That’s what a local called us as he strolled through the campground this morning. He said he always wanted to do something like this, but he’s not “brave” enough. I heard the same thing yesterday while on the phone with an accountant (turns out I have to re-file my mom’s taxes): by his description of […]
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Tate’s Hell
It’s is actually a large state forest, 200,000 acres—although much of what we’ve seen is pine plantations, which doesn’t feel very forest-like to me because the trees are in rows. Still, the sense of isolation is strong here because Tate’s Hell is in the middle of the Apalachicola National Forest, which puts us smack dab […]
The Best Design Yet for a Wooded Campground
Oh, but we’re here for only one night! I’ve written before about the 2-2-2 rule of thumb for camping: that you’re making your life much easier if you stay at a site for at least two nights (and arrive by 2 pm, plus travel no more than 200 miles a day). We’re breaking that rule […]
How Long Would It Take You to Get to the Beach?
Say you quit your job and could go anywhere you wanted. How long would it take you to get to the beach? Two days? That’s the way Tracy and I feel, normally. But of course last March when we quit wasn’t normal in any way. So here we are, in late October, and we finally […]
Beer on the Bayou
Or: The only place in this country where your brewery taproom bartender responds cheerfully, “How do you say in English? Live in that parking lot there!” Quick, Colorful Drive across Louisiana This is the first time in Louisiana for both of us, and, within the first few minutes of driving east right above I10, we […]
In Defense of Weirdos Like Us
While I walk Banjo in the early mornings (and then walk myself in the afternoons), I’ve been thinking more about the people here in this strangest of campgrounds at the Escapees national headquarters. I’ve broken them down into these categories to the best of my seven-days-here knowledge. Temporary Campers Many people in the campsites that […]
Infiltrating the RV Full-timers’ Cult Compound
Man, this Escapees RV park (it’s called Rainbow’s End) is very, very strange to me. It is definitely an isolated bubble, a world all its own. Campsite Types There are 495 sites on the compound, and I think I can categorize them like this: regular camping spots (but close together and pretty crappy: here is […]
The Campground as a Night on the Town
I’ve finally figured out how to wrap my head around why in the world people flock to crowded campgrounds where they show abject disdain for nature. When I lived in Atlanta back in the ‘90s, my co-worker knew about not only the best gay clubs with full dance floors downtown, but also how to find […]
Candies among Cookie Cutters
Maybe 90% of the RVs we see are the same brown/white or grey/white standard campers with slides. They have different model names on them, but there are only a handful of manufacturers out there, and to me they’re all basically the same. I call them Brown RVs (my sister used to say that brown is […]
They Call Me the Breeze; I Keep Blowin’ Down the Road
You’d have to know me pretty well to figure out why me having a Lynyrd Skynyrd song in my head would make me feel like my mom. I don’t like the band. I don’t even know how to spell the band’s name (and it’s weird that spellcheck in WordPress does). But like my mom, no […]
