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This Week on the Road - March 23rd-30th

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This Week on the Road - March 23rd-30th

Hello Everyone! It’s been a wildlife viewing week out here on the roads of Northern New Mexico. I’ve seen eagles and hawks in the air, deer, bighorn sheep and pronghorns in the fields and lots of prairie dogs running around searching for their underground tunnels. I like seeing wildlife. These animals make me smile. I’ve actually done a lot of smiling this week as I’ve found myself in wild places surrounded by beautiful landscapes and breathtaking sunrises and sunsets. I’ve managed to keep most of the demons in my head at bay this week and have felt pretty good all around. The weather has generally been great this week as well which hasn’t hurt. Warm, sunny days and cool, pleasant nights work really well for me. I do find that I need to change from shorts to long pants very soon after the sun goes down – it doesn’t take long to cool down in this dry air. It’s hard to believe I’ve been in New Mexico for over a month at this point, but I’m starting to make plans for the final stretch of my time here and then I’m off to Arizona for the rest of my winter/spring. My month in New Mexico has been special and memorable and I definitely understand why they call it The Land of Enchantment.

When I left you last week, I was in tiny Clayton, New Mexico in the far northeast of the state. I did head out to Clayton Lake State Park that evening which has a fascinating “pad” of over 200 dinosaur footprints from when the area was the muddy shoreline of a vast inland sea. Some of the footprints were very pronounced in the evening light and while it was very windy out there it was still really cool to see. I decided to spend the night at one of the campgrounds by the lake and ended up having the whole place to myself which was really nice. It was windy and cold, but I stayed out to watch the sunset and then popped out periodically to check out the stars which were really bright and mesmerizing.

Thursday morning I stuck around my campsite for a bit, enjoying my coffee and the warm sun on my face by the lake. I’ve been rereading the book Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides which essentially tells the history of early American New Mexico. It’s an excellent book, and I’m enjoying it even more now that I’ve been to a lot of the places he writes about. A pair of bald eagles were cruising around the lake while I read which was awesome. Eventually I pulled up stakes and headed back into town to take a few more photos and then got on the road west to Capulin Volcano National Monument. I had noticed on my way out to Clayton Lake the evening before that the landscape was much more volcanic in that part of the state and it became even more pronounced as I went west. I drove past Sierra Grande, which is an incredible example of a shield volcano and then headed towards Capulin which is one of the country’s best specimens of a cinder cone volcano. This volatile and quick-forming volcano (which looks like what you imagine in your head when you think of a volcano) formed sometime around 60,000 years ago. The fertile soil it produced made for some fine grazing land so ranchers have used the land around the volcano for centuries and its distinct and easily recognizable shape made it a landmark on the Santa Fe Trail. Today, you can drive right to the top which is pretty cool but probably not for the faint of heart as there is a pretty severe drop-off and not many guardrails on the road. Once you get up there, though, you are rewarded with remarkable views in all directions and you can hike around the rim and down into the crater. You can look east at the seemingly endless plains stretching to the horizon and west to where they run into the Rocky Mountains. When I left the park, I headed north to Folsom and planned on taking the road over Johnson Mesa to Raton so I could drive past the Folsom Man Site, an archaeological area similar to the Clovis Man Site I talked about last week when I visited the Blackwater Draw museum. Somehow I took a wrong turn and ended up going a half hour down the wrong road but it was a beautiful road and a nice detour. When I finally figured out I had gone astray, I returned to Folsom and found the road I wanted to take. It was poorly marked and when I made the turn, I found it was also closed. Two hours later, I was back at Capulin but thankfully it was only a short drive from there to Raton. Raton is a cute little town on the railroad line with an old theatre and an older train station. I did wander around town a little bit but I was pretty tired and didn’t find out much about it. I stopped in for a great craft beer and one of the best burritos I’ve ever had at the Cellar Brewery (which is actually on the first floor, but they brew the beer in the basement) and then called it a night.

On Friday morning I headed just down the road to the town of Cimarron. Their sign reads “Where the Plains Meet the Mountains” and you can look west from town and see the Rockies emerging from the flat plains. Cimarron is also home to the Philmont Scout Ranch, a massive wilderness area donated by oilman Waite Phillips to the Boy Scouts in 1938. Way back in 1992, I came to Philmont on my very first trip to New Mexico and my first trip anywhere west of the Mississippi. My Boy Scout troop spent 10 days backpacking through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and covered about a hundred miles on foot if my memory serves. It was an amazing experience for a city kid like me and a formative one…

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This Week Off The Road - December 8th-15th

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This Week Off The Road - December 8th-15th

Hello Everyone. This is going to be a quick one this week as I’ve been taking it real easy for the last few days here in D.C. It’s nice to be home and I’ve been enjoying spending time with family and friends and while I haven’t been completely unproductive, I must admit that I’ve been pretty lazy this week – and fully intend to be in the coming week as well. It’s nice to have some down time and I know that when I leave here next month, it’s going to be pretty full-on through the fall of 2022. While I have been getting to the gym pretty much every morning, my afternoons have been quiet and naps have been common. I’ve been enjoying reading my books with a cup of tea and the simple pleasure of home life. My evenings have been pretty busy, though, so let me tell you what I’ve been up to this week.

Last Wednesday night, I went over to my friends Don and Molly’s house for their weekly jam session. Don plays the guitar, and my other friends round out the band with Joe on bass, James on keyboard and Pete on the drums. It was great to see these guys as they are some of my oldest and best friends and to listen to their musical endeavors. We enjoyed a few beers together and Molly cooked us up some fresh-baked cookies. It was a nice way to spend the evening.

On Thursday, my folks and I headed downtown to Fords Theatre to catch an afternoon matinee performance of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. We have been going to this production every year it’s been possible for over 30 years, and while last year they did a radio show during the pandemic which was better than nothing, it was great to see them back at the historic theatre this year. The show was shortened and modified quite a bit into a 75 minute production with minimal sets and props, and there were no children in the cast for safety reasons. That being said, many of the cast members were returning performers from years past and they all did a wonderful job with the show. I do hope that it will return to the full production in the future, but this was enjoyable under the circumstances. After the show we went for a late lunch down the street at the Old Ebbitt Grill, the oldest saloon in the city. This has also been a part of our holiday tradition for many years and is one of our favorite Washington D.C. institutions. The food was great and it rounded out the day quite nicely. Back at home we played a few rounds of Lattice Hawaii, one of our old pandemic lock-down favorite board games.

Friday we headed out to Rockville in the evening for dinner at Miller’s Ale House followed by the Rockville Civic Ballet’s performance of A Nutcracker…

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This Week on the Road - November 10th-17th

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This Week on the Road - November 10th-17th

Hello Everyone! Greetings from Milwaukee! I have made my way out of Minnesota after a wonderful 6+ week stay and am on my way home for the holidays. I’ll admit I’m pretty tired after the last 5 months on the road and am looking forward to a few weeks off, catching up with friends and catching up on some sleep. I’ve been pushing hard these last few weeks to get through what I wanted to see and get out before winter really set in. There’s definitely been snow this week, the sun is setting at 4:45pm and nighttime temperatures have dropped below freezing every night. All the signs are there that it’s time for me to follow the geese and head south and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. All of that being said, it’s been another great week on the road. I spent this week exploring the Twin Cities and then cruising down the Great River Road and checking out the historic Mississippi River towns along the way. It’s been overcast and snowy and has made photography challenging, but it’s also cleared up at times and given me some beautiful winter lighting to shoot with. I still have plenty of photos to edit and publish, so you’ll be seeing Minnesota photos for a few weeks to come, but I have officially left the Gopher State.

When I left you last week, I was headed to lunch with my old friend, Rich. I met Rich almost 22 years ago in New Jersey when I was interviewing for the tour company with which I would spend most of the intervening years. When that company shut its doors for good last year during the pandemic, Rich was the one locking those doors behind us. It was good to see him, catch up on the few people we’re both in touch with and share a meal and a few laughs. After lunch I headed on to the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul and took the last guided tour of the day. Our guide was great and told us all about the history of Minnesota’s three Capitol buildings. I was particularly interested in all of the materials they had used in its construction, from local granite to the incredible pipestone I mentioned last week to fine Italian marble. None of the government bodies were in session, so the building was quiet and we had the run of the place. We even got up on the roof for commanding views over the city and a close-up look at the gold-plated Quadriga (four horse chariot) on the front of the dome. After the tour I spent some time wandering the empty building and looking in the nooks and crannies and remembering the pre-September 11th days when I could do the same in our U.S. Capitol. That evening I headed over to First Avenue, one of Minneapolis’ premier music venues, and used the 7th St Entry to get to their smaller, underground club. When I got there, Darrin Bradury was just coming on stage with his quirky tunes about life on the road. The headliner was Minneapolis-based rock band Nato Coles and the Blue Diamond Band, who rocked the small room and got everyone’s toes tapping. It was a good show and so good to see live music again after way too long. I was also happy they were checking vaccination cards at the door which made the small club feel much safer.

Thursday morning I made a quick trip to the Mall of America in Bloomington, which the country’s largest indoor mall. I wandered around for a little while, checked out the amusement park in the middle of it all and the free parts of the aquarium which were both pretty cool. Beyond that, it was just a really big mall. I could definitely imagine it being a nice place to go in the middle of winter to escape the snow and find some fun options with your kids, but I’ve been to malls before and had better things to do with my day. I headed on to the Minnesota History Center which was much more my style. This is the state’s central history museum and I found it fairly progressive, but thought it walked that line well and seemed to present a reasonably balanced look at the state’s history. The main exhibit in the middle was really good, and looked at the different regions of the state and the people that have lived there through the years. I also enjoyed the temporary exhibits on Minnesota weather, the Greatest Generation, Sinclair Lewis and Women’s Rights. I was in the museum for several hours and then headed over to my friend Mark’s house for the night. Mark and I taught together at Francis Gregory Elementary School in New Orleans way back in 2008. It was my second year at the school and his first and I was impressed that he made it through the year (very few teachers there did). While he was fighting different battles than I was, it was an incredibly challenging year in one of the country’s worst schools. He went on to teach in New Orleans for many years before returning home to Minnesota. He’s still teaching now, in fact, and still facing challenges but with a whole lot more experience under his belt. He invited me to stay at his home and then took me to a great dinner at The Blue Door for a beer and a burger. While we were eating and chatting, the snow began to fall but it wasn’t quite the heavy snow that had been predicted. After dinner we went back to his house and sipped some delicious Roknar whiskey (which is made in Minnesota) and chatted long into the night. It was very cozy to sleep in a warm bed in a warm room while the snow was falling outside and also great to catch up with my old friend…

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This Week on the Road - August 26th-September 1st

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This Week on the Road - August 26th-September 1st

Hello Everyone! September is upon us but you wouldn’t know it here in Wisconsin. It’s been hot and humid in the Badger State this week, but it does look like it’s supposed to be cooling down in the near future. The days are certainly getting shorter which wasn’t helped by the time change between Michigan and Wisconsin. I have had such a great summer, but I’m a huge fan of fall and am really looking forward to cooler temperatures and, of course, the changing leaves. To begin this week, I’m sending prayers and positivity to all of my friends around the country who are facing down storms and wildfires this week. As some of you know, I spent two years of my life helping re-open the public school system in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and it was hard to watch Hurricane Ida making its way towards the Big Easy on the 16th Anniversary of that storm. Of course, as I’ve pointed out to a lot of people this week, Katrina only did minor damage to the city, it was when the levies broke that the real problems began. Thankfully it looks like New Orleans has survived this storm relatively intact and I’m grateful for that. Hoping all of my friends and readers in the region are safe and sound. I also have a lot of friends in the Greater Lake Tahoe region on the California/Nevada border and many of them have evacuated as the fires get closer and closer. You’re all in my thoughts as well. With all of that going on, Wisconsin is a pretty good place to be right now, and I’m grateful for that. Also this week, for those of you who followed my D.C. Chronicles through the pandemic, my mother is watching Mason as he transitions between schools and is enjoying playing big trucks with him in his new house. As for me, I’ve been out exploring Door County and Central Wisconsin this week, so let me tell you what I’ve been up to.

When I left you last week I was in Sturgeon Bay and headed off into Door County which is the peninsula that looks like Wisconsin’s thumb jutting out into Lake Michigan. That day I headed up to a beach just south of Egg Harbor for a swim in Green Bay and then stopped off for a quick beer or two at One Barrel Brewery in town. Afterwards I headed on to Fish Creek which is where I spent that night. After watching the sun go down, I stopped into the Bayside Tavern for a fish sandwich and a beer and ended up meeting a nice lady who was really interested in lighthouses. We ended up talking about lighthouses and travel for a couple of hours which I really enjoyed and it was nice to have some company.

Thursday morning I was up bright and early as I had a lot I wanted to accomplish with the day. After a nice breakfast at FIKA bakery, I gassed up, bought my Wisconsin fishing license and my annual State Park Pass and headed off into Peninsula State Park. Peninsula was Wisconsin’s first state park and one of its best known and most visited. I stopped off at the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse and the Eagle Tower, which was just that – a tower built to observe the local eagles from above the tree line but also provided great views out over the water and the park. I was very impressed that they had built probably a quarter-mile ramp up to the tower to make it ADA accessible and there was someone there in a wheelchair and another person with physical challenges who were both using the ramp while I was there. From there I went to the beach…

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This Week on the Road - August 18th-25th

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This Week on the Road - August 18th-25th

Hello Everyone! Gosh, it’s hard to believe that we’re in the last week of August. I know that summer will last for several more weeks, but those fall colors are right around the corner. I’m going to soak up what’s left of the summertime with everything I have, but will also welcome fall with open arms when it arrives. I’m the kind of person who always runs hot, so cooler days are always a comforting thought. That being said, I want to be out of the region before the first big snows come so that means I need to put a little hustle in my step. I’ve been feeling really good lately though, have been getting to the gym every day and have tried to just enjoy the little gifts that each day brings my way. I’ve found the people of Wisconsin to be just as warm and welcoming as I remember them to be and have enjoyed being surrounded by people who try to enjoy life and see the best in things. That being said, they are also being cautious regarding Covid and masks are far more prevalent here than they were in Michigan. It’s been a good week and I’ve definitely started my time in Wisconsin on a good foot.

Before I get into what I’ve been up to this week though, I got an interesting email from my friend Matt, who used to be the General Manager of the tour company I worked for. With the closing of our company, he has changed roles to manage a different tour company which still fell under the umbrella of companies in the Travelopia brand. He has asked if I would be interested in joining a tour out west for a week or so to take some photos for their upcoming brochures. I don’t know if it’s going to work out, but it is certainly an interesting proposition and a solid week of paid work would be very welcome right now. I’ll let you know what comes of it, but don’t be surprised to get this newsletter in the coming weeks from Arizona! It’s flattering to be considered if nothing else. Now on with my travels:

I headed north from Kenosha last Thursday morning and stopped in Racine to buy a kringle. Racine has a huge Danish-American population and this is one of the dishes they are known for. The kringle is actually Wisconsin’s State Pastry, so of course I had to try it out. I think in most of the country, we would probably refer to it simply as a “Danish”, but the ones in Racine are on a whole different level. A proper kringle takes three days to make and comes out in a ring that’s about a foot long. I chose to get mine at Bendtsens which is just one of the kringle bakeries in Racine. I got a blueberry kringle and it was really delicious and took me three days to finish. My belly full of kringle, I headed on back to Milwaukee and straight to the Harley-Davidson museum. Harley-Davidson is definitely one of Milwaukee’s legendary products and I was eager to learn more about the history of this iconic brand. The museum’s exhibit began at the turn of the 20th century with a look at the founders, William Harley and his childhood buddy Arthur Davidson, as they tinkered in their tiny garage to build a small motor for their bicycle. They weren’t the first to do this, but their motor-bicycles would soon be considered some of the best in the world. In 1906, Harley and Davidson produced 50 motorcycles and ten years later they were building 15,000 a year. The U.S. Army put in an order for 20,000 Harley-Davidson motorcycles during World War I and the childhood friends were off and running. I really enjoyed this museum as it traced the history of the brand, not holding back when discussing their near-bankruptcy in the 1980s and the workers who banded together to bring them back from the brink. When I finished with the museum, there was some live music at their outdoor bar and plenty of Harley riders in the parking lot to enjoy it. I stuck around for a while and then headed a little bit further downtown for a wander around the Historic Third Ward and Deer Town. I got a brat and some beer-cheese soup at the Milwaukee Brat House and even found the statue to one of Milwaukee’s most memorable TV characters, The Fonz.

On Friday, I headed out to the old Pabst Brewery for a tour and a healthy dose of nostalgia. When I was a kid I toured the Pabst brewery often, as the tours were free and so was the beer afterwards (cokes for me back then). Since then, Pabst has closed down their breweries and now produces their beer through contracts with Coors and Miller. The main brewery has been converted into a hotel and apartments, but the old accounting offices in the historic “castle” have been purchased and turned into an event space, bar and gift shop celebrating all things Pabst.

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 37

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 37

Hello Everyone. A vaccine is rolling down the highways of America which means there is a light at the end of the tunnel for this extended pause in my travel plans. Of course it’s still going to be a while before I get mine, but it’s still been a great bit of news this week and I’m very excited about it. My van has to get through inspection here in D.C. in May and I am really hoping to hit the road the very next day if that’s at all possible and have the whole summer wide open in front of me. Time will tell, but there’s a possibility it will happen and for now that’s good enough. Beyond that, it’s been a week of ups and downs so I’m latching onto the vaccine news to help me get through the week and help keep my spirits up in this festive season.

Mason and I continue to keep each other on our toes and entertained. He continues to grow and learn and develop every single day, and his companionship and good humor have definitely been one of my saving graces these last few months. I would have gotten through this time without him, but I’m glad that’s not how it went. By the time I hope to leave, he’ll be 3 and on his way to bigger and better things, but he’ll know a lot more about nature and the seasons and holidays and I think he’ll be better off for that in the long run. This week we’ve been enjoying time by the Christmas tree at his house, and he loves showing off the ornaments on their tree. Every day this week we’ve sat on the couch in the glow of the tree and read The Night Before Christmas and The Polar Express. He loves to show me that they have bell ornaments on their tree which look almost exactly like Santa’s bells in The Polar Express. He definitely know who Santa is (and still calls him “danta”) and he knows what Santa says (“ho ho ho”). We’ve been seeing Santa and reindeer and snowmen all over the neighborhood and while I think there was more fun stuff to see over Halloween, it’s still fun. He’s been really good about wrapping up, and we continue to enjoy being outside even as temperatures dip near freezing. We’ve had some inside days too when it’s been raining out, and it’s definitely gotten easier to stay in all day as he’s gotten older. We have done some coloring, read some good books, played with his trucks and stuffed animals and spent a lot of time discussing the toilet which he is getting better with. And whether we’re inside or out, we always find the time for many rounds of his favorite game “no me” which is kind of like hide and seek, but he’s usually either under a blanket or under a chair or under a tree if we’re outside. Even though he’s right there, his stuffed animals and I spend a lot of time looking for him.

When I went out to drive my van last Thursday after picking it up from the shop on Wednesday, the “check engine” light came on immediately and it ran really poorly and spewed out thick smoke. I was really disappointed after the amount of money I’d spent to get it fixed last week. I called the shop and eventually had it towed out there. They couldn’t find anything wrong with it, so I have it back but it’s definitely not running like it used to. As much as I love my hometown, I would never recommend getting work done on your car here. It’s overpriced and I’ve never found a mechanic I was happy with. Pretty much everywhere else in the country I’ve gotten work done I’ve met honest people who get it right the first time and treat me fairly because it’s the right thing to do. I think they like working on Mercedes and BMWs and not on my clunky old van. I like the guy who runs the shop I’ve taken it to these last two times, but I don’t know if I’d recommend it because it goes in with one set of problems and comes out with another.

After that disappointment, I really needed a day at the beach. It being December in Washington, the best I could do was to throw a beach party in my basement with my folks, which is exactly what we did with our Friday night. I’ve spent Christmas in the Caribbean more than once, and our party brought back a lot of good memories of my time in the islands. We had some jerk chicken, fresh cut mango and pineapple and some great peel and eat shrimp. There was great music, boat drinks and a few rounds of Lattice Hawaii which is a really great board game. It was another fun Friday night and left me feeling much better about the world in general…

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 32

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 32

Hello Everyone! It’s been a beautiful week here in Washington D.C. with warm, sunny days and cool clear nights. In some ways this is all very familiar to me as I’m usually headed home in October or November, tired from a long year on the road and ready for some “home time” over the holidays. I come home to rest and get my affairs in order and begin to plan for the next leg of my journey, whatever that may be and wherever it may take me. It’s a time to catch up – on my projects, on my sleep and with friends and family. Unlike spring and summer which I’ve rarely spent in the city, this feels more normal to me.

Today also marks the three year anniversary of the journey which became Miles2Go. Three years ago today, I set out for Harpers Ferry, West Virginia with a dream of spending a month in each state over the next 4 years. I soon learned that a month was too short to get a real understanding of a state while also maintaining this blog, so my timeframe changed. There were a lot of tough times and setbacks as I got this thing off the ground, and just when I felt like I knew where it was going and how to make it all work, I hit the cruise control button and then this pandemic hit, turning me towards home and grounding me indefinitely. It’s been a bumpy road for sure, but anything that’s worth it will no doubt involve overcoming obstacles. I don’t know what my future or the future of this project will look like at this point, but I’m grateful for the journey and everything and everyone that’s been a part of it thus-far.

Sadly the reason keeping me here, the coronavirus, has continued to rage across the country with still-worsening conditions being reported every day. As we get closer to a quarter-million deaths from the virus here in the U.S. alone, I wanted to put that number into perspective for you. While 235,000 may be just a fraction of a percent of the population of the U.S. as is often pointed out, it is more than our average annual deaths in this country from any cause other than cancer and heart disease. It’s four times our average annual number of flu and pneumonia deaths (all according to the CDC). It’s also more than the number of Americans who died in World War 1, Vietnam, Korea and the American Revolution combined. It’s more than the single-year casualties from our two bloodiest wars – World War II and the Civil War. Keep these statistics in mind when people tell you that the virus isn’t all that bad. In the entirety of the almost 15 years we were involved in the war in Vietnam, we lost less than a quarter of the number of people who have died from this virus this year, and it’s only mid-November. For some reason people in this country refuse to look beyond our borders to countries which got some level of control over the pandemic through the summer months with masks and distancing and continue to believe it’s all some kind of hoax. 80% of current cases in the U.S. can be traced back to restaurants, bars and gyms.

What should we be doing about this? First and foremost we need to start listening to the experts. This country’s leading medical experts and virologists have laid it out pretty simply from the start, and have been able to make things even clearer as we’ve learned more. And yet people refuse to listen to them, searching out someone, anyone, who will tell them what they want to hear instead of what the consensus of the experts is. I want to get back to my normal life more than anyone, but I’m willing to put that all on hold for the greater good of my countrymen. To me, that’s a pretty good definition of patriotism.

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 5

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 5

Another week has come and gone for me here in our Nation’s Capital, and with it the month of April is coming swiftly to a close. I have spent the entire month under quarantine here at home, and I know many of you have been shut in longer than I have. It has definitely become a “new normal” for me, and this week I’ve started to fall into a good rhythm and routine. I’ve also come to terms with the idea of being here for a while and am trying to make the best of it.

First off, I know how incredibly lucky I am to be in the situation I’m in. My folks have been willing to take me in for an indefinite amount of time. They have retirement income and no mortgage to worry about and we all have enough space to not be under each other’s feet all the time. I myself have no debt and really no bills to speak of and because I cut my winter travel plans way short, I still have a reasonable amount of savings in the bank. All of this is good news because as long as this will last for the country, it will last significantly longer for the travel industry. I would be surprised if there’s any real work for me at all this year. I am trying to scout out a few writing gigs and maybe some virtual guiding, but as far as multi-week face to face stuff, it could be a while.

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 4

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 4

Hello Everyone! Well, another week has blurred past. It’s gotten a bit colder this week in Washington, but we’ve had a lot of sunshine which has helped prop up my spirits most days. It’s already light when I get up in the morning and the sun is out until almost 8 p.m. which I’m really enjoying. I’m looking forward to some beautiful spring days with plenty of sitting-outside weather in the coming weeks. We can fire up the barbecue and the outdoor fire pit and at least be able to enjoy the outdoor section of our shelter. I’ve still been getting out for at least one long walk a day, and the flowers are still fantastic around our part of the city. If nothing else it’s been wonderful to focus on the changing colors of spring in our Nation’s Capital.

Emotionally, it’s been another week of ups and downs though. I had another friend in my close friends network lose a parent this week, and my heart goes out to her and her family. Hard times on top of hard times. Meanwhile another friend is slowly recovering from the virus and doing better by the day. One of my good friends and loyal readers of this blog celebrated his birthday this week, so a big shout-out to Rob on his special day. Ten of us got together on Zoom to celebrate and it was good to see that particular group all in one place, even if it was done virtually. I have one photo that’s on the back of my sun visor in Shadow Catcher which I look at when I’m feeling particularly lonely on the road. Most of the people in that picture were on this call so it made me feel good to be a part of it. On Friday, my folks and I had a Roaring Twenties Prohibition Party in the basement. We sipped fancy cocktails, threw some dice, listened to some cool jazz and big band music and focused our attention away from the quarantine and virus for a few hours. It’s been really nice to have these “parties” and escape from reality for a little while.

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 3

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 3

Is it Wednesday again? Hard to believe. I feel like time is speeding up a bit this week for me, and that’s something I’m not a huge fan of. It’s one of the things I’ve never liked about “routine”, it’s easy for me to fall into one and then days turn to weeks and weeks turn to months very quickly. In my normal life, generally speaking, every day is vastly different from the last, whether I’m guiding tours or off on my own adventures. I can plan each day, savor the moments as they pass, and then at the end look back at it and see what I learned and accomplished. It’s one of the reasons I’ve avoided moving into a management role in the tour business or finding a year-round job. In my younger days, I often felt like I would blink and a whole year would go by. Now I feel like last Easter was forever ago because I’ve seen and done so much since then.

When I was driving home from Texas, I was thinking of all the time that this quarantine would give me, and how much I would be able to get done. Despite it being a downer to give up on my short-term goals, I saw it as an opportunity to catch up on a lot of things and even get ahead on a few projects. I always have a million things banging around in my head, and never enough time to accomplish them all. And I still see that, but I’m not ticking off boxes as much as I would like to. I’m getting up early and getting dressed in my regular clothes (no all-day PJs for me!), but the days just seem to be accelerating and I’m looking back and wondering where each one went. I keep thinking I need a schedule, but haven’t gotten around to making one. Maybe that will be my goal for tomorrow.

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 2

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 2

Hello everyone, I hope this update finds you all well. Although I had been socially isolated for almost two weeks before traveling home to DC, this was my first full week sheltered in place. To be honest, it was a pretty good week, the terrible news on TV notwithstanding.

It’s springtime here in DC, and the days have been really nice and the nights cool but pleasant. The spring flowers are in bloom and are exploding with color all over our neighborhood. While DC is known for the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin downtown, there are actually plenty of them throughout the city. The tulips are fantastic and my mother’s azaleas are in full bloom. Because the traffic is so minimal right now, the air is cleaner and you can actually smell the flowers when you’re outside. It’s a wonderful sensory experience. The flowers are definitely brightening my days and helping keep my spirits up.

The city is very quiet right now, which I’m also really enjoying. Most people who live in touristy areas will tell you their favorite time of year is the off-season, when things quiet down and they get their town back for a while. In DC, we like the holiday weekends because the transient population goes home, and the traffic dies down and the city rests for a few days. It’s been like Memorial Day Weekend since I’ve gotten back, and I’m loving it.

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 1

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 1

Hello Everyone, I’m sorry I haven’t had the chance to post anything these last two weeks, but it’s been quite a strange time. Two weeks ago I was writing to you from Texas with every intention of pushing on with this journey, come what may. I was well stocked with food, water, fuel and everything else I needed to survive for at least a month if need be. I headed south to South Padre Island where I holed up for almost a week, keeping my distance from everyone and everything and trying to read enough to make some educated decisions about what to do next. The beach was beautiful, and warm, and quiet and I enjoyed my daily walks, reading my books and enjoying a private Happy Hour with my feet in the sand every day as the sun went down. As I came to understand the coronavirus, how it was likely to spread and the best ways to minimize the damage it would cause, I realized we were going to be in this for way longer than a couple of weeks. I also read a post from a friend of mine who had contracted the virus and what that experience was like. While he is on his way to a full recovery, I realized that what he went through was not something I wanted to experience while living in the back of my van in 80 degree temperatures. To compound the situation, one of my teeth broke the night I arrived on South Padre, and while I was lucky to be able to get an emergency root canal in nearby Brownsville, I got in on the last day the dentist would be open. I was blessed to get this taken care of, but it made me realize how precariously perched I was so far from home during a worldwide crisis. Reading more, I came to realize that the governor of Texas was not putting into place the appropriate measures and was lagging way behind other states in that regard. I also came to understand that while there were no reported cases in that part of Texas, there was also almost zero testing going on which created a false sense of security. That all being said, I was truly impressed with the measures the local governments were enacting there on South Padre and in surrounding towns, closing all non-essential businesses and laying out simple to understand policies to keep their citizens safe. Finally, the day before I was going to splurge for a hotel room for the night, clean up and write my weekly This Week post, that same local government issued a Shelter in Place order. I couldn’t pay for a hotel for weeks on end with no end in sight, and I couldn’t sit in my van all day either. I could move on, but with nothing open it would be somewhat futile so what would be the point? As difficult as the decision was, it became clear that heading towards home was the safest, most responsible decision, so we fueled up and started on the 30+ hour drive back to Washington D.C.

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