Tomorrow (Feb. 28, 2023) will be our one year anniversary of traveling and living in our Airstream, Yurtle! We have traveled and camped in 10different states and stayed at about 60 different campgrounds, Harvest Hosts, and 2 family member’s yards. That leaves 39 states (not including Hawaii) that we have yet to park our home on wheels. As I stated in my last post, we have decided to continue our journey! We have seen and experienced so much, yet we have hardly scratched the surface of what there is to explore!
This blog post is a look back in pictures of some of my favorite sights this past year.
Family Visits
Desert Views
Waterfalls
Water Views
The Pups
Wildlife
The 1st picture is one of the 3 mountain lions caught on one of our cameras. The 2nd is a bear caught on our ring camera, the 6th is the best picture our ring camera ever caught.
Other Favorites
Stay tuned! We have a brand new, customized for boondocking Airstream Trade Wind arriving soon, and another year of wandering and exploring is just getting started!
We left Chicot State Park in Louisiana with the intention of staying in the Homochitto National Forest in Mississippi. Aaron had fond memories of mountain biking the trails there in his younger years. When we arrived at our destination, we realized that there was no cell service at all. The tree cover was so great that we could not get a clear signal with our Starlink either. Well, Aaron has to work remotely, so that was just not going to work. Luckily, since Homochitto was a first come first served campground, we did have a “plan B” just in case we could not find a spot. This plan was to revisit Lake Lincoln State Park, about an hour away. The dogs got a potty break, we stretched our legs, jumped back in the truck and hit the road again.
Our previous visit to Lake Lincoln was only a few days, the weather was freezing, and we stayed warm in the camper unless we had to walk the dogs or do laundry. This visit gave us two weeks to explore the park and enjoy it more throughly.
The two week stay also gave us the opportunity to find a veternarian for Lola to update her shots and clip her nails. This picture shows what she thought of that. Poor thing had to go back a second time for a dental procedure under anesthesia. She was very unhappy about that! Murphy was unhappy as well because Lola got to go for a ride twice without him. To him, it was not fair that he got left out. If he knew where Lola was going I am sure he would have been OK with staying at the camper with Aaron.
There were some spots available right next to the lake, but we chose to camp in a different section up on a hill. The lakeside spots were more crowded and we were able to have our whole section to ourselves! That gave us more privacy, the dogs room to roam, and some peace and quiet.
These opportunities will be few and further between as camping season will start ramping up come spring, and more and more people will be getting out into the woods, deserts, and beaches for vacation and escape.
We are 95% sure that Murphy is a lab/husky mix. His papers from the pound say Lab-Retriever mix, but he has a partial blue eye, sheds like a husky, talks to us like a husky, and many other traits that belong to a husky. The mass amounts of white dog hair was driving me crazy! He may not look hairy in pictures, but his coat is a double coat and very thick. No matter how much I vacuumed and swept, there was always hair on our socks, stuck in the rugs, all over our clothes, and all over the furniture. We took the area rugs out of the camper to see if that would help with hair cleanup and if we would be alright not having them in the camper. Clean up became easier, and Murphy let us know that he likes them on the picnic table for a comfy spot to bask in the sunshine. Poor guy doesn’t realize that they will be donated and won’t be gracing every picnic table in our future.
We have been keeping our travels near to Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida for the first few months of the year for a few reasons. One reason is coming up in April, and I will let the cat out of the bag about that when it comes closer to April. Another reason, Gage (our oldest son) will be moving to Phoenix in a few weeks, and Lola will be going there with him. So, we will be meeting up with him somewhere along his route on his way out west to give Gage his dog. I am pretty sure Lola has been having a great time on this adventure, and we sure will miss her!
As we are coming up on our one year anniversary (next week) of wandering around in our Airstream, some old habits have began creeping into our lives. The most vexing one for me is over buying at the grocery store. We shop every week, and should be buying only for a week at a time. When this journey began we were really good at that. For the past few months, we have gotten away from thoughtfully buying for a week. After we got Murphy, one of us started staying in the truck with the dog while the other did the shopping. That has become problematic, as we don’t have the discussions in the store such as: we already have enough snacks, isn’t that too much, no-we don’t need a third box of cereal, we already have a jar of salsa, etc. The reason this is a problem is because we have limited storage. When we run out of space in our pantry and cabinets, the extra has to go somewhere. That usually means the overflow if food items reside on the table and counter. When that happens, the camper starts to feel crowded, messy, and unorganized. I think we are going to start making a list and try to exert more self control while shopping.
When we decided to start this journey, we agreed to take a year and see how we liked the lifestyle and then decide if we want to continue or go back to a more conventional way of life. I think it is pretty obvious that we are loving it. We plan on continuing our wandering ways for at least one to two more years, if not longer. We have seen so much, and it has become clear that as much as we have seen, we have hardly scratched the surface.
It was time for me to leave Aaron and the pups to fly to Iowa and visit my mom, my brother and his family, and take my dad to his doctor appointment. Aaron, Murphy, and Lola dropped me off at the Shreveport, LA airport, and I began my day of flights. Shreveport to Houston, then to Chicago, then, finally, the Moline, IL airport where Chris (my brother) and Brenda (his wife) picked me up and drove me an hour and a half to Iowa for a week of family.
Mom and I spent most of the week checking out museums. Who knew that Anne Franke had a connection to a small town in Iowa, Danville? Before the Nazis invaded Amsterdam she and her sister started became pen pals with two sisters in Danville. They only exchanged letters once, then the Nazis invaded and the Franks had to go into hiding. The museum displayed copies of the letters and a timeline of what was happening in Europe, the US, and in Danville. It was a thoughtfully put together museum with some intriguing information.
Mom and I learned a bit more about our family’s history as well. She had a very old suitcase full of documents that belonged to her grandfather. It had all kinds of tax documents, receipts, ledgers and letters pertaining to the farm that was in our family for over 200 years. We also found out that he was most likely an Odd Fellow. The Order of the Odd Fellows is a fraternal order similar to the Masons. It was an interesting look into what life was like for a farmer and his family in the 1930’s.
About an hour or so from Burlington, IA (where I was staying) is the Presidential Library of Herbert Hoover. He will always be remembered as the President of the Great Depression and for the Hoover Dam. I had no idea that he was born in Iowa.
He was born in this tiny two room house, orphaned, moved to Oregon to be raised by relatives, became a world renown mining engineer and international humanitarian before becoming the 31st US President. He and his wife were also Quakers. He traveled the world, including Australia and China in his mining career before he ever got involved in politics.
“This cottage where I was born is physical proof of the unbounded opportunity of American life. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbound hope.” -Herbert Hoover
A quote from the sign outside of Hoover’s childhood home
Due to the stock market crash and the Great Depression, his presidency was not looked at as successful. Before his presidency he led humanitarian relief efforts for Europe during and after World War 1. He then served as Secretary of Commerce, and was very influential in the expansion and regulation of radio, developing air travel regulations (later to become the FAA), regulating the auto industry, and standardizing many aspects of daily life such as tools, hardware, building materials, automotive parts.
After he presidency, he served under President Truman, and advised President Eisenhower. He continued his humanitarian efforts as well.
Another afternoon, Mom and I checked out the local museum in Burlington. The city sits on the Mississippi River and has a rich history with steamboats and the railroad. It also had a nice display about the Native American tribes that used to live in the area.
While I was immersed in history, Aaron and the pups were hanging out in Ville Platte, LA. Aaron got to play with his drone, the dogs chased balls, and they had some nice walks in the woods.
For my last night in Iowa, Mom, Chris, Brenda, my nephew Will, and I grilled some steaks and had a great dinner together. The next morning, it was time to fly back to Aaron and the pups and continue our adventure. I will be back in Iowa in about three months. I wonder what adventure awaits when I go back. But, until then, Aaron and the pups and I will be having more adventures in Mississippi, and wherever the road and mood takes us.
We said goodbye to Lake Lincoln and headed to an area of Louisiana that I was not very familiar-the northwest corner. We lived in the southeast corner of Louisiana for many, many years and loved it there. The opposite side of the state is a whole different world. It has influences from Texas and Arkansas, and has been given the nickname Ark-La-Tex. The name suits. It really felt like a blend of the three states. Think Duck Dynasty, but not quite the exaggerated level of the show. Good, hard working honest people who love the land, love to hunt, work hard and live a small town life. We had planned to stay in the Kisatchie National Forest at the Beaver Dam Campground for two weeks. Two weeks is a long stay at a campground for us; we usually move every week. Aaron and I were looking forward to a two week stay. The weather the first week was rainy and chilly every day. The second week was forecast to be sunny and warmer, and we were excited to explore what the national forest had to offer when the weather cleared up.
Aaron had to go to a job site most every day, Murphy and Lola did not get to play and run outside very often due to the weather. This was the first time I got a little stir crazy in the camper. We did go for chilly, damp walks that the dogs enjoyed. I did a lot of cleaning, reading, and no picture taking. I had to look in my SnapChat to find a couple of pictures for the blog.
It was Mardi Gras season and, of course, we had to have some king cake! Aaron picked one up at a local grocery store. The baby for the cake was larger than normal, green, not in the cake, and butt up in the box. Kind of strange, but the cake was good. He looked like a Buddha Baby. We did get a second king cake, and it was the same baby but purple.
On the first Friday we were there, the camp host came and knocked on our door. He was sorry to let us know that we would have to leave early. The National Forest Service decided that a prescribed burn was in order the next week. Our two week stay turned into a one week stay, Aaron still had to be at the job site the following week, and we needed to start finding a new home for the week. Luckily, we were able to reserve a spot at an Army Corps of Engineers campground about a half hour away.
We ended up at Tom Merrill Campground at the Bodcau Dam in Benton, Louisiana. We were just outside of Shreveport, but it felt very remote. For almost the entire week, the campground host, a car camper, and us were the only people staying there. The weather was good, and the dogs were happy. They had a great time playing in the water.
Water being released from the reservoir.
For a long time, I was a very routine oriented person. During our stay at this campground, I realized that I actually am starting to miss some routine, structure. There are some routines, walking the dogs, cooking dinner and cleaning up after, making sure the blog is ready for Tuesday, but not enough. This journey has made me realize that I need some sort of routine, or I do not get motivated to get up and move. So, over the next month, I am going to try to set myself some sort of loose routine with taking pictures, editing pictures, more exploring the area we are staying. I’m not sure if staying at our homebase for so long dulled my “get up and go”, or if I have just become complacent. This is an opportunity of a lifetime, and I really don’t want to squander it because I am lacking self motivation and self discipline.
Next week, back to Iowa to take Dad to his doctor appointments for the month and have some more quality time with Mom, brother, sis-in-law, and my nephew. Poor Aaron will be on his own dealing with two dogs, moving day, and work. I think I got the easier end of that!
Wandering Cindi 