I lost my beloved father on May 1st. He was 91 years old, but I wasn’t ready for him to go. If you had known my dad, you wouldn’t have wanted to lose him, either. The past few weeks have been hard. Harder than I imagined. From the moment of my sister’s call—”Daddy’s gone“—I feel […]
Archive for Florida
Several nights ago, Eric called me outside. A gentle breeze from the bay rustled through the palmettos, the intoxicating scent of jasmine filled the air, and the woods were alive with hundreds of tiny dancing lights. I haven’t seen fireflies in such numbers since I was a kid. Ordinarily, we hightail it out of here […]
Never in a million years did I think I would be writing a blog post about surviving a pandemic. But here we are. And although I’m an optimist by nature (and determination), I fear that we’re in for a long ride. We’re one week into our stay-at-home orders in Florida, but we started our own […]
This morning, my first thought upon awakening was, “Wow, THAT was a wild nightmare.” And then I remembered that this is reality—the world, as we know it, has essentially come to a standstill. The Best Laid Plans… If all had gone according to plan, we would have been on the road last week. We would […]
These are difficult times. Surreal. Like everyone else we know, we’re trying to find balance in a world that has suddenly been turned upside down. Our travel plans have fallen prey to the pandemic, and we’re staying put in Apalachicola for who knows how long. Nature and poetry are two things that soothe my soul […]
As I’ve said before, were it not for my elderly parents in Apalachicola, we would not spend every winter in Florida. And as I’ve also said before, we’re lucky that Florida is a tropical paradise and offers so many things we enjoy—crystal clear spring-fed rivers, abundant birds, sugar sand beaches, and fresh seafood. We always […]
If you are a full-time RV’er, you know there are only a handful of reasonable possibilities when winter rolls around: Arizona, southern California, south Texas, and Florida. That’s about it. Most winters, we experience a little bit of it all as we travel across the country from Oregon to Florida. Were it not for my […]
I’ve had a post on Big Bend National Park almost finished for about two weeks. Meanwhile, I’m more than two months behind on our blog. I don’t like being so far behind. But the past couple of months, life has taken precedence over blogging. We’ve been in Florida since the first of February and just […]
Tucked into the crook of the Florida Panhandle on the Gulf of Mexico, a two-lane highway meanders along 130 miles of laid-back coastal Old Florida. This is the Forgotten Coast, an area of small fishing towns, pristine wilderness, and rustic beauty. Here, southern accents are as thick as the Spanish moss dripping from the cypress […]
“There’s one!” I call out to Eric. An enormous grey blob rises slowly to the surface of the crystal clear river, exhales loudly, and sinks again to the sandy bottom. It’s a West Indian manatee, a roly-poly aquatic mammal that seeks the warmth of Florida springs in the winter. We’re kayaking the Ichetucknee River in […]
Welcome to our blog!
If you enjoy hiking, biking, kayaking, birding, art, music, quirky towns, good food, and good friends—you'll enjoy traveling with us. Join us as we explore the backroads of North America—we love company and comments!