Roaming About

A Life Less Ordinary

Category: Gallery (page 3 of 11)

Tidbits from the Road – Heading West across the USA

The last time Mark and I crossed the United States from East to West was in October 2016. We attended the sailboat show in Annapolis as vendors with our marine WiFi and cell data product and invention, The Wirie, before driving to Northern California in our Prius. We had five days to cross this massive country in order to start our first housesit on the West Coast. We lasted a few years “out west,” house and pet sitting and exploring in our camper van Zesty, before making our way back east in the summer of 2019.

The Southwest is where our hearts lie. The vast, open spaces, low population, incredible natural sites, and sense of freedom trump the mountains and greenery of the East Coast. We think…

Our Route

If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you are familiar with our lack of planning. We pretty much take life as it comes, one step at a time; something that is evident in the title of my forthcoming travel memoir: Plunge. Anything can influence our route, our destination, our timing, our moods.

Here’s how we ended up in Arizona, this time around…

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Hitchhikers on an Ocean Crossing – #WordlessWednesday

The setting

Sunrise on the open ocean

Heading into a nasty squall with rain and heavy winds.

 

Chilly but relatively comfortable

Hitchhikers during the day and night

A swallow holding on in strong tailwinds

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Caribbean Sunsets – #WordlessWednesday

From the Virgin Islands to Grenada…


… sunsets over the water are spectacular.


Especially with boats around, …

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Submerged in Memoir & Memories – #WordlessWednesday

Getaway to the White Mountains

New Hampshire’s attractive White Mountains are located 150 miles (241km) northeast of our current home base in Massachusetts. It takes a little over three hours to get there in our van (as opposed to 2.5 hours by car), since we stick to an average highway speed of 55-60mph (90km/h) in Zesty. This consumes less diesel, and we rarely have to pass anyone!

White Mountain National Forest was our destination this past week. It is huge, at 800,000 acres (which expand into Maine), attracts millions of visitors annually, and offers countless recreation possibilities, like 1,200 miles of hiking trails. When Mark and I returned from visiting people in Maine and Vermont in June, we drove through this stunning area and were impressed. We vowed to return for a proper immersion.

(Scroll over or click on images to read photo captions in the galleries.)

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Three Dogs and a Lake – #WordlessWednesday

Maya, Dixie, and Max cooling off in the lake of Island Pond, Vermont

Maya is still learning how to swim – awkwardly

Max LOVES retrieving balls – ashore and in the water

Maya, relaxing in the sand

Did I mention that Max is eager to play ball, all…the…time?

Practice makes perfect!

Wet and cooled off, but done playing with the ball

Just because I love sunsets, with or without dogs…

Until next time…

This is my contribution to this week’s (mostly) Wordless Wednesday.

Clearwater, Florida – Global Headquarters of Scientology

A walk through Clearwater, FL reveals fancy signs, magnificent buildings, and a certain amount of secrecy. If you wouldn’t know better, the reason for these appearances stays forever hidden. Take a stroll through town with us and read the captions by hovering over or clicking on the images of this photo story.

We had no idea when we parked Zesty along the street, next to this imposing white building in Clearwater.

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Boondocking Behind the Scenes – Ten Free Campsites Turned Awry

“A picture says more than a thousand words” is an expression I’m not fond of. Rather, I believe a photo instills certain words, telling only part of the story. Understandably, most people want to capture the beauty of a place. It is often possible to cut out less desirable factors, like hordes of people, piles of garbage, incessant bugs, signage obstructing the view, and so on. Personal moods, climate, noise, and other external factors are invisible. There is a lot more to the actual scene than meets the eye…

Locks WMA campground in Fort McCoy

I’ve played with the idea of taking “as it is” shots in sync with the attractive scenes and posting them next to each other. Yet, I too succumb to blue skies and beautiful scenery. So, this post does not quite display that juxtaposition, but it reveals the truth behind some of our camping experiences in Florida that might look “perfect” at first sight.

Dupuis Water Management District

1) Lake Panasoffkee WMD

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Wildlife Encounters in Florida

A couple of weeks ago, I shared some of our human encounters in Florida this past winter. Mark and I (and Maya) enjoy meeting old and new friends, but when it comes to my personal happiness level, animal observations and interactions – especially in the wild – always make me smile! Here are some of the creatures we came across on our walks.

Gopher tortoise

Jellyfish on the beach in Marineland

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Kentucky Surprises

If it wasn’t for an interesting job opportunity, Mark and I would never have considered visiting Kentucky. Yet, upon reading what the state has to offer and actually driving through its attractive countryside, we discovered beauty from rolling hills to majestic buildings and from famous events to dark, long caves. We are not alone in our positive findings; we kept hearing about surprising discoveries other campers and visitors made as well.

(Scroll over the image to read captions or click to enlarge.)

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, we thought we’d have time to explore the area during our seven-week job commitment, but the night schedule was too exhausting to venture far on our one full day off. That being said, we found a few fun hikes around lakes near Campbellsville and saved the other attractions until the Amazon job was finished. We actually planned to head south as quickly as possible, that December 25th, but unseasonably warm weather made these Kentucky stops possible.

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