Virginia Is For Lovers. It’s on the license plates. It’s on signs. It’s on t-shirts & bumper stickers. It’s everywhere. They even swap out the V in Lovers with a heart. It’s cute. It’s always been the Virginia motto, for as long as I can remember. I never really got…
The South Carolina marshes are beautiful. We spent three weeks here, crossing a bridge over a marsh almost every day. Some of the marshes are filled in, to make towns, like Charleston, bigger. Most are left natural. The tides affect the marshes, I didn’t realize that. At low tide, they…
Florida is recognizable. You fly in … it’s flat. You drive in … it’s flat. Water is everywhere, I swear there is a pond or something every 5 feet. Bordering the roads are very tall pine trees. Everywhere, miles and miles of unending very tall pine trees. I think someone…
Our nephew’s family (from Atlanta) loves Orange Beach, Alabama and our timing was perfect to join them for Spring Break. We’ve heard from others how wonderful Orange Beach is. But to be honest, when we first put Alabama on the itinerary, I really didn’t have high expectations for the area,…
Here I sit, on a balcony, overlooking the sprawling outdoor seating area of a BBQ & Blues joint called The Shed, nestled on 40 acres along the Old Fort Bayou in coastal Mississippi (a bayou is a river, only slower). They have a boat launch, docks, plenty of picnic…
Louisiana sounds innocuous, it’s a sportsman’s paradise they boast. But there are things here that want to drag you into the swamp and eat you. And the swamp? No way! No way I’m going in there – I don’t like going near it and especially don’t like having my back…
Don’t get me wrong, I like Texas, big fan of the state. Go Frogs. Hook ‘em Horns. Mustang Mania. Whataburger, Dr Pepper, BBQ, good looking cowboys and all that. But for us and our vagabond life, it seems like it’s always something as we cross Texas. Thank goodness it’s never…
We’ve been vagabonds for a year. We sold the house Oct 28, last year. Yup, it’s been one full year that we’ve been living on the road! It’s crazy to think about how much we’ve done and seen, to think about all the places we’ve been, to think about all…
Every time. Without fail. Every single time. I hear the word Oklahoma and my brain immediately goes to OOOOOOOklahoma. Lucky for Pete I don’t often vocalize it or it would have been a really long 2 weeks for him. In my search for local cuisine, I learned Oklahoma leans more…
Kansas City is a little confusing for me. They have Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas. KCMO and KCK. When I closed out and published the Missouri blog, I honestly thought we were going to be in KCK from that point forward. Turns out, family lives in KCK (that…
We live in vacation-land. We’re retired. We travel around. We are tourists and we go on adventures. So yes, full-time vacation, it’s true. But it can be tiring, seeing things, going places all the time. Moving from place to place. Somebody please call the wambulance! I never realized how…
Iowa and I have a history. It’s not a great or exciting history. It’s corn. Just corn. Miles and miles of corn. That’s all I remember about my time in Iowa. Corn. Lots of it. Now, to be fair, I didn’t spend a lot of time here and I really…
Minnesota. 10,000 Lakes. That’s what the license plates say so it must be true. When we first crossed into the state, we cynically joked about the lakes, 10,000, no way – they must count Lake Superior twice, or even three times – 10,000 is a lot of lakes. Then we…
Wisconsin was a total success. The weather. The food. The scenery. Loved it! During our stay, the temps were in the 80’s, cool (almost cold) at night. Mix of clouds and sun. People said it was humid, but we didn’t feel it – not like other places we’ve been. One…
So, yes, I grew up in Illinois, the Chicago suburbs to be exact. Park Ridge & Oak Brook. I have family here. Pete’s been here, with me, a lot. He’s still an East Coast Boy at heart, but he gets it, he understands the draw. As part of our trek…
I started to feel it as we passed through Ohio. It was all around us in Indiana. I could see it in Cincinnati, in Indianapolis, in all the small towns. It’s the Midwest – and it feels comfortable – it looks familiar. It’s brick homes. Brick buildings. All those big,…
I have to start by apologizing to all those from West Virginia. One of my college roommates was from WV, but I didn’t ask him too many questions about his state. I think I just never really considered West Virginia. I never went there and I didn’t know anything about…
North Carolina reminds me of when we lived in the Philadelphia area – you drive a couple hours one way and you get to the mountains, you drive a couple hours the other way and you get to the beach. North Carolina is beautiful. The Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee…