The adventure continues…
Epic planning…
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…
Closed the loop!
After 14,000 miles & 162 days on the road, we’ve arrived back at our home in VT.
The last leg
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.’
Beaufort Blues
This is Walker. Walker lives in Beaufort, NC, which is pronounced “Bo-Fort.” (If it were pronounced “Biew-Fert” you’d be in an entirely different town in South Carolina.) Walker’s humans are named Carlos and Hope and they have a band called the Beaufort Blues Project (1st pronunciation), or BBP.
In my RV, I’m gone to Carolina
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.
St. Simons Island Blues
We’re expecting to be back to Vermont in less than a week. As we close in on the end of our time on the road, our schedule is losing a lot of the elasticity to which we’ve been happily accustomed (and wouldn’t my English teacher have been proud of that phrase?*).
Making some Gulf Coast lemonade
Family and friends in Melbourne, FL
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…’
Across Georgia – Atlanta to the Okefenokee Swamp
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”