We chose to stay at Coleman Lake Recreation Area campground in beautiful northern Alabama in part because of its close proximity to the Chief Ladiga Trail, a paved bike path that Barry had ridden in 2014, while I drove our car with Paisley. However, things don't always go as planned, and it turned out that our campground was a wee bit too difficult to ride to the trail from. But we didn't know that starting out. We chose to ride our Bike Fridays with their mountain gearing, expecting a hilly route, but we didn't realize that half of our riding would be on unpaved roads, since the roads around the campground were all paved. Between the often steep hills and some fresh, loose gravel, this meant slow going for much of the ride and quite a bit of walking our bikes to avoid wiping out. Definitely should have taken the mountain bikes on this one! After accepting the fact that we weren't going to make it to the Chief Ladiga Trail, we found a different route back that we hoped would be easier. But it ended up being similar to the ride out, with over five miles of seriously hilly gravel. Running out of water and food, I was feeling awfully cranky, but eventually we did hook back up with the paved roads in the national forest and finished the ride on a fast and fun note. Still, it was the toughest 27-mile ride of our lives, and certainly the slowest, at well over three hours of pedaling and/or pushing! An epic ride like this reminds us that sometimes it's just as well not to know in advance what awaits you; otherwise, you might miss out on some crazy adventures. I'm sure we'll look back on this one and laugh one day soon, right?!
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It's been awhile!
As the headline says, we've purchased a motorhome, something we'd considered and discussed for years, and are now beginning to travel around the US and find new adventures. In the year we've been away from the blog (has it really been that long?!), we spent time with our families in the US last summer before returning to Playa del Carmen. We thoroughly enjoyed our first winter in Playa and were expecting to love it just as much the second time around. The restaurants were still fabulous, the weather great, the people lovely, and the dogs of Playa Animal Rescue every bit as adorable. But as a number of construction projects popped up close to our apartment, the near-constant noise started wreaking havoc on our mental health. Mexico is not quiet, and we certainly knew that going in, but we had particularly bad luck in our choice of locations as none of these new condo projects had begun when we signed our lease. So, after six months, we decided we'd had enough of that! We considered alternate locations in Mexico, but as anyone who has read this blog for awhile knows, we love and need our road cycling. Playa had a few places we could ride, but many areas of Mexico have more limited options: roads and traffic can both be bad. So, once again, the US, with her many bike-friendly paths and roads, beckoned us home. We flew into Florida and purchased our tiny house on wheels, a 2007 Newmar Baystar, after seeing it online. We named her Pearl. We spent the first couple of months at a campground in Florida, doing some renovations, waiting out winter, and adapting to tiny-house living. After all the downsizing we've done over the years, it wasn't all that tough to get used to (whew!) We also did plenty of cycling, since the campground was within a couple of miles of the wonderful West Orange Trail and the South Lake-Minneola Trails, west of Orlando. We were pretty much in heaven. In March we hit the road to western North Carolina, where we picked up some of the things we'd stored with my parents, and did some more RV projects while visiting with my folks for awhile. Now we're really on the move! We're starting to meander across the southeast and stay at public campgrounds run by the National Forest Service and Corps of Engineers. Prior to this, we'd mostly stayed in commercial parks, which deliver amenities but are often short on privacy and nature. We are loving parking Pearl in the woods, taking long walks and hikes, riding our bikes on the rural roads, and exploring the US, one small town at a time. So, we thought we'd start the blog back up to share some of these places with you. We hope you enjoy it, and perhaps it will even inspire your own adventures. |
Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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