Month: November 2020

Alto: 2019 Mods

Posted on by Annie

Editor’s Note: I started writing this 11 months ago, but then, well, 2020 happened. I finally finished it, mostly so I have a record of the changes I’ve made over time. Sooner or later, most people modifies their living space, whether it’s a two-story house in the suburbs or a tiny trailer. It took me about a year to make ANY changes to my Alto 1743. The trailer comes with a 2-year warranty from Safari Condo, so I respected that and didn’t go drilling holes or changing much until that 2 years was up. And then this year, I definitely…

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Reed Bingham State Park, GA

Posted on by Annie

You know that saying, “It’s the journey, not the destination?” Well, this post is all about that because getting to Reed Bingham was definitely about the journey. I took all back roads because my brief foray with just the Ridgeline onto I-75 was enough to convince me I didn’t want to tow on that interstate: four southbound lanes of fast 18-wheelers, cars, and trucks and a lane repaving project that meant changing lanes involved a bit of a height change as well. And when I say fast, I mean I was going 70 mph and getting passed by almost everyone….

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A Thanksgiving Memory

Posted on by Annie

For Thanksgiving, my mother would buy a huge turkey, one barely able to fit into the big roasting pan and then squeezed into the oven. She’d set the alarm for the ungodly hour of 3AM to start her preparations for the big day: homemade stuff from scratch, her special cloverleaf rolls, and, of course, the star of the show, the turkey. She was proud of her homemade stuffing and rightly so, to be truthful. She used slightly stale bread as the base, melted butter and I don’t even remember what else, but it smelled so good when she was making…

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Summer/Fall 2020 Trip Summary

Posted on by Annie

In mid-July, I set out on a Southeastern adventure, partly to beat the Florida heat and partly because, well, that’s what I do, I’m a vagabond and my home is my trailer. It was my first outing since COVID-19 hit and that informed a lot of my planning before and behavior during this three month trip. (Note: I also tracked infection rates per 100,000 and death rates for counties and states where I was considering stays. In July, Florida literally had the highest rates in both categories for the Southeast, so it wasn’t like I was going from safety into…

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Sunday Serenity: New Morning

Posted on by Annie

If 2020 has been the longest year ever (and it certainly feels like it), then the last week has been the longest week ever. Everyone’s been used to elections being called within hours of the polls closing, so it figured that 2020 would change things up and make us learn once again the values of patience and persistence. At 11:25AM on Saturday, the AP declared Pennsylvania for Biden/Harris and suddenly, everything changed. I cried. I smiled, too, but mostly I cried, releasing a depth of tension I hadn’t let myself truly admit over the last four years. I felt hope…

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