2018

This has been a windy Spring for me, and the past week has certainly not disappointed in that regard. From the cold northerly winds to the warmer southerlies, it seems wind is the one constant on the mid-Atlantic coast. It’s is one reason why the Wright Brothers picked Kitty Hawk as their base; they learned to pilot gliders well before trying powered aircraft. This was one of many things I learned at the Wright Brothers National Memorial last week.

Friday and Saturday nights, I enjoyed the company of fellow Alto owners from Quebec, and we traded tips about trailers and camping spots each evening. Saturday was warm enough I wore shorts when we went to see the Bodie Island Lighthouse.

Sunday, we bid our farewells and they headed south while I turned north to keep creeping up towards Canada. I’m in Virginia now, on the edge of the Chesapeake Bay, and it’s a beautiful thing in stormy weather.

I’m here for a few more days, doing some camping with fellow Alto owners, then a couple of short hops, mostly sticking to the coast. I’m definitely enjoying the exploration of the Atlantic coastline!

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Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you, smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, “Come and find out”.

Joseph Conrad (in Heart of Darkness)

It’s mostly been a windy, stormy week here on Cape Hatteras, presented as a series of storms that brought some rain but mostly a fierce and unrelenting wind. As the clouds rolled in early on Saturday, I took this shot at Ocracoke. It was the last time I’d see that yellow orb until Sunday afternoon.

Earlier in the week, however, it was a much warmer beach and I actually took my shoes off and walked in the water. With shorts on. And a t-shirt. Yes, the good old days of summer felt like they had arrived.

I was wrong. The gale warning on Friday night made me put away all thoughts of summer clothes and warm weather and I listened to the rain on my roof and felt the wind buffet the trailer all night long. Turns out not many of us in the campground slept well, the wind battering all of us, regardless of our rig size.

Sunday, once the sun reappeared, I made a run up the coast. Which also involved a ferry. And two hours of waiting for room. It’s a free ferry that continues Route 12 in North Carolina, so the catch is that you just wait till there’s enough room for your particular vehicle. I was in the “you have a long vehicle aka trailer” line and, predictably enough, this line went much slower than the “you’ve just got a little car” line. Still, 45 minutes of bobbing like a cork on a ferry isn’t a bad way to spend the afternoon.

Since I got to my new campground, still on Cape Hatteras, the wind has been my constant companion. Yesterday’s beach walk was an exercise in determination: mine to keep walking, the wind’s to try and blow me over. I won this round.

Maybe it’s too early in the season or maybe it’s that wind, but right now, I am literally the only camper at this place, sharing it with the two camp hosts. So I have my own bathroom (no heat) and my own shower stall (no hot water). But it’s got that long sandy beach and I have hope that things will warm up tomorrow. I’m an optimist when it comes to weather, obviously.

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Today is my Grandma Clara’s birthday memorial (born 1907, died 1994) so this quotation is for her.

We should all have one person who knows how to bless us despite the evidence, Grandmother was that person to me. 

Phyllis Theroux

If there was a theme to this last week, it would be “Back to the Beach” and the process of getting there in three hops. The secondary theme would be “Don’t Underestimate the Wind.”

The first hop was Oyster Point, where a national forest campsite had a lovely trail I enjoyed daily. The Carolina version of a swamp was creepy, in a scary movie kind of way.

For one day, though, it was warm enough I could open all the windows and get a proper airing out done, which was sorely needed!

The next hop was over to Cedar Island for a night, where I was on hookups and also had access to laundry, which was also sorely needed. It’s early in vacation season around these parts, so I had the beachview row to myself.

Third hop was on the ferry, the second time Bella and Breeze have had a water ride in our almost two years together. Also, that roof is really dirty.

Two and a half hours later, I was on the outer islands of the Outer Banks. Bucket list item checked off! And three and a half hours later, I was standing here, right over the dunes from my campsite…

Ah, beach. And pelicans! And terns (who are this week’s cover stars at the top of the post)!

And then…  there’s the wind. Here was my campsite on Monday before the wind decides to have a little fun with me. See that lovely green tent structure. That’s my new Clam shelter.

I hadn’t read the memo that massively long tent stakes are a critical component of camping success on the very windy Outer Banks. As a result, a huge gust of wind transformed my Clam shelter into a kite, and it was merrily scudding up over that path, headed for the beach until some thorny bushes and a helpful bystander stopped it mid-flight. I was already running after it, having seen it take off at the exact moment I was watching SpaceX’s Falcon launch about 700 miles south of me. The Falcon launch was planned, the Clam launch was not. I managed to drag the Clam back down the trail, folded it up as best I could, and stowed it under the Alto so it could not try to fly again.

The downside to this episode was those thorny bushes. I ran after my pricey new shelter without thinking about shoes. Ouch. Yes, two thorns found their way into my right heel, and it turns out that removing thorns from the outside of your heel is really hard to do by yourself. Three hours and many attempts later, they were both out, the second one a full quarter-inch of pain-making nastiness.

Yesterday, I went into town and bought seriously long metal stakes. I’m ready for the next round, but it won’t be today because the trailer (and me inside it) are being jostled by 20-25 mph winds. On the upside, the solar has been awesome, which is great since there are no hookups here. And the temperature is pretty sweet too, 71F right now.

I’ll leave you with a picture of the beach yesterday. It’s pretty endless as far as walking goes, which suits me just fine.

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It is perhaps more fortunate to have a taste for collecting shells than to have been born a millionaire. 

Robert Louis Stevenson

It’s been a good week here at Casa Breeze: Long walks on a windy beach, finding a photographic obsession, and publishing my (first) photobook.

One plug for the book and then we’ll move on. I’m proud of these photos and so happy I can share them with people in hardcover, softcover, or ebook format (iPad or Kindle, but I hear iPad looks better). Click on the cover image below to jump to the bookstore page for it. (Disclosure: I get a small bit ($5) out of each purchase.)

The Tree was the thing at Hunting Island State Park, down at the south end of that state. After two hurricanes in two years that devasted the front campground (it literally no longer exists) and littered the beach with downed trees, stumps, and branches, the park is struggling to get back to form. A ways down the beach is one tree, still standing, branches most intact, but clearly no longer alive. And yet, still standing. I remain mesmerized by this tree after a full week of staring at it and taking images of it.

Monday, I packed up and headed to the north end of South Carolina, the first of three short jumps to the Outer Banks. Not much excitement driving on Interstate 95 for four hours, but it was the fastest way to get from Point A to Point B. And then this rig flew past me. Wow. Other than big wind turbine blades on similar rigs in Texas, this is the biggest thing I’ve seen moving down the road.

Where I’m hanging out for a few days used to be on the shore of a big lake, until Hurricane Matthew breached the earthen dam in two places. The image below shows one breach, and you can see the damage to the dam is massive (that’s the concrete spillway on the right).

It’s still a nice place: quiet and peaceful, and just enough cell signal that I can stay online for posting.

I’m taking a few weeks to think about things, where I want this blog to go, what kind of writing I want to do, and things like that. So if you have ideas, feel free to share your ideas or requests in the comments. No guarantee I’ll use them, but I’m interested in what you’d like to know about the #vagabondlife I lead.

Bonus Photo: My last (windy) walk on Hunting Island beach. (The best of the blog and other photos are always available on my photo site: acwynn.smugmug.com)

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To achieve originality, we need to abandon the comforts of habit, reason, and the approval of our peers, and strike out in new directions. 

Marty Neumeier

Good news, I’m on the move again, so my posts will start to get more interesting now that I have new things to see and photograph. I did enjoy Gainesville, my new hometown, and its many parks. This is a shot from one of those parks last Friday. Between the trees and the palms, there’s a lot to love about Florida forests.

There’s a lot to love about South Carolina, too, now that I’m back on the coast here. This was the Sunday night view as storm clouds started to roll in and high tide hit the marshlands.

I had planned to drive the 6 hours from Gainesville on Monday, but rain in the forecast (and my friend’s astute noticing of that weather forecast) got me to pack up and head out on Sunday instead. It rained all day Monday, so I was happy and dry in my tiny trailer instead of on the interstate dodging trucks and raindrops.

The state park here has some lovely trails. I kind of feel like the photo above is a movie set, not a real life forest trail. But I walked on it so it must be real.

More real, unfortunately, is all the damage that the hurricane did last year. It devastated the beachfront camping (I’m over in the forest section) and this tree is one clear example of how strong the winds were. The hurricane literally cracked this strong tree into two pieces.

I’ll be on the coast here for another week or so, moving between two campgrounds, and enjoying it all. It’s a good start to my 2018 Spring/Summer Adventure!

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I’m writing a new part of my story. Something so new & untouched by all the chapters before. I deserve new. I deserve surprises. I’ve outgrown my storyline of old and so let life be fresh, because I am ready for a new adventure.

S.C. Lourie

This has been a week of contrasts, from the search for manatees in Crystal River (unsuccessful, due to the warm weather making them flee to the Gulf of Mexico), the end of vacation week (sigh) and the acquisition of a new (inflatable) kayak. Oh, and perhaps the best thing, a shiny new fan for my trailer.

The trailer fan has been a bit flaky for months, start, stop, start, stop and never spinning for more than a few minutes at a time. Today, after three hours at the RV repair shop, I now have a new fan and it works great. Just in time for the heat and humidity of a southeastern Spring!

Back to vacation, though, which was Wed-Sunday. My niece and I went on a short hike near Gainesville, with our friends Mary and Mike, where we enjoyed a gentle breeze, lovely skies and spotted birds and an alligator.

Thursday through Saturday morning, we hung out in Crystal River. No manatees, but much good conversation and laughter, and a lovely walk on a nature trail. The cover photo is a weird little fish we saw; no idea what it was but it was cool.

The vacation week ended on a high note, watching the Orlando Magic basketball team eke out a win over the visiting team (Memphis). My niece, from Berlin and a veteran of European soccer (football) games was completely amazed by the noise and cheers, the floor entertainment during timeouts, and the general chaos of a truly American sports event.

On my way home Sunday, I stopped by REI to pick up my new inflatable kayak. After being without a kayak for three years now, it was time to get back to it. The trial run will be Friday, if the weather cooperates. The bonus of an inflatable is that it fits nicely on my back seat and therefore I don’t have to deal with loading and unloading it from the roof, or worrying about it being up there all the time.

I wrote most of this post today (Wednesday) sitting in the waiting area of the Tax Collector’s office, waiting to get Breeze a shiny new Florida license plate and update my driver’s license so I can complete my voter registration and be done with moving paperwork. I’m so ready to be done with moving paperwork!

Another weekend in Gainesville coming up, including shopping the farmers’ market and tidying up the trailer a bit and then Monday, off to new adventures! This one will take me all the way to Quebec by July, so stay tuned!

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We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming. 

Wernher von Braun