Ah, spacious Arkansas!

False Mulberry or Beautyberry

Main destination on the first leg of our trip to do some crystal mining. Found great HipCamp in Mulberry, Arkansas - way out in the boonies with nothing but trees and Mother Nature for as far as our eyes could see.

The space was hosted by a kind soul, Grant, who has a house here. And being that he lives there alone, thought he would open it up for campers to get an influx of company. He has a lovely house with a hot tub on the deck and a nice outdoor shower. His three dogs (actually one of them was the neighbor's dog who actually looked a lot like Gertie) greeted us up on our arrival and we're very fun for Gertie to play with.

We got there earlier in the day as we wanted to air out all of our camp supplies and tent from the night before when it rained in Kentucky at my brother Adam's place. It was sunny and about 75 degrees, which made it a perfect time to do this. As evening fell we wrapped up what was drying and got the FireBowl going and put up some solar lights. I even got out my guitar and played a few songs.

😀💗✌🎸🎵🔥★

It did get quite chilly... down to about 35 degrees, but we were toasty warm in our tent with our down comforter and each other. We slept for the first time without the rain fly on our tent and I awoke in the middle of the night with a full moon staring me right in the face through the top of her tent. But before we fell asleep we watched a couple of episodes of our new binge-worthy series, Designated Survivor, with Kiefer Sutherland. After that and before we closed our eyes to sleep, we had a wonderful view of a super bright sky with stars galore! After all the hard work we do and my questioning whether it is all worth it or not, this definitely reassured me that it IS!

The morning found us with plenty of condensation on everything almost the point where it looked like it had rained. Nevertheless, we dried stuff off and broke camp, but not before having a lovely breakfast of whole grain cooked cereal with brown sugar and plenty of fresh ground coffee brewed.

We then set out for the Twin Creeks Crystal Mine over in Mount Ida. This was about a 2 hour drive, which I underestimated the amount of time that it was going to take, but we did get in a couple of hours of digging around for crystals. The ones that we did find were very clear and well shaped. I found a bunch of them that were twin crystals, (two, formed side by side) which reminded me of Bernie and myself. The road into the place was very steep and full of potholes and rivets that made it extremely difficult to drive... especially with our sensitive bike rack. As you may remember from earlier blog posts we have been having issues with it. But we managed to get in and out without incident, and found a nice place nearby to spend the night at a hotel. This was a strategic move as we were covered with dirt and very tired and it was late in the day.

The place we found was in Memphis which we drove to from Arkansas and was right in downtown at the Sheraton. Very nice spacious from very comfortable, and we had a great night sleep. In the morning we set off for New Mexico! We will be updating the blog soon with stuff from NM

Thank you for reading, and be sure to check out the photos below. And we'll catch up with you soon.

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Visit with Adam (my brother) and family

After about 7 hours of driving from West Virginia, we finally landed at my brother Adam place in Pleasureville, Kentucky. Getting there was no small feat. They live way out in the middle of the boonies on roads that wound through the beautiful countryside - would come to an intersection and then wind some more, come to another intersection and wind some more! By the time we got there we were very disoriented especially after the "ordeal" from earlier in the day. See the previous blog for details.

Adam, his wife Valerie, and their daughter Sydney, have a great house in the gorgeous Kentucky countryside with big beautiful yard outback that's flanked by two large wooded areas - 12 acres in all. Very peaceful and quiet and lovely.

My lovely niece, Sydney made lasagna for dinner which we wound up eating quite late and visited and chatted until about 11 p.m. when we all retired. It was too dark in late to set up our rooftop tent so we slept in their house. Bernie, Gertie, and myself in a twin bed which in the middle of the night decided to break! No worries however we were so tired that we slept right through it.

In the morning Bernie showed the girls how to make soap, which came out absolutely beautiful. They are thinking about starting a cottage business and selling their products at a local farmers market and craft fair. We had a nice drive into town which is about 20 minutes away in Shelbyville. Found a cute little spot and had some fabulous grilled cheese on sourdough, and delicious chili. Later that afternoon when we got home we took naps. Had leftover lasagna for dinner with fresh garlic bread and salad, and watched a movie before going to bed.

It rained overnight, so it was a first in the Tepui (tent). We stayed nice and dry, but putting everything away wet was a challenge...

A short but sweet stay - lots of quality time with members of my beautiful family. There is actually talk of Bernie and I setting up a yurt on their property and us staying in it for a couple of months during the spring or summer to help them with some of their gardening projects.

Thank you for reading, and we're on to the next adventure which is not that adventurous but after spending the night in the rooftop tent and it raining, we decided to drive to Memphis and spend the night in a hotel. We found a nice place downtown and had nice hot showers and comfortable bed great meal and are heading to Arkansas now. See you on the other side.

The next blog will be the day after tomorrow after our stay in Arkansas. Trying to get caught up with my blogging here so thank you for your patience!

Hello West Virginia!

(Author's note - the text below has been transcribed from a voice-to-text method I use to save time. I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors!!)

After driving for what seems like an eternity, as the first few days of traveling are always a bit trying, we landed at the Chestnut Creek Campground in West Virginia. Our objective for staying in this location was because Bernie had mentioned several months ago while we were planning our itinerary, but he wanted to see the New River Gorge Bridge.

The campground itself was very primitive, meaning no electricity or hookups for RVs, etc., which was perfectly fine with us. Another place that we found on HipCamp. It did have a nice bathhouse which was a short walk away from our campsite located under two large sycamore trees. The temperatures were very cold but we did enjoy watching the full moon rise through the trees as we warmed ourselves around our Outland FireBowl.

We did hear some sort of wild critter in the woods that was making a very scary sound sort of a growl and a screech sound that fit in perfectly with the full moon rising and the feeling of Halloween in the air. We found out the next morning that it was some animal that wanted something to eat, as our little garbage bag had been strewn across the front area of our site. We had a good night sleep and after packing up all of our stuff to travel again, set out to see the New River Gorge Bridge.

The proprietor at the campground told us about a spot that was a very good location to view the bridge and to take photographs. He said it was a short hike up the Bridge Buttress Trail. As we approached the area, we were in awe not only have how winding the road was through the viewing area, but at the shear height and expanse of the bridge. We found the trailhead which seemed quite easy to do as they were stairs going up with a handrail. It quickly turned into a rocky path that was very difficult to navigate. Bernie had to turn around to go back, as the hike was too aggressive. Gertie and I forged ahead, and made it to the end of the trail which was no great shakes.

On the way back down the trail Gertie jumped on a rock and slipped down about 20 feet, fell off the rock and tumbled about another 60 feet down a steep gravel hill and landed at the bottom with a huge thud. I screamed and ran down the trail to see how hurt she was. She did jump up and run after she landed so I knew at least she was alive. When I found her she was very upset and had scrapes all over her body. I was screaming and crying and we immediately took her to a local vet about two miles away.

After much prodding and poking the vet discovered that she was perfectly fine and subscribed prescribed some antibiotics and pain medication. And the people at the vet's office were extremely professional and helpful and put both Bernie and I a tease as we were very very upset and to the point of shaking. The vet do the series of tests to check on her electrical system in case of a traumatic brain injury and also took X-rays and did some tests to make sure she was not bleeding internally. I cannot go on about this anymore as I am still very much in shock.

But this was a great wake-up call to me to not take my two most beloved things people in my life on dangerous hiking trails!

We did manage to pull ourselves together and get back on the road and head for my brother Adam's Place in Pleasureville, Kentucky.

Thank you for reading and God bless you all and be sure to follow the blog post by entering your email in the slot below. There is a slight glitch with the Google capture functionality, so please roll with it. It works! Next blog from Brother Adams Place in Kentucky. Bye for now.

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We're off! On the road, that is...we've always been a little "off"

After many months of planning and purchasing items to take on our camping trip, we finally are off. We left Monday the 22nd of October at 8 a.m. and set the GPS for Robesonia, Pennsylvania.

One little mishap along the way in that when we pulled off the highway to get lunch as for crossing the parking lot I hear a horrible grinding sound that I think is the car. Next thing I know a man is running alongside our car banging on the window yelling, "Your car your bike is dragging!" At which point, I stopped the car in the middle of the parking lot, put on my flashers and spend about 10 minutes putting the bike back on and the rack.

Seems one of the bars that hold the tire in place came loose and the bike fell forward and was scraping on the ground. Luckily, no major damage and after lunch we continued our trip to Pennsylvania. Dealing with traffic past New York City was trying...

We are using HipCamp, as many of you know, basically an AirBnB for campers, and found a place that had very good reviews called, Duncan's Corn Maze! We arrived around 6 p.m. as the sun was going down, and it was getting chilly. Went to find the proprietor and hit a little gully crossing the driveway to their house, and heard a big crunch! I looked in my rearview to see the entire bike rack and the bikes sitting in the road not attached to the car. So as you can see, we are ironing out some major kinks with the bike racks. After much fuss getting the thing back together and dealing with the aftermath of driving all day fighting tractor trailers and New York City traffic, got the rack and bikes back on the car, and headed to our campsite.

By this time is very cold, like 40 degrees F, and we managed to get everything in place and set up before it got completely dark. There was a full moon that rose and gave us plenty of light for doing other minor chores that needed to happen before we could settling for a night sleep.

The owners, DJ and Loretta brought us a pizza and we all visited and got to know each other. Then we settled in for a nice night sleep in our lovely, and warm rooftop tent.

The farm that we stayed at is a working dairy farm and currently owned by fifth generation farmer. It was great getting to hear some of the history of the farm and the area. The corn maze is in its 19th year, and after talking with DJ and Loretta, discovered that they had planned to only do it for 20 years and then move on to something else. It was fun to sit around and brainstorm ideas for their next part of their life and business over delicious cheese pizza. After having coffee and breakfast we packed up everything and hit the road for West Virginia.

Be sure to put your email address in the Box on the right to be notified of any new blog posts. Thanks for reading. Stay tuned!

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Pre-trip thoughts

So, hello and greetings!

Just getting our ducks in a row and making necessary updates to our departure schedule And checking in with a new blog here on Blogger to keep everyone up-to-date on our travel west.

After several months of planning and gathering the necessary items for a glamorous camping, or "Glamping" trip across our fair country with the final destination being our friends, Dave and Randy's place in Bridgeville, California for Thanksgiving.

The graphic below shows my use of Google Maps to plot our course. So far we've only gotten to my brother Adam's place in Kentucky, regardless of what the graphic shows. I had to redo our itinerary do to a few timeline setbacks...will elaborate on that later.

My reasons for using a blog are multifold, and the quickest way to let you know, is to tell you because it's a bit more intimate than posting random shots as we travel to social networks including, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

The posts will not come with regular frequency, but when I have enough fodder, will post. There's a way to subscribe so you get an email notification when something new comes up. Enter your email in the box on the right side column to do that.

We're off!

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