No excuses are needed to reminisce about our 2016 adventure. We’ll talk travel with anyone who’ll listen not just to be polite. And fond memories pop up every now and again.
As we start planning the next adventure, and consider how to make epic even more epic, we look back to 2016 for lessons learned – what we loved and plan to continue and what we’d like to do differently.
So here’s our 2016 trip summary, keepers and things we’ll do differently…
We accepted the trade off… Memphis jam and extra time in the south with friends and family would mean fewer, longer driving days to get back to VT before (or between) snow storms. Doug summarized his anticipated feelings for this last leg of the trip: ‘It’ll be like driving home late from the airport after a vacation.’
Traditional snowbirds migrate up and down the 1,500 miles of east coast highways between New England and Florida twice a year and make their trip in about 2 days. It took us 3 weeks to cover our first 1,500 miles on this adventure – a pace we loved. Given our time constraints, we considered ourselves fortunate to have 8 days for our northbound ‘sprint,’ and we wanted to spend some of that time catching up with friends.
When out on the road, traveling around the country for 6 months at a time, you develop a different perspective and occasionally find yourself having interesting thoughts like ‘Hey, we’re so close to my parents’ place, let’s swing by to say hello – it’s only a 2-day drive…’
We were heading from Alabama through Georgia, on towards Florida. Atlanta beckoned because of the potential for a visit with an old friend. From Atlanta, on a relatively direct path to Melbourne FL was a big splotch of green on the map – the Okefenokee Swamp. (Remember Pogo?) Never having visited this or any major swamp, we set our course.
Continue reading “Across Georgia – Atlanta to the Okefenokee Swamp”
My cousin Jeanette is 12 years older than me. Although we grew up in the same small NH town, we never got to know each other. (She did, however, know my cousin, Jean.) At 18, Jeanette joined the army and got married a couple years later, not to return to our home town (except for visits after I had moved away). As her husband, Ron, made a career of military policing, they lived in many different and interesting places, including 2 assignments in Germany. They retired in Anniston, AL, site of Ron’s last military assignment. We met at a memorial service about a year ago and made plans to meet up at some time in the near future and get to know each other.
Continue reading “Scratching the surface of the Deep South II: Alabama”
I was a groupie. Yup. I attended 20 hours of BGU jams and enjoyed every minute. I got to hob nob with the band. And go home with a guitar player (ok, the same one) every night.
It was time for a different kind of adventure for us – chill. In the past month alone, we’d been awed and inspired by the beauty of Roosevelt, Badlands and Rocky Mountain National Parks as well as the Black Hills of SD and high peaks area of CO. We’re still giggling about our serendipitous and crazy visits to Carhenge and The City Museum in St Louis. We thoroughly enjoyed visits with old and new friends and family in SD, CO and MO. We were thrilled to join two jam sessions in CO. And we were acutely aware that a major, 3-day jam in Memphis was just 2 weeks away. We needed to take a short break from adventuring and take some practice time.
Drawing a line on the (virtual) map from St Louis to Nashville, where we planned to visit Doug’s cousins, we saw a major splotch of green – the Land Between the Lakes (LBL) National Recreation Area. Sounds nice. And the old man (Doug) gets a senior discount! We laid a course.
My dad was the fourth oldest of 16 siblings. Although most of the family settled and still live somewhere in the northeast and a few retired to warmer climes, two escaped when they were younger. Both moved around quite a bit, and both eventually made their way to Missouri.
Continue reading “Missouri – Show Me Sue’s family”