Story Aunt Gus & Little Bear's Great Adventure Book 1 (Complete)

[Kathy in FL]

This story has been banging around in my head for a couple of years. No sure what everyone will make of it but I have it all outlined and hope to post on it two or three times a week ... something like MWF. I'm still writing Nann, even posted a chapter today, just needed something to help with the stress and this is what came to mind. There's a five part Prologue to the story before it sets off. If I can figure out how to patch pictures into the story I will.

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Aunt Gus & Little Bear’s Big adventure
Roadtripping or Homeless? Guess which one we picked?

Prologue 1 (part 1)

I set up the blog today. It isn’t one of the last tasks I have to do, but I’ve been putting it off as long as I could. Why? Absolutely no clue except maybe I was subconsciously hoping that my nonexistent Fairy Godmother would suddenly show up and all our problems would be over with. Yeah, like that was ever going to happen. I’m too old to believe in fairy tales and all of the rest of it. There may be a few people you can depend on in this life – I know there have been people like that for me – but at some point, you must do for yourself and sometimes in the process take on the responsibilities that someone had originally done when they took you on. Does that convoluted, run-on sentence even makes sense? There’s been a lot of convoluted in my life and looks like I can add bad grammar to that mix.

I’ve been wimbling back and forth about what platform and format to use for the travel blog. I want to monetize it – hopefully – and I want to make it easy and accessible. I want to advertise things like my affiliate links that I’ve set up. On the other hand, I need some control because, privacy you know, especially since I’m traveling with a kid and I’m not exactly far into the world of adulting either. In the end I hit Craig’s List and hired a web designer to help me set up my own site. Wow, that sounds a lot more glamorous than it has been. I’ll be learning web design as I go so that I can maintain things just in case the site breaks or whatever.

But before I can start that, I need to get the rest of my story – our story – down. Our story? Aunt Gus and Little Bear’s Big Adventure. Well, that’s what our story has morphed into but I’m going to have to go back further than tomorrow or this autobiography won’t make any sense at all.

Hi, I’m Gus … legally known as August Summer Barrymore Jr. Our Van Life adventure starts on my 20th Birthday assuming nothing else blows up in my life. Why does everyone call me Gus? Because my grandmother was distraught like everyone else was at my birth and gave the nurse the wrong information … her name instead of the one that had originally been picked for me. She was actually my step grandmother – another sob story – because my paternal grandfather didn’t re-marry until Dad was in high school. It had to be her because my dad was barely compos mentis and couldn’t have answered the nurse regardless of the reason or motivation. My mom was an “older, high-risk” mother and she developed pre-eclampsia that turned into eclampsia and she had a stroke when I was born. A bad one. Really bad. As in so bad it killed her. So, the day I was born I also lost my mother.

That sounds very clinical I suppose but it is how I have learned to cope with never having a mother. I had “mother figures” in my life, Dad saw to that, but Dad never remarried so I never called anyone “Mom.” Dad’s name is … was … Lawrence Benjamin Barrymore Jr. He didn’t know his mother either but more because she and his father couldn’t live together and eventually she flipped out and lot’s of sad stuff so my dad and his older brother were raised by his dad from the time he was a baby. Because Dad knew it was possible, he didn’t think it strange that he would raise me on his own. Well, not really on his own, my brother is … was … Lawrence Benjamin Barrymore III. He was older than I was by fourteen years. And there was no one in between. I was one of those perimenopausal whoopsie babies that you hear about.

You know how when you are a kid you sometimes wonder why you were born, or even if you should have been born? I said that to Dad once. Oh my Lord. It is the one and only time he really sat me down and intentionally took the time to talk about my mother to me. I don’t know who found it more painful, me or Dad. Either way I never questioned it again. And I suppose that’s a good thing because when I was fourteen, same age my brother was when I was born, Dad had a heart attack at work and died. Again, very clinical but I learned to live with it because I had a great big brother that, despite having just gotten married himself and being in the military, he took me in rather than see me go into foster care when no one else in the extended family could take me. All four of my grandparents had died by the time my father did creating some of the stress that caused the heart attack is my guess as we had all be very close and they were the ones that had raised me when Dad was on the road driving. He hated leaving me after that but there hadn’t been any choice as the bills had to be paid and he couldn’t depend on his brother or his brother’s kids as they were all a bit of a mess that neither Dad or Lawrence ever wanted me emulating.

I was fourteen. And my own hot mess for a few months until I got over having to give up everything I knew, and most of my stuff, to go live with my brother, who was usually deployed, while living with a new sister-in-law who was, and I’m trying to say this nicely for Benny’s sake, a free-spirited loony. How she and my brother hooked up is still one of those mysteries of the universe that won’t be answered until I get where I’m going after this life. They met at a riot of all things. Apparently my brother saved her life when the group she was hanging with lost their ever-loving minds and joined a violent protest group and wham bam thank you man she was in loooooove with the first man that had ever been a stable influence in her life. She hadn’t ever exactly had any stable female influences in her life either since her mother was an even bigger hot mess than she was and intentionally OD’d while Penny was a teenager leaving her in the care of a sister that thought she was a cross between Joan of Ark and that old chick Goldie Hawn. I met her once. She was in her 40s but looked to be in her 60s … she never really used sunscreen if you know what I mean. Her skin tone was burnt umber if that gives any indication what I mean.

I came on the scene and Penny was pretty easy going about it. Apparently she grew up with kids moving in and out of the house dependent on who was shacked up with who and she has … had … a lot more step-siblings than most people have regular family members. Then right as my brother was getting deployed again Penny catches preggers and her problems became a little more pronounced shall we say. My brother was struggling, and I just stepped up to show my appreciation for him taking me in and that first hell-year he dealt with keeping me from falling off the edge of the planet.

After Benny was born Penny leveled out and really loved all of the various mother groups she was a part of. No sure clue, but I think it was a bit like being in group therapy all the time which is probably what she really needed.

What I needed I found in the Naval Sea Cadets program[1] and Sea Scouts[2]. The Naval Sea Cadets is a type of JROTC although not really; we were a very distinct group that focused on leadership and teamwork as well as a scaled-down version of the Navy’s basic training program. Sea Scouts on the other hand is a BSA program. I got hooked into both by the home school co-op my brother insisted I participate in while he was stationed in Jacksonville, FL. Why? He had his reasons and they included that he wasn’t going to have his little sister in public school if he wasn’t around to beat the crap out of any creeps that came sniffing. Yep, actual quote there.

The other thing the co-op hooked me into was being dual enrolled. That meant I was a high school student and a college student at the same time; or at least a version of those two things. I used the co-op for electives and social outlets and dual enrolled at one of the local state colleges for everything else. For qualifying students, dual enrollment is free in Florida. Yeehaw. I had to pay for my books, but Lawrence said that was still cheaper than private school, so he set me up with a school fund from Dad’s estate and I had the responsibility of paying for things. Wowee, talk about trial by fire. It taught me about money and working and finding creative ways to have more income than out-go.

Penny was a little vague about it all but still encouraged and supported my activities. Plus, she liked to join the parent support groups. More “group therapy,” but it helped her and kept me out of hot water. Not to mention, I’m not the greatest match for public school settings. I tend to be organized and disciplined to keep my head on straight, and the chaos often found in public school wasn’t a healthy fit for me. Even Dad had recognized that, and I was a “virtual student” rather than a physical classroom student from Kindergarten until I went to live with Lawrence.

I took care of Benny when I wasn’t in my other activities. I took care of Benny more as time went on. Then it became obvious I needed to take care of Benny full-time. I was taking care of Penny full time as well. Or as full time as she would let me. Benny and I have something in common, we have both been diagnosed with APD (Auditory Processing Disorder). Mine isn’t bad and has improved with age and training, and no longer would keep me out of the military. In fact, I scored high on every “listening” skill because I concentrated more than your average individual. Benny’s is worse but he is learning because I know what he is going through and am helping him to learn work arounds. He may be able to “outgrow” it but I’m suspecting not. Both Benny and I are also dyslexic. Dad caught mine early and helped me to learn work arounds to the point it is barely noticeable to me or anyone else. I still occasionally reverse my words when I’m talking and I have to do a freakton of editing when I write, but it wouldn’t have kept me out of the military either. Benny’s, just like with the APD, is worse. Fortunately, his Aunt Gus is on top of it. He can already read a few site words that are important for safety reasons, read his name and we are working on “left” and “right”. I’m teaching him words as “pictures” rather than as individual letters, and phonetics is just going to have to wait.

Lawrence was around most of my senior year of high school as he had been deployed for a lot of rotations. He was also getting some special training for his next rank or something along those lines. He didn’t talk about it and I wasn’t supposed to ask about it. Thems were the rules and rules I understood then and still do. Besides, I didn’t want to wreck his time at home anymore than the problems that he and Penny were having did.

I’ll record this here and one of these days I’ll explain it to Benny. Lawrence once told me that he was in love with being in love with Penny more than he was in love with her. I kinda got it at the time, and maturity and a near miss of my own has helped me to understand it better. The near miss was my first year out of high school and probably would have derailed all my plans (that life derailed anyway) if I hadn’t already been dealing with real life responsibilities and realized I didn’t need the damage the other guy was exhibiting.

Lawrence was committed to his kid and his marriage, and Penny was turning out to be pretty helpless and his conscience simply would not allow him to abandon either of them. But me he wanted to make sure could stand on my own two feet and escape whatever he thought might be coming down the pike.

I graduated high school with most of my Associate’s Degree at the same time, and rather than going straight into the military as had been my plan, Lawrence talked me into finishing college first. I don’t think it was selfish of him. I don’t. I think he wanted me to be an Officer which would have made it easier on me because I’m female. And given the way things have turned out, it has certainly been for the best. But a couple of days after I graduated high school Lawrence left for his next deployment overseas. I had just turned 18 and he pretty much left me in charge of everything, including the finances which he’d spent many of the preceding months teaching me how to do. At 18 I didn’t need a co-signer for a bank account but though I was on the lease of their apartment because I lived there, the lease wasn’t in my name. That turned out to be a bad thing and the one thing that Lawrence overlooked.

Here we all are, trucking along, all of my classes but one were online, so I was able to take care of Benny full-time so I wouldn’t have to worry about Penny leaving him at the apartment or store accidentally. Benny was nearly three and smart enough that putting him in a VPK program would have just held him back even with his learning challenges. Penny? She could function so long as someone else was in charge of the important stuff and made sure she took her meds on time. She even had a job, of sorts, at a local thrift store where she handled the show cases and windows.

Then the officers in dress uniforms showed up at the door and we found out that Lawrence Benjamin Barrymore III had died in the service of his country. I still don’t know what happened. It was a closed casket out of necessity and the Freedom of Information report I got was all blacked out. Maybe one of these days Benny will get to know. I do know that my brother was posthumously awarded a medal and even a rank. So whatever it was, it was a big-freaking-deal. A really big-freaking-deal. Like maybe save the country … or the world … big-freaking-deal. Or at least I tell myself that sometimes to rationalize that he’d been taken away from us and our personal world being reshaped into something that I barely recognized.

Benny turned four and that year is one I’m not particularly in favor of reliving if you want to know the truth. I love him but all the upheaval made Benny have a reversal of personality back to the terrible-two’s times a hundred, which he’d never had the first time around. His pediatrician wanted him tested for all sorts of things and medicated when she witnessed one of the fits he could throw. Ugh. Because of his age he got sent to a specialist who turned out to be pretty understanding and actually just gave me a few suggestions like to put him on a special diet to see if things were being exacerbated by gluten or food dyes or flavorings. Turned out to be a great idea and by the end of the year I was able to smooth most of the wrinkles out. No meds and Benny was a more chill kid than he had been since birth.

During that same time Penny was just gawd-awful. It was like I was the parent with two kids and one of them was an out-of-control, ADHD, ODD, Bi-Polar, unmedicated and hormonally-challenged teenager. And I’m not talking about Benny. Penny fooled me in the beginning and wasn’t taking her meds even though I was watching her. She’d spit them out when I wasn’t looking. And even when I started to check, she’d go stick her finger down her throat to throw them back up. Found that trick out when she was Baker Acted after she had a breakdown at her thrift store job.

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[1] Naval Sea Cadets is a program for students ages 13-17, with a junior group starting at age 11. Much like JROTC, students will find the Sea Cadet program to be a great course in leadership and teamwork. Unlike JROTC, however, is that Sea Cadets offer a scaled-down version of the Navy’s basic training to introduce students to military drill and discipline, physical fitness, seamanship, shipboard safety, first aid, naval history, and leadership. Additionally, twice-monthly drills (weekend training) are common among most Sea Cadet locations. Students interested in the Navy, Marine Corp., Coast Guard, and/or Merchant Marines will find many interesting activities in the Naval Sea Cadets.
[2] Scout Resources - Sea Scouts BSA

 

[Kathy in FL]

Aunt Gus & Little Bear’s Big adventure
Roadtripping or Homeless? Guess which one we picked?

Prologue 1 (part 2)

How Benny wasn’t taken away during that year I have no clue except that Lawrence had had my name put into legal papers that I was co-guardian of him. It was either that or that the system was overloaded with Unaccompanied Minors, most of whom had been trafficked by the cartels and had worse problems. Whatever. I’m sorry for those kids but I’m glad that Benny never fit the parameters the State had set up to be taken away. As bad as Florida was and is, most other states were and are even worse. Especially in the urban centers but not only there.

Then the two-year Lease was up on the apartment and even though we’d never been late, and I’d kept the place clean and all the other yada yada, they wouldn’t renew the Lease Agreement. One, they wanted more for the place and there was a stipulation that the rent could only go up a certain percentage at each renewal. Two, most of the families living in the complex were either active military or retired military. Three … ugh … the truth was that while there was money, and quite a bit of it between Dad’s estate and now Lawrence’s, there was no job with a paycheck that qualified as normal income. Penny was getting survivor benefits but no matter how I’d tried I couldn’t be the payee and she spent those checks almost as fast as they came in. On what I never really found out, all I know is that it was gone more often than not before the next one. Benny also gets survivor benefits (SSI), as well as a special Gold Star Family child dependent payment from the military, and those I am the payee for. I try and save as much of that as I can the same way Lawrence had saved the Survivor benefit check I got from Dad until I turned 18.

How it works is the VA provides Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) and the Department of Defense provides the Survivors Benefit Plan (SBP). DIC is considered a benefit so it is tax-free and comes out to around $1,300 per month. SBP is considered retirement compensation so it is taxable and is up to 55% of the deceased service member’s pay rate. Since there are two ways to receive Gold Star family benefits, the law prevents double-dipping. This means you can only choose one of the payment options. As it was explained to me, survivors usually choose to receive SBP payments, even though they’re taxable. Unless the deceased service member was ranked below an E-4, SBP will be higher than DIC, even when accounting for taxes. When it comes to DIC, surviving spouses are the main recipients. However, SBP is more of a life insurance plan and recipients can include surviving spouses, former spouses, children, disabled dependents, or a person with a natural insurable interest. In most cases, siblings and cousins of a fallen military member won’t be covered by either of these benefits. However, I was Lawrence’s dependent by law and would have been covered by his insurance and stuff until I was twenty-one had he lived. My circumstances are complicated but the caseworker we were assigned to said I was covered so I’m not questioning it, something called a natural insurable interest. Either way it all ends when I “age out” at twenty-one. Benny still has a long way to go, and as his legal guardian it is my responsibility to keep up with everything on his behalf.

Benny receives SBP and a small social security check. I bank as much of this as I can and feel guilty for each dollar that I can’t bank. I don’t talk over this stuff with Benny, but I keep a log so there’ll never be any question that I squandered his inheritance. There’s also the life insurance and stuff like that that I managed to save from Penny and her illness (issues). Sometimes I wonder if Lawrence had some kind of worry or foreshadowing that he wouldn’t come home. He had more than your average life insurance amounts spread out in different policies that I didn’t know about until one of his buddies brought me a letter he’d left. He named Benny and I the benefit recipients, not Penny. In the letter he asked me to take care of them both to the best of my ability. He had spent a year teaching me how to adult, and he set me up to have legal co-guardianship of Benny, and I’ve wondered ever since if he knew or suspected something. I probably always will until I get where I’m going and get to ask him to his face. And that’s enough of that. I’ve got enough problems without digging up ones that I can do nothing about. Onward and upward as Dad used to say.

I had an online business reselling things I found at yard sales and estate sales but that wasn’t a “stable income source” though it hasn’t hurt because sometimes it can bring in some really good money. Ebay, Etsy, Poshmark … you name it I had a “store front”. I also did Facebook’s marketplace and Craig’s List depending on what the item was and if I couldn’t get rid of it through the other systems. Then there were online affiliates and things like that. Between everything going on plus Benny and Penny, I just barely had time to finish out my college semester, dump the boyfriend from hell, pack everything up, sell or donate what couldn’t be packed up, and accept an offer from one of Penny’s step-brothers who was living in Key West of all places.

Groucho is not his real name but that’s what everyone calls him. It’s actually Gregor Stepanik but I only found that out by accident. He’s been known as Groucho almost his entire life. He’s in his late 50s and is the oldest of Penny’s step sibs. He always had a soft spot for her and is what most people would call eccentric, at least when they are being polite. He owns a bed and breakfast that he won in a poker game and a motorcycle and RV mechanics business. The mechanic shop is his bread and butter; the bed and breakfast was using more of his butter than he could afford so he basically offered us room and board to stay in the little shack behind the B-n-B if Penny and I would play housekeepers and help him with some renovations that needed to happen … or else according to his insurance company.

I like Groucho. For him to be an eccentric he is pretty level-headed. In other words, his strangeness does not interfere with his day-to-day except his taste in women sucks big time. I think he has been married seven times at last count. He has one of those “caregiver” personalities and this last one was a mean hot mess that didn’t realize she wasn’t going to get a big pay out. Groucho might not be a spring chicken but he’s not some old fart ready to kick the bucket and leave everything to a young piece of arm candy either. She’s why he was desperate enough to come up with the plan to have Penny and I look after the BnB. Boy did my fighting skills get kicked up a notch after dealing with all the friends of that skank that kept coming and claiming they could stay there for free. Geez. I had to catch them before they got beyond the front door or there would be a legal eviction to hassle with.

Penny stabilized for about two months and then she fell down a hole. She tried to OD once and it wasn’t really a cry for help; she really wanted out of this life. Lawrence I guess had given her a sense of security and with him gone she couldn’t envision ever getting it back. And yes, I’m aware how selfish that was considering she was who was supposed to provide Benny with security. But such is life and sometimes people are just going to be who they are no matter what you do. Then one night she took a sea kayak out and never came back … not still in this life anyway. Took them three days to find what was left of her body and you can guess what had happened to it. They call it depredation. Closed casket again and I was waiting for the other shoe to drop again, but Groucho surprised me.

“You’re too young, but time will take care of that. If you can find something to do until you are twenty-one you might stand a chance.”

Having a suspicion of where he was going I said, “Let me guess, you’re selling the BnB.”

He nodded. “It is sucking too much out of The Shop. Mizzou is my next to last wife and for sure my last ex-wife. Damn the girl is crazy with a capital Cray and a capital Z. Me and Stella have known each other for years. We know who each other are, and we aren’t out to change that. And we’ve spent time together between my wives and she’s okay that she is number last. Hell, she runs The Shop as much as I do and is a damn fine mechanic on her own. Her kids have been grown and out of her house for years. I’m about to pay off the last of mine when Kirkland turns 18 and he doesn’t want to go to college but wants to work at The Shop full time after he graduates, otherwise I might have offered the space over the garage to you and Little Bear. You understand?”

“Sure Groucho. I get it. I gotta work on finding something permanent though. Benny is going to be six in less than a year.”

“You’re too young to be his Momma.”

“Not technically. And even if I was, it doesn’t matter. I’m who Benny has, and he is who I have. Lawrence took care of me after Dad died. I’m going to take care of Benny for the same reasons. I just have to figure out how I’m going to do it.”

Giving me a look that seemed something was coming he told me, “Well, I got an idea.”

“I’m all ears because to be honest I’m a little bankrupt in the idea department,” I told Groucho because while he is eccentric, he isn’t stupid. He’s actually pretty smart if you don’t throw women into the equation.

He chuckled then said, “Road trip.”

That did surprise me. “What?”

“Road trip. You may be young, but you got a good head on your shoulders. You got more than just spare change in the bank and it will stay that way now that Penny ain’t around to need it all. And I happened to find something at an estate auction yesterday that has all kinds of possibilities.”

I honestly thought he was crazy at first, though I didn’t tell him that. I gave him the chance to bring me around. A road trip. Just get in a car and go. Stop when we got someplace and stay there until we want to go someplace new. I just couldn’t handle it. I mean that might be a great life for some people, but Benny and I need structure and not just because we are both a little OCD in addition to APD and dyslexia.

But then I got a look at what he’d bought, and a freaking idea started forming in my own head and I couldn’t get rid of it.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Prologue 2

All I need is a year and I might have better luck finding us a place to live. Or at least our next place to live. I’m under no illusions that I’m going to buy a house at twenty-one and live there the rest of my life even if I could get a bank to do more than laugh at me.

First off, I went through the pro’s and con’s of what I was thinking about doing:

• It would give me an interesting year that I might otherwise never get to experience and the same would be true for Benny. Gap years are getting standard for a lot of people my age simply because of economics. For instance, people take gap years between life events like graduation and school or school and job.
• Benny hasn’t turned six yet so technically there would be no problem with school though if I home schooled him after he did turn six that should cover me. I’m basically doing that now so it’s not like it would be a shock to either of our systems.
• I’m one of those “cash rich, credit poor” individuals that are having the hardest time to find a place to live. The places that might rent to me are not the kinds of places a young woman with a child live if they have other options. Plus, I found out that one of Mizzou’s craphead friends "stole my identity” and ran up some credit cards and then didn’t make payments. I’m still working on getting that straightened out. It just takes time and a freaking whole lotta paperwork and effort.
• Because of the inheritance stuff I don’t qualify for any kind of housing assistance so that’s out. Not sure I’d want those kinds of strings in my life anyway. For Benny’s sake if I had no other choice, but my understanding is once you go on the dole, they have you for life and I definitely don’t want that.
• Fuel and propane don’t come cheap, but they are still cheaper than monthly rent and utility bills. It might still be a wash if you add in campsite reservations and the occasional hotel to get us off the road for some extra primping, or just needing a break.
• The idea started pinging my adventurous personality traits. Before Lawrence died, I did some crazy stuff with my Naval Sea Cadet friends and with my Sea Scout ship crew. Heck, I even went out on a sailboat in the Atlantic for a week by myself.
• On the other hand, adventures with a five-year-old would have to be different. I wasn’t just taking my life in my hands by doing this, but his too. I understand that better now than I did back in my own personal “growing pains” days. Lawrence gave up a lot to become my guardian. Sure, I was older but that doesn’t make the sacrifices any less. He set the example that I’m going to follow.
• And there is Benny’s diet to consider which can occasionally get wiggy but isn’t impossible.
• Running my on-line businesses was going to be more challenging, and a couple of them might have to go into temporary retirement. On the other hand, I was beginning to think about this being just another opportunity, maybe, with a monetized blog and all the rest of it.
• My research proved that thousands of people do it, I just needed to decide if I wanted Benny and I to be among them.

Groucho was right, there was a lot of money in the bank (not all of it was in the bank actually) but it wasn’t doing a lot of good sitting there doing nothing. I couldn’t even set up an investment account because no one wanted to touch me until I was 21. I could learn to do it myself, but it takes time and a mentor, and I didn’t have either one at that moment. Car loan? The dealership people just shrugged when they found I didn’t have anyone to co-sign and loan. It got discouraging to be told no at almost every turn.

Dad had always talked about retiring and driving around the country in an RV. I don’t know if that was a pipe dream or not, but he’d drawn up some plans to do it; things like activity lists and he used some websites to create a map. His favorite one was based on visiting all the Continental national parks in a year. That’s roughly fifty parks in 365 days or less. Very doable according to his hypothesis. That had been one of my favorite projects to work on him with, and before he got married Lawrence had often played the what-if game of planning with us. Dad is gone. Now Lawrence is gone. But Benny and I are here, and I started thinking that maybe we would be the ones that could go on such a trip.

I still had the computer files and notebook Dad kept his RVing files in. The one thing I balked at though was doing it in an RV. Dad had also considered a travel trailer, camper, and fifth-wheel. None of those thrilled me either. What Groucho had gotten was a legitimate answer to all my concerns. A van. A souped-up type of conversion van.

The estate was of a woman in Miami. She and her husband had been snowbirds and started their traveling life but then the husband developed Alzheimer’s and it had set in hard and mean and their traveling days ended extremely fast. He’s still alive and living in a place where his kids stuck him when they realized they couldn’t do what their mother did which was care for him at home. They’re all up north someplace. None of my business but it explains why they didn’t really know what they had and how much they could have gotten for it. Wowee. And Groucho was willing to sell it to me for his cost as long as I finished helping him get the BnB ready to turn over to the new owners.

I finally caved to my inner nomad and jumped at the offer before he could sell it to someone else for easily five times what he paid for it. If nothing else, I figured I could sell it and make a doggone good profit if the road trip idea fell apart. Now comes the “what” of the equation.

It is what is popularly known these days as a “sportsmobile” and is what our home is going to be for at least the next year. If nothing else, at the end of the road trip I should be able to find an RV park that will let me rent monthly. There’s a ton of such places in Florida and frankly there’s more than a few in other parts of the country too. I’m not stuck on moving back to Key West, or Jacksonville either. The road trip could even be a way for me to see the country and find out the best place for Benny and me to live until he grows up and chooses his own way to get through life.

Online the lifestyle is called “Van Life.” Kinda corny but what are you going to do? There are a few people who live that way 24/7/365. There’s a lot more than a few people that do it part time. And by few I’m still talking thousands of people. And based on all the articles and websites I could find our van is a premium upgrade on what many people have though there are some really decked out models costing upwards of two-hundred grand. Geez. I still found some holes that I had to pay to fill, but with Groucho’s help I was able to do it without breaking the bank.

First off, this thing isn’t just a van, but has been tricked out to go off-road and off-grid as a 4x4. And call me a princess if you want to, but when I saw the thing came with a bathroom, I was happy-happy. It isn’t palatial but as I am accustomed to “the head” in a small sailboat, it is pretty dang sweet as it wasn’t just a marine toilet (built-in macerator to chews the solids into small bits) with a black water tank, but has a shower and miniscule sink that empties into a gray water tank. Yeehaw. You almost have to sit on the toilet and put your elbow in the sink to take a shower but like I said, yeehaw because bathroom breaks are a necessity of life for females of all ages and certainly for 5-year-old little boys.

There are enough seat-belts to hold six people, assuming you need to, and sleeping space for 3 if two of them are a couple. Neither issue is something I needed to worry about but at least we can have two separate beds, unlike many of the van conversions I saw that only had a single platform bed. I love Benny, but I’ve lived with the kid his entire life and I would like to occasionally sleep through the night without getting a knee to the kidney or elbow to the back of my head.

The “double bed” in the van is a platform bed but that’s because under the bed is a storage compartment so roomy the specs call it the garage. It has three compartments: two narrow ones and a large center one. All three sections are “slide out” which means that say I need to get to something that is in the center section but further into the van, I don’t have to unpack everything to get to it, just pull the slide out and the access is neat and clean. One of the narrow ones holds the freshwater tank and the slide means maintenance on it will be a lot easier. So will filling it if I have to do it manually though you can fill via the water hook ups in an RV spot with utilities. I can also drain the black and gray tanks the same way. In that space is also a propane tank that runs the small hot water reservoir and will hook up to any other propane needing items. Here Groucho warned me that I should probably get a second tank for back-up since the primary tank is just a ten-pounder. I did that because Groucho was right. What if I got some place and the area was out of the switch-out tanks? It happens in Florida pretty often between grill-season or storm-season or party-season.

The center large storage area will hold whatever you want it to, and the narrow one opposite the freshwater tank will hold two full-sized dirt bikes at the same time. My bike for getting around town is bigger than a dirt bike and has side saddles but still fits now that I took the kid carrier off and stored it separately, and I managed to find a bike that will serve Benny at least a year that is smaller but fits with the other one. I have to adjust the handlebars on both bikes to get them in and out, but Benny and I have practiced a lot and have it down to a science. The bikes are holding up well, but Groucho suggested taking all sorts of stuff for repairs and maintenance for both bikes and I probably have enough tire patch to fix up a big rig. I don’t have nearly as much room in that compartment as I thought I would but it is “sufficient” and then some.

The van itself is called a Long Body & High Roof (Length 22’2″, WB 148″). That’s bigger than your average van but not as big as an RV, at least the ones that aren’t microsized. My runner up idea was a camper top on a truck but the van is better for various reasons including the plumbing. It is a little tall … 9’2” from ground to top of roof plus attic fan, solar panels, and the awning adds another 5 inches to that. There was a side ladder, but Groucho hates those things and instead gave me a commercial telescoping ladder he picked up at one of his many estate sales hauls. Taking off the ladder meant I would be able to get into most parking lots though the height means that most drive thru’s are out of the question. ‘Course they don’t happen much these days anyway so it isn’t like I’m going to miss much. I haven’t found any overpasses that won’t let me through but that is a consideration I am going to have to stay on top of if I have to make detours in our road map.

The other reason that there needs to be a ladder to get to the top is because, get this, there is a whole bank of solar panels up there. One thousand and fifty watts worth of solar panels to be exact. Each panel is 175 watts on its own and that makes for six panels. This is one of the places that Groucho helped me out. I got the idea from someone who lives on their boat year-round. We fabricated a frame around the solar panels. Then I sewed a Kevlar fabric sheet (thanks to one of Groucho’s odd friends) that will stretch over the frame that covers the solar panels and button down with these special rivets. Storms could be a thing and the Kevlar cover could prevent a big repair bill. Will it save the panels from a hailstorm? I can only hope.

As far as cleaning the solar panels, from what I’ve read, the biggest enemies for power reduction is pollen, bird droppings, and leaves/twigs falling and getting stuck on the panels. Snow, which we might run into at some point, is only a problem if it is wet and over 2-inches thick and that can and should be brushed off with a broom. Of course, solar-power in winter isn’t going to be the best anyway simply because of the angle of the sun and all the maffs that have given me a headache even with a calculator to help. To account for that there is a small propane generator that can run the bare necessities for short periods of time. But if that happens we are back to the problem with propane scarcity. You can’t cover every potential problem but I’m thinking I’ve got enough redundancies that it will cover most.

I’ve got a spec folder with all the mechanical information on the upgrades to the van but basically it’s a tank where the axles and undercarriage is concerned. It still looks like a van from the outside though it rides a little high, but in the places you can’t see, like under the hood, you’ve got a military grade machine and chassis. Speaking of under the hood, the engine is a 7.3L V-8, the same engine as the Super Duty trucks. According to Groucho it is rated for 430 horsepower @ 5500 RPMs and 475 lbs/ft of torque @ 4500 RPMs. I’ll give that another yeehaw even though I’m not sure why. Groucho says it’s a good thing, and I trust him on all things mechanical, but it doesn’t exactly sip fuel.

And speaking of trusting Groucho, he tinkered with the van and it now gets at least 10 mpg in the city, about twice that on the highway unless I’m towing something (as in Groucho installed a 10,000-lb tow kit with a hitch extender just because he said you never know). The fuel tank holds 31 gallons though it says it is a 30-gallon tank. That means conservatively I can get 300 miles per tank, possibly twice that depending on the driving. But let me tell you, the price per tank is not going to be conservative. Even though the government was ultimately forced to reopen the two big pipelines out west when the US started to lose its reserve currency status, you can still find gas at $4/gallon (and even higher along the West Coast) during high travel seasons and that means that filling that monster tank is going to be about $125 a pop and that’s assuming no ten cents surcharge per gallon for using a credit card. I have a couple of credit cards believe it or not because the bank offered me one due to my businesses that I have in an LLC. Go figure, especially with the identity theft thing, but it should help me build my credit back up as long as I don’t get stupid. All the money I’ve been spending and will spend dries the spit in my mouth to think about.

Breaking it down into the simplest maffs that I can right now, I’m looking at roughly 15,000 miles of driving assuming no sides trips, detours, etc. That makes for approximately fifty fill-ups if I actually get 300 mpg/tank. Fifty times $125 is, get this happy-campers, approximately $6,250.00 just for fuel costs. The one-bedroom apartments that I’ve looked at are going for a minimum of $14,400.00 per year plus utilities so I guess I’m not doing too bad so long as the cost of campsites and the like don’t get horrible. I’ve already booked quite a few sites, such as the ones inside the national parks, and they are averaging about $20/night because we received something called an “Access Pass” for being a Gold Star family and recently it converted to not just a “free pass” into the national parks themselves but a discount for many other activities within the parks. The discount isn’t the same for all parks but something is better than nothing. That means 365 nights times an average of $20/night is $7,300.00 plus $6,250.00 for fuel equals $13,550.00 which is still less than a one-bedroom rental and that’s before utilities come into it. Except you can back out some nights because my route and timetable says we’ll end some time in November (maybe) but add in there are going to be some nights that cost more. Needless to say I’m getting an ulcer trying to make sure I have everything budgeted for.

I know that I’m going to have some repairs and maintenance along the way, but I would if I was stationery as well. There will be a few nights that we are going to want a hotel that will eat into the cushion I am trying to build, but I hope to offset some of that by staying with friends a few times, finding free-for-the-night parking like at rest stops or parking lots, and possibly some free places like primitive forestry sites. That’s where my learning curve is going to come in but I’m also hoping that paying attention to the online forums that I’ve found will help out. Stella surprised me by saying she has a stepdaughter that works for KOA and she’ll try and get me some discounts there. After looking at the prices of KOAs I’m not sure if they will help or not, but it will be cheaper than grabbing a hotel room.

I have to run the numbers again. As with everything in life I’m sure this is going to be more expensive than the basic numbers tell. I’m prepared to build for that … I think. I’m also working on monetizing the blog. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that things don’t completely blow up on us.

 

[Siskiyoumom]

Thank you!

 

[Lake Lili]

Loving this one! Looking forward to more! Thanks Kathy!

Lili

 

[Griz3752]

Write what you like Ms K.; we'll hang out w/ you while you figure out where you're going.

G.

 

[Jeepcats27]

thank you for the new story! Hope the stress gets better!

 

[Kathy in FL]

Prologue 3 (part 1)

Groucho added a few other things to the van, as well as what I’ve already mentioned, some of which I understand and some of which I don’t. The weirdest looking thing is what he called a snorkel. It acts as a top funnel and is a highly efficient water separator to remove rainwater from the incoming air stream. It ensures safe engine operation through even the most torrential tropical storms, or so he says. I can see needing that in Florida, but he says you never know, and he could do it so he did. Although I gotta say, I have no interest in driving through a torrential tropical storm so again, might be cool to overengineer, but I’m not sure how useful it will ever be. Some guy is paying him to teach him how to modify vans and RVs so Groucho saw it as a write-off with me as the beneficiary. Like I said, Groucho can be different but different isn’t always bad.

Another thing he added is a swing away tire mount on the rear door which gets the spare tire out of my storage space since underneath the van is used for the black and gray water tanks. He relocated the license plate bracket at the same time. And on the other rear door is an extra, metal storage box that some people call a galley box. If the box and tired are swung away at the same time, there is a hidden, locking storage space inside the metal bumper. And the hitch stays in the storage/garage area if it isn’t in use. Above the spare tire and galley box is a bicycle mount in case we need the interior space for some reason. I thought that was a little much, but Groucho said, “I could do it and you never know, it might come in handy.” That’s his standard answer. I know Dad and Lawrence were fond of “over-building” things, but the extra weight wasn’t going to help my fuel efficiency. Groucho rolled his eyes and told me to keep the cheap, crappy fuel down to a minimum, and just to be on the safe side he gave me commercial grade fuel additives to use every few fill-ups.

He also put in a hidden safe and some locking floor storage. Groucho, in his much younger days, used to do some “specialty work” for “special customers” and he knows how to make hidden compartments and make them so they can’t be x-rayed due to location and materials. And one of those locking floor storage spaces is extra secure because that is where he had me put Dad and Lawrence’s guns, and some ammo. So as Groucho said, “If you need them, you’ll have them. Just keep your mouth shut and no showing off.” I don’t want it to sound like a merc’s footlocker or anything, but there is a shotgun, a rifle, and three handguns in there along with “feed for the animals that didn’t drown in the boating accident.” I know how to shoot them as both Dad and Lawrence considered it a daily living skill. NSC and Sea Scouts also garnered me some training … and some awards for accuracy. However, I am going to have to be very, very careful because with all of the crazy and contradictory gun laws out there, just crossing a state line in some places could make me a felon. That little tidbit and the gun safe and contents is not making it onto the blog or anywhere else for that matter. Don’t ever give them any evidence to use against you.

Last, but not least, is a cell signal booster. My phone is going to be our internet and connection to “home” such as it is. Groucho said it would be a bad thing to fall off the map for days on end without warning because he might have to get some of his buddies to hunt me up. Uh, no. I’ve met more than a few of his buddies and the idea of being hunted up by any of them is just … no, uh uh, nope nope nope. The last thing I want is people thinking I’m a Hell’s Angel runaway or anything equally as noxious. Even if I have to call in from a payphone, I’ll do it to avoid the horror. So, cell booster installed, and regular contact will be made. The end.

The inside of the van is as tricked out as the outside is, and not just by Groucho. It was obviously converted by a professional team. It sure doesn’t look like some of the hack jobs I’ve seen online that people have done themselves. I mean I totally get the concept of DIY, but have some pride and make it look neat and not just like someone’s old treehouse for Pete sake. A lot of what I’ve watched online is people forced to repair or renovate their original designs, and to me that’s wasted money. And don’t go cheap just to pat yourself on the back. Less expensive isn’t always better anymore than expensive is. Use the right materials for the right job.

Next to the indoor plumbing my favorite part of the van is the galley. A two-burner 110V induction cooktop was installed instead of a gas burner. I know some people are going to think about how would I cook if I’m without power, but that’s why you have redundancies and not just rely on one thing. How it works is that the counter-level inset generates heat through a magnetic circuit that connects to your cookware, allowing the heat to be generated by the pot or pan being used. The only drawback, if you want to call it that, is that you must use real metal or cast-iron cookware because aluminum, copper, or glass cookware won’t work with the magnet. There’s a mini microwave that will work for some things too, but it’s not big enough for much … bag of popcorn, mug of soup, small bowl of veggies, stuff like that. To deal with this I’m bringing along a butane camp stove and extra canisters of fuel that I can set up outside on a picnic table or grill surface. I’m happy to have the inside galley though for days of bad weather and that sort of thing.

There’s a small, stainless steel sink in the galley and then a butcher block counter that can be removed in case you need all of the large sliding door entrance for some reason. At the base of the butcher block counter, there’s a nifty sliding “table top” that pulls out to the outside. You can sit outside the van in a chair and use that slide-out table for your coffee (not that I drink that stuff), tea, or a place to set a serving bowl. It looks sturdy enough that you could sit a computer on it or use it as a writing table though I wouldn’t want to put too much pressure on it.

The galley is also the central storage area. You can get more stuff in all the drawers and doors and slide outs than I thought I’d be able to, but I’ve still had to really condense and make multi-purpose most of what we are bringing. I told Benny he could have one drawer for his toys but that’s all we could take. He’s been okay with that as he didn’t have a lot of that sort of thing to begin with. He has his “tablet” and a plastic divider of legos. He has a few other things like his “discovery toys bag” that has a magnifying class, spyglass, and a few other such things but Benny never was one for much else than that. I’ve added some nerf balls, a couple of frisbees, fishing gear, and a few other things along that order but I’m hoping that much of the time we are exploring.

The other thing about the galley that I love is what the specs call the 7CF two door refrigerator (Freezer 1.76 CF, Refrigerator 5.3 CF). It uses a hermetically sealed compressor which means it is super quiet. And Groucho explained that you used to have to be careful of parking level when you had some kind of compressor in an RV. With this frig/freezer you don’t. The amperage draw is low with improved performance as well. I think Groucho might be in lust with it for his pull-behind trailer. The thing cools down fast, there’s virtually no maintenance, and no outside vents. The brand is reliable according to what we could find out on it. Yippee skippy. I love that galley.

The control module – the brain of all the gadgets and gizmos in the van – is overhead in a cabinet in the kitchen. Reminded me a whole lot of some of the fancier sailboats I have been on. It’s compact for size, but for its size it packs a complicated looking wallop. The big lithium batteries are stored in their own space and something that I really need to get a handle on and I’m working on it. There’s six of them in that space with room for two more. I think I have it figured out, but I still think there is going to be a learning curve if/when something goes wrong. Lithium batteries aren’t cheap, but they are more efficient if I’m understanding the system correctly. They also weigh considerably less than the old AGM batteries do. And they have double the lifespan cycles.

Where Benny is going to sleep is on a bench that is located behind and sideways of the driver’s seat. It is also where four of the belted seats are arranged. The bench is a little short for a sleeping area, definitely kid-sized or for a very short adult. The bench seat pulls flat to make it wider with a couple of folding legs to stabilize it. The cushion-mattress is surprisingly comfortable but in the under-the-bench storage area I’ve tucked a thin memory foam mattress cut to fit, a sleeping bag that has a good cold rating, and a weighted blanket along with some other sheets and blankets for both beds. He also has a good pillow and his not-to-be-mentioned woobie in there that he doesn’t sleep with, but he still likes to keep close wrapped around something of Lawrence’s that I’m not up to talking about at the moment. I also had Groucho help me to rig up a side rail, so he doesn’t roll off since he moves around a lot in his sleep.

For privacy, all the windows have black out pull-shades. The head is small, but it does have a sliding door. And I can also send Benny to the front as there is a curtain that pulls across to separate the driver’s area from the rear of the van.

What’s left to say? The flooring is durable, and the walls and cabinets look like wood but are some kind of compressed, artificial fake stuff that is built for durability while being lightweight. I tell you, you don’t want to hit the wall with your funny bone; it definitely isn’t funny. That stuff is tough. And all the windows, in addition to the blackout shades, have privacy tinting. The only beef I have with the windows is that except for the front ones in the driving area none of them can be opened. I’ve gotten use to fresh air, even during the middle of the summer when it is hot, hot, hot because I leave the AC off as much as possible because bills, bills, bills. It means a protector on the mattress and washing the sheets and pillows more often but those $$$ are worth saving.

Now for what I’ve had to fill the inside of the van with since it is going to be our home for a minimum of a year.

First consideration has been Benny, my personal non-negotiable. A drawer for his toys, a drawer for his clothes, and a drawer for all the other miscellaneous stuff that is particularly his. He’s going to look like a miniature scout or mini-safari dude. Most of the time his bottom half is going to be in drip-dry zip-offs which I got at a Scout Shop clearance sale in Miami. The pants can double as shorts and vice-versa. Upper half will mostly be a combination of wicking t-shirts (short sleeve and long) and a couple of button downs (like a scout uniform as well as a couple of flannel shirts for layering with). Then there are night clothes, swimming clothes, comfy-I-don’t-feel-good clothes, socks, underwear, a couple of hats, and a light jacket, rain jacket, and cold weather jacket. He also has one “good” outfit for those few times I know we will need one. His shoes are a pair of hikers, a spare pair in case the first ones are wet or muddy, one pair of joggers, a pair of water shoes, a pair of camp shoes (Crocs), and a cheap pair of “good shoes.” I’ve budgeted for new shoes for him since Little Bear may very well grow into his feet before the rest of him catches up. He also got to go through all the pictures we have, and we saved them to a jump drive that can be plugged into his very own digital photo frame (picked up at a thrift store) that I attached to the wall near his sleeping space.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Prologue 3 (part 2)

My clothes are pretty much the same, and most of them I already had from Sea Scouts. My Naval Sea Cadet uniforms look too realistic and probably wouldn’t have made it in the National Parks, some of whom have a thing against camo clothing. Besides, I sold them and nearly made what I put into them back since I had purchased them at a discount to start with. Technically I am still a Sea Scout … until the day I turn 21. My uniform pieces that I still have still fit. I use my uniform swim shorts as much as I use a regular swimsuit. There’s my fleece jacket (with emblem), a few different wicking t-shirts (with emblem) known as “Class B” as well as for various activities that I got for participating, I won my waterproof jacket (with emblem) that way as well, and my hats. I sold my “Class A” uniform pieces to someone desperate before we left Jacksonville since there was no Ship (same as a Patrol or Crew) in this area. Can you tell I miss it? I also miss being out on the water as much as I used to be, but leadership and responsibility were the key takeaways of being both a Scout and Cadet and that doesn’t always mean having your own way. I’ve got a few “girl” clothes but they ball up into almost no space and fit in with my socks. I also have a travel sized iron and ironing board because I can’t stand looking unkept. Makes my skin crawl.

For Benny I’ve downloaded a bunch of Junior Ranger program materials from the national parks and I hope that doubles as “education” to keep me out of hot water with people that could accuse me of “educational neglect.” Luckily, he isn’t really old enough for that to be a problem with the authorities yet. And like I said, having a home school designation and proof that I have a lesson plan and portfolio and all that other yada yada should cover my backside if someone wants to make trouble. He has a boogie board writing tablet (write on with a special pen and push a button and the writing disappears) that he can practice math and writing on. He prefers to draw which may be a good thing, so I’ve packed some sketch books and mechanical pencils. If he wants more, finding a wallyworld or Dollar Store to pick up some markers or something isn’t going to break the bank. Dad and Lawrence let me experiment with my interests and it didn’t hurt me any.

As I mentioned, I ordered a family access pass for the National Park System because doggone those entrance fees can add up. The annual family pass was free because of our Gold Star Family designation and I already have it in my wallet. When I had to go make sure that I had a new Tri-Care card for Benny (he is covered with basic medical insurance until he is twenty-one because of Lawrence) is when the caseworker let me know that Benny and I are considered a Gold Star family. What that amounts to is Lawrence died in a “qualifying incident” though we aren’t allowed to know what the incident was. In addition, Benny qualifies for an “Access Pass” because he was a micro-preemie and has learning challenges. I almost said that it didn’t slow him down any but to be honest, Lawrence made the supreme sacrifice for this country, so this country should look after Benny … or at least assist in that. The “Access Pass” will help us get discounts on camping sites and maybe some concessionaires. I will have to keep my eye out. The rules are you must pay full price but then they refund it to you once you show up and use it, it being whatever is discounted to start with.

There are special Junior Ranger programs that I’m going to try and get him into as well. There is a “Sound Explorer” program. I’ll use this to help train him how to deal with his APD. A Railroad Explorer that I hope to use as part of his social studies and history lesson plan. A Spaceflight Explorer that was created to celebrate over 50 years in space. A Junior Ranger Angler. A Junior Cave Scientist. A Junior Ranger Night Skies Explorer. A Junior Archaeologist. A Junior Ranger Underwater Explorer. And a Junior Paleontologist. When I was talking to Benny about all the fun we could have he seemed excited. I hope his interest holds out. Nothing quite as bad as a bored kid unless it is one unwilling to not be bored.

I plan on getting both of us National Park Passport books where we can get stamps at all the places we go. One for Benny and one for me will mean we both have a keepsake of our experience. I bought some new jump drives as well that we can download our pictures to at night. At a recommendation from another traveling family, I got an old tablet phone for Benny that he can take pictures with, have limited internet access for certain educational activities, and some educational apps for the longer drives. He calls it his “tablet” and that’s mostly what it is. I’ve locked most of the phone bits of it, but he can text me by talking into it, and I can use the phone to track him if we get separated. He can also call 911 just in case. Granted, giving a phone to a five-year-old sounds bizarre but it isn’t really a phone at this point. To go with his “phone” and mine, I got sturdy and waterproof phone cases. I also have another case that I can slip my phone into for underwater pictures.

For me I bought a 4x6 photo box from a craft supply store and some dividers that will help keep things organized. I still have all the post cards and letters that Lawrence sent me. I also have the post cards that Dad used to pick up when we would go places. And in storage back in Jacksonville is my mother’s postcard collection and her step-father’s vintage postcard collection. Hey, family tradition and all that. Even with all I am packing there is still a couple of empty drawers for buying things along the way. It can’t be much because budget and all, but we should still be able to get some mementos.

For entertainment I have a crap ton of movies copied onto a 10T external drive that is backed up to my Cloud storage. They are mostly family-friendly stuff but the ones that I don’t think are age appropriate for Benny – like the zombie and vampire flicks that I used to watch a lot of – I have in a password-protected folder. Benny knows how to access what he calls the “movie box” so I thought it might be the smart thing to do. It also kept Penny out of my stuff. She got real crazy about that for a while, like right after I started making sure she took her meds. She thought I was using some kind of monitoring device to track her. Well, I kinda did have one on her phone she didn’t know about but mostly because she kept losing the darn thing and the monitoring app was cheaper than a new phone every few weeks. Plus, it let me know where she was, when she hadn’t lost the phone. When she decided to end it, she left her phone on my pillow. She knew I could break into it and assumed I would. She saved some really nice vids and pics of her and Benny. There were also some of her, Lawrence, and Benny together. In some of the vids she even seemed fairly normal, and she would tell him she loved him and about times when she, Lawrence, and Benny were all together when he was a baby. She left me some freaky ones like pictures of her nostrils, pictures of her throat, and I think she was trying to say she was drug-free. Some of them were just inappropriate so I’m not recording them. That memory card from the phone is locked up in the safe but the phone itself was sold to help pay for her cremation which is what she said she wanted; cremated and spread around Lawrence’s grave. The national cemetery did not allow that so Benny and I set her ashes free at sea. I’m not sure it really means anything but it was symbolic for Benny. The counselor he saw for a bit said that keeping her ashes wasn’t a good thing for Benny, he got extremely anxious and he would occasionally hide it, even going so far as to put it outside a couple of times. It was either bury them or do what we did. Setting them “free” was better than burying them at the dog cemetery which was the only place we could have afforded to do it.

Lawrence was buried with full, military honors in the National Cemetery in Dade City. We haven’t been back since the ceremony, but I make sure that on the national holidays a remembrance is placed on his headstone. I don’t believe in worshiping people’s graves like the ancient Egyptians did. You die, you’re buried, and the living have to learn to make it through this life without you because you are wherever your relationship with your Creator has taken you. Still, there is such a thing as respect. I do the same thing for Dad who is buried in the same place only a couple of rows over since he technically died of the results from chemicals used by the terrorists he fought while active duty. He got his medical discharge before Lawrence was born. ‘Nuff said.

I’ve downloaded a bunch of pdf’s, apps, and books I can read with the Kindle Reader that is on my laptop and iPad. I have a few real paper books squirreled away as well because Groucho said that it is stupid to keep everything you might need on a computer in case you don’t have access to it for one reason or another. I’ve got more maps and travel books from AAA than is probably useful but since I don’t know, I’ve brought them along; I can dispose of what I don’t need after each place by trashing the pages or just recycling the entire book in some way. I have a scanning app on my phone to scan what we might want to keep so I don’t accumulate too much extra “paper stuff” besides what is necessary.

I was one of the primary first aiders in my Ship back in Jacksonville. I was trained out the ying yang so putting together a tactical trauma first aid kit was a high pri for me. I’ve got both adult and kid-sized items and meds so we are good to go there. Groucho just shook his head at the backpack I have everything organized into. “Girl, you got enough of that moleskin to wrap a cruise ship in.” Maybe. But given the amount of hiking and stuff I plan on us doing, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I think he missed the third and fourth commercial-sized bottles of hand sanitizer I tucked away. And speaking of, in addition to the tactical bag I have a smaller, portable kit for everyday use and a waterproof version with the bare necessities that we can take on the water.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Prologue 4

There are so many articles and blogs online that talk about RVing and Van-lifing (take that all you grammar nazis, I will make up words for my convenience). There are a ton of lists of things that people consider “necessities.” I tell you that I went through nearly all those lists and marked out all the duplicates and then weighed them against space and what we would need.

Speaking of “need,” fresh and potable water is a biggie. We have the freshwater tank that is part of the van features. But I decided, based on a few examples of things going wrong for other people, to bring along hard sided potable water containers. I looked at a bunch of different styles but settled on the military style “jerry cans” that hold about five gallons each. Three of those slid easily into the same storage space as the freshwater storage tank area. Fifteen gallons might not sound like much, but if you need drinking water, that would get Benny and I about a week of water if we rationed it. This would be backup in case of a system or tank failure of some type. Those puppies aren’t cheap, but a friend of Groucho’s hooked me up with his brother that runs a military surplus store. Wound up costing me half what new ones would cost.

As silly as it might sound, a good front windshield shade is another must have. It adds to your privacy when parked and insulates the dash area so that it keeps the heat out or the heat in. Another “silly” necessity that I’m giving a try is an Instant Pot. It cooks faster (using less power) and can cook a way crazy variety of recipes. I wound up using the one I’m bringing a lot starting back in Jacksonville when someone gave one to Penny for Christmas. I’m also bringing the Nutri-Bullet blender. We drink a fair amount of smoothies and I don’t want to change our diets too suddenly or there could be problems. Not to mention it used to be my way to get extra fruits and veggies into Benny’s diet when he couldn’t seem to eat much else without having a meltdown.

Camp chairs and some fun “around the campfire” gadgets take up room in the “garage.” If they are useless I can always donate them at some point. Same for things like the campfire tripod and rotisserie set, the cast iron cook it all, the Eno hammock, two-man lightweight pop-up tent, several different style goal zero lanterns (some of them collapsible that I had left over from my active Scout days), quick dry towels, Mosquito head nets (because Florida and because of other places with bite-y bugs that can make life miserable), kitchen gear like cooking and eating utensils, enamelware dishes (plates, bowls, and mugs x 4), wind up emergency radio (Groucho insisted on this one), stake hammer and extra stakes as back-ups, Dad’s swiss army knife that is pretty much my constant companion just like it was his, pie iron for campfire cooking, pop-up trash can, machete, packing cubes to keep clothes organized just like in suitcases, tarps, plastic table cloth x 2 because they’re useful to sit on as well, collapsible bucket, no-rinse and “dry” shampoo, a couple of different funnel sizes, and hot dog and marshmallow cooker sticks.

That’s far from the only stuff that I packed. There is a Life Straw water filter, Katadyn gravity fed water filter, nalgene bottles for hiking and other times, re-freeze ice packs, kid-friendly insect repellent. All that stuff I got during the tax free week at the start of last year’s hurricane season. To that I added a stainless steel nested cook set, head lamps, mag lights, penlights, multi-tools, folding saw, WD-40 and other sprays and grease and oils to keep the van running, a small space heater for just in case, extra water filters for the van’s freshwater system, a couple of extra hoses for the fresh and gray and black water systems, a small shopvac in place of a vacuum cleaner, space saver bags because who doesn’t want to squish extra linens and pillows down into showbox size cubes, GPS system (because Groucho said so), wheel chocks (also because Groucho said so), hatchet, axe, collapsible dish pan for washing dishes in camp rather than in the van, biodegradable soap (Dawn dish soap), Avon’s Skin-so-Soft (because Stella said to), Octagon bar soap (because Gus doesn’t want to smell like the Avon Lady), stainless steel percolator because even though I don’t drink coffee I like spiced tea, leather gloves, knife sharpener, and two manual can openers (because one is none and two is one and when you need a can opener a hammer makes a heck of a mess).

Then there were things like fire starters and matches, floor mat for wiping feet before getting back in van, paracord and a couple packages of heavier duty rope, rechargeable micro button lanterns in case we hike at night or Benny needs a night-light, all the paper goods that work with an RV (biodegradable TP, etc.), chainmail scrubber for cast iron cookware, egg holder to keep them from breaking wherever I store them (holds a dozen), silicone handles and scrapers for cast iron cookware, camp stove toaster, and the list goes on and on.

Things I didn’t think necessary that were on those lists? Oh, just a few. Almost every one of them said a coffee press was necessary for living a civilized life but there were other things I found even stranger. A pizza cooker, magnetic spice containers, fancy reclining camp chairs, a 12-volt cooler, portable propane heated shower (for those special princess people), extra table (most campsites say they have picnic tables), portable fire ring (doggone expensive), screen room for long-term campsite stays, wine tumblers (and wine), wearable sleeping bag that reminded me of an adult footed sleeper, fancy colored lights to string up in camp, charcoal grill and charcoal, espresso kit, bug pants which looked like mosquito netting for your legs, heated sleeping pads (just throw on another blanket), citronella candles (these I wimbled about but they aren’t a necessity so I crossed them off), popcorn popper (nope since we have a microwave), telescope, battery powered tent fan, lighted tent stakes (so the bears can find you easier?), paper toilet seat covers, titanium chopsticks (don’t even get me started), and a fruit hammock (really?). My thinking is that some people are either weird, entitled, or take their special needs a little too serious.

I did purchase two luxury items that I may regret. If so, I can always re-sell them. First is a Bio-Lite camp stove that is a bit like a rocket stove on steroids and it also creates electricity via thermal technology. It has an integrated 3,200 mAh battery and LED dashboard. The LED Dashboard controls 4 fan speeds and gives real-time feedback on fire strength and battery level. You can burn wood like you would gas—any dry biomass (including sticks, pinecones, etc.) will keep the fire going. The BioLite’s smokeless combustion is supposed to create 95% less smoke emissions compared to a regular wood fire. Good to know even if I’m not that big a enviro-freak about such things. The portable grill turns the camp stove into a wood-burning grill with a steel surface that fits up to 4 hamburger patties or 6 hot dogs. You can stoke the fire by just flipping open the fuel intake lid on the grill and adding more wood; in other words, fueling the fire won't interrupt your grilling. It is compact and portable with folding legs and a plastic travel cover. The stainless-steel KettlePot doubles as a carrying case so one less thing to worry about. The stainless-steel pot is lightweight, and it won't scratch when you're using metal utensils. The heat shield on the bottom protects the stove's flames from wind and concentrates them for fast cooking times. The included serving bowl nests neatly in the bottom of the KettlePot when not in use and it even comes with a (to me ridiculous) coffee press that nests inside the KettlePot for transport and still allows CampStove 2+ to nest as well. And if you aren’t using the battery pack for charging the phone, there is a 100-lumen USB FlexLight you can plug in to provide functional lighting that can be dimmed to save on battery life. It was love at first review I read, but I’ll have to see how the relationship holds up long term. I’m a hard-to-please kinda gal.

The second luxury item is a GoSun Sport Solar Cooker. It is supposed to be able to heat water to near boiling in 35 minutes even on a snowy, winter day. You don’t need warm weather, just a clear and sunny day. The compound parabolic reflectors and tubular design convert nearly 80% of all sunlight entering the refectories into usable heat. Supposedly the cooker is so efficient that it also works on partly cloudy and overcast days. How it works is you load food into the tube cooking chamber and set the camber on the reflector to cook. According to the instruction booklet, the cooker can steam, bake, roast and sauté; cooks a meal in as little as 20 min. by reaching temperatures up to 550°F (290°C). The folding parabolic reflectors protect the cooking tubes like a clamshell. The vacuum tube keeps the exterior surface cool even while hot inside and is made of durable borosilicate glass (similar to Pyrex®). It does not require frequent adjustment, making it a low-maintenance, fuel-free cooking device. I’ve tried it out and it would be cool to have on a sailboat if you were in calm waters; would certainly save on the propane. Getting your meal into the “tube” can be interesting and the clean up is slightly challenging but I am hoping the tradeoff will balance that out. Some of our campsites will not have hook ups which will mean having redundancies that aren’t dependent on the existing batteries, etc. are not bad to have.

The two items together cost about $500.00 but I got hooked on the versatility of both. If they both prove to be true as advertised, I will give them plenty of kudos online and on the blog with pictures and everything.

A couple of additional necessities that Groucho insisted on is a roadside assistance kit, an air compressor that is also a jump starter box (or maybe it is vice versa), tire puncture repair kit, a few cans of fix-a-flat, a GarminInreach satellite communicator and homing beacon (memories of Penny and all that), an upgraded tire jack, a comprehensive toolkit, and a couple of fire extinguishers.

Next came one of the bigger problems I face every day. Food.

 

[Freebirde]

Thanks Kathy!

Another good start and I am ready to ride this one out.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Final piece of the prologue. I'll start the rest of the story in a day or two. It is already written, just needs editing and tweaking before posting.

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Prologue 5

I have all the equipment I believe we will need and then some. Some may be more useful than others. I even managed to pack everything into the van without flattening any of the tires. (That’s a joke, but maybe not). But none of it was going to get us anywhere if the food is going to be a problem. I still try and feed Benny as little gluten as I can get away with because of his GS. That means that regular pastas and noodles, breads and pastries, energy bars, crackers, cakes and cookies, most cereals and granolas, packaged sandwich meat, croutons, most gravies, flour tortillas, malted drinks, and even most meat substitutes like vegan burgers are all out of the menu because they contain some form of wheat or other grain. Or should I say mostly out of the menu. I found that Benny can now handle a small amount of gluten, but I still try and keep it fairly small and that not often. I do not need him pinging off the walls inside the van on a day I’ve been driving nine hours or more, or worse throwing the tantrum from hell. I’ve had that happen in the past before he learned to say no to snacks that weren’t good for him. Mizzou even did it on purpose where most everyone else simply isn’t aware he is GS (gluten sensitive). Either way, avoid, avoid, avoid so that Gus can keep her sanity and religion, such as they are.

I’ve got some brands that are work arounds, though they aren’t cheap. Thank goodness plain rice is gluten free. And I’ve learned to make my own seasonings to avoid the prepackaged ones that usually have some kind of wheat or flour in them. The brand Bear Naked granola is gluten-free and a little bag of that with fruit or veggies is now our main snack option. When I make the monthly grocery run to Miami (groceries in Key West are way expensive) I stop at a health food store that is run by the family of someone I met in college and they sell me a mixed box of gluten free snacks (popcorn, veggie straws, etc.) of thirty-eight of them for thirty bucks. Not cheap but when it is a once a day or once every couple of days treat it is still cheaper than a candy bar for each snack.

This shop even turned me on to the gluten-free double stuff Oreos. No, I’m not kidding. They aren’t bad either and every once in a while Gus is a much nicer person when she needs (and gets) a chocolate fix. Lance has some gluten free peanut butter crackers. Kraft has some gluten free mac-n-cheese. Snyders has gluten free pretzels. Barilla has some gluten free pasta noodles. Lara Bars have gluten-free flavors; and a few of them are even dairy free and soy free which pretty much makes them barely there. Kind and Quest brands have some gluten free energy bars. King Arthur has some gluten free baking mix, as does Bisquick. Nature’s Baker has gluten free fig bars. Quaker Oats has gluten-free rolled oats. Pillsbury has gluten-free baking mixes like for cakes and cookies. Applegate has gluten free frozen chicken nuggets (one of Benny’s favorites that he would eat every day if I let him). McCormick even has some of their flavor mixes gluten-free; my favorite is their taco seasoning. Mission has gluten-free tortillas. Udi’s has a decent brownie mug cake that is gluten-free. Hidden Valley has a shaker of ranch flavoring that is gluten free. Bob’s Red Mill has some gluten free options for their baking ingredients as well. The only brand that Benny doesn’t like is Annie’s and that was what all his doctors kept pushing me to try. Gotta admit, the kid knows what he likes and knows what he doesn’t, and he definitely doesn’t like Annie’s. So, it isn’t like I don’t have options for Benny, it’s just that those options aren’t cheap, and they aren’t always easy to find since they are considered specialty items. Many I have been getting by mail via Amazon but we are going to be on the road so I’m going to have to cram every bit of space I can with his special foods and then supplement along the way with fresh items.

I have also stocked up on my three main ingredients for “gluten-free” recipes … rice flour, bean flour, and xanthan gum. That last one I was most worried about. A good price for that stuff is like a buck an ounce but I found a restaurant supply house that sold in bulk (5-lbs containers) for 60 cents per ounce and I wasn’t able to beat that price, so I bought 10 lbs. That’s a lot of xanthan gum but to be honest I’m just not sure where I will be able to replace it at that price once we get on the road. That’s also why there is a 50-lb bag of rice flour ($23) and a 25-lb bag of bean flour ($30) plus a good assortment of dried beans in the “garage” storage area. Sounds crazy, I know, but the blender doubles as a fantastic flour mill, or has so far.

And of course, what happens when you go online looking for something? You can generally find it. And I found some gluten free, freeze dried camp foods when I went onto a camping forum looking for ideas. A lot of Backpacker’s Pantry brand flavors are gluten free; pad thai, red beans and rice, Santa Fe Chicken and rice, Three Sisters Stew, curry, Chana Masala, and on and on. Peak2, Alpine Aire, Mountain House, Trailtopia, RXBar, ProBar, and Food To Go are also brands with gluten free options. My friends at the health food store hooked me up with one of their suppliers and I got my first sponsor. They had an online store, and I had a link on the blog site directing people there. I will get a small commission from every purchase (like an affiliate link) and I also got a discount to buy for myself and Benny. Not much, but every little bit counts.

For meats I found several brands of jerky that are gluten-free and that got tucked away in the storage as well along with some other specialty flours like almond flour and coconut flour. Gummi bears, almond butter, and some sour worms are other things that went in hiding so that Benny wouldn’t only hold out for those treats.

Now here’s some common foods that are naturally gluten free and lucky for me Benny eats them all. First up is the potato. Good. Cheap. Filling. Not great if you don’t exercise because they are high in carbs, but you can’t have everything. Next up is all the other root vegetables like carrots, beets, etc. I’ve already mentioned rice but there are a ton of different kinds including black, brown, and red rice. The more exotic brands of rice are hard to find and can be expensive, but it’s worth it for the variety and to keep little boys from pouting because all of their friends get to eat things they don’t.

Seeds are another thing that I’ve learned to utilize in everyday cooking. They are a great way to add protein to a salad. You can sprout those suckers and I’m bringing my sprouting equipment for sure. They make a great snack all on their own. And you can sprinkle them on gluten-free morning cereal and make it something special. Add nuts to that list as well. Another great thing to sprout is beans and legumes. A friend of Groucho’s is a Raw Vegan and taught me several recipes that Benny has come to love and expect in his diet. And that’s why I am bringing my food dehydrator despite it taking up room, and counterspace, and using up a good bit of wattage. But if we go to produce stands and similar, I can stock up and dehydrate things for future use when we get a hotel room or if our campsite has electric hook ups. I’ve also got my small bread maker which has saved a ton of money because that gluten-free cardboard that masquerades as bread at the grocery store is expensive.

Lucky for me Benny doesn’t appear to be a full-on celiac sufferer. It isn’t his guts so much as his personality that is affected. Sure, he can have a belly ache but usually a nap takes care of that. Double lucky, that unlike many celiac sufferers he is not lactose intolerant. Fresh milk in The Keys is pricey so I’ve learned to use dried milk. I’ll do the same thing on the road. Nestle brand makes a really good, dried milk that is enriched for kids called NIDO. I’ll use that for drinking and use the less expensive powdered milk for cooking. I also have some canned evaporated milk to use for the same purpose. Along this line I also have some cheese that will keep in the frig and when that gets used up, I can get more at a store.

I have olive oil and coconut oil which is a good thing and better than canola and the like. And best yet is that Benny can eat corn and cornmeal. Yes! That means that corn tortillas are in for the win and I use them a lot. We eat a lot of cornbread as well … old-fashioned, not water type rather than the one that has flour mixed in with it. Fish is another good thing because seafood is a big deal in The Keys. Well we won’t be in Florida for much longer so I’ve stocked up on canned tuna and canned salmon. I’ve also squeezed a few other things out of the budget like canned crab, canned clams, and canned shrimp. Not the same thing as having fresh but better than not having it at all in case what is available on the road is too expensive except for special occasions.

Benny can have most meats, but it depends on what they are prepared with. I just have to watch out for the seasoning mixes, gravy, or breading that gets used, or what they are packed in. Another bit of luck is that TVP (textured vegetable protein) is gluten-free. Again, it all depends on what it is getting mixed with. Eggs are another protein food that is naturally gluten-free. I’m hoping fresh eggs will actually be cheaper on the road than they are here in The Keys. I tried raising chickens but there are too many feral cats where we are.

Avocados are something we eat a lot of that is gluten-free but that will probably be going away. I’ll have to see what the cost of them are as we travel around. They’ll probably turn from normal, everyday food into a rare treat. That is going to be weird. Same for citrus fruit.

Quinoa, like rice, is gluten free and I have got a gallon jug of it in the van. I’m not sure how easy it will be to find on the road as people have warned me over and over that ingredients can be geographic. Tapioca is another gluten-free thing that I use that I’m not sure of the availability on the road. We’ll have to see. I’m saying that a lot, but I am trying not to worry things to death and stay flexible.

I found on several discussion boards that having a menu is key. And not just for the day but for the week or month. That stroked my OCD like a warm fleece coat on a cold day … not that there are many of them in Key West but you get the idea. I already have several months of menus made out along with ingredient and shopping lists. It is broken down by weeks so if I want to change up something unexpectedly it doesn’t mess up my entire 30-day calendar. I know we’ll be eating out on some days but probably not as much as most people. One, we’ve got a budget to stick to. Two, with a galley like the van has it isn’t something that absolutely has to happen. Three, it isn’t always easy to find a kid-friendly, gluten-free option at a fast-food joint. Grocery delis are actually better and probably better for us, and even cheaper, but not every grocery store has a deli and who knows what we’ll find on the road.

I have one last food supply run but that won’t be until we get up to Miami. I still have about a week’s worth of clean up on the BnB after the last set of reservations check out and then Groucho can close with the new owners. Gotta get myself to bed. I’ve got a serious amount of yard work to get done tomorrow and day after tomorrow I need to pack up the last of the items that we will be leaving in storage in the Jacksonville storage unit as we pass by on our way to South Carolina. There’s not as much of that as you would think. Groucho encouraged me to sell most of Penny’s stuff since she wasn’t going to need it and only keep a few items for Benny. A lot of the household stuff and our other belongings are already in storage in Jacksonville because I could only get a small U-Haul trailer on Penny’s car. I am reusing what I can rather than buy new so that takes care of some of it. All my stuff from before Dad passed away is in the same storage unit where Lawrence put it. That’s also where all the family heirlooms and stuff are. That’s something I am going to have to think about what to do with once the road trip is over.

The registration and title are finalized and tucked away in the dash. And with it came a special license plate. Florida has a “Gold Star Family” license plate. I debated getting it or not, but if even one person sees it and realizes what is at stake, then I suppose a little exposure is called for. There are 475,000 Gold Star families in the US. Despite sometimes feeling alone, Benny and I are definitely not.

And the whole mess with the Auto/RV insurance has finally been worked out. It was like trying to communicate with a blind and deaf/mute gerbil for whom English wasn’t their first language. It took hours … hours … on the phone and trying to find an insurance office so that I could get a face to face with someone that actually sold RV insurance. I finally just stopped trying to shop around and went with one of the big-name companies who walked me through the trauma. I’ve had my own insurance policy since I started driving on my own at sixteen. Lawrence was my co-signer until I turned eighteen but no tickets, payments on time, took driving school and then got my intrastate CDL (not interstate because you have to be 21 for that), and all the other yada yada didn’t hurt and I finally got the policy. Yeehaw. Sorta. It isn’t cheap but some things in life they say you just gotta have.

We have a name for the van. One of the things that Benny refuses to part with is a small picture in a frame that Lawrence hung up in his room when he was a baby. It is a picture of Noah with all the animals and his family. And you guessed it. The van has been christened The Ark. No animals unless you count Benny and me, but it’s what he wanted to call it and that’s good enough.

Last thing, when Dad was still alive and we imagined all the places we would go together when he retired, we used to watch YouTubes of different people. Rick Steves was one we watched if Europe ever opened up for unvaccinated people (Dad couldn’t take the vaccine because he was allergic to some of the ingredients which is one of the reasons why he was never able to return to active duty in the Marines). There was an old one called Yellow Productions where this guy did a lot on Hawaii (another place Dad probably couldn’t ever visit) and Las Vegas and a few places like that. Anyway, some of them had “mascots” – like the Yellow Productions guy – in the form of stuffed animals. Dad and I thought it was hilarious and we used to imagine what our stuffed animals would be. That’s in part how I started calling Benny “Little Bear” when he was a baby because Dad was going to be a bear. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to be but for Christmas Benny picked out a pelican for my present. He loves them doofus pelicans in this Disney movie called Finding Nemo. The pelican’s name is supposed to be Marlin but he calls it Gus. So we have “Little Bear” the bear cub and “Gus the Pelican.” We’ll take pictures of them together in the different places we go, and I’ll post it on the blog. Kinda crazy maybe, but Benny loves the idea so I’m going to try it out and we’ll see how things go.

 

[nancy98]

Aw Kathy, I don't know if I can read this story. Why did you have to go in this direction! I get so involved in your stories it's like it is happening to me. Selling everything and heading out in a RV is something I have wanted to do for 40 years.

 

[Sammy55]

Wonderful new story!! I, too, have wanted to travel the U.S. in an RV with my dh. Now, with our health issues, that day has passed and it will probably never happen. We did travel most of the U.S. by car - just have 5 states left to go! We've seen a lot of this beautiful country, but we also missed a lot because of time restraints. Can't see everything!

So I love to read about other people's travel adventures, and am really looking forward to reading this story as it unfolds!! Thanks much!!

 

[Cuffo]

Your timing is amazing! On Sunday I’m renting a camper van and will be heading down the Oregon Coast for a week.

 

[Texican]

Kathy,

Great start. Knew that I shouldn't start reading in the middle of the day for had other work to be done, but well worth the break.

The camper van has to have a lot of storage space with all that Auntie Gus is storing. She sounds a lot like me with a place for everything and everything in its place.

Waiting for the next installment.

Regards,

Texican....

 

[ydderf]

Thank you Kathy looks interesting.

 

[slbmatt]

Thank you always enjoy your work.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Apr 1: Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida

Weather: 77F/66F, calm seas
Driving Route: None to speak of as all we did was drive the van to the marina and then hopped on board the ferry.

Wifi/Cell Signal: none, as in zero, zip, nada, pfhht. Once the ferry left the marina the signal went out until we got back.

# # # # #

Happy Birthday to me. It’s official. I’m no longer a teenager and have entered my twenties. I’ve never really done much for my birthday. Or should I say I haven’t since my grandparents passed away the year before Dad died. It was hard on Dad, though he tried, because my birthday was also the day he lost my mother. He never held me responsible, nothing dark like that. It’s just not much of a thing in my family. Grandfather Barry never made a fuss over Dad and my Uncle Daniel either. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Memorial Day, and Independence Day were the biggies but personal birthdays? Nah, not really. And wedding anniversaries were just hard to discuss with Dad. He grieved for my mother the rest of his life. I knew it, he just did it in private and there were unspoken rules about giving him space about certain stuff. So, I came to live with Lawrence, and he was usually deployed on my birthday. Penny? She had her own issues with birthdays and holidays, so it was just sorta the way it was.

However, this year is a little different. I’ve officially left all semblance of childhood behind. Sounds profound and slightly silly, but it is the truth. And this is the start date of our Great Adventure. I’m twenty and now I’m just counting down the days until twenty-one in hopes that it will get Benny and I what we need. We didn’t have a party but Benny did draw me a cake in the sand and told me to “blow out the candles Aunt Gus!” Garnered some attention that was a little embarrassing but oh well, sometimes things are meant to happen. Happy birthday to me.

Didn’t really have to leave what we called home to start this road trip. We spent the day in the Dry Tortugas. First problem of the trip before we even left home. Found that finding a parking spot at the marina was challenging whether I was in The Ark or had we been in Penny’s ancient Chevette, that not even Lawrence had been able to convince her to give up, that Groucho finally sold to a collector of all things. Note to Self #1: I need to plan ahead for parking issues.

Not to self #2: Little Bear and Gus the Pelican need a way to travel. I think I have found one. I did not realize how important the two stuffies were going to be to Benny. He almost wouldn’t get in the water because we didn’t have a way to keep the two stuffies dry. Well, I had my waterproof bum bag but it was a tight fit and not really great for swimming so I’m thinking that most of the time they are going to stay in the van. That idea doesn’t work for Benny who is insisting that they can’t stay there all the time, so my second option is to repurpose my marine survivor box that I used to carry a flare gun around in when I was sea kayaking. Cops confiscated the gun and flares when I reported it stolen by one of Mizzou’s trashy friends. I was supposed to get it back … until they found out I was nineteen. I still have the box though and it is the right size so that will be the stuffies’ “Survival Bunker” from here on out.

Since we weren’t camping in the Tortugas, it was a 10-hour round trip from Key West on board the Yankee Freedom, a catamaran that ferries passengers from Key West to the Dry Tortugas and Fort Jefferson National Park. It included breakfast (had some gluten free options for Benny) which we ate as we watched the scenery go by. In addition to breakfast, we listened to a naturalist describe the environmental aspects of the national park while we cruised 70 miles off the coast through the Gulf of Mexico. Dry Tortugas National Park is located inside Fort Jefferson, one of the largest coastal forts ever built. This seven-island cluster, one of which was seasonally closed for nesting birds to breed, is comprised of coral reefs and sand and is famous for its bird watching and marine life. There’s also legends of pirates and sunken gold.

Once we reached dry land, we started with a 45-minute guided tour of the fort, then it was off to the beach to hunt for seashells. The guide finally turned us loose and Benny and I snorkeled (we brought our own gear) around the coral reef while most everyone else swam or stayed on the beach sunning themselves. We got lucky and saw both dolphins and sea turtles, but as with land wildlife, we gave them plenty of room. We came out in time to dry off and finish the last self-guided item on his Junior Ranger list just in time for the promised buffet lunch that was set up on the beach. Good thing Aunt Gus follows the “be prepared” motto because neither main dish was something that Benny could have – pasta or breaded chicken. There was salad, cheese, and fruit that he could eat but in the “lunch box” I packed I could add a gluten-free PB&J sandwich and a few other things. Swimming and snorkeling really gins up your appetite.

Benny and I learned all about the habitats, history, and animals around Fort Jefferson. He also started on his Junior Ranger Underwater Explorer Program. It is a much more detailed program compared to the other Junior Ranger program and while he didn’t complete every activity (he wasn’t required to) he completed more than the Ranger expected him to and he answered all of the questions they asked, proving he is an experienced snorkeler and kayaker. That did surprise a couple of the adults. Benny was awarded that badge as well, but he promised to finish the entire booklet as part of his “school.” The ranger shook his hand and told Benny, “I’ll take your word on that young man.” Benny just beamed and we headed out for our last few minutes.

As famous for what the national park does have is what it doesn’t have. No cell phone coverage. No public phones. No internet or Wifi. No bathrooms except for composting toilets at the campground that are only open from 3 pm – 10:30 am; the bathrooms are closed while the ferries are there with their passengers. No water; you must bring your own drinks. No food. No fuel for boats. No trashcans or trash disposal. No soap. No other basic amenities. Still, almost everyone says that it is worth it, you just need to plan accordingly and use the bathrooms on board the catamaran when it is available.

There wasn’t a lot of extra time but what there was we spent getting our NP Passports stamped, and a little sightseeing before getting back on the ferry for the trip back to Key West. I used that time to write my first blog post while Benny took a short nap. I need to remember that, while he is an active kid, he is still just five years old and will need “naps” even if we don’t call them that. Wink, wink.

Overnight: We’ve completely moved out of the BnB and Groucho closed with the new owners today while we were out. I think it is a relief for him though he is getting a little anxious about Benny and I leaving and rethinking all the possibilities that could happen on the road. The news isn’t grand. Lots of idiots acting like idiots. And the news fulfills that old saw that “it if bleeds, it leads” so crime was front and center. But it was weird because somehow the victims always seemed more in the wrong than the criminals. Hate that kind of nonsense. I had a coach that was a cop and he said, “it revictimizes the victims.” Ugh. There are parts of adulting that are not nearly as fun as you expect when you are growing up.

I got another lecture about staying in contact and not falling off the map without prior notification. I got a lecture about remaining what Groucho called “situationally aware at all times” and just how to put a hurt on a guy if I am approached without my permission. I looked at Stella and asked, “Do I or do I not know how to deal with rude and unsavory characters?”

Stella just laughed because she has witnessed that I am definitely capable of more than holding my own in that regard. First Lawrence insisted I learn. Sea Scouts provided more than a modicum of training as well since we are co-ed and learn to deal with crap like that. Lastly? I graduated as a Chief Petty Officer from NSCC. Yes, I’m trained. That doesn’t mean I am stupid and overconfident. Since I knew that Groucho meant well, I just kept my mouth shut. Stella seems to be more aware of what I can do than Groucho. And I’m aware of what I can’t do which is sometimes more important. ‘Nuff said.

We are bunking in the van tonight behind the garage. Kirkland offered to let us have the efficiency apartment, but it didn’t make logistical good sense though I knew he was trying to be nice. It is the last night here and we need to start as we mean to go on. Groucho said goodbye to us tonight (without another lecture thank goodness) because we were heading out early in the morning and he didn’t want to run into the ex in case she was stalking the place looking for him before she headed off to work. Mizzou found out that Groucho and Stella went to a Justice of the Peace and got married without telling anyone. No skin off my nose. They didn’t want a fuss and I can’t blame them. Stella made Groucho’s #8 and Groucho is Stella’s #5. Of course, three out of the four before Groucho left her a widow but she says he better stay healthy … or else.

When we got home from our day in the Dry Tortugas it was to find my last online orders finally arrived. I was thinking that I was going to have to cancel the orders or something as they were almost a month late. Biggest item I would have hated to go on the road without is something that was recommended to me by someone on one of the RV forums. It is called a Lavario non-electric washing machine[1]. Laundromats are expensive and take time, so I want to minimize how often we have to go to one. The Lavario is one of the more expensive non-electric washers, but you get what you pay for. It weighs 10 lbs. and can do 5 gallons of clothes at one time. I’ll store it in the Head when not in use and since it is only 19” x 19” x24”, when we need to use the head, it can be slid out of the way without a lot of hassle. To go with it I got a retractable clothesline, a small scrubbing board for super dirties, and a folding clothes rack that can also slide in the storage area since it is compact. For detergent I use Biokleen. It’s concentrated, unscented, environmentally friendly, and plant-based. I’ve been using that since Benny was a baby when he wound up developing the rash from hell from just about every other laundry detergent we tried. It is also economical as you get about 300 loads per gallon jug. But I also have the Carbona Color grabber sheets thanks to a friend I met that lives full-time on a boat. He’s the one that asked me what I was doing for laundry, got me thinking while I was still in the planning stage, and made some suggestions.

This next one made me laugh until Stella asked me how I was going to continue to exercise. I gave it some thought to prove I had everything under control. Only come to find out I didn’t have it as under control as I thought. Hiking is going to be a good bit of my exercise plan but doing it with a 5-year-old is going to require me to pull pack quite a bit. And I can’t exactly go jogging since I’m the only adult in the equation. So … yoga mat and resistance bands and two of my kettle bells. It didn’t break the bank and except for my kettle bells which fit in the storage area, folds up into nearly nothing so I can squirrel them away under my mattress when not in use.

Last item was a set of square, air-tight, snap-lock canisters to hold our staple items … nuts, rices, seeds, gluten-free baking mixes, etc. I had everything in Ziploc bags just thrown in one of the cabinets and thought that was a great, space-saving way to do it, but these canisters fit in the same cabinet turned on their sides. They have a “window” that you can look in to see what it is or how much you have, but I’ve also put labels on them which seems better. Now when I open that cabinet nothing falls out and I don’t have to dig for what I want. I spent a few hours tonight reorganizing things, but I can do the remainder on the road if plans change.

Hopefully that is the last of everything that we are going to need. If it isn’t we will either learn to live without or we’ll have to figure it out on the road. Posted the first blog entry and already have about a dozen “likes.” LOL. Groucho, Stella, and Kirkland were the first three. Then there were some of my friends and a couple that I met today. I was surprised that one was also a Ranger that I met today when Benny was doing his Junior Ranger stuff. Cool. The man also commented that “Little Bear” did a good job and he was sure would be a great addition to all the Junior Ranger programs as we went along. Last thing I did before returning to the garage was top the fuel off – after remembering Groucho’s gawd awful lecture about not letting the tank get much lower than the halfway mark – and we are ready for tomorrow. Off to a good start.

I’ll be tracking “approximate” dollars and miles for the blog. Round up, round down, miss a few miles here and there. I don’t want to turn this into a math and physics project, just want a general way of tracking the budget.

Cumulative Fuel Expense: $125
Cumulative Accommodation Expense: $0
Cumulative miles: 0

Resources:

https://www.nps.gov/drto/planyourvisit/upload/DRTO-Junior-Ranger-Handbook-2.pdf
https://www.nps.gov/drto/planyourvisit/upload/JRUnderwaterExplorerCentennial.pdf
Dry Tortugas National Park (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

​

[1] AmazonSmile: Lavario Portable Clothes Washer (Manual Non-Electric Portable Washing Machine for Camping, Apartments, RV’s, Delicates) (Made in the USA): Home & Kitchen

 

[ydderf]

And we're off! thanks Kathy

 

[Sammy55]

You know, Kathy...I'm REALLY going to enjoy this story! I have always wanted to go to all the National Parks. We've been to a lot of them, but have a ways to go yet. And with our health, I don't think we'll ever make it to all of the rest. So, I will be able to visit them vicariously through your story. And I'm looking immensely forward to that! In fact, this first national park is one we probably wouldn't get to.

We live in Minnesota, and when our kids were young, we bought the Minnesota State Park Passport Club Kits for each of us in the family. Over the period of 3 years, we visited every MN State Park. Some we camped at, some we hiked or canoed at, some we attended events at. We didn't do everything at every park, but we did something at each of them. It was fun! And our kids had a blast getting their passports stamped and learning about the state parks. Now our daughter is - to a lesser degree - doing the same with her husband and daughter. They have visited some of the state parks that she enjoyed and have plans to visit more of them. She already knows the state parks that she does NOT want to bring them to. LOL!! Like the one that I warned her and reminded her that park had a lot of boggy areas and would be infested with mosquitos. But they went camping there anyway because she remembered it differently. Needless to say, they left early because of the mosquitos and won't go there again. LOL! But they do have a couple of favorite state parks and try to visit them every summer.

We will be going back to the State Parks along the North Shore of Lake Superior this summer. We are going to go to the Split Rock Lighthouse State Park and meet the long-time lightkeeper who wrote a book about his 30+ years of working there. I'm so excited!! I love lighthouses - go to all of them that I can! - and I'm excited to meet him and get a signed copy of his book!

Thanks to this story - and my deep seated desire to travel some more - I bought a couple of the National Park books that have been on my Amazon wish list for the last several years. I am eagerly waiting to get them and see more information about where your story will lead us. Plus I want to share with our grandkids about the national parks that we have been to and maybe plan to hit a couple more during the next year.

 

[Sammy55]

Question for you, Kathy.... Are you writing this story based on your own experiences of having explored the National Parks or based on your desire to explore them? Just curious.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Question for you, Kathy.... Are you writing this story based on your own experiences of having explored the National Parks or based on your desire to explore them? Just curious.

Hubby and I have travelled to a lot of the national parks and nearly every Florida state park and not a few in several other states. LOL

I swear this is only one that I don't know if I'll ever get to and that is Acadia. We've tried twice to go now ... via cruises that stopped in Bar Harbor ... but both times weather cancelled the port. We jokingly say it is the park that doesn't exist.

We've spent several weeks in Yellowstone and Grand Teton over the years. I love hiking and camping in both of those parks.

I've been to Carlsbad but not Mammoth. And I've been to many of the caves in TN, KY, and the Appalachians.

We aren't the kind of campers that stay in camp very much. We are usually out hiking as soon as it hits daybreak. I was still recovering from a C-section and only 3 weeks out when we went to Grand Canyon for the first time. I still managed to hike the South Rim. Hubby went back a decade later and he and our oldest son hiked down into the canyon, not all the way to Phantom Ranch but they still managed to hike nearly 20 miles that day.

I have two "bucket list" items that I would really like to do in the next few years. I want to get a van and do all of the continental national parks. The other is take a paddle wheeler down the length of the Mississippi. We'll see. Until then I can do it vicariously via characters in my stories. LOL

 

[Sammy55]

Cool!! We've been to Grand Canyon (want to go back) and a bunch of the others. I'd have to actually sit down and figure out how many we've been to. I'll do that when the book comes. We haven't been to the Maine one as that is one of the states we haven't been to yet. We want to get to five states yet - Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont (one trip - high on the priority list), Alaska (high on the list), and Hawaii (lowest on the list due to too many tourists). We also do genealogy and have research trips all over the country and want to do research in upstate New York, Vermont and Massachusetts. Hoping to get there yet....

I'd love to do a van trip. Don't know if it'll happen anymore. But at least, I'd love to get to more of the National Parks. We're tentatively planning an Amtrak train trip to Glacier National Park (have been in Montana several times but never got to Glacier!). Then we'd rent a car to visit shirt tail relatives in Idaho to do more genealogy research for a book I want to write on my gggrandfather and his family. I've done a LOT of research but want to do more and get some pictures from the Idaho people.

I'd love to do a paddlewheel trip, too. We've taken paddlewheel and other boat tours on Lake Superior, Lake Tahoe and a bunch of other lakes. Plus paddlewheel tours on Mississippi River, St. Croix River, etc, etc. It would be a blast to do a trip down the whole Mississippi! If I get back down that way again, I want to do the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. I LOVED that bridge!! I love bridges! Especially the old covered bridges in some midwestern states. The only thing that's made me nervous in our travels has been driving the tunnel (the Holland??) from New York to New Jersey. Now THAT to me was a little scary!

So many memories....so much to look forward to.... God made such a beautiful world, didn't He??!!

 

[teedee]

A new story by my favorite author, Thank you

 

[Lake Lili]

I have two "bucket list" items that I would really like to do in the next few years. I want to get a van and do all of the continental national parks. The other is take a paddle wheeler down the length of the Mississippi. We'll see. Until then I can do it vicariously via characters in my stories. LOL

The Mississippi paddler wheeler is high in my list as are the US National Parks. I've done The Inside Passage once and highly recommend Gus can put her van on the ferry and get to Alaska that way. My big bucket list item is the Torngat Mountain National Park in Northern Labrador. Because the Torngat lies within the autonomous Inuit region of Nunatsiavut, access to the park is strictly controlled and you have to go with an organized group. Everyone has to remain within the polar bear fencing or go out with guards (humans make a tasty snack - lots of fat not much fur .)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbF8JCSpOhM


The other one is the Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Park which is a part of the Kluane-Wrangall-St. Elias-Glacier Bay-Tatshenshini-Alsek park system along the BC-Yukon-Alask border. It is stunningly beautiful and a phenomenal spot to go rafting, even more so since glacial melt at the head of the Alsek resulted in all the melt pour into the Alsek instead of being mostly diverted north in to Lake Kluane and then into the Yukon River.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTnZ_9ID8OY

 

[Texican]

We have visited the North and South Rims of the Grand Canyon, Pikes Peak, Big Bend, Hoover Dam numerous parks in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Utah, Washington DC, Washington State, NYC, Chicago before all of its problems, NYC, and Arizona. Played in the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. The North Rim of the Grand Canyon was not as well developed as the South Rim when we visited. We feed ground squirrels out of our hands at the North Rim. In a discussion with a guy that owned a motel on the North Rim, he told us that the North Rim shuts down in the winter due to snow and he has traveled the US and numerous countries with a trip planned to New Zealand and Australia the coming winter.

While visiting the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, another man and I were standing at the rim's edge when out hair stood up due to static electricity and our wives told us to get back from the edge. Lots of storms were moving thru. On a helicopter trip over the Grand Canyon, we saw a tornado off to the west which is not normal for the Grand Canyon.

Still desire to visit the Red Wood Forest and Mount Rushmore, but Mother can not travel far in a vehicle due to becoming car sick. These trips have been postponed.

Kathy, great start.

Texican....

 

[Sammy55]

While we love to visit the state and national parks, we love to do the "off the beaten path" kinds of things. Like relaxing in hot springs, rafting down wild rivers, glass bottom and other boat tours, taking train rides, exploring Native American and Anasazi ruins, wandering paths of all kinds to many different places. It's not only the scenery we like, it's the experiences, the memories, the photos. Now I'm longing to dig out our many many pictures of past trips and renew the memories. And share them with the grandkids. And plan for some upcoming memory-making explorations.

Of all my favorite places we've been, one of the top ones that sticks in my mind was our trip to Finland and especially our four days in Iceland. We rented a car and wandered all over the southern part of Iceland. I especially loved the hours in the Blue Lagoon!

I hope we can go back to Finland and Iceland, and I'd love to go to England. There is a small castle-like estate named after one line of my family. It is still owned by the family and we have a standing invitation to go and visit if and when we get to England.

So much to see and do. So little time in this life.

 

[Freebirde]

A couple of places if Gus comes though W TN of TN's 56 state parks. Welcome — Tennessee State Parks (tnstateparks.com)
Chucalissa - Chucalissa - The University of Memphis
Reelfoot Lake State Park — Tennessee State Parks (tnstateparks.com)

EDIT: Chucalissa is just south of I-40 before it crosses the Mississippi.

 

[Kathy in FL]

While we love to visit the state and national parks, we love to do the "off the beaten path" kinds of things. Like relaxing in hot springs, rafting down wild rivers, glass bottom and other boat tours, taking train rides, exploring Native American and Anasazi ruins, wandering paths of all kinds to many different places. It's not only the scenery we like, it's the experiences, the memories, the photos. Now I'm longing to dig out our many many pictures of past trips and renew the memories. And share them with the grandkids. And plan for some upcoming memory-making explorations.

Of all my favorite places we've been, one of the top ones that sticks in my mind was our trip to Finland and especially our four days in Iceland. We rented a car and wandered all over the southern part of Iceland. I especially loved the hours in the Blue Lagoon!

I hope we can go back to Finland and Iceland, and I'd love to go to England. There is a small castle-like estate named after one line of my family. It is still owned by the family and we have a standing invitation to go and visit if and when we get to England.

So much to see and do. So little time in this life.

We enjoy the off the beaten path type things as well. Outside of the US I have two favorite trips ... well three except two of them were the same country.

1. The first trip to England it was just hubby and I. First part of the vacay was travelling all over London and day trips just outside of London. They have an incredible transit system both inside London and connecting London to a lot of the English countryside. The second half of this vacay was a cruise around the UK and to Normandy and back.

2. This was the other England trip but no cruise this time and we had our three youngest with us, two of whom were adults and then our youngest who was a newly minted teen at the time. We did a lot of repeat locations and some for the first time.

3. The Med. We started with nearly a week in Rome and we walked everywhere. Loved it! Then it turned into a cruise and we did both Italy and Greece with one stop in Malta. Oh the memories.

There are so many places that we want to see but it may not happen. 1. We are not getting the jab. 2. Without the jab there may not be any more air flight for us much less European travel.

Oh, there was another one I left out. Our last cruise and exploration was South America. We flew into Santiago, Chile and flew out of Argentina. Going around Cape Horn was ... incredible. Not really words for it.

 

[Dannab1]

Loving this!! I designed and met with the sportsmobile people to do a van before I retired. They do amazing work but $$$$$ and a year long waiting list made me buy a Winnebago Fuse instead! Traveled for a year before covid craziness hit. Looking forward to National park thru your eyes. You definitely need to keep trying to get to Acadia it is beautiful! Was in NH and Maine for the fall my first year out. Indescribably beautiful!

 

[Kathy in FL]

This is basically what the "adventure" map starts out looking like. There will be some changes along the way; some minor, some not minor. LOL



It is an old google map that someone put together to make for the fewest miles to visit the most parks in the continental US. Someone else did a version of this only covering all of the parks including AK, HI, and the US territories.

 

[Kathy in FL]

And for everyone's entertainment, the following vans are what I used as a partial model for the van in this story.

 

[Kathy in FL]

And these as well ...

 

[Freebirde]

Since Gus is starting in April, are we looking to do the counterclockwise/northern part first? Saving the southern part for the cooler fall and winter?

 

[Kathy in FL]

Since Gus is starting in April, are we looking to do the counterclockwise/northern part first? Saving the southern part for the cooler fall and winter?

Yep, but she's in for some surprises. She's a Florida girl at heart and April in Florida is grand and can even be hot. April in other places? Not so much. LOL

 

[Lake Lili]

Yep, but she's in for some surprises. She's a Florida girl at heart and April in Florida is grand and can even be hot. April in other places? Not so much. LOL

In Newfoundland, we are still downhill skiing in April and the last of our snow isn't gone usually until the end of May... Ontario on the other hand is sweater weather in April and getting hot by May... I'll stick to the Rock...

 

[Lake Lili]

This is basically what the "adventure" map starts out looking like. There will be some changes along the way; some minor, some not minor. LOL

Since you are head Gus & Little Bear up the top of Michigan, you might want to got to the lock at Sault Ste Marie (MI/ON) as you can take a boat trip up and down the locks and watch the lake freighters... from experience 6-yr old boys love the sheer scale of the ships. If you are willing to have them cross the border, the Bush Plane Museum in Sault Ste Marie (ON) is phenomenal and perfect for small boys. In the same area is Mackinac Island - great for bike riding... and fudge but expensive to stay...

Also right at the Minnesota/Ontario boarder is Grand Portage State Park. It was the epicenter of the fur trade in the last quater of the 18th century and is jointly administered by the Grand Portage Indian Reservation and the National Park Service. My son (who was 6 at the time) loved it.

 

[Sammy55]

When in northern Michigan, Gus and Little Bear should go to Pictured Rocks. Wonderful and very beautiful place!! They can take a regular boat ride or a glass bottom boat. And I agree about Sault Ste. Marie's boat trip on the locks. Little Bear would love it!

And don't forget to have them spend some time in Duluth. Lots to see and do - the Depot and Train Museum, the boat rides on the St. Louis River and on Lake Superior, two train rides that run up the shore to Two Harbors and along the St. Louis River. These all cost money, but their are some free places to go, too.

The Canal Park Marine Museum is free and full of lots of neat marine stuff to see, and there are neat places to walk, especially out to the lighthouse. And if they time it right, they can stand under the Lift Bridge while it's going up for a big laker coming in. They can drive down to the end of Canal Park and go swimming in the lake. There is a neat park there, too, that has a big wooden ship in the middle of a kid's playground sandbox. And if they are ambitious, they can walk to the end of Canal Park to the lake, passing by the smaller airport. They can even walk from the Canal Park Marine Museum on a very nice, paved path, called the Lakewalk, along the lake. If they can't afford to ride the train, they can wave to the train and passengers as they pass by the Lakewalk. There is also a road - called the Skyline Parkway - that runs along the top of the hill. It has wonderful views of the lake and Duluth from many different places. They can also veer off to follow one of the many rivers on Seven Bridges Road, which (you guessed it) has seven very unique stone bridges. They could park and walk along the river, too. At the top of the hill is Enger Tower and that is also free. You can walk up to the top of the tower and see the lake and countryside for miles and miles! It also has beautiful gardens and is a wonderful place to picnic. There are lots more free and low cost things to do and see in Duluth!

ETA: They should go to Brighton Beach or any of the other beaches along the Lakewalk or up the shore! They could go searching for some of the famous Lake Superior Agates! A free souvenir!!

Tell Aunty Gus to give me a call when they get to Duluth and I'll.... Oh, no...nevermind. I forgot that this is only a story, only a story! LOL!!

 

[Sammy55]

This is basically what the "adventure" map starts out looking like. There will be some changes along the way; some minor, some not minor. LOL

View attachment 270015

It is an old google map that someone put together to make for the fewest miles to visit the most parks in the continental US. Someone else did a version of this only covering all of the parks including AK, HI, and the US territories.

Does this trip plan have the newest national park, the New River Gorge in West Virginia? It doesn't look like it. It was made a national park in December 2020, and the pictures show some wonderful views! It has some great trails and has what was once the world’s longest single-span arch bridge. Gotta include that one so Aunt Gus gets her exercise!! LOL!