Alive and well and heading to Florida

Faithful Readers...

Just thought I would check in, as I have not posted in a few weeks. Andre and I are alive and well and finally heading south toward Tampa, FL, where we plan to work for 4-5 months.  I start my seasonal accounting job on Monday (with the same firm I worked for last winter), and Andre has lined up a number of things that will keep him busy earning money over the winter as well.  Yes, after goofing off in a major way for approximately 6 1/2 months, it is now time to put in a few months earning some money so we can fund goofing off for another 6-7 months next spring and summer!

At the time of my last post, we had arrived in Rhode Island to begin our family visiting and to meet up with old friends as well. Our New England/Mid-Atlantic trip home took us from Delaware to Rhode Island, Massachusetts to upstate New York, across Vermont and New Hampshire, back to Massachusetts and Rhode Island and finally south once more for last visits in Delaware, Pennsylvania (Philly), Baltimore and Bethesda, Maryland and a final stop in Washington DC before heading south  for good. As I write this, I am sitting in the van in Fayetteville, NC.

I know many of you might expect that I'd have numerous photos to go along with this summary of the past few weeks, but I was so busy visiting and enjoying the great company of friends and relatives, that I actually forgot all about taking photos for most of the trip!  Here are just a few that I took during our quick trip to Lake George, NY.

How exciting to be back in fall foliage!

 

Andre tapping the beer keg at the Adirondack Pub & Brewery Octoberfest

 

Our favorite Octoberfest music...
FRITZ'S POLKA BAND!

Reflections on the Wild Wild West

Greetings from Rhode Island!

 

Now that I am back on the solid ground of the Northeast, where nothing is shifting, sliding, burning, bubbling, steaming, quaking, erupting or blistering, I thought I would share some of the signs we came across during our travels out west, where the earth seems to be still in the toddler or angry teenager stage compared to the more stable, sedate, solid, unmoving "middle aged" earth we rest on here in the east. Some are very serious - others we snapped because we found them amusing- but all point out the stark differences between our two coasts.

 

Needless to say, hubris will ensure that as soon as I post this entry, there will be some kind of major earthquake or other catastrophic event right here on the "safe" east coast.  Sorry Folks!!

 

 

Yes, we camped here...

 

Yes, we took this trail

Huh?  Never understood this one

This sign was at Lake Tahoe in June

 



 

 

We did adhere to this one and keep out!

  

Yes, we drove through San Andreas - but no earthquake

Cheating on this one - it was from Florida
 not the west coast but I thought it went with this post

 

These last two are just fun ones

 

Entering Arkansas

Well, we can cross another state off our list. Yesterday evening we crossed over into Arkansas amid thunderstorms and Tornado warnings.

Most of our day driving north through East Texas yesterday was unbearably hot and humid. We took a brief side trip to Shreveport, LA to check out the city (a flaming hot 2 hour sidebar that left us anxious to get the hell out of the "oven" of Texas and Louisiana and head to cooler climates north and east) and then got back on a major route heading toward Arkansas.

When we left Shreveport, the skies had grown dark and ominous and it was clear that a nasty storm was on the horizon. This was good news in a way, because we knew the temperature might break, but it also created the environment for tornadoes, which we definitely preferred not to experience.  We toyed with the idea of changing direction to avoid the storms, but a few minutes on my cell phone weather apps told me that there were similar tornado warnings and severe storm warnings basically in all directions, as it was a pretty large front. So we kept to our planned path and just pulled off the road when the thunderstorms got ominous.

No tornadoes materialized where we were and we were grateful for that. The rain and occasional clap of thunder continued for a few hours into the evening, but other than that, we spent an uneventful evening in Texarkana, Arkansas. Today we plan to drive across Arkansas, with a stop in Hope, Arkansas at the birthplace and childhood home of Bill Clinton, which is now a National Historic Site. We will likely be in Memphis, TN by this evening.

The days since my last entry from Marfa, Texas have been very enjoyable. We left Marfa after the music festival and headed to Big Bend National Park for a visit with our good friends, Ranger Rob Dean and his wife Angie. We enjoyed visiting a few of our old haunts in the park and had a great night out on Monday night celebrating Andre's 51st birthday with Rob and Angie in the Terlingua Ghost Town at our old Monday night haunt, The Starlight Theatre.

We spent time driving through some of our old "get-a-way" towns (Alpine, Marathon & Fort Stockton) and I spent some time shopping for a few pair of new jeans in the best place for jeans in Alpine - Johnson's Feed and Western Wear. Yes, you can actually get feed there (we didn't need any), along with ranching gear, farm implements, sturdy western clothing and a great assortment of genuine cowboy and cowgirl boots.

Eventually all of our shopping and re-visiting of old haunts was done and we headed out of West Texas and started East toward Livingston, TX our technical "home town", where we needed to do some banking, renew our inspection sticker on the van and pick up our mail. We camped one night at the Escapees RV Park, our "home base" and also the source of our mailing address and then headed out yesterday mid-day to start our journey out of Texas and back toward New England. Here are just a few photos from our brief visit back to Big Bend NP.

Watching Ranger Rob's "Roping" program up at the Chisos Basin in Big Bend

A return to Santa Elena Canyon where the water was quite high