12/8, I left the HH in Canton, NC and got a haircut at a Great Clips (this is such a great model for people like me!) and then drove to Franklin, NC to visit Yvette. I met her last year at Monument Valley and we've stayed in touch. She was just getting her tiny home installed. On a whim she bought a tiny piece of land in a small tiny home development and put a tiny home on it. I had never been inside one, so that was really fun. Other than the tiny bathroom with nowhere to put my stuff when I showered, it felt plenty big. Of course I am living in about 1/4 (feels like even less) of the space.
Yvette and I really didn't know each other other than chatting for a bit in Monument Valley, but it was fun to get to know her and learn about how she ended up there. It was kindof a whim and she's happy with her decision. Yay!
My only complaint with my stay was I parked across the narrow road in a lot that is being prepped for it's tiny home to arrive and the soil is this red dirt that is a mess when it's wet and it rained a lot when I was there. I didn't realize it was going to rain when I parked there and when I went to bed, I started to think about the rain that was coming and wondering if this spot was solid enough for my van. In the AM I saw that there is gravel mixed in with the dirt and all was fine. Why do I do that to myself??? I took a sleeping pill since I knew it would keep me up in the night... And it rained quite a bit. So, going in and out with Zoe was certainly a challenge. I did setup a pallet with an outdoor carpet (Yvette loaned me hers as it would have been really hard for me to clean mine before leaving) on it to help, but we still had to walk across the dirt/mud to reach that. Oh, well, it's just dirt...
We went for a hike that Yvette had been wanting to do and it was something Zoe could do. Yvette was kind enough to drive and allow Zoe in her new Bronco. I'm so happy that she drove because the road to get to the hike was through Highland, NC and the road was very narrow and windy. More of the crazy WNC roads! The hike, Whiteside mountain was a good one for Zoe as it was only about 2 miles and it was a gradual up for the first mile or so. It was cool, so Zoe did it no problem. I always wonder if it's good for her or too much, but it's not like she's in more pain afterwards, so I can only assume it's good for her.
On the way to the hike, we stopped at Dry Falls where you can walk behind the falls. It was pretty cool and lots of water.
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| My tiny tiny home among the tiny homes. Yvette's is the white one. |
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| Kind of cool "fireplace". I found it mesmerizing. |
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| Dry Falls |
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| From behind the falls |
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| me getting damp behind the falls |
Hike up Whiteside Mountain
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| It's quite the cliff! |
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| Looking down over the cliff. |
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| Yvette |
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| I was calling her Ellie, but she was a stray (come to find out she belongs to the neighbor). She is super tiny and so incredibly sweet and confident! She wasn't in the least bit scared or Zoe (until Zoe lunged for her... 😞) |
10/10 - I left Yvette's before the heavy rain and drove to Cleveland, TN. Stopped at a park to walk Zoe and slept at a Walmart. I think I was the only one there...
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| I seem to have a leak in my door. This water was coming from behind that panel... |
10/11 - Belly not doing well and not very happy. Spent all morning in the van figuring out what to do and ended up driving to and thru Chattanooga and then found a park for a nice walk in the woods. Then onto another Walmart. I like staying at Walmarts cuz they're free and I have access to a bathroom between 6 AM and 11 PM. I wish I didn't have to worry about that... ðŸ˜
Today I filled my tiny diesel tank. It's good that the heater uses so little. Steve said it's an 8 liter (2.11 gallons) tank, but today I put in just shy of 1 gallon and there was probably only an inch in the tank before filling. I just read a review and they said it only holds 5 liters or 1.32 gallons. That sounds much more like it. This tiny tank would not fly if I wanted to chase the snow!!! Fortunately it's enough for 5-7 nights at 30.
10/12 -
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| Walk at Reflection Riding Arboretum. Would be better in the spring/summer, but still a nice walk. |
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| From my BW site in Cullman, AL |
12/13 - I was excited to find an "authentic" German Christmas market in town. It didn't feel like the Christmas markets in Germany that friends have been posting, but it was fun anyway. Due to my tummy, it was super frustrating as there were so many food booths and the only thing I felt brave enough to eat was a pretzel. It was really good, but there were so many other seemingly tasty items. It was torture!
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| She's so good at posing for photos. Treats appear after! 😀 |
12/13 - 15 - Oak Mountain State Park - Alabama - We stayed here for 2 nights.
Photos from the evening walk around the lake after arriving.
A cloudy day at Oak Mountain State Park. We did a trail around Trenton Lake. For some reason I found this to be very boring. I think Zoe did too!
12/16 - Last year I had driven through Fairhope and thought it was super cute, but I didn't stop, so this year, I deliberately headed in this direction to actually visit it. I had looked into doing an Airbnb for a couple of weeks. I asked Sue if she wanted to come for Christmas/New Years, but that didn't work out. I kept looking at Airbnbs, but didn't end up shelling out the money for it.
Fairhope doesn't have many free camping options, so I had booked a HH for the night. When we got to Fairhope, Zoe and I took a short walk in town before heading to Bill-Es HH stop. This was basically just a pit stop for Zoe, so we didn't really wander around town. We went to the HH spot and I had dinner at the bar where I had a bacon cheeseburger with fried green beans. Super yummy! Probably not a great idea for my belly though... (And in fact it wasn't. 😕 And I'm so tired of worrying about that!!!!!!!!!!!) Nice bartender and chatted with a guy whose business is building houses after disasters. It was quite interesting learning that they come in after FEMA and build cookie cutter homes. Not ideal, but they get homes!
I ended up leaving the HH and going to Walmart, which was much more quiet than the HH, which was right on a busy road. I wasn't super comfortable at Walmart in the middle of the night as I was the only "camper" there as far as I know. And around 3:30 I was hearing people, but thankfully they weren't super close to me and all was fine, but I much prefer to have other campers around me. This is the 2nd Walmart stop like this (without the middle of the night noise).
12/17 - Walked around Fairhope. Had lunch where we could sit outside. Chatted with a couple of locals. One of them mentioned that she rents in Fairhope and how much she loves renting. Same age as me. No kids, no reason to build equity in a home. When storms come through, she just packs up and leaves and has nothing to worry about. I like that! Just how I feel.
I decided I would stay in the Walmart in Daphne with the hopes that there would be more campers there. On the way, I stopped at a park in Daphne and walked down to the pier and ended up chatting with an elderly gentleman (87). He's an artist and writer and was very intrigued with what I am doing. He encouraged me to write and draw (I've been wanting to draw, but never am willing to watch myself fail miserably.) Then he invited me to dinner and to park at his house if I wanted, which is what I ended up doing. It was much nicer than staying at Walmart and we enjoyed a nice evening chatting and enjoying local fish at Felix's on the causeway to Mobile. I left Zoe in the van at his house and she was fine. She barked when we drove away, but that was just because of seeing the car.
12/18 - Derek gave me some handouts for his classes (I forgot to mention that he teaches drawing) and a sketch book. He also gave me a silk tulip (I asked for it because he had so many in one vase and I just needed one. 😂😂 ) It is amazing how happy that one silk tulip gives me and I'll always remember Derek from that. Derek asked what I would do for Christmas and when I said I didn't know, he invited me to join Christmas at his son's. We shall see.
I left there and went to the Grand Hotel to walk around. I was told that dogs are welcome, but once I headed back onto the Grand Hotel grounds, I saw a No Dogs sign...
I've started to binge watch Ted Lasso.
I ended up staying at Gulf State Park for 4 nights, basically hanging out and going for walks. Did laundry, cleaned the van, etc. It was a nice break. Expensive though! With tax and everything it cost about $75/night, which I think is insane.
Then went to Historic Blakeley State Park and stayed 2 nights there. Instead of being near water, it was in the woods with tons of walking/biking trails. Blakeley was a town and then it was Fort Blakeley where one of the last battles of the civil war took place. Thankfully the huge group of Union soldiers overtook the Fort.
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| spanish moss |
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| Glorious Live Oaks |
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| One of the redoubts that the confederate soldiers fought from |
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| The battlefield where 12000 (?) Union troops attacked |
12/24 - Went to a campground on Dauphin Island, really an RV park with mostly snowbirds. It is a nice community of older folks, making me feel young! 😀 This campground has a short path to the dog friendly beach, plus trails and the neighboring Audobon Center. The only negative is deer ticks! I found one on Zoe and last night found one crawling on my arm while I was in bed. GROSS!!!
12/25 - There was a park pot luck that several people told me about. Everyone is so welcoming! So I had something to bring, I went to the local store, such as it is, and found a Marie Calendar's pecan pie, which was a hit. Good food, good people.
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| From a hermit crab?? |
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| We had some heavy rain and I was parked under a tree. My mat next to my door is almost completely covered! |
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| Man 'o War? |
Lots of beach walking. Saw some dolphins jumping in the waves. That was fun! I so love seeing them!
12/26 - I decided to stay another night so the I could go to Bellingrath Gardens where they have a huge christmas light show. I went late afternoon hoping to see flowers, but there wasn't much on that line to see. I went back to the van to walk and feed Zoe, then went back in to see the lights in the dark. So many lights!!! Someone said she thought there were over 4 million lights. I'm glad I went. But, in reality, I think that Shelburne Museum does a better job. This is massive, but not that inventive.
I was worried about having to park in the dark, but I did OK. I have a telephone pole and the electric and water that I had to back in between. The backup camera isn't very useful at night due to the reflections, but since I knew what I had to be careful of, I did it!
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| The Bellingrath house that I didn't tour |
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| Beautiful courtyard |
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| Boehm porcelain gallery on the property. The works are just amazing. |
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| It's fun to play with movement. |
12/27 - When I left Dauphin Island, I was torn on going to Mobile to explore or head west along the coast. I ended up deciding to go to Mobile, but it was a rainy day. Kindof on and off rainy, but more on than off. In Mobile, I drove down Goverment St that has a lot of enormous old homes (no photos). I would have liked to have walked it, but it was just too wet. I drove down Dauphin St, which is the main part of town that was supposed to be like NOLA, but I didn't think it was as impressive and nowhere near the scale. Again, too wet to walk. I stopped and got some BBQ ribs and brought it back to the van and drove and found a spot in a residential area to eat. Yum! I had very cheesy Mac and cheese and some spicy coleslaw and cornbread. I had to save some for dinner as I couldn't eat it all. The rain took a short break, so Zoe and I walked around the nearby park. It was sooo beautiful with the live oaks!
Once the rain picked up again we left and headed to a HH in Covington, LA.
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| Welcoming committee at the Abita Brewing Co HH |
12/28 - Went to the Mandeville waterfront on Lake Pontchartrain to walk Zoe. I managed to get her out for a quick walk between downpours in the morning and then the radar was looking promising (though there were tornado warnings), so I decided to take her for a walk here. It was super wet and even the paved walkways were flooded in many spots. More Live Oak pictures! 😀
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| I'm glad I didn't try to drive down this road! Clearance is only like 7 feet (I'm close to 10!). |
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| Lunch view |
Due to the tornado warnings, I decided to go back to Lake End Park, where I sat out the cold and ice storm last year with Sunny. There was no tornado warning here, but still heavy storms to come through. I got a spot on the lake again, but it's much more crowded than last time. I guess lots of people are on break between Christmas and New Years. Lots of families.
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| View from my site |
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| Walk around the park |
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| Thankfully we just had heavy rain and lots of lightning and then all was quiet. |
12/29
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| The calm after the storm. This is my view as I'm writing this. I'm so glad I parked the "wrong" way so that I had this view through my windshield! |
The only downside of this place is the bathroom is gross and everything has rust on it. I went to use it last night and three of four stalls had no tp, while the one that had tp also had 💩 in the toilet along with tons and tons of tp. Normally I would have just flushed it, but I figured it would just clog. I cannot imagine why there was so much tp in there. So, I guess I'll be using my toilet solely. In spite of this, I'm going to stay another night since it is so beautiful today. Tomorrow, I'm going to do a tour at the Whitney Plantation, which is all about slavery, rather than the glamour of the owners.
I went to renew for the night and she told me that someone was coming into my spot. DAMN! So bummed. So I picked another spot, but stayed until after 2 (check in time) and then moved to another spot, then went to pay and they had cancelled, so I moved back and enjoyed the spot some more in the afternoon. They had cleaned the bathroom and I went and showered. I was so afraid that there wouldn't be hot water, but after waiting quite a while it heated up and I enjoyed my shower. I was going to shower in the van, but it is a pain, so I'm glad that I got a decent shower out of this campground.
Morning Fog
Whitney Plantation - focused on the slaves, rather than the slave owners living in luxury because of their slaves. Human beings never cease to amaze me in the horrors they/we can cause other humans and other beings. And it's usually for profits.
20% of slaves died either being transported in horrendous conditions or on the farms that they worked. Being a slave on a sugar plantation (which this was) was considered to be a death sentence because the work was very hard and injuries could easily lead to death by infection. I got the sense that the Haydel family, who owned the plantation, were generally decent to their slaves, but even so, there were still many atrocities committed against the men, women, and children. It's hard to even write about it. Slavery has existed since 3500 BC!
I had scheduled a guided tour, but I was nervous about leaving Zoe in the van as it was around 73 and sunny. I had the van oriented with the rear to the sun, turned on the AC, had 2 fans running to push the cool air forward, to keep Zoe cool in the front. I left her in there, but asked if I could switch from a guided tour to the self paced audio tour so that I could leave to check on her. I was told that if she wasn't aggressive, I could bring her on the tour, so I did. I did not see another dog. I decided to leave the van as I had set it up so I could confirm that should would have been OK. The AC was set to 62 and I can only assume it ran for the whole 2.5 hours we were gone. When I left it was 76 degrees in the front and when we came back, it was 69 and the battery was at 93%! This gives me a lot of confidence for leaving her in the future.
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| My first alligator on this tour |
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| It didn't seem like we could drive through this, but we could |
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| There were many Great White Egrets |
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| Turtles |
Turtles and gator
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| Zoe saying Hi to her giant friends. The male was about 175 lbs! and the "little" female was about 110. |
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| Zoe with her double. |
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| We had to stop here! |
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| Fried cheese curds and flatbread. Yum! The beer was OK. |
I chatted with a couple at the brewery who recommended nearby places in LA that were worth checking out, but they were mostly talking about Mardi Gras and that these towns have a traditional Mardi Gras without the floats and on horseback. Sounds like fun!
I stayed at a county park after crossing over into TX on New Years Eve and there was fireworks ALL AROUND me, but I was only able to see a little. Thankfully Zoe doesn't care, though she did bark a bit at one point, but she wasn't scared.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
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