Yep, that’s me, the tiny pink dot in the middle of that wide, shallow river. I’m paddling my heart out there, but I’m also doing the other -ings these days in northeast Iowa. Camping Of course we’re always camping, but this spot feels like real camping, the kind we choose when we can. Normally we’d […]
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Deer Butts, Meet-ups, Hard up in Madison
Talk about pressure. I just walked away from lunch with my blogging mentor, Mark (Mark My Words), who A) told me he’d be blogging about our meet-up in the next few days, which means I’d better get a decent post up in case any of his million followers check me out, and B) showed me […]
Choosing a Campsite When You Anticipate Neighbors
We’re at a small county campground in SW Michigan that’s unusual: instead of being part of a popular county park with a playground or whatnot, it’s on land leased from the state wildlife and game preserve (I believe; the brochure we picked up is complicated). What I do know is it’s out in the woods, […]
Home of the Elongated Diphthong
I’m rebel-born and rebel-bred, and when I die I’ll be a rebel dead. —cheerleading chant from where I grew up in central Virginia You’re lucky no one’s called you, ‘Yankee’ yet. —camphost in the old forests of Florida Does Mama drive the truck? —old guy to Tracy, pointing at me Sissy needs a new diaper, […]
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 […]
Experiencing the Kenia Peninsula
The Kenia Peninsula is surrounded by the Gulf of Alaska and Cook Inlet, and it’s a huge tourist destination famous for mountains and glaciers and King Salmon. We’ve avoided camping in the Kenia during the salmon season because of the crowds, but as our Alaska trip is winding down, we had to come down to […]
Faro: Named for a Card Game
Faro, Yukon, is a tiny little town born from mining, but not the kind we’re used to hearing about up here near Alaska. Yeah, people panned for gold along the Pelly River (Pharaoh/Faro is an old French card game they played), but the big deal was lead and zinc. As in, the world’s largest open-pit […]
Surprising City Parks
In anticipation of me learning how to use my new camera and of our upcoming trip to Alaska, I’ve changed the layout of the blog to span the full screen so that photos will be larger. The downside is that previous posts now look wonky, with small images that aren’t centered. If you’re looking at […]
Hello, North Texas
Just a quick post here, as our first day near Dallas/Ft. Worth is full of errands so I should get going. Hico That top image is from the small town of Hico, where we spent one night on our way north from Austin. It’s a super charming town, with a revitalized main street and shopping […]
Ukulele and Cheese the Madison Way
Just recently I was complimented on the blog twice, by, like, two different people—on how natural and easy-going my writing is—so now of course I’m all frozen up, worried about how to structure the info I want to set down here. Especially because we’ve been getting tons done and seeing old friends, which leaves almost […]
