Category Archives: camping

Civil Rights, long stretches of beach and a whole lot of writing

Weather chilly? Not to worry.

Cold weather RVing tips

We’ve just spent a night in -9C (16F) temperatures boondocking inside our Roadtrek 210 and could not have had a snugger and cosier sleep. This year, we’ve made a few basic modifications that we think save energy and make cold weather camping an easier venture.

We added Reflectix insulating panels to our windows to help keep heat it. It’s available by the roll at Home Depot in Canada but is much cheaper at similar stores south of the border. We easily cut panels for each window and just push them into place at night.

We switched out almost all of our interior lights to LED bulbs. Installation was simple. We bought ours at a local RV dealership but they are also available for less through the Internet.

We’d already winterized our RV back in October so did not want to undo that, just to have to re-winterize after we return in six weeks. So, we decided to stick to bottled water for intake (i.e. not running water through any intake tanks or lines) and to use our grey and black tanks with some antifreeze since we’ll be able to access dump stations. When we return we’ll just have to winterize those two tanks and the toilet (add antifreeze).

Our Roadtrek came with a large carpeted runner down the main galley but we always found it difficult to keep clean. This year we decided to ditch the carpet, install a custom-cut foam pad, waterproof flooring and then top it with some colourful, washer-friendly throw rugs in nice colours and patterns. We found what we wanted at Canadian Tire – a long roll of foam “impact” flooring – spongy, about a quarter-inch thick and easily wipeable. We used the old carpet runner as a pattern and cut the new piece to size. It fits beautifully, keeps the cold off our feet and seems much more durable.

Even though it was quite “bracing” when we turned out the lights last night, we found we were warm enough under our queen-size goose down duvet. The warmth stayed in when we topped it with a colourful throw blanket (cuddling helps). Neither of us woke through the night and in the morning we just popped on the propane furnace to banish the chill. It was the perfect RVing experience.

Our next Big Trip has begun!

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Well, after a slight delay due to Mother Nature, we’re off! The house sitters are in place, the driveway has been shovelled (sure to be “topped up” again after we return), the van is running beautifully and we had clear sailing as we steered due south.

“South” … supposed to be warmer down here, right? We made great time on day one and stopped for the night just south of Washington, DC. We are still amazed at how flawlessly this Roadtrek 210 runs – it has been the complete opposite of a “lemon.” It was a chilly -9C when we pulled in to boondock at a Walmart parking lot (*in RV parlance, “boondocking” is camping without cost and hookups). We were snug and warm under our duvet and just turned on the propane furnace to warm things up in the morning (believe it or not, this 21′ van has a KING size bed in the back!). Craig is chomping at the bit to wash all the salt and grit off the van!

We are debating whether to detour via a wintertime drive down the Outer Banks of North Carolina (one of our favourite parts of the US) but it looks like all the national parks campgrounds are closed (wonder why …? Perhaps the close-to-freezing temperatures!). If we can find somewhere we can boondock again, we’ll head that way. If not, we’ll continue to our ultimate destination for the next week – Huntington Beach State Park, SC.

Finding more blues outside the Mississippi Delta

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If ever there was a pretty Southern town, it has to be Natchez, Mississippi. So, we parked ourselves there for three days, worked in the library, walked the streets and stopped in for coffee often at the excellent Steampunk Coffee Roasters. Next door is the historic blues club the historic blues club named Smoot’s Grocery. Smoot’s has received a top-to-bottom renovation and is a beautiful space for parties, get-togethers or live music. Well worth checking out if you find yourself in Natchez.

Our schedule included a “break week” when we were taking some down time on the Mississippi Gulf Cost, catching up on blues-related reading, working on the book structure and starting some chapter work. All accomplished while we stayed at Gulf Islands National Seashore near the pretty town of Ocean Springs. While there we crossed paths with a get together of about two-dozen Roadtreks and we were quickly welcomed into the fold. Thanks y’all! Looking forward to the next time.

Back to work and starting the drive northward. Our first stop was in historic Meridian (the home of The Father of Country Music, Jimmy Rogers) where we had a fascinating hour interviewing Hartley Peavey, the founder of Peavey Electronics. As a teenager he started building amps at his parents place and he is now head of a worldwide corporation producing quality musical sound systems and instruments.

On to the small town of West Point, considered the home of Howlin’ Wolf. There’s a blues marker, a small but very good museum and a very cool downtown mural.

Just a bit further into the northeast corner of Mississippi – we stopped at Tupelo. Tupelo is the hometown of Elvis Presley. He was born there and lived in East Tupelo with his parents until he was 13 years old and they moved to Memphis. They’ve done a beautiful job at the Elvis Birthplace Museum, the self-guided driving tour, at Johnnie’s Drive-In (where they have preserved an Elvis booth where he’d hang out with friends and order an RC cola and burger) and at the Tupelo Hardware, the spot his mother bought him his first guitar. Probably the best $7.75 she ever spent!

More blues than one can reasonably pack into a week!

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Here’s one of the biggest things to know about the blues and the Mississippi Delta … in this part of the state, the blues are everywhere. Many people only associate Clarksdale with the blues but there are actually many other communities with at least as rich and deep a blues pedigree as the town where Highways 49 and 61 cross.

We camped overnight at The Blue Biscuit – an Indianola restaurant and blues bar right across the road from the B.B. King Museum. Thanks to Trish – the Blue Biscuit’s friendly and welcoming owner! Then, the next morning, we drove east to Greenwood, a town with a complicated blues and civil rights history. On the way we drove into the countryside near Blue Lake to look for the birthplace marker for B.B. King, stopped at Holly Ridge to pay our respects at the grave marker for Charley Patton and detoured slightly to find the marker in Moorhead for “Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog” (*look that one up for a real slice of blues authenticity!).

One of the highlights of our travels has been the half-day tour of Greenwood and the blues with the personable and very knowledgeable Sylvester Hoover who runs Delta Blues Legend Tours. Sylvester took us through Baptist Town, to all three claimed gravesites of Robert Johnson (including the one accepted as the actual site at Little Zion MB Church in the countryside) and Three Forks (the site where Robert Johnson was – supposedly – poisoned). We also crossed the Tallahatchie River, the site of the Bobbie Gentry song.

In a non-blues related side trip, Sylvester took us to Bryant’s Grocery in Money, MS, to the remains of the grocery store related to the Emmett Till story – the event they say helped spark the entire civil rights movement. It was sobering.

Overnight we camped at the quirky, unique Tallahatchie Flats – old sharecropper shacks on the outside, renovated on the inside.

The next day we attended the Sunday morning service at Little Zion MB Church and soaked up the emotional and powerful music of the gospel church choir. We’d been invited by Sylvester and his lovely wife Mary, who is one of the choir directors.

After Greenwood, we spent several days hopping to more blues sites — Bentonia (home to the Blue Front Cafe), Jackson (where we went to Hal and Mal’s to hear King Edward – Craig subbed in on bass with the pre-show band), Hazlehurst (Robert Johnson’s birthplace and home to the Mississippi Music Hall of Fame), across the Mississippi River to Ferriday, LA and the Delta Music Museum.

We settled for several days in beautiful Natchez, MS – at the height of the cotton era, this small town was home to half the millionaires in America. We’ll write more about Natchez in the next post, as there is lots to talk about there. We made new friends, drank some of the best coffee ever (Steampunk Coffee Roasters), went to a community literary talk, dined by the Mississippi River and walked the streets of this lovely town. More on all that next time.

Elk run faster than humans (good to know)

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Estes Park is the small Colorado gateway community that sits at the very eastern edge of Rocky Mountain National Park. It started as a ranching community but quickly switched its focus to tourism. RMNP is the third most-visited park in the National Park System – people come for the mountain scenery, the watchable wildlife and the hiking, biking and rock climbing. Denver and Boulder are a short drive away.

Quirky fact: In the 1970s, Stephen King was stranded here in a snowstorm and stayed overnight at The Stanley Hotel, the town’s most historic property. He and his wife were the hotel’s only guests. It’s said that that night at The Stanley was the inspirational fodder for his novel, The Shining. They play the creepy movie on a continuous loop in the hotel.

Fall is a busy time at RMNP – people are drawn to the park to see the elk rut. And it’s not too hard to find as the elk are everywhere. On the hillsides, on the grasslands, on the roadsides, on the road. Dawn or dusk are best spotting times. Jo spent an evening on the excellent Rocky Mountain Conservancy’s Elk Expedition with naturalist guide Kevin Cook. Kevin knows everything there is to know about elk. Stumping him is … impossible.

We drove along the Old River Road and came across a lonely looking “bachelor bull” – one sad looking guy without a harem of females. Another mile along was a whole different story – a strutting alpha bull with a harem of about 15 females. Kevin explains: “A harem is a social unit that is managed by a single alpha bull called the harem master.” Bulls are very protective of their harem of cows and this one didn’t want anyone messing with his women.

When you assemble several social units together, you get a herd. This only happens after the males have “done their duty” and all the females are impregnated (tough job, but someone has to get it done). At this point the male loses breeding interest and scales back his aggressive behaviour.

During the two-month long rut (the breeding season), the harem master “bugles” to keep other males away, marking his territory. It’s a wonderful sound! He expends a lot of energy and attention in keeping his harem of cows together. That’s why the rutting season can be a dicey time for human visitors – you have to be very careful not to get between a bull and his cows, or to make the bull feel threatened by getting too close. The park ranger tells us they sometimes see visitors trying to get close enough to take selfie-style photos!

What you need to remember is that the bull elk is about 800 lbs and can run four times faster than a human. You do the math.

www.colorado.com

www.visittheusa.ca

Very photogenic: Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

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Black Canyon of the Gunnison AND the biggest RV you’ve ever seen!

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Admission time: Before we got to this point in our trip, we didn’t know anything about the Black Gunnison in Colorado. We hadn’t fully researched the stop yet and thought it might be a battle site or some sort of historic marker. Well, were we ever off the mark.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison is a national park showcasing an extraordinary demonstration of the power of water to sculpt a landscape (yes, more rocks!). In this case we are talking about the Gunnison River (nicknamed the “Gunny”) but the rocks here are very different from anything we’d seen in Utah, Wyoming or Colorado. This dark grey schist and gneiss are the “basement rocks” of the Precambrian-era. Think really old. Think rocks that are very, very hard and resistant to the erosive effects of water and wind. Think: Black Canyon. Now the name makes sense.

These are the oldest and hardest rocks in North America. The canyon is narrow and very deep (the site of Colorado’s highest cliff faces – the Empire State Building would barely crack the halfway mark). The deep canyon was carved by the river over a period of two-million-years and exposes two-billion years of geology. The rock is so tough that one year of erosion wears away the equivalent of the width of a human hair.

The park itself is on a remote plateau at an elevation of around 2,400 metres. The air is thin and the vegetation is mainly scrub oak and some stunted fir trees. We camped at the wonderful national park campground and were treated to another star-filled night with a sliver of a new moon in the very early morning. The Milky Way was on full display. This park is an International Dark Sky Park.

There’s a scenic drive along the rim road with all kinds of pullouts and short hikes down to the edge. However, our favourite viewpoints were on our early morning hike along the twisty Rim Trail. The two-mile hike was quiet (this park is also blessedly free of crowds), the air was crisp and fragrant, and we stopped and watched the birds swirling and swooping deep into the canyon.

On the way back from our hike we were taken aback by an enormous white “garbage truck” pulling into one of the scenic lookouts. This seemed very out of place to us – until we took a closer look and noticed the EU licence plate, the Swiss flag decals on the front and the two people who hopped down from the cab (definitely not sanitation workers!). And that is how we came to meet Elisabeth and Kurt, two early retirees from Switzerland who have been travelling for three years in their custom-built motorhome/RV.

“RV on steroids” jumped to mind. Their home on wheels appears to be an adapted armoured personnel carrier on a Mercedes-Benz platform: 450-litre diesel fuel tank, 800-litre water tank, a huge bank of batteries (that must weigh a ton) and an array of solar panels. Their solar has been so efficient that they’ve hardly had to turn on the generator.

We felt like road trip pikers next to Elisabeth and Kurt. They shipped their RV from Hamburg to Buenos Aires three years ago and have been travelling South America from top to bottom, all through Central America, and for the next 13 months will be exploring the U.S. (including a side trip up to Alaska) and Canada before shipping their motorhome back to Europe from Halifax. We exchanged contact information as well as an open invitation to stay at our place when they pass through southern Ontario. We hope they do – if and when it happens we will invite all our friends and throw them a welcome party filled with food and friends and music. Everyone we know will want to hear all about their inspirational travels. So – Elisabeth and Kurt … don’t forget our invite!!

For more photos: click here.

www.nps.gov/blca/index.htm

www.colorado.com

www.visittheusa.ca