2018

For the first time since I started vagabonding, it’s a lucky day: the weekly update is the same day as my birthday. Whee! So instead of a weekly report, I’m featuring some of my favorite moments from the last year.

The Year of 62 started out quite beautifully on the shores of Lake Superior (cover photo above). From there, I made my way west across Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, and then New Mexico. I visited the Ghost Ranch near Santa Fe, a huge bucket list item for me since it’s where Georgia O’Keeffe lived for so many years.

December and January were kind of a blur of travel, across New Mexico and Arizona, up the coast of California, down the Central Valley to avoid wildfires, and seeing Sequoia National Park…

… then coming back down to LA for the holidays before heading across the country on the southernmost route I could find to get to my new domicile in Florida. Despite the routing, I still ran into freezing temps. Turns out this would be a weird weather year.

I spent time on the Gulf Coast in Galveston and Florida, and it was as beautiful as can be.

February and March was all about beaches in South Carolina and I walked along the water almost every day. It was in South Carolina, in March, that I fell in love with a tree. I’m still in love with that tree.

In April and May, I worked my way up the east coast (North Carolina, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Maine) into Canada, where Nova Scotia became another bucket list item I got to check off my list. It’s now on my other list, of places I want to go back to in future, along with almost every other place I visited in the Maritimes.

Returning to the US near the end of July meant lots of opportunities to put my inflatable kayak into the water. I paddled in New York, Tennesee, and Virginia, and I so enjoyed being back on the water after a few years away.

Fall seemed much delayed this year, with hot temperatures (and one Hurricane Florence) keeping me on the move, seeking both cooler temps and higher ground. I’m ending my Year of 62 in a forest, practicing Shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) and enjoying the wind shaking the leaves from the trees over my head.

Today begins my Year of 63. I have some ideas for adventures and explorations, and some ideas for creative ventures as well. Onward.

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I think it’s so foolish for people to want to be happy. Happy is so momentary–you’re happy for an instant and then you start thinking again. Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.

Georgia O’Keefe

Welcome to October, the month of fall foliage, crazy costumes, and other adventures!

Much of the last week, I was obsessed with the 52 Frames photography challenge. This past week, the challenge was to take a famous photograph and then recreate it or otherwise pay homage to it. I chose Sally Mann, a Virginia photographer whose work I saw in Washington DC earlier this year. It took me a ton of shots and post-processing to get close to what I wanted to do; I ended up with two favorites and could only submit one. This is the one that didn’t get submitted.

I finished out my 10-night stand at New River State Park on Monday, after a few trips up and down the Blue Ridge Parkway sections near it. The BPR is one beautiful parkway and the cover photo to this post is just one of the images I shot. I’ll have a separate post on the Blue Ridge Parkway in future, as I’m not quite done with it for this year.

The rest of the New River area was also pretty darned scenic. I really am enamored of western North Carolina and will probably come back in the Spring.

After a sunny and foggy drive halfway from New River to Asheville, I stopped at Linville Falls for a short hike to see the main attraction. It was definitely worth the walk.

To get close to Asheville mostly involves staying at some kind of RV parks, so I bit the bullet and picked the nicest one I could find. The spots are small, the privacy minimal, but I’m mostly out and about during the days so I can deal.

The best part about this place is that after a steep walk up the hill to the upper campground level, there is a fantastic view of the mountains, especially at sunset. We were all out there Tuesday evening taking photos.

I’m a bit late with today’s report because I had a fun day in Asheville, with my friend Leslie acting as tour guide and lead shopping expert. I successfully avoided purchasing anything at the cool bookstore downtown but I did get snared into a pair of fun trousers (on sale), and then a blouse and sweater at another place. Combine that with Thai lunch and dessert to French Broad Chocolate Lounge, and it was a very fun day (thanks, Leslie!). Asheville is really a cool place, and I think I’ll be back here, too.

I’ll be enjoying more of Asheville till Sunday when I retreat back to the mountains for another few weeks, so I am going to enjoy city life while it’s here. Hope you all are enjoying your week!

Oh, and here’s the photo I did submit for the 52 Frames challenge.

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I have to see a thing a thousand times before I see it once.

Thomas Wolfe, Ashville native (from You Can’t Go Home Again)

Wait, how did it suddenly become the end of September? Where did 2018 go so fast? Ah, well, such is life.

This week started with me still hanging out at Natural Tunnel State Park, literally the only state park left open in in Virginia or North Carolina, thanks to Flo. Friday, it was time to give North Carolina another shot. The ironic part is that my drive took me 90% of the way back to Hungry Mother State Park, the place I had left the prior Saturday to get away from potential Florence flooding. The good news is that at least I knew the routing well 🙂

I hadn’t realized the rest of the route would involve an uphill climb to Mount Rogers before heading east and then south again. The Subaru climbed slowly but steadily up the steep grade, and I was kind of pleased to pass a big pickup with a fifth-wheel trailer, pulled off the side of the road with the hood up, overheated, apparently. It was definitely a workout. The view coming down was worth it, though.

I usually try not to move on Fridays or Sundays, to avoid the weekenders who have no choice but to arrive on Friday and leave Sunday. This time, though, here I was on a Friday, arriving at 4PM, along with everyone else. The front desk at the Visitor Center was quick, though, and I was in my spot 10 minutes later. It’s close to the road, but since the campground is mostly empty, it’s fine.

I walked a bit down the road outside the campground on Sunday and then drove farther out on Tuesday and learned two things about this area of northwestern North Carolina: (1) it’s pumpkin growing season and (2) growing Christmas trees is also big. Here’s a photo showing both those activities, with the baby-sized Christmas trees in the background.

I had gone out with the intent to take that photo, but what I didn’t expect was this one. I’ve been studying the images of Sally Mann, who did a lot of photography in the South, and so I’m paying homage to her influence in this one. If you don’t know her work, here’s a link to a google search of some of her photographs. I saw a retrospective of her work at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. last Spring and it’s stuck with me.

It’s still pretty green here in North Carolina, as I discovered in a quick hike through the forest.

But I have hope. There are signs the fall colors are coming. I’ll wait.

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The waiting is the hardest part. 

Tom Petty

Where were we? Oh, right, that hurricane thing. I’m very lucky I got out of the Kerr Lake area (my original plan for the last few weeks) because a tornado was spotted in the town nearest the campground. I moved to Hungry Mother State Park, which had a lovely running path and I quite enjoyed it.

On Thursday, I finally managed to get the Subaru in for its 60K service, my third try at a service appointment this week (first Durham, NC, then Martinsville, VA, and finally Bluefield, WV). The drive was about an hour, with a fun long tunnel through Big Walker Mountain.

The shuttle guy at the dealer was so proud of being a West Virginian, that he took me up to an overlook near the dealer so I could see the beauty of the place. He’s lived here all his life except for a short stint in North Carolina and said he wouldn’t live anywhere else.

My refuge at Hungry Mother lasted till Saturday, when the changing path of Florence meant potential flash flooding in the area on Sunday. I found another state park, this one literally on the top of a mountain, in the far western corner of Virginia, so far over I went through part of Tennessee to get to it. I drove a lot of back roads and at one stop light found myself staring at Elvis and Dale Earnhardt (top photo in this post).

The park is pretty deserted, just me and two other campers in this loop of 20 or so sites, so it’s nice and quiet. Rained all day on Sunday and most of Monday and then Tuesday dawned clear and warm so that was the end of Florence here. I found a graveyard while walking around; this might be the first state park I’ve seen with its own cemetery.

Tuesday I headed over to the town of Gate City to do a little grocery shopping at the Food Lion and stopped in to an old-fashioned pharmacy (literally nothing but medicines and medical devices!) for my yearly flu shot (get your shot!). The main street was more open stores than empty storefronts, so that was good to see after passing through so many little towns struggling to survive.

I bought gas at a Citgo, where the owner was a woman from Peru, her husband is from Egypt, and they moved here about 10 years ago and love it. They went away for a week and left the garage door open, she told me, and when they got back, nothing was missing. Try that in New York, she said, and we both laughed, having both lived there.

I’ll close this week’s report with a look at the Natural Tunnel the park is named after. It is taller than a 10-story building, more than 850 feet long, and it took the river thousands of years to carve the chasm through the limestone. A railroad goes through it and my timing was perfect to see a train of empty coal cars go through it.

Next week, if there are no more hurricanes, I should finally be reporting in from North Carolina, where I hope to start seeing some fall colors in the next month. Come on, fall, let’s do this. I’m done with hot weather and humidity so thick I change clothes twice a day. The promise of cooler days is tantalizing!

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Every unexpected change is an opportunity for something wonderful.

Anonymous

What’s that quotation? “May you live in interesting times.” Yeah, that’s the one. I’m definitely having a few interesting weeks.

To quickly wrap up the saga of the broken-down Mac, it’s all good now. Pro tip: Find an Authorized Apple Service Center and then check their google reviews. Turns out that’s way better than the Genius Bar at the Apple Store. Thanks, Ten Plus Systems in Raleigh, NC, you guys rock; got my Mac back in shape in a few hours.

I had exactly one day to enjoy that peace and quiet. Ah, it was lovely.

The dam at Kerr Lake is quite impressive, especially when the sky is blue and the clouds are puffy white cotton balls.

Where there’s a dam, there are power poles and lines, which are always fun to photograph.

I was happily planning my Tuesday move to a new spot after enjoying the full 14 day limit at my current campground on Kerr Lake when the phone rang. “Forget this campground, it’s now closed due to Florence” was the gist of the call.

I had just moved roller-coasters as it turned out, from tech woes to “where the heck can I go” woes. A little research showed all the eastern North Carolina parks were closed along with most of the Virginia State Parks. Hmm… I called the park I was at a few weeks ago, 150 miles west of me. They were open. So Tuesday I headed west.

That park called at 11AM to say they were now closing on Wednesday. Awesome. There went my six-night stay. I pulled into a parking lot and fired up the hotspot and laptop. Found a few Virginia state parks in the far southwestern corner that are still open, so I reserved a spot online. My easy two-hour drive suddenly morphed into a 5.5 hour drive, complete with rain, fog, and a freeway full of eighteen-wheelers that thought 70 mph in rain and fog was merely a suggestion of a speed limit. I cowered in the right lane going 55-60 and tried not to grip the wheel so hard my hands would ache later.

I’m now at a lovely little state park in southwestern Virginia, a small loop of campers hiding out from Florence and so far, it looks like I’ll be able to stay the weekend. Which is good because I’ve just made my third try at a service appointment for the Subaru for tomorrow. 

I like this park: beautiful things to see and a lovely round-the-lake trail I ran on this morning. Might get some good photography going here between the raindrops.

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Life is like a roller coaster. It has its ups and downs. But it’s your choice to scream or enjoy the ride. 

Anonymous

This week’s update is for those of you still working who envy those of us not putting in 40 (or more!) hours at a desk job. I’ll intersperse my tale of woe with some pretty pictures.

I was on my way home last week from the Appomattox Court House, which was indeed lovely and historical, being the place where Lee surrendered to Grant to end the Civil War.

I got caught in not one but two cloudbursts, and I realized my tires were slipping just a bit so I decided to replace them now and not wait any longer. I spent a few hours on Saturday sitting at my “desk” (the Alto table) researching tires, finding an installation place, and then plunking down a big pile of money to purchase and ship them to a service place about 40 minutes away from me.

Saturday afternoon, I was working on a Sunday Serenity post when Chrome hung and even force quit didn’t shut it down, so I force quit the laptop and decided to try again on Sunday. And as if that laptop knew that I had just spent a wad on tires, it decided to not boot up on Sunday morning. Argh.

So I spent most of Sunday at my desk, googling information on disk utilities and, at one point, pinging my techie nephew (thanks, Bob!) for suggestions and sympathy. Finally, I had to admit that no matter how many times I ran the disk repair utility, it wasn’t going to change the outcome. Got my Time Machine backup disk, and restored the hard disk from that. I lost about five days of photos, probably nothing earth-shattering since most of those photos are still on memory cards or on my phone. But it did bring home to me that weekly backups are better than semi-monthly backups. (And if you don’t back up, go do it right now.)

I ordered a replacement SSD today (because I don’t trust this one, it’s failed me once…), which involved more desk and more web surfing. While I was at it, I googled the phone number for the local post office, to confirm if they would accept a general delivery package if it was sent by the Postal Service (they won’t accept UPS or FedEx, for some odd reason…). More money spent, oddly enough it was about as much as the cost of the four tires. I did get a free 120GB thumb drive with my order, for some reason, so there’s that.

I’m not convinced the SSD was the root cause, so I spent more time online Sunday figuring out where the closest Apple Store might be. Turns out I have two options, both two hours away, one north, one south. Hmm, flipped a coin mentally and went north. If you’re reading this on Wednesday, I’m either driving to or from the Apple Store, or sitting inside it fingers crossed the laptop doesn’t have some fatal flaw.

And because I might have to leave the laptop at the store for a few days, I spent most of today archiving personal stuff (finances, contracts, etc.) onto an external drive and backing up the new version of the SSD to Time Machine in case they screw it up at the store.

Driving from campsite A to campsite B on Monday (yes, I just moved spots in the same campground), I realized the Subie odometer passed 60K over the weekend, meaning the pricey 60K service appointment is coming. And since I tow about 60% of the Subie miles (yes, I know this because I have the data), I use the Subaru Severe Maintenance schedule, which means the car is also due for a CVT (transmission) fluid change. Not every dealer has master techs that can do this, because it’s not that common a service order.

So back to the desk, and google maps, to find what my Subaru service options are in the middle of nowhere, Virginia. Turns out that after I move a bit south early next week, I am only (!) 90 minutes from Hendrick Subaru in North Carolina. Now that might not mean much to a lot of people, but it is the Hendrick as in Rick Hendrick of NASCAR racing teams. So I figure it’s got that going for it. And some good reviews. I’ll be there next Thursday. They apologized for not having a loaner car available, so I asked if they had a shuttle that could drop me at the nearby mall, and they said they did. I won’t have any money by then, but I can sure as hell window shop like mad.

So for all of you thinking the vagabond life is fun and games, kayaking and reading books in an endless version of a vacation, sometimes it is. And some weeks, like this one, it’s all about the mundane stuff: tires, computer woes, and car maintenance. At least I put some pretty pictures in this post, right?

I’ll end this report with a photo of my current view. I can launch my kayak from the beach just below it, which I did twice on Tuesday. So, yeah, not too shabby.

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A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.

W.C. Fields