Traveling in the now-times

We’ve moved! After two and a half months in Asheville, NC, conditions were finally right to go someplace new. And by conditions, I mean a combination of local public health guidance (state, county, RV park) and our own comfort levels. We’re now in Burlington, VT, having come from Asheville via Scranton, PA and Salisbury, NY.

Adventuring: then vs. now

As things change around us, our plans have to change too. Here’s a few of the adjustments we’ve made over the last few months:

Thus begins the photo dump

We can’t take the kinds of local attraction photos that we used to, but we’re still getting up to random adventures at home and within short drives.

Fun at home

• Rifftrax movie night with pun-themed foods, movie posters, Plan 9 from Outer Space, and a pretty but tragically overbaked lemon cake.
• Fabric-craft with homemade masks made from pillowcases and vinyl designs for a fun shirt.
• FOOD: chili cheese dogs and s’mores over the campfire and homemade fondue.
• Big truck: I feel like a toddler–oh look there goes the truck with the big wheels it goes vroom vroom! We spend a lot of the day watching the other rigs go past.
• BEAR.
• The future of work, remote video chats from a picnic bench.

Click the pic to see a bigger pic

Special occasions

• Easter, Mother’s Day, and 4th of July complete with Hamilton on Disney+.
• ANNIVERSARY! We celebrated 6 years in June. It was a Tuesday, and both of us got stuck in looooong work meetings at the end of the day. After a late dinner, we needed to stretch our legs and unwind, so we stepped out for a quick walk. But right outside the door were fireflies, tons of them, all twinkly and golden. In the bushes, in the trees, flying in front of our face (the only bug I’ll tolerate doing so)–it was magical. I couldn’t get photos or video–they’re challenging for professionals to record. I’d gotten close during a summer in Kansas City, but Mark and never seen them before. And we saw tons. We grabbed our folding chairs, sat in a field by the creek and watched dozens, maybe hundreds of them.

Buddy system

Our friend Heather lives in Philadelphia within a few hours of where we stayed in both Pennsylvania and upstate New York. Instead of parking Rexy near Philly (the original plan) where lockdown restrictions were some of the tightest in all of PA, we planned meet-ups with Heather and her new puppers Jax at in-between outdoor spots where we could maintain social distancing and follow local gathering guidelines. The resulting adventures:

• Ringing Rocks Park in Upper Black Eddy, PA–bring your own hammer!
• Delaware Water Gap near Stroudsburg, PA–we watched as Jax learned how to use stepping stones to cross the stream.
• Cedar Creek Park and rose garden in Allentown, PA.
• Nine Corner Lake trail in the Adirondack Mountains near Caroga, NY.

Oh the places you’ll go (and look at through a half-rolled down car window while wearing a mask)

• Wrapped up Asheville, home to a potent paper mill and the Blue Ridge Parkway scenic drive.
• The graffitied Concrete City outside of Wilkes-Barre, PA.
• The rolling hills and covered bridges of upstate New York. We shared the roads with tractors and Amish carriages alike.
• The Volkswagon on a smokestack of Amsterdam, NY–it advertises a garage.
• “Salt City” Syracuse, NY–a town founded on salt mining–with its salt potatoes, Irish traffic light, and Rosamond Gifford Zoo.

RV checkup

Rexy lives! We fill the coolant tank before drives now since she sits for longer than a couple weeks. Alan took on water through his hood vent–nearly two inches after a thunderstorm in New York. Our new vent cover seems to be keeping the wet out now.

Lilly watch

Up next

We’re in Burlington, VT for the next month. On tap: maple syrup, maple ice cream, and maple beer. Maple is the state flavor, after all.