Tag Archives: Vanlife

Destination: Carolinas

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In this third installment of our recent van trip, we finally reached North Carolina. If you need to catch up on our adventures, check out From Wilmington…To Wilmington… and What Happens In Virginia…

We left the Holiday Inn in South Hill, VA, on Thursday morning, looking to take a walk/run before getting back on the road. We found a pleasant trail called Tobacco Heritage Trail in La Crosse, VA. The first sound to hit my ears there seemed like an unfamiliar birdsong, but after checking with a group of locals on the trail, I learned that frogs were making all that noise. More throaty than the ‘peepers’ we have up north, but not as low-pitched as bullfrogs. They were loud, but seemingly invisible, so no pics of them. We saw a few birds and a very small snake along the rest of the trail.

After walking/running the trail, we got back on the road and continued south, arriving at our friends’ place in Charlotte, NC, around four in the afternoon. Cathy & Don live in a separate in-law apartment on the property of their daughter and her husband. Their RV was parked alongside their garage, so we spent the night parked on the street next to it.

It rained overnight and was still spitting on Friday morning. We spent a quiet day doing laundry, blogging, and visiting with Cathy & Don & their new grandbaby, Evelyn. Around 3 p.m., we followed Cathy & Don in their Tiffin RV down to Andrew Jackson State Park near Lancaster, South Carolina, to camp for a couple of nights.

Cathy & Don were gracious hosts, even while camping. We ate supper in their RV and played cards until late. We taught them how to play Pitch. Team Mark & Cathy beat Team Chris & Don in spectacular fashion. On Saturday, we hiked around the park, found the site of Jackson’s boyhood home and a museum that was open for exactly one hour everyday. We hit it about eight minutes before closing.

Saturday afternoon, the four of us piled into our van and ventured over to Benford Brewing in Lancaster, SC.

From there, we checked out The Dream Chaser’s Brewery in Waxhaw, NC. What a cute little town! Perfect for browsing all the Main St. shops. The only drawback was that the whole town closed its doors at 5 p.m. Oh, well.

We left Andrew Jackson State Park on Sunday morning. On the way back to Charlotte, we stopped at Anne Springs Close Greenway in Fort Mills, South Carolina for some easy hiking.

After all that fresh air and exercise, we headed back to Charlotte, ending the day with 5 p.m. Sunday mass at St. Peter in downtown Charlotte.

We spent one more day in Charlotte, but that will have to wait for my next post. 🙂

What Happens In Virginia…

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If you need to catch up on the first leg of our recent van trip, check out From Wilmington… To Wilmington… We left off in Fredericksburg, VA, on a drizzly Wednesday morning. The rain didn’t last long and we pulled out of the KOA about the time the sun was struggling to come out. We spent the entire day traveling and visiting in Virginia.

On the way to our third Wilmington, we stopped at lovely Lake Anna State Park. We hiked, ate lunch, and enjoyed the view.

When we left Lake Anna, we went in search of the next Wilmington on our list: Wilmington, VA. Having no idea what to expect, we were surprised to find it so obscure that we drove by it at first. This is all we found:

Apparently, Wilmington, VA, is an unincorporated community in Fluvanna County. Several online searches yielded very little additional information. So, we moved on to Richmond.

The two Richmond breweries on the itinerary were The Veil Brewing and The Answer Brew Pub.

At The Veil, Mark finished his tasting with a Double Raspberry Fizzy!

We ate dinner at The Answer, where we picked up a four-pack of a special-release dessert stout, Diablo Forever Coconut.

After supper, we drove south for another hour plus to the Holiday Inn in South Hill, VA. We treated ourselves to hot showers and a room for the night.

In the morning, we headed for North Carolina. Lots more adventures to come… 🙂

From Wilmington…to Wilmington…

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Do you know how many places in the United States are named Wilmington? Don’t know? (Don’t care??) Well, if the Google can be trusted, there are thirteen. And many are in the eastern part of the country. So as we set out from Wilmington, MA, on another van trip, we thought it’d be fun to step foot in a few alternate Wilmingtons along the way.

After spending Monday morning packing the van, we headed west on the Mass Pike, stopping at Wells State Park in Sturbridge, MA, for some exercise.

The fresh air prepared us for a long afternoon of driving through Connecticut and New York, and into New Jersey. After getting past a disabled truck on the George Washington Bridge on-ramp, we watched the sunset over NYC from the bridge’s lower deck.

We arrived at our first campsite in Clarksboro, NJ, after dark and settled in for a cold night. Check out our site number. 🙂

On Tuesday morning, we headed toward Wilmington, Delaware. Not sure what we expected, but it was more city-ish and crowded than our own Wilmington.

After that, we crossed into Maryland, drove through Baltimore, and into Virginia.

We had to Google the three beautiful white towers. Turns out they’re part of a huge Mormon temple in Kensington, MD. In Virginia, we stopped at Tyson’s Corner Center to meet my brother, who lives and works nearby, for lunch.

From there, we drove south to Fredericksburg, VA, and camped for the night. We awoke to light rain on Wednesday morning. I’ll leave you with this image of our morning visitor.

More Wilmingtons and trip highlights to come… 🙂

The Last Leg

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In A Few Birds, Brews, and Friendly Visits, we traveled from Iowa, through Illinois, to Indiana. From Indiana, we entered Ohio.

Columbus, OH, was our target destination — the home of Hoof Hearted (say that out loud a few times) Brewery & Kitchen. Mark had been there before. This time, he sampled Permanent Marker Pen Disguises and Steel Toed Aqua Socks. Yes, those are actual beer names. And he bought a four pack of the Steel Toed Aqua Socks for his sister.

That night, we stayed at the Logan/ Hocking Hills KOA in Logan, OH. The owners were super nice and even upgraded our site to one with a patio. 🙂 Beautiful view of the hills. And we had a surprise visitor: a cedar waxwing in the tree above our patio.

Jamie and Andy recommended that we visit Hocking Hills State Park. A few of our fellow KOA campers also mentioned Old Man’s Cave to us, so we checked it out (in the rain).

We couldn’t find an available campground or Harvest Hosts site that night, so we stayed in a cheap (somewhat sketchy) hotel in Altoona, PA. The next day we were off to Equilibrium Brewery and Tap Room in Middletown, NY.

Our Harvest Hosts site, The Castle Fun Center in Chester, NY, that evening proved to be less fun by night with the constant highway traffic, poor wi-fi, and gently sloping parking lot. However, I did find a family of geese for entertainment.

The next morning felt less like a cross-country road trip and more like just driving home. We headed up the Taconic Highway in NY, then hooked up with Interstate 90 East. Before we knew it, we were back in Massachusetts!

Back in MA, we pulled off the Pike and travelled north to Holyoke for a hike at Mount Tom State Park. Not too many birds to see, but a beautiful butterfly greeted us. And the view wasn’t bad either. We could actually hear cows mooing down below as we took in the view.

We took a detour to Tree House Brewing Company in Deerfield that night where Mark enjoyed some of his favorite brews, while I enjoyed the decor.

We treated ourselves to a nice hotel room in Northampton, MA, and in the morning, dropped by our youngest daughter’s place around the corner to say hi!

Back on the Mass Pike (90 East), we stopped at Tree House Brewing Company’s Charlton location to pick up a beer order for Mark’s siblings who own Knotty Pine Design & Consignment in Hudson, MA. We delivered the beer to Hudson and headed for home.

In case anyone thinks this road trip sounded ideal, please know that I neglected to mention the struggle to regulate the temperature in the van overnight, the frequent Walmart visits for all the things we realized we needed along the way, the oatmeal that boiled over on the induction cooktop right down the front of the fridge to the floor, the prescription driving glasses resting comfortably at the bottom of a marsh somewhere, and the overhead van cabinet that’s coming loose from the wall, among other things. Just thought it appropriate to interject a dose of reality.

All in all, we had quite the adventure. And can’t wait to do it again!

P.S. The line from one of my favorite John Denver songs played in my head. (Ok, I sang it out loud.) Hey, it’s good to be back home again…

A Few Birds, Brews, and Friendly Visits

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In Mountain Views, I mentioned that one of our plans for this van trip was to do some birding. But the weather and our daily routine of driving to the next destination left us less time than anticipated. The day we left Pulpit Rock campground in Decorah, IA, we decided to remedy that.

First, breakfast at Magpie Coffeehouse in downtown Decorah. Apparently, penny mosaics is a thing out here.

We left Decorah and crossed the Mississippi River before noon.

A search for local birding sites brought us to Nahant Marsh Education Center. FYI, it’s pronounced Nay-hant (rhymes with ant), unlike the New England location of the same name.

I pulled my new camera with its new lens out of the travel bubblewrap to try it out. Unfortunately, much more practice and time to adjust the shooting menu are needed. But we saw many red-winged blackbirds there, as we’d already seen just about every day along our route. Plenty of other wildlife, as well. There was even a pair of baby screech owls being rehabbed inside the facility.

That night we camped at Rock Island/ Quad Cities KOA in Rock Island, Illinois. Nice waterfront site.

We got on the road by late morning the next day and stopped for lunch at The Lone Buffalo by Tangled Roots Brewing Company in Ottawa, IL. The food was good, but not much to say about the beer.

After lunch, we crossed into Indiana and headed to a friend’s house in Valpraiso. Chuck and Tiffany and their two boys were perfect hosts. (Thanks for the use of your laundry facilities, Chuck & Tiff.) The boys were coming and going with youth baseball, so we only managed a photo with one of them.

The next day, we landed in Muncie, IN, to visit more cousins. It was great to see Jamie and Andy again and to meet their kids who, by way of their natural curiosity, taught us a few new things about our van.

We brunched with Jamie and family the next morning. My Aunt Janet stopped by, too. Then, we were off again, heading toward Ohio and the next brewery. Hit a bit of traffic on the way.

Little House In South Dakota

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If you’re just joining us, you may want to start at the beginning of our adventures with Maiden Voyage and Whirlwind Visits. When we last checked in, we’d spent a rainy day driving through Custer State Park to Mount Rushmore. Sesame Street’s It’s A Rainy Day played in my head. If you don’t know it, look it up. You’re welcome, in advance, for the earworm.

After Mount Rushmore, we headed for Rapid City, South Dakota, to dine at Firehouse Brewing Company. The food was very good but the beer was nothing to write home about. We bought a much needed warm blanket at Walmart and settled in for the cold, rainy night at a KOA campground in Rapid City.

The next morning, we got on the road early and headed east on Interstate 90. The flat land and endless views offered another song for my internal play list: I Can See For Miles and Miles by The Who. We crossed the imaginary line into Central Time and crossed the Missouri River. There wasn’t much else to see until an Ingalls Homestead sign popped up near De Smet. I was so excited! Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books were some of my favorites growing up. We had to stop.

The buildings on the homestead were all replicas, but the land itself is the land Charles Ingalls homesteaded. The Surveyor’s House and the First School are actual buildings from Laura Ingalls’ childhood. So cool!

We treated ourselves to a hotel room in Sioux Falls, SD, that night with dinner at the local Red Robin. And the next morning we were off again, headed toward Forager Brewery in Rochester, Minnesota. The sun came out! So, of course, the Sesame Street theme song seemed appropriate. Yes, I sang a couple of lines. Sunny day, sweepin’ the clouds away…

At Forager, Mark enjoyed a couple of beers: Antiquated Methodology and Kaleidoscope Kookaburra. He bought two crowlers of the latter on the way out, which he subsequently shared with friends along our route. Sorry, none left to sample when we get home.

We left Forager, aiming for Decorah, Iowa, and another brewery called Toppling Goliath. But guess what popped up before Decorah — another Laura Ingalls Wilder sign! We had to stop. Again. We pulled into Burr Oak, IA, and found the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum.

Decorah and Toppling Goliath were not far Burr Oak. There we touched base with Eric, one of the brewers, whom Mark had met in 2018 on a previous brewery road trip. We ate dinner and Mark ordered a beer flight: DDH Pseudo Sue, King Sue, Scorpious Morchella, and Term Oil S’mores. No favorites among them ’cause they’re all good! He followed that with an Assassin 2022. After dinner, we sat outdoors for well over an hour listening to seventeen-year-old Carter Guse play his guitar and foot tambourine while singing songs from the fifties to the present. He even took requests. Very entertaining!

We tore ourselves away from the music and checked in at Pulpit Rock Campground in Decorah for the night. More adventures in Iowa and beyond coming soon…

More Mountain Views

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Since picking up our new van in Colorado, we’ve been on the road back to New England. To read about the beginning of our journey, check out Maiden Voyage and Whirlwind Visits and Mountain Views.

After leaving Rocky Mountain National Park, we stayed overnight in the parking lot of a small pottery shop in Loveland, CO. The next day we drove from Colorado, through Wyoming and Nebraska, all the way to Hot Springs, South Dakota. The mountains gave way to flat land stretching all around us for miles. The crosswinds tried to shove us off the road a few times, but we prevailed. Dixie Chicks’ Wide Open Spaces played in my head. I may have sung a line or two. 😉 Grazing cows and baby calves dotted acres and acres along the highway. Life Is A Highway by Rascal Flats joined my internal playlist, followed closely by Woody Guthrie’s This Land, when we saw what could only be described as a “ribbon of highway” in front of us.

We set up camp in Hot Springs, at the first of many KOAs. By “set up camp” I mean we replenished our water supply, did laundry, and figured out how to open our awning. Right before it started raining.

The rain would stick around all the next day. We started at The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, SD, in the morning. It’s the site of an actual archaeological dig uncovering piles of Woolly and Columbian Mammoth bones. Fascinating!

It continued to rain as we drove north to Custer State Park through the Black Hills of South Dakota. From Custer State Park, we took highway 16A up around steep curves, hairpin turns, switchbacks, pigtails, and tunnels to Mount Rushmore. Not a drive I’m eager to repeat. Eeek!

Mount Rushmore was impressive, even in the drizzling rain.

That night we stayed in another KOA in Rapid City, South Dakota. Another adventurous day on the road. And more to come…

Mountain Views

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One plan on this cross-country trip of ours is to visit National and State Parks to do some hiking and birding. Sometimes plans have a mind of their own.

When we left our friends and family in the Denver/ Boulder areas, we headed north toward Rocky Mountain National Park. John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High played in my head. That would be the first song in a trip playlist that spontaneously compiled itself in my head.

Our entrance reservation for RMNP was for 4pm-6pm, the only time slot available. We sat in line for at least 45 minutes waiting to get in.

Here are some images as we waited to get in. The native inhabitants entertained us along the way:

Then, we drove toward Bear Lake, stopped at a park-and-ride lot, and hiked for about a mile and a half. Being unused to the altitude and the climbing, it took us over an hour.

We left after that hike, not wanting to get caught traveling back to our new Harvest Hosts spot in the dark. Turns out, a blizzard and an avalanche hit the western part of the park the next day. Yikes!

More later on our very first campsite eva…back to the road! 🙂

Maiden Voyage and Whirlwind Visits

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My husband, Mark, and I flew to Denver last week to pick up our newly converted Sprinter van from Titan Vans in Boulder, CO. I was immediately reminded of the day we drove our firstborn baby home from the hospital thirty five years ago. As we pulled away from the curb way back then, my first thought was They’re just letting us leave?!

It took several minutes to figure out how to put the new van in drive, so the mild panic was justified. Neither of us have ever driven a Mercedes, so it’s a bit like learning to maneuver a spaceship. We’re also complete camping novices, so we’re very much out of our element. Other than that, we’re good.

Using our Harvest Hosts membership, we headed for Lawson’s Adventure Park in Dumont, CO, to spend the night camping in their parking lot. Dinner at Tommyknocker Brewery & Pub in Idaho Springs hit the spot. Mark enjoyed their Juicy Blood Orange double IPA. He also picked up an assorted six-pack of the Juicy, the regular Blood Orange IPA, and their Sour Peach.

The first night in our van is a story we may laugh about someday. I’ll save the details ’til then. The next day, we took ourselves straight to the Mercedes dealership for the inside scoop on hidden compartments and useful information.

We spent the rest of that day visiting family in the Denver area. It was so great to meet up with cousins who’d moved across the country when we were young.

First, cousin Michael and his girls explored the van.
The girls were celebrating their last day of school, so we had a quick visit.
We stopped at cousin Donna’s house, then headed to cousin Barbara’s for dinner.

My Uncle Donald and Valois graciously invited us to spend the night at their house. We appreciated the warm bed, the hot showers, and their generous hospitality.

The following day, on the recommendation of my cousins, we drove to Red Rocks Amphitheatre. What a fascinating place!

Thanks, Mary & Ruth!

After Red Rocks, we set out for Thornton, CO, to visit some friends. Mary and Ruth used to sing in the same chorus I belong to. It was great to see them and catch up. They took us out for Mexican food and invited us to stay overnight. Another opportunity for a warm bed and hot showers. Score!

That’s all for now. So many more adventures and so little time to stop and write…