed accounts of their history.  After the tour, we didn’t even have to move.  We had arranged to stay in their small parking lot, and when the place cleared out after the tour, it was almost like having the place to ourselves.  We went for a run, and enjoyed a quiet night – not in the mansion, but next to one!  A mansion like this, and touring it, is definitely worth while.  It’s a glimpse into what life would have been like, and… not that many years ago in the grand scheme of things.

We continued our stay in Mississippi on Friday and made our way around Natchez – we stayed out at a campground right next to the Mississippi river on the Louisiana side, which gave us a real chance to see the river and just have a bit of time. I mustered up enough energy to run across the bridge over the Mississippi, letting me run “across states” in a pretty remarkable setting.  I had the side of the bridge to myself, as there was no foot traffic. We also toured a place in town where slaves were once auctioned away to the highest bidder…. With a muffler shop now right across the street.  We certainly experienced a blend of old history that saw lots of pain and suffering.  And then modern day life where mufflers have to be changed and autos need to be repaired. Life through the generations keeps on chugging.  Sadly, in many cases it’s a step forward and another step backward.  As we’re doing this part of our trek, the war in the Ukraine continues to rage, and for reasons that seem marginal at best.  The struggles continue.

It was time to head to Lousianna, and our next day found us making our way to Baton Rouge.  It was a fairly short drive, and we were lucky enough to find a small town along the way with a farmers market and a nice restaurant to enjoy.  A person on the street in Natchez told us we should check out the town, and sure enough, it turned out to be a nice side event.  We’ve gotten some good ideas from people as we travel regarding things to see, where to go, what they like, etc.  Being friendly with people has helped, and in general, most of the people we’ve engaged with have been welcoming and friendly.  One random note – for this time of year, and in areas that can no doubt be quite buggy at times, we have experienced very few bugs!  This makes it nice when your outdoors quite a bit of the time.  The odds of this continuing are, I suspect, not too good!

Baton Rouge was fairly busy, and we’d decided to stay in a casino parking lot one night to make finding a place to stay easy.  We found our way to the river casino, and got our bikes out to go check out the city.  We rode to the new capital building (a “mini” version of the Empire State Building is what it reminded us of), and to the old capital building and surrounding area.  As always, checking out an area on bike is a great way to see things you just don’t see from a car.  When it was getting close to dark, we ventured back to the casino, and went in to see just what a river casino was like.  I was expecting windows overlooking the river with some fancy looking furniture and perhaps some music to add to the ambiance.  Nope.  It was like walking in a building with lines of slot machines and a few tables with people playing poker that probably should not have been giving their money away to the house.  We stayed long enough for Mona to win $18 from a blackjack machine, and called it a night.  I expect to hear about that $18 for many months.     Staying in a parking like this is relatively easy for us, with our 200 amp hours of batter, fresh water tank, and grey water tank.  We sometimes get some noise, but the van is remarkably quiet when the doors and windows are closed.  And, if it’s warm and we have the fans running, that keeps outside noise to a minimum as well.  All in all, we can stay pretty comfortable in our small space!  It’s tight and requires a bit of constant organization, but in ways that’s a plus – there’s less temptation to just leave things lay and deal with them later, as things quickly get out of control if you do that!

After Baton Rouge, it was time to head to New Orleans.  We had originally planned on going to Madi Gras in New Orleans, but our late start in January led us to getting there about a week after it was over.  As it turned out, that was likely for the best. With the intense crowds (post Covid pandemic) and Covid still winding down, the idea of being in throngs of people yelling and carrying on – would likely not have been our cup of tea.  And speaking of the pandemic, we still have to deal with it a bit by way of wearing masks and having people check our vaccination cards, but… it certainly feels like even that is starting to wind down.  There will no doubt be new strains and new outbreaks, but for now at least, there’s a sense of getting back to a bit more normalcy as compared to 2020 and 2021.

We knew we wanted to look around the city (Bourbon Street, the street cars, etc.), and we also knew that it was a town known for its restaurants.  What turned out to be a treat for us was where we stayed as well – We had found a bed and breakfast close to downtown that looked like it would have great access to the city, but also the charm of an old New Orleans mansion that would be another nice break from being in the van.  It turned out to be a very interesting place to stay – one of the few B&B’s run by a black man and his wife.  He was nice enough to tell us about some of his history in the town, and his involvment in the civil rights movement – which made the history of the town, and the civil rights era, seem that much more real.  We went to Bourbon Street one day, and honestly we were a bit disappointed – perhaps it was partly because the big party of Madi Gras was just over, but the Street and all that goes with it had a bit of a “tired and old” feeling to it without much of the charm and energy one would have hoped for.  That said, we did find some excellent restaurants where we celebrated Mona’s birthday on multiple occasions!    We had southern food, but also had other things that were very good as well.  The street cars made it easy to get around, and the weather was pleasant for us (compared to some of the cold temps of weeks not too far past).  It was also nice to have a short break from driving the van in a big city, and we had the mansion largely to ourselves, with most of the crowds gone with the end of Madi gras.

After staying in New Orleans about 3 days, it was time to make our way to Biloxi, and on our way there we did go to one more plantation (Whitney) that was presented from a slaves perspective.  As you would expect, the lives of slaves were rough to say the least.  Most dogs today are treated much better today than slaves of the past, and much could be written about slavery, but I’ll leave it at that.

Biloxi is a bit of a blur to me. We didn’t stay long, and had to catch up with some of our everyday tasks as well.  After leaving Biloxi we fairly quickly made our way over to Mobile Alabama, where we ended up spending some time in the Gulf Shores / Orange Beach area. 

Alabama was nice, and for at least the part we were in, it wasn’t really what we expected. The sea shore was nice (endless sand), and the campgroud we stayed in was well kept and… huge!  Certainly the biggest campground I have ever stayed in with hundreds (and hundreds) of camp sites, a pool, laundry, etc., etc.  That said, Alabama was busy! Perhaps it was spring break, but our time there involved lots of traffic, very busy restaurants, etc.  We had one rainy day were we ended up going to a yoga class, and also had good enough weather to ride our bikes on the many bike trails that are in that area (all paved and geared to people just cruising around, as opposed to off-road / mountain bike type trails).  We enjoyed our time in Gulf Shores, and would potentially even consider going back and spending a bit more time there. However, the crowds are a detractor, and the options to do various water spots seemed somewhat limited.  If you’re looking for a place to lay in the sun that’s not Florida, Alabama was actually surprisingly nice for that!

From the Mobile area it was time to head to Montgomery.  As luck would have it, we found a very nice spot on some BLM land to camp on – great views, good internet, very secluded, and we had it all to ourselves.  After dealing with some intense crowds down in the Mobile area, it was a welcome change of pace to have a remote place all to ourselves.  We did a little biking, but really didn’t have a lot of time to hang out and do more.  We did manage to make our way over to Selma, Alabama to cross the bridge that made civil rights history.  The history is there, but unfortunately the town has largely been left behind when it comes to economic prosperity and taking steps forward.  It felt a bit like going back in time, with the town going through a slow motion death for the sins committed by it’s ancestors… It was good to walk across the bridge and experience just what that much have been like all those years ago, but beyond that, you drive away with a bit of melancholy.

At this point, it was time for us to make our way up to Atlanta for a flight to NYC on Sunday, March 20th.  Atlanta was hopping!  Driving around in the van was not easy, but we did manage to go see the Jimmy Carter memorial library on Saturday, and got some chores (ie., laundry) done prior to our flight the next day.  Atlanta is a big place – we barely scratched the surface in terms of really looking around, but in the van, it was a bit difficult to get around.  We were also a bit “distracted” both by having covered a lot of ground in March, and our upcoming Trip to NYC.

We had to set our alarms for an early departure on Sunday – something we’re not used to!  Morning came early, but the shuttle was ready for us, and we made it to the Atlanta airport with plenty of time to spare.  Ramona managed to get us upgraded to first class, which is always a nice way to fly (especially for those of us with long legs!).  We made it to New York without problems, but did bump into a very slow ride from La Guardia to our hotel in mid-town.  It was the running of the New York half marathon, and many streets were closed.  It took us several hours to make it to our hotel, in what would normally be a 40 minute ride (or less)!  Next time we may end up choosing public transportation, but… it was all good.

We made it to the hotel and had dinner with Grant, Vivianna, and Heidi.  We also went to a show starring Sona Jobarteh – she was a singer from Africa, and along with her band, put on a good show.  It was a fairly small venue, which made it nice…  As with Atlanta, New York was busy!  There wasn’t much sign of Covid remaining.  We stayed in a Residence Inn that we really enjoyed.  It was a great location, with a subway stop just yards away, lots of nearby restaurants, and an easy walk to Times Square.

We managed to do a few enjoyable things on Monday – Mona and Heidi went to the museum of modern art, and I walked around Times Square a bit and just took in the sights of New York City.  Grant and Vivianna were busy with making sure all the final details were set for his surgery on Tuesday.  I also managed to run the perimeter of Central Park – it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, and is right at a 6 mile run, so it’s a nice length.  The sidewalks were busy with pedestrians and street vendors, but it was still a very enjoyable run, with close to ideal temps.  Mona ran inside the park where people more traditionally run, and she really enjoyed that.  It’s very nice to have someone to do things like this with – even if we’re not right together every minute, it’s much more motivating and fun to get out together.

Tuesday came quickly – Grant was scheduled for a long surgery when factoring in preop and post op time, so we all made our way down to Wall Street to check out the sights.  It was a nice outing, with the new(ish) subway apps making it easy to find our way around.  Grants surgery went well, leaving all of us relieved and hopefull for a quick recovery on his part!

The next day we ventured out to Roosevelt Island to see the city from a different perspective.  You can take a tram out to the island, and once reaching it, it’s a remarkably peaceful place amongst all the bustle of being right in town. We had lunch, and then went back to the hospital, which interestingly enough was right on the East river across from where we were on Roosevelt Island, where you could literally see exactly where Grant’s hospital room was.  The girls went to visit Grant while I waited outside – visitation is still limited with the whole Covid situation.

We also had a chance to meet up with my cousin Karen and her husband Booker.  We had a very nice dinner at a restaurant very close to Radio City Music Hall, and it was good to both meet Booker, and to spend a little time catching up with Karen after many years of not seeing one another!  Karen has adapted well to living in a big city (over on the Jersey side), and keeps busy with work, church, etc.  Booker has been busy as a pastor as well, and they were both in good spirits.  It would be a very different place to live as compared to somewhere more rural, but people readily adapt, and Booker does have most of his family in the area, which is a nice plus.

As Grant started his road to recovery, we continued to spend some time looking around the city, and even made it to a downtown REI to pick up another duffle bag to replace one that was stolen in Portland months ago.  We walked by the Empire State Building and just got some “roaming around” time in while the weather was nice.  Our time in NYC ended quickly, with both of us feeling like we could have stayed another day or two to just enjoy the city.  Grant was making good progress with walking and dealing with the pain of his surgery, and so we got on a plane back to Atlanta to pick up our van. We didn’t get upgraded on our flight back, but it was still a smooth, uneventful flight, which is always a good thing.  The shuttle was there to pick us up, and thankfully our van was all in good order when we made it back.

After having spent Christmas and New Years down in Phoenix with Ramona’s parents and other family, we started to get ready for our departure to the southeast US.  Our first big milestone in the next leg of our journey was our plan to go to Mardi Gras down in New Orleans, but two things happened that pretty much blew that out of the water.  The first was Omicron – yet another variant of the Corona virus that has proven to be extremely contagious and spreading like crazy (though not as serious as some of the other variants).   Knowing that the crowds can be intense, our desire to attend started to wane.  Alas, that was not the biggest deal breaker…  After having Grant remove an “age spot” that really didn’t look right, we learned that I had an invasive malignant melanoma on my arm, and that I’d need to have that fully removed, along with other possible tests, before leaving Phoenix.  Thankfully Grant knows great doctors down in Phoenix, and would be able to sew me up after the removal.

My procedure went smoothly, but I was left with a 4” incision on my arm that will take over a month to fully heal.  Thankfully, we also learned that it was completely removed, and a genetic test later confirmed that I would not be at high risk of future issues with this form of cancer!  

We were able to make our plans to leave Arizona and head to New Mexico on January 24^th.  Mona reworked our plans for where we wanted to go, and we at last were able to make final preparations to be underway!

The first few days were a bit difficult in the van since my arm was in a bandage, but we did see some very interesting country as we made our way into New Mexico. We drove through Petrified Forest National Park, a very small but interesting park. Our second night consisted of staying on some BLM land that was quite remote (near Gallup, NM), and we woke up to snow the following morning.  In the distance, we could see trucks lined up for miles on the interstate, due to the bad weather and accidents that had occurred.  We hung out in the van for a while, and then continued our journey.

With difficult weather, we decided to stay a few nights at an RV park on the outskirts of Albuquerque NM.  Our stay, while cold, was pleasant.  We saw some interesting sites in Albuquerque – near town was an area to see some ancient petroglyphs.  It was an easy hike, with ancient art done by Native Americans only about a short distance away from encroaching suburbs.  We took in the sites, and also managed to run a few errands that day (making our way to the Fidelity office for some paperwork, etc.).

As is becoming a norm for us, we also found several great restaurants in Albuquerque, and while it may have been cold, we still managed to eat good! We visited a small pizza place in the downtown area, as well as a restaurant that specialized in authentic southwest cuisine (both of which were very good!)

As our days in Albuquerque came to a close, we made the drive north to Santa Fe and Los Alamos.  With it being so cold, we decided to “cheat” a bit, and stayed at a La Quinta Inn in Santa Fe.  We managed to visit a farmers market, and also saw some interesting artwork at various studios in the Santa Fe area.  We also went to a very “artistic house” referred to as Meow Wolf, where there were all types of rooms to explore and look at some wild artistic work.  It really is a unique experience, and a few of these places are starting to show up across the country.  It was quite busy, especially with the younger crowd there on dates, etc.  Santa Fe had a nice vibe to it, and we once again found plenty of great places to eat!

We were now nearing the end of January – it was hard to believe the first month of the year 2022 was already gone!  We started to make our way to Los Alamos, and Ramona found a very nice campground for us to stay at not too far from the relatively small town.  I should mention that Ramona has spent many hours planning and searching for the best places to stay, get water, and adventure.  It has taken much more time than I think either of us realized to find good places to stay, and things to do that we both enjoy.

We spent a little time hiking near the campground at a location called Bandelier National Monument – the cave dwellings were quite amazing, and there was plenty to see as we hiked – we still weren’t going too crazy, as I was still nursing my arm slowly back to health.

We stopped at the Bradbury Science Museum on our way out of Los Alamos which focused on some of the scientific past that unfolded at Los Alamos. With our tour of the museum completed, we headed towards White Sands National Monument.

White Sands is probably best known as the first nuclear bomb detonation location, but in reality, you can only go to that spot once or twice a year.  You can go to other parts of the monument where the white sand drifts for miles and miles – it’s quite a surreal place.  We spent some time hiking through the dunes and then decided to head towards Carlsbad.  

Once again, our best laid plans got somewhat derailed – this time by weather.  We stayed at a small mountain campground where we set up in the snow, in near zero-degree (Fahrenheit!) weather.  The night was cold, which meant water froze up, our furnace started to act up, and our battery charger was not working. Ramona spent a frazzled night, and we packed up early in search of warmer weather.  

Once we made it to the small town of Carlsbad, we knew we still had several days of cold weather to endure.  We found a very unique hotel that was once an old bank in the center of town with a great restaurant, and made a quick decision to spend the night there.  We weren’t sorry!  The room was warm, and even had an old walk-in safe that once upon a time undoubtedly saw all types of bustling activity.  After a warm night, and a nice warm breakfast “in the bank”, we decided to forego the cavern and head to Big Bend Texas.  We knew we’d find warmer weather, and had a number of things in mind to do while in the large national park of Big Bend.

For our first couple of nights in Big Bend, we stayed in the Rio Grande village campground.  Perhaps the biggest challenge of this campground?  No internet!  As you travel, you realize that good connectivity can make a lot of things much easier to do, and… more enjoyable.  I watch the markets (arguably too much), Ramona watches the news, and we both use it to check out maps, look at things to do in the area, etc.  Bottom line – we use, and enjoy, the internet quite a bit as we travel!  That aside, the campground was nice, and not near as cold as where we’d come from.

We finally managed to use our bikes a bit – for me it was my first real time on the new bike I’d bought after having my other bike stolen.  It was fun to get out and ride some of the dirt roads in the park. We also spent a day making our way to Mexico via the international ferry!  And yes, it’s a row boat that takes you across a very small Rio Grande river to a small town in Mexico that is pretty much built around tourism.  We had lunch, checked out the sights, and made our way back over to the USA, all in under a couple of hours.  It was nice to get back over to Mexico and enjoy lunch and the sites.

After a couple days on that side of the park, we made our way over to the Chisos Basin area in the park.  This area was more mountainous, and again we stayed in a nice campground – this time with internet!  There was a restaurant in Chisos Basin, but apart from the restaurant, gas station, and campground, you are quite remote from anything (both on the US and Mexican side of the park). We got some good hiking in, including a hike up Emory Peak.  While arguably not a hard hike (2,500 feet of vertical, and about 10 miles round trip), it seemed pretty tough given that we have not been doing many hard physical things!

We also spent a night out at a very remote campsite (Paint Gap #1), where we literally had the high desert to ourselves.  We really enjoyed our time in Big Bend, and like most of the places we’ve visited, we were sorry to go.

Monday, November 8^th of 2021 saw us making our way to Yosemite, and compared to when we were last here to climb half dome in prime park season, it’s a totally different place!

The weather up north in Washington and Oregon was getting chilly, and indeed it’s a bit cool in Yosemite as well. But it was time to start making our way slowly south to run from the cold, and to be in Phoenix for Thanksgiving and Mona’s dads 90^th birthday celebration.  

Yosemite felt much different with smaller crowds as compared to summer prime times.  That said, the campgrounds were still nearly 100% full (although several were closed for the season), and we had to change our campsite spot at least once just to stay here for a few days.   At least there weren’t traffic jams and people crammed into the camps like rats on a ship…

On Tuesday we hiked up to the upper Yosemite falls to see the impressive sight of the falls, which were running for us given recent wet weather.  The hike up was not easy!  Lots of switchbacks, and a pretty steady incline means that this hike is rated as “difficult” by most hikers.  The cool weather made it enjoyable, and we were rewarded with some excellent views of the falls, and very few crowds to contend with.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, from the top of the falls one can keep going and make it to the top of El Capitan.  Ramona wasn’t sure she was interested in doing that (quite a few more miles of hiking, and more vertical to be gained), but it was something I was excited to do the next day!

After getting up early and having a little breakfast (and a few Motrin for good measure), Ramona dropped me off for my El Cap ascent.  Hiking it is of course nothing like climbing the face, but you still have to complete the vertical, and I wanted to push hard enough to complete it under 3 hours (the ascent anyway).  It turned out to be a great day to hike  – once reaching the top of the falls, there was no one on the trail – it meant breaking through a bit of snow, but I had the mountain to myself, which seemed surprising given the notoriety of the mountain.  The upper hike is very nice – it flattens out, and one can enjoy the scenery without quite so much effort required to take every step.  After losing the trail a couple times (snow), I made it up to the summit area, and carefully eased my way over to the “edge” where climbers make their way to the actual summit.  Peering over the precipice leads to a great appreciation of just what is required to climb the face – even the “easier” routes would be a huge undertaking.  I saw no one – just the mountain and myself on the summit.  I found some hidden water bottles, and a few other remnants of supplies and things people likely cached, only to never make it back up the wall to retrieve their items.  The hike down was nice – I made good time up (under 3 hours), and was able to hustle down to meet Ramona at the base.  Mona did a hike across the valley as well, and enjoyed all the great sights from a different vantage point.  We celebrated by going to the “fancy” hotel (the Awahnee) located in the valley and having some good (and of course overpriced) food.  We found a table, and were able to enjoy the completion of a very adventurous day.

We took it much easier on Wednesday – after two hard hiking days, it was time to relax a bit and just look around.  Nothing crazy…  The Park was still relatively quiet, which was very nice.  The campground continued to be busy, but had a relaxed feel to it with people out seeing the sights and staying warm in the cool temperatures.

After our adventures in Yosemite, it was time to head to Fresno, slowly making our way to our next climbing destination and to AZ.  We looked around Fresno a bit, and ultimately decided to stay at a Harvest Host location that was, effectively, a parking lot and restaurant they encouraged you to eat at.  The locals were having a sing-in that night, and we enjoyed our time listening to them, and having a couple very large burgers.  And speaking of burgers…. Our time traveling has not been a great thing for our waist lines.  It’s too easy to eat, and too easy to make excuses to not work out!  We have our moments of being pretty disciplined, but we have days of enjoying the local dishes!

After Fresno, we headed up to Kings National Park and luckily found a nice camp spot in a campground largely closed, but with a few spaces (and water) still open and available.  We checked out some more amazing trees and did a little bike riding.  We’ve had a chance to see so much that it’s easy for things to start blurring together (even though almost everywhere we’ve been has had many things to offer).

After spending a couple “casual” days in Kings Park, we made our way down to Palm Springs CA to hobnob with the rich and famous…. 

We landed in an RV park in Palm Springs that had some amenities – namely a warm pool and a large hot tub.  There were quite a few older people at the park, but very few were using the pool or anything else in the park for that matter….  On our first evening, we went up a local tram that offered some amazing views of the surrounding valley.  Once again, we also found some good restaurants to maintain our waist line inflation running strong.

We spent some time on one of our days in Palm Springs going out to a true palm springs oasis.  It was fun to once again see the level of diversity that can be found.

Sadly, right before we were to leave our RV park, one of our bikes was stolen off the back of our van – when we were in the van sleeping!  We knew some of this could happen, but you never really expect it when it does.  Thankfully they got the cheap bike, and nothing else got vandalized or stolen.  We collected a few insurance dollars for it, and will be on the lookout for another bike for me…

Next up was Joshua Tree, which is not very far from Palm Springs.  We had heard that good camp spots can be hard to find in the prime climbing areas, so we weren’t quite sure what to expect.  Thankfully, since we got to the area at a good hour in the day, we found a good site without any problems.  We also “wheeled and dealed” a bit to get a nearby spot on the following day when our neighbors were leaving.  We spent the first day looking around, and going on a good hike in the park.

The next day was a day of climbing with our guide from Devil’s Tower.  Just he and I went out the first day, and we had a great time on the smooth, slabby faces that Joshua Tree is well known for.  We did a bit of hiking to get to a few places, and never had crowds to contend with.  Adam had made it to the park and he and Mona spent the day site seeing. Jack got in that night for a big climbing day the next day.

Greg (our guide) had a great spot lined up for us on our full climbing day, and he had already gotten some gear in place before we met him early in the morning.  We got right to it, and found a great mix of climbs that kept all of us challenged.  After many climbs and some sore fingers, we wrapped up our day and left for Phoenix.  The climbing in Joshua was good – lots of friction climbing on slabby faces that would, on first appearances, appear to be unclimbable.  The rock is clean and sharp, and with good shoes you can work up near vertical slabs if you can figure out how to trust your feet!

With Phoenix and Thanksgiving not far away, it was time to head out, where we knew we’d have a break from the van and time living on limited water.  And how is life in the van?  Good!  It takes good organization skills and a level of constant planning if you are going to be on the move, but if you plan ahead and figure out where to get water, it gets easier as time quickly flies by.  Our power situation seems to be largely worked out (everything works!), and while we don’t go crazy with running the microwave, etc., we never run out of power now.  And… our new water gauge helps us know exactly where we stand on water so we can fill up accordingly (typically a campground, a park, a gas station, or a few things in between (e.g., fire stations, etc.).

It’s hard to believe, but it’s already October of our first year traveling – time does go by fast!  This week we made our way to Pescadero, CA.  The coast of California is very pretty, and being able to see things on weekdays makes things easier – fewer crowds, less traffic, etc.

Pescadero is a small town with exorbitant prices!  Gas was over five bucks a gallon (the rest of the country is averaging around 3.75), and a burger was eighteen bucks at a little restaurant we encountered.  That said, there were better deals to be found – we ate good Mexican food in a gas station where the working class likely goes out – places like this tend to feel more authentic, and give a person a better perspective on the place and its people.  We stayed on a small “farm” run by a woman and her husband.  They grew berries that people could come pick when in season – of course for us, it was too late in the year, but it was still a nice play to stay.  I ran some in a cold wind, and Ramona and I did some biking out in the country.  All in all, our stay at Pescadero was nice, but not something I’d rush back to do.

After a few days in Pescadero, we made our way up to Moss Beach, which is just south of San Francisco.  We stayed in a driveway of a home just off the beach – a fellow van lifer that was very friendly and helped us out a bit with a few tools.  We did some biking, and then Ramona went to Andrea’s 60^th birthday party up north of San Francisco.  While Ramona was gone, I *finally* figured out why our battery charger was not consistently working and got that fixed.  I also worked a bit on being able to keep some things outside the van (e.g., our flexible sewer hose), but scrapped my plans after realizing that what I would come up with could end up coming loose or breaking while we were driving.  After a couple of days at Moss beach, it was time to head up to Dillon beach and pick up Ramona.

Next up was Patricks Point campground, where we explored the Redwoods.  It was nice to get out of the crowds and the city, and back up to a much quieter area.  Since we are now well into the shoulder season for many areas, finding places to stay, and traveling in general, is much easier.  As with the central coast of California, we saw some very beautiful things and enjoyed the scenery.  California is a nice place to visit and explore – living in many of the areas would be quite expensive, and the benefits to be had by living in California don’t seem to be worth the associated cost.  Maybe one day that will change, but for now, it’s hard to see living in the state.

After a couple days in northern CA, it was finally time to leave the state behind and head to Oregon.  We stayed at Bandon beach and found both a nice place to run, as well as a nice lighthouse to check out.  There were a few people around, but we’ve definitely gone from having a hard time finding places to stay, to having a much easier time!  We still have to pay attention to where we’re going to find water (many of the places have their water turned off for the year), but it hasn’t been too bad.  Now, with knowing that we have power, we feel that much more confident in being effectively off the grid.

Next we stayed on Cape Lookout near Tillamook.  It’s a beautiful place with wide sandy beaches and sparse crowds. We explored a bit and could certainly tell that the temps were starting to change.  The heater in the van is a nice fall-back, and we used that occasionally to take the edge off if it ever got too cool.

It was finally time to head to Portland and do a few things that we wanted to get done in Portland – namely an additional solar panel for the van, and a water gauge so we could better tell exactly where we’re at when it comes to water.  We reached Van Specialties and explained what we wanted to have done.  After some reservations on their part as to whether they could get things done for us, they finally calmed down a bit, and we left the van with them for a long weekend.  We drove into Portland where we spent our first night downtown.  We did a little shopping our first night, walking over to an REI located in the downtown region – the downtown area has dealt with some major blows leaving it feeling a bit like a ghost town; a serious homelessness problem made worse with Black Lives Matter protests and rioting; offices largely shutting down due to COVID, and then not wanted to deal with some of the potential violence still happening downtown.  It didn’t exactly feel threatening, but it did have a rather eerie feeling being so shut down.  Some of the local businesses have really taken a beating, there’s no question (think restaurants, etc.).

After a night downtown, the next day we went and picked up Adam and his girlfriend Kelsie, and then made our way back out to the Oregon coast to a small town called Seaside.  We had a nice condo to stay in, and got checked in late that evening without any problems.  The next day, we got up and headed out to do some crabbing.  It was cool and a bit rainy, but we had a good time renting a small motor boat, three baited crab pots, and getting our crabbing permits.  We spent a morning chasing crabs – lots of small ones were caught in our pots, and we ended up with 3 keepers which we promptly took back and fixed at the condo.  The girls weren’t so crazy about the crab, but we all had fun going out and doing something we’d never done before!  We managed to warm up that afternoon, and did just a bit more sightseeing before the day was done.

The next day we drove down to Oceanside, braving some truly fierce winds along the way – so much so that a few storm chasers were even out measuring the power of the gusts.  We had a nice lunch in Oceanside, and liked it well enough to seriously consider coming back at some future point and actually spending a month there – rent a small place on or near the coast, and just enjoy the area – biking, surfing, maybe some more crabbing! 

We made our way back to Portland that evening where we stayed in a house that we’d rented for 2 nights.  I went to an Instacare to have my pinky finger checked out (I hurt it surfing, and even after a month it was still bugging me – it checked out find), and Ramona, Adam, and Kelsie did some more site seeing.