Eons ago, Blogging Mentor Mark asked if I’d write a post about the odd people I’ve met on the road. Good idea, right? I started in on it all excited, thinking, this will be the best retrospective post ever! I called it, “Strangers Stranger Than than Usual Strangers.” That post has been sitting in my […]
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Dreaming of My Kind of Boondocking
I’ve been thinking more wistfully than ever about a certain kind of boondocking. First, let me parse out the different uses of that word. (Fun, stuff, yes?) Most people use the word when they’re parked without hookups, simple as that. I’ve even seen people call it boondocking when they spend the night in the parking […]

Our Impossible 11-hour Travel Day
After I wrote that Alice’s Restaurant post, a lot happened. We didn’t get fined for staying on the beach an extra day, but the opposite happened: we kinda wished the cops had stopped by our trailer, and we wished that twice. Thanksgiving Night 7 pm: Tracy was watching football and I happened to look out […]

Wherein We Act Out Alice’s Restaurant Massacree
You know the story: Arlo and friends clean up after a Thanksgiving feast at Alice’s church-turned-house and end up getting arrested for throwing their trash off a cliff, which plays a role years later in a pretty ironic situation when Arlo’s being drafted for the Vietnam War. He says to the draft sargeant, “You mean […]

On the Beach, the Crowded, Chilly, Still-It’s-a-Beach Beach
We finally made it to camp right on the beach! Man, have we spoiled ourselves with previous years doing this, though, because this beach location kinda sucks. Okay, it doesn’t truly suck. No beach does, right? And here all the elements are in place: the trailer is parked on the sand with not a thing […]

Navigating a Hipcamp in the Heat
This week we’re parked at one of those brewery/winery/event spaces that are so popular with young, Eastcoast families with disposable income, this one near Fredericksburg, Virginia, and we chose it only because we were pretty desperate. It was a last-ditch plan because it’s part of the Harvest Hosts and Hipcamp listings that drive us bonkers: […]

An Odd Bliss
There are a few moments in my travel life that really feel right, whatever that means, despite all kinds of weirdness that goes along with them. A moment like this happened a few days ago, when we were driving down a one-lane dirt road in the middle of nowhere, with no cell signal and no […]

How Un-hardcore We Are
Now that we’re deep into the Friends and Family Tour ‘24, we find ourselves answering questions about life on the road and feeling pretty proud of ourselves. All the planning Tracy does, all the physical work we both do to set up camp and tear it down, how wild it is that we live with so […]

Tracy Being Cheap for the Win Again
Tracy hates to pay for a place to stay when we’re stoping for just one night, and I don’t blame him, but it’s pretty funny the lengths he’ll go. Last night we found ourselves driving down a narrow, red-clay path in the woods in rural Georgia, wondering what the heck. We pulled over at a […]

1 Beach, 2 Beach, 3 Beach, Parking Lot
Goal: Spend November working our way down to the Tip o’ Texas via the Gulf Coast, camping right on the beach wherever we can. Reality: Spend November sitting in our tiny trailer listening to a space drama podcast, when not driving around wondering where the heck we’re going to park for the night. I would […]