General – Page 2 – The Destinators

Home! And on the road again…

In the years past, we’ve traveled during the warmer seasons and wintered back home in VT. This year, following 2 short-ish trips to Maine and Toronto, we spent the rest of the summer at home, and we’re heading out now on a fall trip to the Southwest. This is definitely a part of the country we can’t visit in the summer as we’re heat wimps. Also for the first time, the trip is open-ended. We’re not sure when we’re coming back – presumably, we’ll know when it’s time.

Of course, what’s not changing is seeking out adventure, friends, and music along the way. But first, we needed to get a few things in order…

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Warren, VT, 4th of July Capital of the Universe!

We thoroughly enjoyed every minute of our travels to Maine, and loved seeing so many friends and family. And the exploring and jams were awesome. And our timing was spot on – we needed to be home for the 4th of July.

Something a little different…

We’re often on the road in May. This year, we’re trying something different. We’ve typically traveled during the summer. We spent last summer in Eastern Canada, ending our travels with a an extra credit loop to Michigan to attend Doug’s blues guitar meetup. This year the group is having a meetup in Albuquerque, NM in late September, just in time for the weather to start cooling off in the southwest, where there’re lots of things we haven’t seen because it’s just too hot in the summer. Let’s try for a fall trip! In the meantime…

Home!

During the final two days of the trip, we tried to determine what it is that we both were experiencing – a now-familiar feeling we’ve had at the end of each of our trips. We’re happy to be coming home, yet there’s a sadness to ending our adventurous life on the road. We concluded that it’s primarily a feeling of wistfulness (yearning or longing) with a touch of bittersweet (contrasting emotions of sadness and pleasure). And overall, it leaves us with a sense of satisfaction with the adventure just concluded.

The Best Laid Plans…

Greetings from a rainy day in Cape Breton Highlands National Park!

We set out to visit the Maritimes this summer, and it appears we’re gonna fail. When we started planning, we’d thought that all of island provinces in eastern Canada were considered the Maritimes. As you probably know already, that assumption was incorrect. Newfoundland and Labrador are not considered Maritime provinces – they’re eastern or Atlantic Canada. We stand corrected!

Farewell Newfoundland

We had no expectations about traveling on the island of Newfoundland. According to google maps, the primary roads create a funky ‘H’ across the province – 1 north south road on the west side, another on the east side, and one road connecting the two across the middle. Many side roads lead to (mostly) small communities along the coast. We’d heard varying reports of the quality of the roads on ‘The Rock,’ but even the most foreboding of these led us to believe we’d seen worse. (And the roads were fine!)

Heading north! (again)

We’ve been wanting to explore the Maritime provinces, Canada’s east coast, for a while. As we started checking out maps, two fun thoughts popped into our heads…

What on Earth happened?

It used to be that in the spring we’d restart our blog with a recap of the previous year’s trip. That tradition was suspended in 2020 because of COVID and has remained so until now for that and a couple of other, unrelated reasons.

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We’re home after a quick (hey, it’s all relative…) month-long trip to visit my mom in Florida. Although it’s not our preferred pace, we took just 3 hops to get back to Vermont from there. The timing for the whole trip allowed us to see friends on the way down, visit 2 National Parks we’d never seen, and spend a week with my mom. However, the timing of events and appointments between Florida and back home required a northbound skedaddle. Fortunately, on a previous trip we’d scouted out the best/shortest/most direct route should we ever need to get to my mom’s in a hurry, and we used that route in reverse to get back north.

On the road again, again

Time to visit my mom in Florida! Driving to Florida in the RV, as opposed to flying there in an airplane, gives us opportunities to spend more time with my mom, bring instruments along for jams, and see friends along the way, so we’re out again for about a month. Plans include exploring a couple of east coast national parks we’ve not yet visited (aka going places that we’ve never been) and, yes, making music with our friends.

Hey mom, see you soon!