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Washington DC

Happy New Year from Miles2Go

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Happy New Year from Miles2Go

The Grand Tetons in Black and White

Hello Everyone and Happy New Year! I hope everyone has had a lovely holiday season and is ready for a great year in 2025. I know this space has been pretty quiet this year as there has just been so much going on at home, but I really hope that all of that changes in the year to come. I did have a wonderful work season guiding tours out west which took me all the way to Alaska for the first time since 2016. I also spent a month in the Rockies, a few weeks in the Desert Southwest, a couple in the Deep South and a big chunk of time in California. It’s definitely great to visit some of these magical places every year and to show them to international passengers from all over the world, and I’m forever grateful to be able to do what I do. I met great people, took some beautiful photos and had a few laughs along the way. But it’s also been a difficult year because of the struggles my family has faced at home.

Oxbow Bend in Grand Teton National Park

As many of you know, my uncle was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer in February of this year. I was at home in D.C. helping my mother take care of him for about two and a half months in the beginning of the year. He was doing much better when I left in May to go back to work and seemed to be on his way to a reasonable recovery. In the middle of September he fell and broke his leg and has been through multiple surgeries and hospital stays since then. I returned home in October and with the exception of a quick 12 day trip in November, I’ve been here ever since. He has had a real physical and mental struggle this year and now requires pretty full-time care. My mother and I have been managing okay with the help of some dedicated nurses, therapists and doctors, but it hasn’t been particularly easy on us either. He has had some good reports lately from his doctors, so we will see what 2025 has in store for him, but that has taken up most of my free time this year. Even when I was working, I had to check in with them as often as possible to give them what support I could from afar. That hasn’t left much time or energy for my own exploration or adventures and my poor van has just been sitting for most of the year out in California. I have gotten out to start her up and drive her around a little bit, but not as much as I wish I had and now I’m thousands of miles away. But it is parked somewhere safe so at least I don’t have to worry about that.

Rock Lake in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

Because of all that is going on, I’m quite hesitant to look too far ahead or to make any plans. Over the next few months though, something will have to give. My uncle will either need to recover enough to get back on his feet, or we will need to find somewhere where he can get the care he needs. There is no way we can continue this round-the-clock care indefinitely, and he may have several years left to live. With any luck, I’ll be able to head back to California in the spring at some point and head out down the highway. I have no intention to work next summer and hope to have the whole year to drive back across the country. I’d like to spend spring in the Pacific Northwest and the summer in the Rockies. When the snow starts to fly I’d like to make my way south through the middle of the country to Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas and then get back to Washington to go back to work the following summer. That’s looking ahead to summer of 2026, so we will see where that goes, but that’s my rough plan for now. I hope you’ll stick around and see where we end up.

Since I’ve been home for a couple of months, I have been able to submit my photos to some local galleries and I’ve been really happy with the response. Next week I will have an opening at the Goldman Gallery in Rockville, MD which will be featuring 5 largescale photos of mine of our beautiful national parks. The following week I have to drop another photo out at a gallery/vineyard further out in Maryland which should also be nice. I’ve had some luck in the past with having my photos exhibited, but I’ve never actually been able to make it to see them while they are hanging. Now I will have that opportunity which I think is pretty cool. I continue to sell photos to books, magazines, businesses etc. as well, all of which makes me feel really good.

My Work Van and Trailer on my Last Night in Alaska

Beyond that, things have been pretty quiet around here. I’ve started a new workout program which has been really enjoyable and so far and I have been able to get to the gym most days. I have been cooking most of the meals since I’ve been home which I have been enjoying, but it’s also a lot of time and effort. I did get to cook up a couple of feasts over the holidays which was great. I’ve gotten to spend some time with my friends since I’ve been home and have even brought my violin along to play along on their Monday night music nights. I’ve definitely gotten to hang out with my little buddy, Mason, who I looked after during the pandemic. He’s six now and is a really sweet little boy and it’s fun to see how much he’s grown. My Penn State Nittany Lions have been fantastic to watch this season and I have gotten out to see a couple of games at the local alumni bar. Quite surprisingly, Washington’s professional football team, the Commanders, has been having their best season since I was in high school so that has been exciting as well. Right now here at home we are looking forward to 12th night, so that we can take down our Christmas decorations and put up our Mardi Gras decorations. That will be fun. Other than that, y’all, I’ve hardly gotten out of our neighborhood. I’m still thinking about you all though, and about this project and I really hope to get it back off the ground in just a couple of months. I will definitely get a few more photo posts up in the near future and will check back in with you in a couple of weeks.

Happy holidays and a very Happy New Year to you all, wherever this post finds you today. Thank you so much for reading and for all of your support.

-Mike

Valley View in my Beloved Yosemite

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This Week on the Road - February 2nd-9th

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This Week on the Road - February 2nd-9th

Hello Everyone! I am thrilled to be back on the road after a wonderful two months at home in D.C. It’s definitely tough to leave my folks and my friends, but it’s time to get back to it and I’m very excited for the road ahead. I left on Sunday afternoon and have been making tracks to get south to warmer weather, which I have found here in Northern Alabama where the sun is shining and temperatures were in the mid-fifties today. While I’m sure you all know by now that I prefer the back roads and scenic byways, the interstate is definitely a nice option when you’re trying to hustle. I do love seeing all the exit signs on the way which remind me of some amazing times I’ve had in these southern states. My drive to New Orleans could have taken months, as it has in the past, but I do want to get out west sooner rather than later.

It is always nice to be back in the South, where the food and music are great and people hold doors and wave a ‘thank you’ when you let them in in traffic. I’ve been somewhat surprised at the number of people I’ve seen with masks on, but I’m also well aware of the low vaccination numbers and high hospitalization rates down here as well. It breaks my heart, really, because I know and have met so many good people in these parts who, because of whatever news they are reading, have decided not to get vaccinated. And now so many are getting sick and dying unnecessarily. I wish they knew as many doctors and nurses as I’m fortunate enough to know who could tell them, as they’ve told me, that vaccination is both safe and effective. But I’m not here in this area or here in this newsletter to preach, I just want people to be safe and healthy.

I certainly had a great few days at home this past week before I took off on Sunday. On Thursday my folks and I headed out to the Surratt Tavern in Clinton, Maryland for a tour of this fascinating historic building. My mom and I had been there before when we were on the Trail of John Wilkes Booth Scenic Byway last year, but it had been closed. We were happy to get back and see the inside of the place. Our guide was a wonderfully informative and we enjoyed or conversation with her. She realized that we knew the basics of the story of Mary Surratt and her son John and the role they played in the assassination of President Lincoln. Mary Surratt was the first woman executed by the federal government. Since we already knew most of that story, she wanted to tell us more about the property itself and the role Mary may have played in the death of her own husband. She also wanted to share what she knew about the enslaved people who worked at the tavern and on the property. We were able to take our time wandering around the building and my mother was thrilled to look in all of the closets, nooks and crannies. It is certainly an interesting place and worth a visit if you’re in the area. From there we drove back into the city and made a quick stop at Mount Olivet Cemetery to show my stepfather where Mary Surratt is buried. We stopped for a beer at the relatively new Other Half Brewing Company in Ivy City. Their beers were good, but whoever named them needs a class in creativity and they were awfully expensive, even for D.C. Then we went around the corner for another beer at Atlas Brewing Co., an old favorite of ours. While we were there, the man in charge of their trivia night recognized my mother from her time working with the Boy Scouts. I was really glad he came over to ask because it really made her night. For dinner, we headed over to the Panda Gourmet just down the road. Tucked away in the Days Inn at the corner of New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road, this is the restaurant Chinese President Xi Jinping ate at during his visit to Washington. It’s a pretty great spot although it’s not what it was before the pandemic. I’m sure they’ve been doing mostly takeout and delivery as there was only one person working the front of the house when we were there. The food was still good though…

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This Week Off The Road - January 26th - February 2nd

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This Week Off The Road - January 26th - February 2nd

Hello Everyone! If you’re reading this on Wednesday night, Happy Groundhog Day to you. One of my college friends was from Punxsutawney, PA so I always think of him today. Punxsutawney Phil (the groundhog) did, in fact, see his shadow today, and in so doing he has predicted six more weeks of winter. That can only mean one thing – it’s definitely time for me to head south. This Sunday is the day, if all goes according to plan. I’ve spent this week packing, finishing up what I can of my projects while I’m here at home, and spending as much time as I could with friends and family. It’s always bittersweet to leave and as much as I’m looking forward to all of the adventures ahead, it’s always tough to say goodbye. To help pick myself up, I have contacted a few people who I will be seeing in the beginning of the week, and I definitely hope to be in New Orleans by the following weekend with plenty of friends to catch up with there as well. On a completely unrelated note, our football team here in Washington has a new name, the Washington Commanders, and I wish them well in the coming years. May their moral compass be a little truer than it has been in recent years.

Packing up my van is always quite a project as there is a place for everything and everything needs to be securely in its place. Every time I am home I unpack completely so I can get in and clean the inside out really well and then repack everything with some adjustments where I believe better efficiency can be achieved. I feel as though this time it’s packed particularly well and even though I’ve got pretty much everything loaded up, there’s still plenty of room. I’m thrilled it’s not jam packed and I think everything is going to work out really well with the way it’s loaded. And I’m still days away from taking off which is even better so that I can make adjustments before I hit the road. Omicron has given me a little extra time here in DC and I’ve tried to use it wisely. Meanwhile it’s been particularly cold and icy in the south so maybe it will all work out for the best in the end.

I have made two adjustments to my media strategy this week and I’m feeling good about both of them. As I have been writing about for several weeks, I’ve been (slowly) building my photography storefront on a separate site which I will integrate into this site as much as I can. While it’s still not where I want it to be and has very few photos on it, I’m thrilled with how it is coming and am happy to offer you all a sneak peek. While you can’t connect to it from anywhere on my site just yet, have a look here and let me know what you think. As always if there is any particular photo you would like me to add, please let me know and I will do so ASAP. Secondly, I’ve officially launched my TikTok channel this week, something I’ve been talking about for over a year now but finally went ahead with. TikTok is a neat form of social media which I’ve enjoyed myself for a while now and which is completely driven by video content but in shorter form than YouTube. If you’re on TikTok, you can find me @miles2gobeforeisleep.

I have gotten out a bit this week even though it’s been so busy. Last Thursday my folks and I headed out into the city for a nice adventure. We headed through Georgetown and the Navy Yard to see what’s new in those neighborhoods and then paid a nice long visit to Congressional Cemetery, one of D.C.’s most famous cemeteries and one which was simply too hot to appreciate when we last visited last May.

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This Week Off The Road - January 19th-26th

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This Week Off The Road - January 19th-26th

Hello Everyone. This is going to be another short but sweet one this week. I have been keeping busy here at home which I’ll get to in a minute, but first I wanted to share a couple of things with you at the top of this week’s post. I’ve set a tentative departure date of February 6th and I’m very excited about getting back on the road. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at numbers and data this week and since I’m vaccinated and boosted and generally in good health despite my diabetes, it looks like my chances of getting a severe Covid case which requires hospitalization are extremely low. They’re not zero (and maybe never will be), but I feel like the risk is acceptable to me. My bigger worry is how overcrowded the hospitals are and what would happen if I needed emergency care for some other reason. Those numbers will hopefully be going down over the next few weeks, but I am always cautious and the reality is that I haven’t made an emergency hospital visit in almost two decades so again it’s a risk I’m willing to accept. I will be keeping my mask handy and taking care to avoid crowded places and will likely be moving quicker than I had originally planned to towards New Mexico. I’m comfortable with the statewide precautions they are taking out there and plan on spending more time outside and alone than inside and in groups anyway. I’ll be leaving about 3 weeks after I had initially planned to, but I should still have plenty of time to see what I want to of New Mexico and Arizona this winter.

Leaving here, I plan on heading southwest through Virginia, Tennessee and Mississippi and all the way to New Orleans, catching up with a few friends along the way in whatever capacity they are comfortable with. If all goes according to plan, I will be in the Big Easy the following weekend and able to catch the first few real parades of the Mardi Gras season, which are small but hold good memories for me. Then I’m off to Texas for a week or two on my way to The Land of Enchantment. I’ve made some good plans for my time in New Mexico and I think we’re going to see some awesome scenery together, but if you have any suggestions or tips, I’m all ears.

My second bit of news this week is that I’ve accepted a job to return to guiding tours this coming summer. I’ll be guiding small group, overland trips for a small tour company called Incredible Adventures which is based in the Bay Area. I will be working for the same manager who I worked for at my old company and will be running tours for many of the same brands I’m comfortable and familiar with. My hope is to spend much of the summer in the Rocky Mountains and I’m pretty sure that will be a good possibility. It sounds like a really great opportunity and I’m definitely looking forward to it. While going back to guiding means putting some parts of this project on hold, I need to make some money so I can move ahead and at least I will still be on the road and taking pictures. We’ll see how it works out, but I’m definitely excited about it.

Lastly, I know I mentioned last week that I would be sharing links to my new photography storefront this week, but it’s not quite ready. I’m happy with the way it is shaping up, but I want to give it another week before I let you see it. It’s going to be a constant project going forward, but it will be far enough along by this time next week to be able to give you a sneak peek. That all being said, let’s take a look at what I’ve been up to this week.

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This Week Off The Road - January 12th-19th

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This Week Off The Road - January 12th-19th

Hello Everyone! January is passing quickly here in Washington. The short, cold days have not been inspiring this week, but I’m trying to stay positive and productive. I’m still keeping a close watch on case and hospitalization numbers across the south and when they start to go down, I’m going to be ready to hit the road. I’m definitely thinking the beginning of February. I do feel like I’ve been dodging and weaving as more of my friends come down with Covid, but I’m still managing to avoid it. Between my diabetes and the age of my folks, I definitely am not in the “just get it over with” camp. I feel like if I can head south and into warmer temperatures, I can spend most of my time outside like I did this summer and I still think my risks are acceptable if I’m outside. I have been hitting the gym every day and punching away at some of my projects this week, but I’ve mostly been hanging out at home and trying to stay warm. I did finally finish (for now) my gallery pages from this summer and fall’s trip to Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. It was fun to look back at these photos and the memories of the last six months as I got these together. I hope you get the chance to check them out – you can find them at these links:

Last Wednesday after I finished this post, I went back to music night with the boys. It was apparently British Invasion Night and the Beatles were heavily featured. It was nice to be there and I just wish I was good enough at playing an instrument to join in. I should have spent more time this summer and fall practicing, but I have a feeling in the months to come I may have plenty of time on my hands for just that. It’s unlikely that I’ll ever play a concert or a gig, but I would like to be good enough to join a jam session and just make some nice music.

On Thursday I went downtown to have lunch with my friends Estilla and Joby. Unfortunately the place they wanted to go was closed so we ended up wandering into Chinatown for some sushi. It wasn’t the best sushi I’ve ever had, but the company was good and we had a fun time. I hope to catch up with them in a couple of weeks in New Orleans, but we’ll see how it all goes.

Friday night we had our neighbors over for a few beers. They both like beer, so I had brought a 12-pack of New Glarus back from Wisconsin to share with them, but we just haven’t had the time to sit down and enjoy them. It’s always nice to chat with them as they are interesting people and bring shared values but a different perspective to the table. We chatted for a few hours talking about the pandemic, politics, travel, baseball, family and probably several other topics I’m forgetting. It was an enjoyable evening…

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This Week Off The Road - January 6-13

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This Week Off The Road - January 6-13

Hello Everyone! It’s been cold here in Washington this week, but we’ve been celebrating the beginning of the Mardi Gras season so we’ve been staying warm, festive and well-fed. While the cold weather makes me want to get out of here and start heading south, the news from the states I’m headed for hasn’t been very good this week. Record case numbers, doubled hospitalization numbers and staff shortages are what I’m reading. While New Mexico has ramped up their public safety campaign, Louisiana and Arizona have both declared a state of emergency. Texas is still holding back, even though they are asking the federal government for more testing facilities and treatment doses. As much as I believe we should provide as much assistance to all of our fellow citizens as we can (and to everyone around the world when possible), Texas sure could start by helping themselves. As much as I’m loving spending time with my family and friends here at home, I’m also ready to be back on the road and heading for new adventures. It seems the prudent, though, to hold tight for a while and see what happens. I’m not interested in getting sick on the road or getting turned back again. I will spend the next couple of weeks getting my plans together and my van packed, though, so that when the time is right, I’m ready to go. Hopefully sooner rather than later. While I’m here, I’m going to make the most of it, keep hitting the gym every day and spend as much time with my family and friends as I can.

This past Thursday was Twelfth Night, the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas and the first day of Mardi Gras. Twelfth Night is also called Epiphany or Theophany in different traditions, but it commemorates the visit of the three kings or the “magi” to the baby Jesus and also the day of His baptism. In Louisiana, it’s the first day you can buy King Cake in the stores and bakeries and in New Orleans the Phunny Phorty Phellows kick off the Carnival season with a ride on the streetcar. This year, Mardi Gras will fall on March 1st, making the season almost two full months long. I do love Mardi Gras season and while I sincerely hope to be much further west than New Orleans by March 1st, I do hope to pass through there on my way to get some crawfish and king cake. Here in Washington, we celebrated beginning Thursday and went straight through the weekend. The Christmas decorations are down and the Mardi Gras decorations are up. My mom baked her first King Cake of the season on Thursday, and it was her best one to date.

Friday night, my folks and I headed back to the basement, a space we utilized almost every Friday during the heart of the pandemic. During the year plus that I was home last year, we weren’t going out anywhere and we needed some way to mark the end of the week and the start of the weekend. It was nice to use a different space than the ones we used the other six days of the week, and the basement became our little retreat. As cases climb here in Washington, it seemed that the basement was once again a good option. We drank some Abita beer, enjoyed some good Louisiana music and I cooked up a loaf of Crawfish Bread (which is more of a Jazz Fest tradition, but it sounded delicious in my head, and it was). We chatted, played some games and had an enjoyable evening. It was just like old times, but hopefully this outbreak will be short-lived and the basement can go back to just being a basement.

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This Week On the Road - December 23rd-January 5th

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This Week On the Road - December 23rd-January 5th

Hello Everyone. Happy New Year to you all – may 2022 be everything you hope and dream it can be. I apologize for this newsletter not going out last week, but my folks and I were out of town on a little trip I will tell you all about later in this post. I had hoped to get my newsletter done before we left, but it just didn’t happen. Then the New Year came and went and then a snowstorm hit us on Monday and now it’s a whole week later. I’m sure you all had plenty to do as well this past week, but I missed writing this post nonetheless. It was definitely a festive week here at home and we enjoyed spending a lot of time together. We got out and saw some very cool places these last couple of weeks which I’d love to share with you here.

The Thursday before Christmas, we all headed down to Old Town Alexandria for lunch at Gadsby’s Tavern which was opened in 1770 and hosted two of George Washington’s birthday celebrations. It’s a great little colonial inn and our lunch was really good. From there we wandered around the Alexandria waterfront a little bit and then made our way back to downtown D.C. We had a nice visit to the National Christmas Tree in front of the White House and to the Capitol Christmas Tree at the U.S. Capitol. On the drive between the two, we were really struck by the beautiful tree at the Canadian embassy as well. Downtown Washington is a beautiful place every day, but it’s especially nice at Christmas and a really nice day really put us in the mood for the holiday weekend.

And a wonderful Christmas weekend it was, with lots of cooking and eating and music and fun. It was wonderful to get together and cook all day on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and turn out both an excellent breakfast and dinner on both days (no lunch was required, believe me). Everything came out well, and I was very proud of my first cheesecake which was delicious. While I don’t really want or need anything in the whole world, my mother really surprised me with a wonderful gift this year. I had mentioned in my blog a few weeks ago when I was out in Minnesota how much I had wanted an Indian pipestone pipe carved from their sacred quarries, but simply couldn’t justify the purchase. I don’t get a lot of souvenirs on the road, but that was one I had wanted and was disappointed about not getting. My mom found a really beautiful pipe online which had been hand carved by Roy Redwing of the Santee Dakota Nation from the quarry I visited while I was there and it’s something I will really treasure. I got a Roku for each of them so that when they are watching TV they can watch what they want as opposed to what’s on, and they are enjoying them so far.

After Christmas we lay low for a couple of days and then headed north and west to Pennsylvania. We had visited the National Historical Sites of Western Pennsylvania before, but it had been a bit rushed and we hadn’t had the chance to really dig into them as much as we would have liked, so this trip set out to remedy that. Our first stop was Allegheny Portage Railroad NHS, which tells the fascinating story of the first continuous transportation link between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh (and also, therefore, between the eastern seaboard and the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers). The biggest challenge on this route was over the mountains between Hollidaysburg and Johnstown. In 1834 a system was completed by which canal boats could be towed onto railcars which could then be towed up the mountain by being attached to cables which were powered by steam powered engines. It was quite the engineering feat and was utilized for 20 years to make the crossing. Charles Dickens passed this way on his travels, as did the bodies of two presidents (William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor) on their way west for burial. With the opening of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, this route became obsolete in the 1850s and not much of it remains today, but it is a fascinating place and the National Park Service does a great job of interpreting the site, as usual.

From there we headed on to Johnstown Flood National Memorial which commemorates the tragic 1889 flood which occurred following the failure of the South Fork Dam on the Little Conemaugh River.

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This Week Off The Road - December 15th-22nd

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This Week Off The Road - December 15th-22nd

Hello Everyone! ‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the land, the Omicron variant was getting out of hand. First and foremost this week I want to wish all who celebrate it a very Merry Christmas (and a Happy Christmas to all of those outside of the U.S. who think “merry” is a funny way to say it). I was chatting with one of my traveling friends this week and we were discussing where we had each spent Christmas in the past. My list included Barcelona, Newcastle (Australia), Siem Reap (Cambodia), Japan, St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands), Myrtle Beach, Key West, New York City, Los Angeles, New Hampshire and San Antonio. Some have been good, some not so good and one or two downright difficult. I’m very happy to be here at home in D.C. this year, off the road and not at work. Wherever you are this year, I hope the season finds you safe, warm and healthy. We will be sticking close to home over the weekend, cooking deliciously complicated meals together, laughing, listening to music and watching a few more Christmas movies. It will be somewhat low-key with just the three of us for Christmas and one of my mom’s friends joining us for Christmas Eve but that suits me just fine. It’s very good to be home.

This week has definitely put the Coronavirus and the Omicron variant front and center in the news and in my life. A very good friend of mine lost his 48 year old brother to Covid this week, reminding me in a personal way that this is all far from over. Mask mandates are back here in D.C. and hospitals across the country are filling up to dangerous levels. I’m sad to see that Michigan and Minnesota, both of which I obviously spent a lot of time in this year, are both hotspots right now and struggling - and that is coming not just from the news but from my friends on the ground there. I was very happy to see that Donald Trump got his booster this week and encouraged others to do so as well. I really wish other people would join him and realize that this isn’t a game and people are dying unnecessarily out there. The NHL has postponed its season and there have been many other cancellations as well. My friend Chris, who I was supposed to hang out with on Monday, came down with something and we decided to postpone out of an abundance of caution. The friends I was hanging out with over the weekend took a pre-holiday-travel home Covid test on Monday and both came up positive. They went for a clinical test and my folks and I tested at the Fire Station up the road and all came back negative which was a relief. I definitely feel better being vaccinated and boosted than I did at this time last year, but I’m starting to tuck back in a little bit as well. I’ll be keeping my eye on the news before I decide whether or not to set out across the country again in January. Because of my southern route with plans to get back to California and back to work next summer, it all seems very familiar to where I was in the beginning of 2019. I sincerely hope that this winter will pass easier than last year or the winter before. Please be safe out there and if you haven’t been vaccinated or boosted, please discuss it with a doctor and not a YouTube character.

I’ve spent my mornings this week at the gym, trying not to put on any holiday weight. My afternoons have been pretty quiet and restful, but I have been out and about in the evenings. Last Wednesday I went back to music night at my friends’ house to watch them jam out like we were still in high school. My buddy Joe brought some of his famous homemade eggnog…

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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 off the Road - December 1st-8th

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This Week off the Road - December 1st-8th

Hello Everyone! It’s been a quiet and lazy week here in Washington D.C. I had hoped it would be more productive, but it’s been nice to get some rest and not worry about anything too much. It’s always great to be home, to spend time with friends and family, to work out at my local gym and to know where I’m going to sleep every night. Those things aren’t as sweet when they are your everyday normal, but after six months on the road they are a welcome respite. I’ve been trying to clear most of my stuff out of Shadow Catcher this week as I plan on bringing much less with me when I depart in January. I definitely brought too many things I didn’t need and didn’t use with me in June and I plan on cutting it down by half over the next few weeks. I’ve also been catching up on my photo editing and I think I’m just about done with my Minnesota photos. This week I hope to get those photos into my existing galleries and into state-specific ones as well. I also started taking a look at the road ahead – at some of the places I want to visit in Arizona and New Mexico and also at where I will be working next summer (as by then it will be time to refill my coffers). The weather has been pretty good this week as well, but again that is less noticeable and less consequential when I’m off the road. I have gotten out to see and do some cool things this week, though, so let me share some of that with you here.

Last Wednesday I went with my friend Carolina to see the Garden of Lights at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton. This is a wonderful holiday light display in an outdoor, walk-through setting. It was much bigger than we imagined it would be and we really enjoyed it. It definitely put me in the Christmas mood and it wasn’t so cold out that we had to rush through it.

On Thursday I headed down to see Bob Dylan perform at Anthem, one of Washington’s newer music venues which I’d never been to before. Before the show, I went to check out another new-to-me spot, the TNT Tiki Bar at The Wharf right down the block from the venue. As far as tiki bars go, it wasn’t great, but it was a nice enough place to stop in before the show. I got some happy hour snacks which were tasty but really tiny and one cocktail which was pretty ordinary. The bartenders were friendly and attentive, though, the atmosphere was pleasant enough and the beers were cheaper than most of the other bars in that neighborhood. Anthem did a great job of getting people in the door, but it was far bigger than I imagined it would be. Washington D.C. is a great place to see live music because we have some awesome mid-sized venues that accommodate between one and two thousand people – enough to attract bigger names, but small enough to still feel like an intimate setting. Anthem seats up to 6,000 and with the standing-room ticket I had, it was anything but intimate. They also had a small army of security staff who moved me along from any spot I found where I could actually see the stage. If it had been a bigger band, it probably still would have been alright, but Dylan just seemed to get lost in such a big place. He put on a good show for an 80 year-old, but it would have been much better in a significantly smaller venue. I’m glad I saw him, but I would really hesitate to go back to Anthem. Give me the 9:30 Club any day of the week. Having spent some time in Dylan’s childhood town of Hibbing, Minnesota this fall, it was great to tie up my summer/fall travels with this show.

Friday evening, my folks and I went to a holiday celebration at Dumbarton House in Georgetown, one of Washington D.C.’s oldest homes. Now owned by the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America, the house has been restored to its early 1800s appearance when the first Register of the Treasury, Joseph Nourse, lived there…

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This Week on the Road - November 24th-December 1st

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This Week on the Road - November 24th-December 1st

Hello Everyone! I can’t believe it’s December, but it certainly is. Happy Holidays to you all. A very Happy Chanukah to everyone celebrating it around the world this week. And Christmas is definitely right around the corner as the stores are decorated and Christmas trees are starting to show up in the windows of peoples’ homes. I really love the Christmas season and am happy to be home for it again this year. It is sweeter for me to come home for it than just to be home for it like I was last year. I’ve spent a lot of Christmases and New Year’s Eves working, either on tour or at a restaurant somewhere, so it’s always nice to not have to work this time of year and I’m definitely grateful. I’m looking forward to spending the holidays with family and friends, attending Christmas events and enjoying it as much as I can. This is going to be a pretty short newsletter this week as I haven’t been doing a whole lot. I spent Thanksgiving and the following weekend with my dad in West Virginia and then made the drive home to D.C. on Monday in one shot. It’s been more off the road than on the road this week, which is fine with me.

It was great to pull into Charleston last Wednesday and see my dad and his partner, Judy, as I hadn’t seen them since before the pandemic started. They’re both well and in good spirits. Unfortunately, my dad’s macular degeneration has only gotten worse so he can’t see much at all which really limits what he can do. That’s just one more reason for me to keep doing what I’m doing for as long as I’m able to. I’m sorry because all of his retirement plans went out the window with his eyesight, but sadly there’s nothing that he or I or his doctors can do about it. I was definitely surprised that their dog, Sadie, remembers me after so many months. Sadie was rescued from a pretty bad situation and basically hates everyone except the two of them. A few years ago, when we were all visiting my brother in New Hampshire, I thought that Sadie looked like she couldn’t breathe and was having a heart attack. Well my dad couldn’t see her obviously and Judy came down on the side of better safe than sorry so we rushed her to the all-night vet. She was having a heart attack and they kept her overnight. We picked her up the next day, she hasn’t barked at me since. This week she actually came and curled up on my lap. I don’t know how dogs know or how they remember, but she certainly does.

It was a quiet Thanksgiving with just the three of us, but we did have a delicious ham, some great sides including a delightful broccoli casserole and of course two varieties of pie. We all slept in in the morning and we all enjoyed an afternoon nap as well. In fact, I slept quite a bit while I was there. Living in my van, no matter how safe a spot I am parked in overnight, some part of my subconscious has to be alert and aware. When I finally get to a warm, safe place I sleep really deeply and really well…

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The Road Ahead

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The Road Ahead

Hello Everyone!

My departure is getting closer by the day. It’s been a very busy week of trying to get everything ready and organized and packed, but I’m getting there. So far I’ve gotten many of my belongings loaded up and it still feels like there’s a ton of room in Shadow Catcher to spare – which is definitely the plan. Over the last year I’ve rethought a lot of my organizing strategy and so far it all seems to be coming together quite nicely. I have had a few family things come up this week which may delay my departure by a day or two, but I have every intention of being on the road by this time next week. I’m writing this post to make a very brief introduction of myself for those who have joined us recently, to take an introspective look back at some of the things I’ve learned and decided over the last year and a half and to look at the road ahead and where it’s going to lead me from here.

A Brief Introduction

So especially for those new to this blog: welcome. I’m thrilled that you’ve decided to come along for the ride. My name is Mike and I was born and raised here in Washington D.C. where I’ve been waiting out this pandemic for the last 14 months. I am a Penn State graduate with a degree in Wildlife and Fishery Science and a minor in American History. Putting those two interests/passions together, I became a small-group adventure camping Tour Guide back in 2000 at the age of 24. Since then, I’ve spent 14 years on the road guiding tours to every corner of the U.S. and Canada – from San Diego to Nova Scotia and Key West to the Arctic Ocean. During the early part of my career, I took my winters off to travel the world. At some point I looked up and I was 30.

Not too long thereafter, I decided to settle down a bit and see what life was like off the road. I moved to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to help reopen the public school system there. I spent two years in the Big Easy and then continued teaching for a bit here at home in Washington before heading off to teach in rural Japanese public schools for two years. I enjoyed teaching and I loved working with children, but I didn’t love being inside all the time and I didn’t find that the M-F workweek suited me too well. I didn’t like counting down the hours of the day or week and I couldn’t get much of a break over the weekend (especially as a teacher as there was always something that needed to get done before Monday). I started to think of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and what came out of that very long internal discussion was this blog. I began planning and working on it in Japan and it started to come more clearly into focus. I decided I wanted to buy a van and live in it while I traveled to each U.S. state and spent at least a month learning what made each unique and individual. I bought my first DSLR camera (at a pawn shop in Japan) and started taking photography a heck of a lot more seriously.

From Japan, life blew me down to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands for a year and a half and then I returned home and started guiding tours again, saving all of my money to try and get this project and my dream off the ground. Sometime in there, I turned 40.

I bought Shadow Catcher, my beautiful 1998 Coach House 192KS Class B Camper Van, in 2017 and got to work outfitting it and getting it ready to hit the road - which I finally did in November of that year. Over the next 18 months I traveled to 10 states in the Deep South and Appalachia, taking photos, exploring, producing my history podcast American Anthology, and trying to live out the dream in my head. It’s been a challenging but amazing time.

I thought that I would be able to make enough money to keep this project going through advertisements and selling photos and maybe some freelance writing gigs or photo shoots along the way. That turned out to be an almost total bust, but I’ve been grateful to go and pick up some guide jobs when the money has gotten tight and be able to stay on the road. At the end of the day, it turned out I was pretty okay with being an unsuccessful travel blogger!

In January of 2020, I headed out again with the goal of crossing the country through the southern states to California, working the summer tour season out there, and then making my way back through the next layer of states up. I had an amazing month in Mississippi and had begun my long journey around Texas when the pandemic started turning up the heat. Through a lot of thinking, conversations with friends (including one who had gotten the virus early and really struggled through) and with my mother who is a nurse, and some serious soul searching on the beaches of South Padre Island, I decided to turn my headlights towards home. And here I’ve been ever since.

What I’ve Learned From My Time At Home

It’s sure been an interesting and challenging year for us all. I had no idea when I came home that I’d end up being here for as long as I have been, but I feel very blessed to have had somewhere to land during this time. As much as this wasn’t where I planned to be this year, I certainly tried to make the most of it and got to spend a lot of time with my mom and stepfather which has been great. Traveling around the area with my mom every week has helped keep me calm, let me keep practicing my photography and definitely allowed me to explore my own hometown and surrounds more deeply than I ever have before. I have been telling people for years both in this space and elsewhere that there is always something new to explore and it can be closer than you think. This year we’ve tested that theory and to be honest there are still plenty of places we never got to this year and look forward to visiting in the future.

Over the last 10 months, I got to be the best friend to a 2 year-old boy. This has been a life-altering experience for us both. I’ve dedicated plenty of space to my adventures with Mason on this site over the last year, so there’s no need to go into any great detail here. Getting older and with no kids of my own, it’s been truly special to be able to watch someone grow and learn and laugh on a daily basis for so long. We got to see the seasons change all the way through and discover things about the world and about ourselves in the process…

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