Happily Homeless

Day Nine – We took the ferry, 2-1/4 hours long, from Ocracoke Island to Cedar Island and drove our way down to Myrtle Beach. Myrtle Beach was something else!. We went down US-17 South and found tons of interesting cultural events, it was marked on our atlas as a scenic route – it was scenic, but not in the way we would normally think. For one, I have never seen so many pancake & waffle houses in my life – at one point during the strip-mall of many breakfast houses there was an national house of pancakes, an Ihop, a national house of omelets & pancake, a waffle house, and one more (that I can’t remember the name of) all in one block. Than, there are the unforgettable Disneyland type miniature golf courses that could almost out number the amount of casinos in Las Vegas. They even had a few miniature golf courses in the sprawl next to the gas stations when leaving town, just in case you didn’t get a chance to play a few holes while you were at Myrtle Beach. And you can’t miss the ton of beach paraphernalia super stores and the 3 Hooter’s restaurants that lined the highway. All of this, and more, in just 19 mile strip. A perfect vacation scene.

We stopped that night at Buck Hall Campground in Francis Marion National Forest outside of Cape Rowain Wildlife Refuge. We planned on staying at the Myrtle Beach State Park, but their tents sites (which I was correct to being their over flow sites with no water and electricity hook ups – not tent sites) kind of spooked us out. Do you even walk into an area or place and look around and nothing feels quiet right or comfortable?? Yeah, that is what we were feeling when we drove through the campsite, and the ground was pretty wet which probably flood if it stormed, which was a 70% chance. When we went back to the office and told them we were going to move on, we found out someone got shot at the campgrounds the previous night. We’re glad to move on.

Day Eight – Time for a normal room, we finally stayed in our first hotel room tonight, it was nice to be in a bed that didn’t have the height limitation of 4’-0” and also to have a bathroom that was just yours, and not have to ‘go outside’ to get to it. Though, we still got a spider visit in our bathroom sink before we left the next morning – bigger than a Washington State house spider and nothing I wanted to deal with, a good inch and half in size, so I left it for the maid. That day and night was spent still in Cape Hatteras National Seashore and on Ocracoke Island. They have a pub on this island called Howard’s Pub that had over 200 varieties of beer and at least twenty of them on tap. It is a must visit if you go through there.

A pic on the free ferry to Ocracoke Island

Jason cutting up and eatting some Sprite Melon on the beach – really really good melon and seems to be only available in NC 🙁

Day Seven – We decided to get our best experience at the Merchant’s Millpond State Park and rented a canoe from the state park to paddle around for an hour in the water-forest of cypress trees. It was an amazing and mystical experience to drift smoothly through trees and friendly dragonflies, and for some reason no mosquitoes. Definitely recommended it you are given the chance. So far, that was one of the best parts of our current traveling.

Outerbanks here we come. We drove our way into the Cape Hatteras National Seashore along the northern coast of North Carolina. Along the way we visited the Wright Brother’s Memorial, which was worth seeing. It is really great to be reminded how two people, when they really put their mind to something, can accomplish so much and even change the world just with their ideas and determination. We stayed at the Frisco Campground (really nice!) and had a perfect dinner that night. It was made from a bunch produce we bought from a roadside stand and threw together in the frying pan with some garlic and cheese. The air was warm (but not humid) with a bit of wind, no misquotes, and a relaxing atmosphere as the sun started to hide behind the horizon. Than, right as dusk set, we quickly found out why everyone else was in there netted picnic table rooms. The mosquitoes slowly came out, clinging on to our arm hairs as they were blown by us in the wind. These suckers were viscous and their needle mouths were very painful. We quickly tried to clean up from dinner (not having bug repellant, since earlier it seemed that the wind would keep them a bay, made us work extremely fast) and much to our surprise, right at full darkness they brought out the troops and punctured very vein of blood warm and flesh that was available.

During the middle of the night, besides waking up scratching my war wounds, an intense thunderstorm rolled off the coast and into islands. It sounded as if the thunder would flatten everything down as a train does when running over a penny. We stayed nice and dry in our tent with our extra tarp over the top – I just wish we could have watched the lightening. It sounded amazing and made me feel like a kid again jumping at the sound of the thunder.

Master Jedi (aka The Tortoise, not referring to his speed but his hardshell and cleverness!) & April at the beach campsite

Day Six – We crossed into North Carolina and the roads in that area immediately changed to a less cared for country road. The fields starting showing tobacco being grown, watermelons, and something else with really pretty flowers on it. We made our way to Merchant’s Millpond State Park and it was very beautiful and one of the best campsites we’ve stayed at. Very friendly rangers and the only draw back was the spiders… they were everywhere… small ones on the ground, daddy-long legs with red bodies and REALLY long legs (I think they feed them steroids), and very colourful wicked looking spiders. When we went to use the restroom before going to bed, there was one of those gross looking spiders that have the big butts (and it was a good size one) spinning a blanket above the Ladies bathroom door. Right next to the men’s bathroom door was a more ferocious spider that was yellow bodied and nasty looking legs. In the morning we saw what type of artist he was. This is preparing me for the tropical parts of our travels – I didn’t know I was scared of spiders until the past two days. To say the least that night did not help me get over my spider incident from earlier the previous morning.

That night to bring some comfort to our lives of six days on the road camping and a rough night of storms; after dinner we enjoyed a nice movie off of our laptop in the refreshing controlled climate of our car. Hee hee, the advantage of car camping and fun gadgets.

artistspider.jpg

All you need is some wood and a soda (or pop – as we say it in the northwest 🙂

Day Four – We slowly drove our way south through the Shenandoah National Park at 35 mph, that is the limit for twisting roads on the top of the ridge. It is strange to think that we were driving on top of the mountains. It was a beautiful drive, along with a nice hike down to a waterfall, the Dark Hollow Falls.

love this sign!

The falls — and cute Jason below …

A huge fly hanging onto our hood as we cruise down the ridge parkway

Entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway

Than, we entered the Blue Ridge Parkway in George Washington National Forest and experienced our first southern red-neck experience. We stayed at Sherando Lake State Park just off the northern section of the parkway through some very scenic country, and got lucky with an over flow camping spot being available; there was a wedding being held there the next day – the wedding party was camping there the night before though. Our first welcome to the stereotypical south greeted us as we approached the local gas station and convenience store with a sign letting us know that they have 9mm pistols for sale for only $139.99, AT THE GAS STATION, along with some minnows.

I love these vine-trees, they were everywhere in va.

Later that night we enjoyed our nice meal of 10 minute rice and Indian food (TastyBite – really good stuff) with the background of country music from the radio that the local campers provided. The campers also had huge spotlight-like flashlights that they shined into the tree tops and forest randomly… I didn’t understand this activity, except maybe they were trying to quiet down the monster crickets. Later in the night to set up camp across from our site, believe it or not, was shirtless, literally red necked – burned past your imagination, potbelly southerner – just like you would imagine from the stories. It was a good night.

Day Five – This morning as we packed up, I got a visit from a big spider. I am from the northwest originally and spent the last three years in new york – spiders don’t get too big there and they usually leave one alone. These past few days I have had enough spider encounters to make me not look forward to going further south – thinking they are bigger down there. I don’t know how the spider got there, nor do I want to know, but I found it hanging from my upper arm/armpit area. Jason said he never heard me scream so much like a girl before – I don’t know if I have ever freaked out like I did than. It scared the crap out of me – 2.5” in diameter; I am being very realistic in the size.

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We finished our packing with the friendly spider under the car and drove off to University of Virginia in Charlottesville. We enjoyed the town life and running some errands and than our first thunderstorm came in to the area and down poured as we drove out of town to find a campground. We found one southeast of the Charlottesville and set up our tent right in between storms and with help from a tarp, stayed dry the whole night, though not much sleep.

this is dixie, va

Day three – Getting our last minute tasks taken care of yesterday helped us feel like we are not just on vacation or going to see someone, but on our path of a vagabond life across the states. We followed the Appalachian Trail to Shenandoah National Park and found a beautiful camp site in Matthew Arms Campground. Setting up camp early today to enjoy the nice hot summer afternoon along with the company of gnats, which our non-deet bug repellant (Natraprel Plus) helped us get along just fine along with some help from the wind. We were also greeted nicely with presents of acorns from the chipmunks from above, which continued throughout our stay. We were able to enjoy our time with Jason putting the last finishing touches on our website before we post it up and April re-entering the addresses that she has started to collect after loosing her address book last month.

To stretch our legs and take a scenic walk in the afternoon we adventured down a nature trail/ dirt service road to go look at some falls that were two miles away. On our way down the steep hill, that Jason is not looking forward to climbing back up, we come across a man and his dog. The man appeared to be resting on a log on the side of the path, but to our dismay we found out that he really was done walking and miscalculated, or took a wrong turn, and could not make it back up the mountain to the head of the trail. Along with that his two kids were further down the trail, stopped by exhaustion. We walked as quickly as we could back up the hill to find the rangers and get them some help for them. They turned out to be okay and the day ends happy with some Top Ramen dinner and Smores for dessert. Hoping for another night of monster cricket orchestra before we hit the sack.

A scenic view from one of the pull off sites in the Shenandoah National Park. Quiet ironic, we pay to go into these nature saving parks and than we view what distruction our sprawling towns and cities can do.

Jason’s creative juices are in the mixing cycle as he finishes designing our website.

April getting to know her new iriver toy (h340 int’l) and working on the blog….

Day Two – Our next day was not really one of being on the road exploring the states and freedom of not living in a permanent dwelling, but more of one that was spent with four hours of finishing last minute errands and tasks in the town of Allentown, NJ. After extreme patience from Jason, we got all of our mailing, emailing, and last minute supply runs done, and headed off to Pennsylvania for our second night of state park camping. Caledonia State Park was a very nice location with a swimming pool and clean bathrooms. Again, we were soothed asleep with the monster cricket’s orchestra that strung up at dusk and abruptly stopped before dusk. I believe they realize we are from the city and needed a bit of noise to put us to sleep, since there are no sirens or middle of the night yelling going on.

pretty road in pa

Day One –

Leaving New York City (NYC) proved to be a lot harder than one would expect. We had some best friends come down from Montreal to spend our last weekend in the city with us, and most of our friends have already moved out of the city. It was great way to spend our last 48 hours…. though it put us a day behind on our departure date. We went out to our favorite watering hole on Saturday night with our buddies and met up with some other friends of ours, which were friends of theirs first, and didn’t get home until 5.00am – which by the time we got up and moving the next day – it was hardly enough to do anything productive. Fortunately, our apartment that we are renting out is accommodating two very nice gentlemen that did not mind if we crashed there – actually finished packing and cleaning the apartment – for an extra day and half.

We left NYC through the Holland Tunnel during rush hour traffic, a perfect way to leave the city, and headed west across New Jersey. We put up camp half way across the state at Voorhees State Park. It was a nice first night on the road and we were gently soothed asleep with an orchestra of some type of extremely loud monster crickets or some type of insect.

Our last meal in the city at Crif Dogs on St.Mark’s Street – best veggie dogs ever. And we’re off!

Packing… I think we have everything we could possibly think of from the mini-ipod to a few pillows. Hey, when you going to be living on the road for two months – one wants to have a few comforts. During this packing and sorting endeavor I realized how many gadgets we have now, and how electronic our modern world has become. A few years ago, we would have packed our CD’s, Portable CD player, and tape adapter, a camera that took film, and a cooler. Now, the modern adults we are, we have a digital camera, an iriver portable harddrive/mp3 player, mini-ipod, cell phone, a laptop, a portable refrigerator (hooks up the 12volt in the back of the car – nice huh?), a 12 volt transformer that converts to 110 volts (so we can power our electronics and recharge our toys), and enough chargers, power cords, and data cables to choke a mule.

Along with packing came storing the items that we could not bare to sell or had to keep incase the government audits us in the future. Thanks to my sister and her husband, Holly & Neil, we were able to store our 8 boxes of items and 8 boxes of media mail in her basement until we get to Seattle – where we can properly put all 16 boxes in storage and add a few additional boxes after we sort through what we left at her house before we left for NYC (3 years ago) and what is in storage near my dad’s house (which came from my mom’s house when she moved while we were in NYC -who knows what’s in there). Purging your life accumulations and possessions at age 27 is very gratifying and refreshing. Give it a try at any age 😉

Before we left NYC our car was full in the trunk and stack to the ceiling in the backseat, along with Jason’s bike strapped to the back of our little beast of a car. After mailing a few packages and re-organizing our stuff, we have managed to shrink our backseat storage to the height of the seat backs. Soon, we will ditch a few more things and hopefully have it even lower… we’ll see.

Leaving our cat… We have an awesome cat named, Mo (full name Gizmo), that we had to reluctantly not bring along with us on our road trip. Along with the fact that he does not fancy car rides, I am not sure how keen he would be to adapting to a camping lifestyle. We were fortunate enough to found a very loving home with caring foster parents, and a nice cousin for Mo play with. Thank you, Shelley and Eric, Jason’s sister and brother-in-law, for caring after our fuzz ball. Though, I am afraid that he will not want to come back home with us when we are done traveling. Give our love to Mo…