Inflection and Reflection
Journal Entry #19
January 12, 2022
Happy 2022! After four months of travel in and around the southeastern US, leading up to spending the month of December in Florida (which was booked over a year ago) we have reached a literal and metaphorical inflection point; we are now moving westward across the panhandle and towards Texas, the southwestern desert states and lower California where we will spend the winter and early spring months.
We are transitioning to less familiar territory and moving further “away” from what is known to us.
Our journey, so far, has been liberally punctuated with visits and stays with family and good friends. Despite the pandemic, we were fortunate enough to see 41 friends and family members across eight different states.
The last month spent bouncing around Florida ultimately culminated in a “holiday” reunion week with family; my daughters E and H, my brother A and his wife S and their two kids M and Z, as well as my dear friend L in Orlando. Given the state of the pandemic and the spread of Omicron, this was no easy feat. It should be mentioned that my sister in law is an epidemiologist so there was no question there would be very strict protocols! There were multiple rounds of COVID testing before, during, and after the visit. In the end, we managed to celebrate a cozy Xmas with my daughter E, ring in the New Year and celebrate H’s birthday on the 2nd, and yes, even brave Disney and Universal theme parks together. Truly, that we pulled this off (negative tests and all) was nothing short of a holiday miracle.
The past few nights we have been camping deep in the Apalachicola National Forest. The serene quiet of this place has given us a chance to pause and reflect on how much we have enjoyed and will miss family, friends, generous bedrooms, flush toilets, home showers (with room to shave my legs!), full size refrigerators and other familiar comforts. We are especially grateful for the time we were able to spend with loved ones.
As we enter our fifth month on the road we feel both excitement and trepidation as we head toward more unfamiliar surroundings and situations.
First, the places we are planning to visit are vast and in many cases will have far fewer services. For example, we will likely begin to spend many more overnights on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) public land or use dispersed camping which has it own challenges — generally no power, water, toilets or ability to book sites in advance. Our van is fully capable for this and we have done our share of limited dry/unsupported camping, but as yet, we ourselves have had little practice doing this for more extended periods, having mostly tapped reservable campgrounds up until now. We also anticipate connectivity (internet) may be more of a challenge in some of the more remote areas we are traveling to over the next three months (in fact, we have been surprised at spotty connectivity in relatively populated areas on our journey). The fact is that we are two “east coast” types heading out to camp in the southwestern desert hinterlands… (will our unopened untapped bear spray work on Chollas? What are Chollas, anyway?) Really, it’s like going to another planet.
That said, the past four months have been a like series of amazing “crash courses” about regional culture, geography, flora and fauna which, for us, is part of the fun of the adventure. We have enjoyed the ability to “immerse ourselves” locally at and learn at each of our destinations. We look forward to diving into this crash coursework on our westward journey.
Finally, since this is the first journal entry of 2022, I thought I’d include a few of our on the road New Year’s resolutions:
Send more postcards.
We were caught by surprise by how many people enjoy an old fashioned postcard in this digital age.
Learn to live without Amazon.
In the past months we have had many packages delivered to friends and family. Going forward, we won’t have the same luxury. We have tried Amazon lockers and have found timing is quite a challenge given how often we are on the move.
Practice my ukelele.
This was a holiday gift which I absolutely love, it gives me joy (and its diminutive size means it fits in the van). I just need to practice more often so I suck less at it!
Learn to ride more twisty scary single tracks on my mountain bike.
Yikes! This is Tom’s unsolicited resolution for me.
Learn to take more unplanned/impromptu random roadside van stops.
Usually preceded by Amie saying something like “Wait! Stop! That looks cool… This is Amie’s unsolicited resolution for Tom!
Use the sousvide.
This is totally “bougie” but we have hauled our sousvide and its cooking box for over 7000 miles with the intention of cooking perfectly done steaks. It has not been touched. It’s time!
Stay safe.
We are fortunate that living in our van is essentially living in quarantine. This week we are headed to New Orleans, fully recognizing that omicron case rates are rising nearly everywhere right now. We remain careful and vigilant as we travel. Still, we are hopeful that case rates will decline as quickly as they rose, and that 2022 gets brighter for EVERYONE.
Stay safe, friends.
