We’re on the road again! We were getting itchy to move a few weeks ago, said our goodbyes to newfound friends and Pickleball players, and packed up!
We’re slowly making our way through Georgia, staying at State Parks, looking for Pickleball and exploring. It feels good to be back on the road, seeing new scenery, wandering through small towns.
A few last pictures of Port St. Joe:
Camphor Tree, think Vicks VaporRubCypress TreeWisteria Vine…very old!Long Leaf PineDrone used to SurveySharing Peanuts
We visited Doerun Pitcherplant Bog in Moultrie GA- another one of those hidden gems. Check out the pics:
Well, another month has passed. Life is pretty chill here, so we barely notice the calendar moving along. Although, the weather has been all over the place- cold, windy, hot, muggy, rainy….but NO snow, so it’s just fine.
We are officially Florida residents now- for our legal domicile- it was easier than going all the way back to South Dakota in May to renew our driver’s licenses. Like our cool Conserve Wildlife Bear Plate?
Pickleball, trap shooting, walking the beaches…same ol’, same ol’.
Mergansers and Ibis are frequently just off our shore area; white and gray herons and egrets are plentiful, too and the stray eagle. Learned about Greater and Lesser Scaup from a birder at the beach.
Lizards are out in full force, so as we sauntered along a boardwalk on a hot and muggy day; the lizards gave us pause, although they don’t hang around long for a pic.
We also saw dozens of this creepy critter in the canal here- Sea Hare Slug. We showed this photo to two charter captains we know and they didn’t have a clue what it was.
There have been huge forest fires (and neighborhoods burned down and/or evacuated) in Panama City, as well as north and west of here. The fuel is standing dead pine trees from Hurricane Michael in 2018- THOUSANDS of standing dead trees! We are fine here, more humid and swampy along the very coast. Heading slowly north the end of the month.
Moonrise on the right at sunset, and moonset on the left at sunrise.
And for those of you who can not get enough of beautiful sunsets:
Pickleball, trap shooting, walking the beach, and…..sunsets- many nice sunsets. We have to laugh though- our RV site is just a stone’s throw to the water, so many people come down this way to watch the sunset… and leave a minute or two after sunset, which generally is just a big orange blob dropping below the horizon. THEN, 10-30 minutes later, on an evening when there are a few clouds in the sky, the show really begins- take a look:
Our Camper sits about 50ft. from the shore of St. Joe Bay. We rarely miss a sunset 🙂
Sunny AfternoonNature ShapesSparkly OceanIbis on our Shore
“Founded in 1565, St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European and African-American origin in the United States. Forty-two years before the English colonized Jamestown and fifty-five years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, the Spanish established at St. Augustine this nation’s first enduring settlement.”
We spent a week here doing touristy things:
Nights of Lights- rode a trolley through town with 3-D glasses on- the Old Town is covered in lights and it is amazing, intense, but amazing.
Climbed the St. Augustine Lighthouse- 219 steps up, and oddly enough 219 steps down….just saying.
Spent a day at the Castillo de San Marcos- awesome old fort with a long, long history. The stone was quarried from a nearby barrier island- it is compacted shells, over thousands of years, called coquina stone.
And found a place to play pickleball and camped right across the road from the beach.
Suwannee River State Park before getting to Port St. Joe for the winter- lots of history in this small park.
Spent time at Lake Greenwood State Park and Calhoun Falls State Park. Played some good Pickleball in Greenwood with some great folks. Visited some local sites.
Ninety Six Star Fort- first southern Revolutionary War battle.Diamond Hill Mine- quartz crystal prospecting.Found a few decent crystals digging around in the dirt.Elberton, GA Granite Capital of the World. Cuts show North Star and sunrise through the year.A few sights around the area. Wisteria vines strangle trees unless the vine gets cut. NIght lights for the fish.
It has been an interesting and rather intense summer.
The best parts? Seeing friends and family!! Clare’s Mom had a 90th birthday party! Derek swooped in from Utah for a visit.
Living on our land has been a treat! We have a great neighborhood. We bought a boat to keep us still exploring.
We do all of our healthcare appointments when we are here- It’s kind of like vehicle- prevention, maintenance and repairs- we like to think of ourselves as aging like a classic car….just saying.
Our home is under construction! It is a tougher than usual process- every sub-contractor is backed up, every item to order is backlogged, however progress is happening! We’ll come back in May to our new stationary home.
Headed, slowly, to Port St. Joe, FL for the winter, stopping in South Carolina for a couple of weeks, and then a week in St. Augustine.
This blog has been a great journal and record of our travels. We thank all of you who have followed us. In our dotage, we will have this blog to remind us of our adventures. Since things have slowed down and are not so adventurous (really, without Rhylee getting into mischief…) this blog will slowly down as well.
Rhylee has had a great run, a good life and amazing adventures on the road RVing. He aged quite gracefully, however this summer proved to be tough for him. On August 13th, a Friday, Rhylee’s “people” put him to sleep, and we think with his approval.
Choose Rhylee’s part of this blog- Dear Diary- to remember his exploits. He is probably still confused, but that’s Rhylee’s style, and we know he is at peace. We miss him dearly and know that he misses us. And we are glad that after 4 years on the road with us, he made it back to Maine one more time.
We’re back for the summer and fall; living in our camper on our land in Searsport. Busy getting utilites in and up and running, working on house plans, settling in and just sitting back and relaxing.
Rhylee is happy to be in one place for a while and has picked out his observation post under the camper.
We’ve been on the road FOUR years this past week! The journey has always been evolving and so it continues to for so many reasons, and that is not only okay, but a good thing.
Did we do all THAT?
45 states, 9 Provinces and 1 Territory all in the first 2.5 years.
After a visit with Linda’s son Derek in Park City, Utah, we are headed slowly East, back to Maine by the end of June.
Good meals and lots of catching up with Derek- we hadn’t seen him for two years when we met up at Grand Teton NP and Yellowstone. (just one more thing Covid has interfered with). We went shooting, wild west style, out on BLM land where folks just spread out over several miles and shoot towards the sage brush/gravely cliffs. Ammo is in very short supply these days, however we all had saved up a supply to have a good time out there and tried each other’s firearms, learning some new tips from each other. It was a fun day, for sure!
The weather had turned from 90’s in Moab to cold, windy, and….snowy! in this corner of Utah and followed us to our first stop at Green River, Wyoming where our cliff top spot was- cold, windy and snowy! Weather improved as we headed east and an overnight along the North Platte River was quiet and peaceful.
Twin Buttes Res. and North Platte River
Windy, but quiet days at Twin Buttes Resevoir near Laramie. Our last of 33 days boondocking this spring. Memorial Day Weekend- we knew we needed reservations somewhere for a long weekend, so Cheyenne was the place. And it turned out to an interesting place. Terry Bison Ranch- a hand-made standard guage railroad took us out for an up close and personal visit with a few of the 2500 Bison on the ranch.
Made out of scrap metal…very cool.
Big Boy Locomotive- made in 1941 to haul big loads up steep inclines over the Wyoming Rockies to Ogden, Utah.
Cheyenne Botanical Gardens and Conservatory- a lovely respite of green grass, flowers, trees and a tropical atrium.
Lunch at the Bunkhouse Saloon -Beef, of course! This place was a line stop for cattle drivers in 1898 and is still serving food today! The RV park we are in also does BBQ- voted best Ribs in Wyoming! Just had to try them, too.
And sometimes, by chance, you take a really great photo.
We’re on vacation! We do this every now and again- decide to do lots of touristy things, be in places where there are lots of other tourists, and then try to avoid them….
Canyonlands NP- long drives took us into two sections of Canyonlands- spectacular rock formations and views and less people which gave us a few quiet moments to enjoy the vastness.
Four feet, and eyes, looking towards the confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers.
Moab, Utah- the Adventure Capital of the southwest and probably even further afield! This place is full of people, activities, ATVs, people, and why? to see the rock formations! We are glad to see so many people out exploring our National Parks and nature in general, truly, we are 😉 just wish it wasn’t on the days we are out here 🙂 Arches National Park has over 2000 of their own arches- however getting in to see them is a challenge. After a year of being cooped up due to Covid, this area is fuller than ever! They close the park between 9 and 10 every day, once it is full, and re-open it mid-afternoon. We met a couple that hiked to Delicate Arch by 4am and only had about 20 mins before it was bustling- 4AM!! Crazy! Our first day heading to Arches, we got to the entrance at 7:50am and had to wait 30 mins to move up the line to get in. Every parking lot was almost full at every overlook, arch and hike all the way in. We headed to Devils Garden and got one of the last parking places. We hiked to three Arches- Landscape, Pine Tree and Tunnel.
Delicate Arch, Landscape Arch and Pine Tree Arch
North and South Window Arches
Tunnel Arch, Turret Arch and Double Arch
Our second day in Arches we arrive at the entrance at 7:30 and drove right in. However, every parking lot was almost full, except a few less popular ones. We hiked to Turret Arch, North and South Windows, and Double Arch. It was not too crowded here and there was a “primitive” trail to the back side of the windows with fewer people; where we founnd a tiny arch, perhaps unnamed ( an arch only has to be three feet in height, depth or width to be an arch!)
Sheep Head which long ago was part of an arch, and the Three Gossips rumored to be looking down below upon a man
One day we took a Hummer Slickrock Trip- a few times the hummer was pitched at 35 degrees as it climbed up or down these rock formations. It is called slickrock because horses found it slippery, hummers, atvs, dirt bikes and mountain bikes do just fine…most of the time. Our driver/guide was awesome and had lots of info and tales to tell.
And- you can hike to many arches that are not inside the Park- so we headed to Corona Arch one morning, fairly early because the weather had turned HOT, into the 90s! Great hike-which included a cable railing on an edge, a ladder and a set of tiny steps cut into the rock and a cable to pull you up the steep rock. Awesome arch with Pinto and Bowtie along the way and tons of flowers in bloom. This area had a good rain storm about 2 weeks ago and many plants are able to bloom! Wilson Arch is beside the highway- just a short, but very steep climb to stand in it.
Corona, Pint and Bowtie Arches. Wilson Arch on the bottom.
Poor Rhylee’s old age is catching up with him, and so he is very content to snooze in the AC in the camper and take a couple of walks around the campground each day. But we did take him up to the La Sal Mountains and got him groomed while we were here.
Our Home Is Here...Today... 