East Coast Highlights

  Has anyone read Braiding Sweetgrass? This book has made a profound impact on me, and has me itching to get home and plant my garden. Like, I want to turn around and head home now. It makes me feel all the feels. I feel that Summerland is my place and it speaks to me.  I love my village there, and appreciate everyone in it. If you have nothing to do, and are looking for a soul searching read, pick this up! It won’t disappoint. 

We are now here in North Carolina, filling Wyatt’s bucket with some bike riding on trails, and also, a certain park he has watched YouTube videos on. It was pretty fun for him to get to ride the trails he knew about, and actually see them in person. Wish we had more time to fill his cup, but we are on a mission and only have less than 6 weeks to get home! 

We are staying near Asheville NC, at Powhatan National Forest. The pine trees here definitely give off the smell of
home. I enjoyed running the trails around here, and the weather has been so beautiful that Gibson and I have been able to do some art outside while the other boys bike.  One more day here to enjoy, before going to South Carolina for some more history lessons.

Can you spot Wyatt?

Charlston, South Carolina is a history rich city. We had a fun day there. We enjoyed visiting a real dungeon, learning about civil war times, the plague, the Meat Market where they bought and sold slaves, and how life was years ago. We also hit up the city market full of local vendors. It was a funny coincidence to see African American basket weavers there, that used the local grasses for their baskets. The book I mentioned earlier had a chapter dedicated to basket weaving, and it felt like a good omen. Too bad I couldn’t afford even the smaller baskets as they were over $100 USD, but I could certainly appreciate the craft. We ended up chatting with a local weaver, and she was so informative that the kids were asking me if I was going to take up this craft next. Nope, just appreciating! The city had a great system for seeing their history rich town, that included free shuttles and a great vistor’s centre. We did not have time to see nearly as much as we would have liked, but found it easy to navigate, park La Jefa and enjoy. 

The late afternoon/evening was spent seeing another military museum, Patriot’s Point. The boys loved getting to see a real aircraft carrier, USS Yorkton, but it was the smaller battleship, the USS Laffey that had them in awe. It was attacked by 50 Japanese planes with one even crashing into its deck and causing a fire. There were a few casualties on board, but in the end the ship survived! 

The dental office on the ship.

The next few days at the campsite, the kids spent their free time drawing Japanese fighter planes, and battleships, that they glued to popsicle sticks, to make war action figures to play with. I was impressed with their craftiness, until Wyatt had war inspired night terrors! It was pretty upsetting to see how badly they affected him.

While staying outside of Charlston, we had a campground on the water (inner passage to the Atlantic Ocean). Here we did a day of fishing an crabbing- unsuccessful catch wise, however, a local fisherman gave us some of his catch for us to have dinner (Red fish), and a bag of shrimp to use as bait. Kindness always makes me feel happy, so even though there was no fish, I felt like it was a great day.

Not sure how to describe this, but I did some running from the campground along the Palmetto Trail, and it gave me a different feeling. The first time I was with Gibson and I felt better, because I was not alone, but I could still sense an uneasyness, and so I headed us back sooner then I would have normally. I felt like it was just something I had made up, but the second time I ran by myself, the feeling intensified  and I was creeped out. I cannot say exactly what it was, but I turned off my music, talked a bunch to my surroundings, and even pretended to call someone on my phone while running. Ever get those goose bumps on your arms and can feel something? Well, I had it! A place that has so much history, I feel that something/someone is still vibing around out there, and I can honestly say, I won’t be back!  

Good Friday we were on the road again going North to Virginia. On Saturday we attended a Nascar race.  What a full experience! Now, we have been to a few professional sports events: hockey, soccer, even concerts, and this tops them all. Why, you ask? It’s a full day of activities, not just the race. And all of them are free. Virtual reality racing, kids video games, remote control cars, meeting the drivers up close and personal, winning free stuff (Gibson got a nice hat, t-shirt, fidgit spinner, while Wyatt got a frizbee and fidgit spinner, and Adam and I got some totes), entertainment, dancers,  lots of places to hang out, decently priced beer, and great music. Also, they allowed people to bring in their own food and drinks (including alcohol) to the track area, without feeling like a felon. We were free to move around from our seats and get closer to the track. Plus, lots of clean bathrooms. Seriously, it was so FUN for all of us, and none of us knew anyone racing! We picked our favorite cars, Gibson and I liked 88 (he was a experienced driver, but it was his first time racing in this Nascar series), while Wyatt like 98- sponsered by Monster Energy Drink. The cars were going so fast. They were literally drifting around the corners and rubber was flying off into the stands area. Crazy! The pit crews were fast, just like in the movies. A few crashes, and car troubles, but generally a smooth race. I watched my car 88, go from 24 place at the begining of the race to 6th place by the end of 250 laps. Wyatt’s was in second place at one point, but ended up 13th overall.  Anyways, this is my unsolicited endorsement of seeing a Nascar race live. Skip the hockey, baseball or soccer, and spend a chill day at the track. (Well maybe don’t skip all those, just watch the local kids😊!) 

Tomorrow is Easter, and I am not prepared. Seriously, I got confused and thought it was last weekend. It was funny cause I called the places we wanted to hit in Charlston and asked if they would be open due to the Easter weekend. The young chap I was talking to, was unsure and asked to call me back. I guess he was as ill equipped for holiday dates as I was. Once I started actually looking at the calendar, I realized I was a whole week ahead, so when he called back to tell me this was not Easter weekend, I just laughed. How easy it is to lose track of time when you are jobless and have no real routine. So, you think having an extra week would help me, but no, I am still as scattered as ever.   

On a positive note, being on the road, away from the bombardment of what society tells us we must celebrate, we have had a low key, but wonderful Christmas, no Valentine’s day (yay), no St. Paddy’s day (We are not Irish, so I think it’s a bit lost on us), and now a very quiet Easter (less bunny action and more about the Bible’s events that happened). I am liking how being on the road has removed some of the commercialization from our lives, which in turn means less time my kids are hopped up on sugar.

Not every day has been ideal, and I know I mentioned many times that school is an ever evolving beast, but we have had a few WTF days recently. Like when I tripped with my ceral bowl getting into the front seat and milk and cereal went everywhere. I do mean everywhere. So we commenced the cleaning of the front seats, and dash, which took 20 min. That was followed by the black tank not draining (“Shitters Plugged Clark”, for you Lampoons). If you don’t know, black tank = the poop shoot! So we tried to fill the tanks and have enough pressure to clear it, no dice. Then Adam tried to take bumps, and jumps with La Jefa to dislodge the blockage. No dice. We were able to drain some as it was not a full blockage, but we ended up putting some cleaner down the tank and hoped that with a couple days it could dissolve the issue.  And I don’t know why all of a sudden, but Adam and I have been on short fuses with our children, and with all these little mini disasters, we have been pretty hard to live with! Poor kids. The driving has been pretty crazy as well. From making sure we don’t hit any low  clearance bridges, to the crazy rain and wind while semi’s rip by on and off the freeway, it has been a stressful few days. I am really hoping that  we can turn our moods in a better direction. 

   Coming from Richmond VA, we drove to Washington DC. Traffic, traffic, traffic.  I wanted to go see the Key Bridge (Baltimore) that collapsed, but the kids and Adam were not in the mood as the rain was pretty heavy and we needed to get to our campsite. We camped at Greenbelt Washington Campground and it was just a place to park.  We were there for 3 days and it rained constantly. We took public transit one day to get to downtown Washington. Here we enjoyed the clean city, walked all around the Smithsonian museums and checked out the White House, State Capital Building, Washington Monument, and Museum of Natural History. It was a great informative day.

The only trouble we had was attempting to mail a letter and some artwork the kids made (on 8x11canvas) to Grandma and Omie.  We went to UPS as they were the closest. We almost choked on the price…. $50 USD for something that is a little thicker and mildly heavier than an actual letter ($2 to send). We opted to wait as I was not going to pay that. Fed Ex was $48 and the US Posal service was $29, which we ended up going with. Now I know inflation is driving many prices up, but I have to share a memory, for context, as to why I think this price is ubsurd. In 2009 Adam and I sent a box home from Thailand by ship, it was an actual suitcase- probably the size of the largest carry on you can take now a days. We filled it with items we bought at markets (lights, cooking utensils, art, books, clothing, etc). We put that suitcase in a cardboard box and sent it over to Canada for under $40 CAD. Crazy eh?!

Following Washington, we did another big driving day, except the rain and wind were so bad there was extreme weather warnings! Flooding and signs to watch for puddles on the actual highway. Wind was moving La Jefa around like crazy. We white knuckled the drive and arrived in New York State in 12 hours, unlike the 5 google told us it would take (we did stop for an hour to do laundry, but you get my point).  

The not so glamorous part of motorhome life ( among other things)

Now time to see if New York is as big as Gibson thought it would be.