We’ve just reserved a campsite for Thanksgiving, which calls to mind all the times I’ve driven to the family dinner with Alice’s Restaurant playing on the car stereo—in four-part harmony. If you’ve somehow never heard this long rambling delirious wonderful song about resistance, listen to it now. Gettin’ more injections, inspections, detections, neglections …. and […]
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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 Epic Quest to Become Texans
Currently we’re camped at the Escapees headquarters, the club that helps us with residency paperwork. This place is far from grand, but more on that later. Here’s my status on our residency quest, which I can’t imagine you’ll find interesting; still it’s all part of our adventure. So, we do have an official address in […]
Too Busy for Alligators
We leave this national forest north of Houston today to go just a little east to the Escapees’ campground, where we’ll take care of more business (we hope). So, I don’t have a ton of time to catch you guys up: consider this more a photo entry. Cagle Recreation Area This really is a pretty […]
Whom Can You Be Naked in Front Of?
My sister (yeah, I quote her a lot) used to say that you can be naked in front of your mother and you can be naked in front of your husband, but you can’t be naked in front of them both at the same time. I’m adding to that adage what I’ve learned during all […]
Headed Down South to the Land of the Pines
That line’s from Wagon Wheel and it’s about North Carolina, but it’s been on my mind here in Texas, oddly. We’re only passing through Texas to do a bunch of paperwork and appointments (more on that later), so I can’t give a full GDTRFB report. (That’s Going down the Road Feeling Bad as it’s written […]
“The Show” Reunites!
Flashback The setting: 1978, a colonial home in rural Virginia: the living room has a stone hearth and stone benches surrounding a large fireplace. The characters: Two 10-year-old girls with a lot of time on their hands. The music: 45 RPM records on a turntable in the corner, playing I Will Survive, Cats in the […]
I Can See Why People Get Strange Here
Both Army Corps of Engineers campsites where we’ve stayed in Arkansas (plus the last one in Missouri) the past couple of weeks have been downstream of flood-control reservoirs. And locals have complained to us that the towns upriver of them get precedence when it comes to control, whereas they get the flooding. Here at this […]
A Break from Prose
Finally, U.S. news items have broken my spirit—as well as being surrounded by Trump yard signs and photoshopped flags and stand-up dolls and his name in sidewalk chalk on campground drives. When I’ve been writing cheerfully I haven’t been disingenuous—I am enjoying this adventure. But the news cannot be ignored, and my silly little travel […]
Come along for a Travel Day
Join me as we leave our two-night campsite at Bull Shoals Lake, Arkansas, and tow our home to our next stay for five nights at Nimrod Lake, also in Arkansas but a little south, on our way to Texas. Don’t be fooled by the three-hour driving time. Pack up Inside It’s about 9 am, and […]
