We’ve been on the road six months now, and time has flown faster than it ever did when we lived the conventional lifestyle.
We want to slow time down and extend this sabbatical. One way to do that is to spend less than we budgeted. We’ve managed to do that again, as this November Expense Report PDF shows.
Next week, we start another Workamping gig, at White Rabbit Acres Farm in Vero Beach, Florida. For 20 or so hours of work each week, we get a free place to stay in one expensive state — for the entire winter season if it works out. Talk about saving money!
In return, we get to find out if we are Farmer Jane and Farmer John material. We’ve always talked about starting up a small hobby farm to help pay for whatever land we settle on. By interning at White Rabbit, we’ll learn the ins and outs of vegetable farming, raising chickens, making biodiesel, and doing what it takes to keep a small organic farm in top shape. Stay tuned.
We’re always on the lookout for remote off-the-grid state and national parks where we can boondock, but have had a hard time finding any since we left Wisconsin’s tornado country.
It seems like there was never a problem finding cool places to boondock out West. We often went without hookups in California, Utah and Colorado. But even here in the middle of the Okefenokee Swamp we have water, power, paved roads and a few neighbors.
I’ve determined that if I don’t write something short and quick with first impressions about new places we see, I never will.
There is so much to see and do on this journey – as I told a Canuck fulltimer yesterday – we could stay on the road for the rest of our lives and never see the entire country. And if I don’t jot down some basic observations about where we’ve been soon after we arrive, I will forget if there is any reason to return when the time comes to plant some roots again.
With that said, I go Pogo … we have made it to Okefenoke Swamp. And we have officially reached the South.
We had a great time in Savannah, filled with so much history and beautiful architecture. While it’s not the most walkable or bike friendly cities we’ve been to, it doesn’t seem like a bad place to live. There’s diversity, history, and a whole lotta good eats; three of the most critical things that make a city thrive.
Since we won’t be updating our Gallery pages until we give it an overhaul, using our new plug in, here are some pics from our Savannah visit.
When I was a little kid, my Mom would listen to her favorite oldies station, humming along to 1950s hits while she did housework. No doubt that many of those hits were written by Johnny Mercer.
My Dad says Mercer was the greatest songwriter of all time, penning countless songs for Broadway shows and movies. Mercer was also the co-founder of Capitol Records. He is buried in the Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, so this week while we were in town, we went to pay our respects to the musical legend.
If you’re a Food Network viewer like we were (before ditching the TV), you’ve probably watched Paula Deen at some point. She is the southern gal with the snappy wit and great sense of southern humor that cooks up homestyle food like nobody’s business.
When we were Walmarting it on Monday night, a friendly security guard in the parking lot told us that Paula’s from Savannah, and her restaurant, Lady & Sons, is downtown.
As the RV industry knows, baby boomers are becoming the largest group of fulltime RVers out there. Sure enough, in most places, Jim and I have been the youngest adults at the campground (Jim’s 41, I’m 38), That is, until we met Chris and Liz (ages 35 and 30). Finally, we randomly met two people from our generation who have also said Adios to careers and the conventional life.
As we sat around the campfire in Myrtle Beach, the four of us wondered how many fulltime travelers are in our age bracket. So I turned to RV.Net Forums to do an informal survey of RVers. Check out these great stories people are telling.
Question: What is the number one killer of domestic pets in the U.S.?
Answer: Euthanasia at animal shelters. Over 9.6 million pets are euthanized every year.
Jim and I have always talked about starting up an animal rescue. We’d buy some rustic land, put rental cabins on it for revenue, and build an animal shelter with a focus on older and special needs dogs. We joked we’d call it “Jerry’s Kids.”
So when Workamper Magazine had an ad with an opportunity at Safe Harbor Animal Farm in Maysville, South Carolina, I thought it would be a great chance to find out if running a shelter is something that might be in our futures. Safe Harbor’s founder, Dr. Lynn Swanson, was kind enough to give us our first workamper opportunity, and invited us to come on over.
We’ve been looking for a great image manager to replace the current gallery solution provided by our host, so I checked out Christophe’s travel blog. Chris informed me that the NextGEN photo gallery plugin has improved since I last gave it a try. Indeed it has.
Let’s take it for a test run here. If it works out to everyone’s delight, you may be seeing some major changes to our roadtripping fulltimer photo gallery. Hopefully the NextGEN photo gallery, albums, and slideshow integration will help us save time and improve this blog. Please let us know what you think.
That is what Rene has been proudly calling this year’s feast. My answer is that every Thanksgiving dinner is a vegetarian banquet. It just happens to also traditionally include a large stuffed bird roasted to juicy perfection. Alas, not this year … and while our big dinner date was a day late this year, it was still delicious!
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