The last place-specific blog we posted was from Moab, Utah – and we’re in Tennessee! I wanted to give a quick update about where we’ve been, and the covid-safe things we’ve been doing. I have a backlog of blogs that I’ve started and haven’t edited or finished, so thought I’d give you a very quick and to-the-point blog about where we’ve been recently.
Colorado
I drove us through the Rockies and through the tallest (elevation-wise) tunnel in the world. That was a rough travel day, and I swore to Jeremiah we would never take the HOW (home on wheels) into Colorado again. If and when we return, we’ll go ahead and get an Air BnB and rent a car – some year in the future, when we feel safe doing that again.
We struggled with the smoke from the western states during this time, while the Colorado fires had been put out during our visit. (This was a month+ before the fire outside Boulder was set.)
Spent some time mini-golfing (totally Covid-friendly activity!) at the most resort-style RV park we’ve stayed at, and meandered a little at the Garden of the Gods. I also stuck my feet in the Colorado River on a very cold morning.
Kansas
Our 25th state on the road! I think we were here for about a week, although since I haven’t updated in a while, the days and weeks run together something fierce. This was the least mask-wearing state we’ve been to, at least recently, so that made me uncomfortable. We notice that small towns don’t wear masks, while the larger cities typically do. It’s a bummer since we don’t really get to experience the small towns at all right now.
In Topeka, we visited the Brown V Board of Education Historical Site – which was unfortunately closed due to the whole pandemic thing, but we were able to read the signs outside.
Missouri
From Kansas City to St. Louis, we were here about a week or so as well. We tried the St. Louis style pizza from Imo’s and I will never recover. It is not good. I read about how it was “weird” because they use a cheese product that has added ingredients so it can’t actually be called cheese, but I did not like it. It was bad. We always like to try the foods that places are known for. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it’s foul. St. Louis pizza is foul. You might say “acquired taste” and I will refute that with a strong no. So, that’s what I took from Missouri this time around.
Missouri really is gorgeous
Oh, and the acorns. Turns out when acorns drop on the top of a motorhome, they sound like entire tree branches falling. Shockingly loud. We had a wonderful walk two days in a row in a place outside Kansas City. Hawks, deer, heron, and we even saw a torndado of swallows.
I really enjoyed a lot of Missouri. We stumbled into camp outside of Boomland (the biggest firework store south or west or north of some river, I’m sure) where there was a very cheap campground for 12 bucks a night. Directly across from it were the first steps into the Louisiana Purchase. It is amazing what we get to just casually come across as we travel in an RV. A home on wheels has absolutely changed how we view things.
One of my close friends (who I’ve never met in real life, yet, but will) Sarah, an RVer traveler, is from Missouri. It’s funny, because part of me thinks, “Why did you ever leave?” Missouri is beautiful…but people think that about us since we’re from Oregon. I guess we got bit by the travel bug.
Tennessee
We’ve been in Tennessee for a week now – outside Nashville. We’ve been able to work on our generator and the Tahoe, and we’ll get a blog out about the generator as soon as we know it’s actually functional.
In addition, we headed into Nashville to the Parthenon. Yes. The Parthenon. It’s a replica of the Grecian edifice that was built in 1897 and then rebuilt in the 1920s. The initial building in the late 1890’s was created out of wood and plaster to tempt visitors there, with the sole intention of tearing it down six months later. However, it was not torn down, and the city rebuilt it once it had been covered with ivy and had slowly started to crumble. It’s not made out of marble, and Jeremiah and I left shaking our heads becuase…why was it there? Anyways, that’s a weird place to go.
Since it’s October, we also found a pumpkin patch! We try to do that every year – we also paint our pumpkins since traveling with carved pumpkins could get very smelly and buggy.
Where we’ve been to and where we’re going
We’re hanging out in Tennessee until November at this point – down towards Chattanooga, a place we love. Then, we’ll head to Alabama to get some work done on our RV. We thought we were going to have a much earlier appointment with the RV repair shop we’re going to after speaking with them in September. When we called in late September, their earliest appt was 5 weeks out. Whoops.
From there, we’re still planning to go down to Galveston to winter the cold winter months. This may not have been the most word-smithiest of blogs, but now you’re caught up on where we’ve been and a few things we’ve been up to! Stay tuned for our more regular blogs in which I am overly verbose coming soon.
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An aside: I have been humbled to have been accepted into a writing fellowship known as On Deck Writing. I have been in my cohort for about a week, and one of the fantastic benefits is that I have a workshopping group. This may mean my blogs will change, and hopefully greatly improve, over next 8 weeks and beyond. It may also mean that my blogs will be a little bit slower because I am trying to get the most out of the fellowship. I’ll be creating a newsletter since that’s apparently all the rage and I’m very far behind in all things fashionable. Thanks for bearing with me, and I’ll let you know when I have my first newsletter set up.
