This Christmas was looking to be fairly miserable for me, and then a couple of gestures by strangers turned it to merry and bright. Seriously! This is what happened. So, I’ve been sitting inside the trailer for the past two weeks feeling like a combo of Tiny Tim and Ebenezer Scrooge. Why? You know, but I gotta […]
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Happy Funhouse of Light Thanksgiving
I was about to say that I should post on Thanksgiving if only to commemorate where we are, since I love looking back at anniversaries. There was our first Thanksgiving in the beautiful Everglades, the next one boondocking in windy Joshua Tree, then camping right in New Orleans (which feels like last week, not last […]
Brownsville Christmas: Traditions and Salad Spinning
I was about to sum up my Christmas Day here in Brownsville, Texas, with a quote from David Sedaris’s short story, “Santaland Diaries,” in which he writes about the horrors of working as an elf at Macy’s over Christmas. But I sounded a bit unhinged. The highlight is when Sedaris is forced by Santa to […]
Indecision about Long-Term Camping
Just this morning as I was walking Banjo along the desert road, looking for burros and enjoying the peaceful sunrise, I had decided that this Imperial Dam LTVA is a smart place for us to stay put for a while. An hour later, inside the trailer when Tracy says he may have found us a […]
Desert Light on the Solstice
Our desert Christmas tree Scenes from the nightly LTVA parade
Wishing You a Warm Holiday Full of Wonder
Merry Christmas, from the coldest Christmas that Florida has seen in recent history! (Okay, it’s 80 today on Christmas Eve, but it’s going to be only 60 tomorrow.) I’m writing this on Christmas Eve to gear myself up for the holiday. Later today I’ll reminisce with my son on the phone about our annual Epic […]
An Everglades Thanksgiving
Technically we’re at the very north edge of the Everglades, at Big Cypress National Preserve. Our campground is just a paved loop around a pond, with alligator warning signs every few feet. Our camp host told us as we pulled in, “Now if y’all go outside at night, be sure to shine a flashlight under […]
Election Distraction
I was going to call this post “A Cold Day in Hell” because it has been cold here! (Plus that’s funny, thanks Tracy.) But with the election happening this week I thought that sounds too alarmist, and we have enough alarms going off in the news. So: What’s been going down in Tate’s Hell these […]
Campground or Crazy Spring Break?
Long-anticipated Memorial Day weekend—and only the second weekend that Virginia has opened campgrounds to vacationers—began here on Thursday, as RVs pulled up the long drive in and slowly filed all the spots in this ~200-spot campground. Seriously, 200 spots, and this place is now filled. All despite the fact that local hospitals are at their […]
