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2000 Mile Road Trip South - NC,SC,Georgia - in 7 days

Saturday, December 20. 2008

Charleston

There was no plan to this trip. The only thing even remotely close to a plan was my idea that I wanted to go somewhere warm, which (in December) - meant Florida. We didn't make it all the way to Florida because Georgia was already warm enough - days were in the 70's, and that was good enough for me. Plus - they have Palm Trees out there!

We headed out on Dec 14th and drove straight down for about 250 miles (the first day) and wound up staying in a hotel parking lot the first night. (As we've figured out, hotel parking lots are just about the quietest/calmest place to overnight, especially if it's a bit away from the Interstate). We then proceeded onwards and were soon in North Carolina. Despite not having a plan, it was my idea to drive South for a while further before getting off the Interstate and switching to local roads. On board we have a book titled "Road Trip USA", and this book advocates doing just that - travelling the byways and actually "seeing something" rather than zooming past rest areas. By the time we made it to South Carolina, we headed over to Rt 15 and followed the coast line to Charleston, a pleasant and quaint city on the water.

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Wharton State Forest (NJ) Solo Trip

Friday, October 10. 2008

Needing to clear my head a bit, I took the van out alone (for the first time ever) and headed over to the biggest green square on the map of New Jersey. Would you believe that there is actually a considerable forest in New Jersey?

Towering Van

Here is the interesting part... being from North/Central NJ, I am well habituated to prohibitions of all kinds. I am used to seeing "Do Not Enter", "Private Property", "We will shoot you if you think about it", etc. So it was with glum expectations that I found myself driving South on Route 206 in heavy rain, looking to my left at the myriads of tempting dirt roads which all have a white but unreadable (at 50mph) sign posted at the entrance. After passing about 20 of these, I decided to brave the elements and my old notions, and turned into one. I had to drive right up to one to read it, and here is what it said (more or less):

Rules of Conduct in the State Forest: No bad behavior. No exploding nuclear weapons. No disrespecting small rodents.

(I stopped reading at this point. I've never experienced a "Yes you can" sign before - at least that's what this meant to me)

So I drove in and found a very nice patch to park on (after driving through a narrow opening in the bushes and listening to the sound of bush thorns on the paint for a hunded feet or so). It was still raining, so I stayed inside, awaiting nightfall, but the rain suddenly stopped and I went out to explore

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Posted by Admin in Van Trips at 15:07 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

White Mountains (NH) 6 day trip in the van

Wednesday, September 3. 2008

This trip sets the current record for living out of a 1/2 ton van without resorting to hotels!

White Mountains National Park is located in New Hampshire, and is not that small a park (as we found out). It is vaguely reminiscent of the Blue Ridge Parkway, as the drive on the "Cank" (Cancamangus Highway, or Rt 112) is very similar - series of climbs and drops interspersed with overlooks and the occasional "Unimproved Road", as my GPS calls them, invitingly appearing on either side. Unlike the Blue Ridge Parkway, this park charges a fee, a whopping $5 for a week. The permit you get in exchange for you money allows you to park (yes, overnight) just about anywhere you want

One of these overlooks had a parking lot on either side of the road, and the back lot is where we spent most of our nighs - we liked it that much. The overlook faced East so we got to watch the sunrise from bed every morning. Despite what the locals might call a "crowded" situation (local speak for 20 people instead of 10 in a 50 mile radius), "our" parking lot was basically ours for the whole 6 days including Labor Day Weekend - the camera-vision tourist types were interested in the other parking lot, and they would periodically arrive, jump out of the car, put on fake smiles and take pictures, jumping back into their cars so fast that one might think they just smashed someone's mailbox and were now escaping the gun-toting owner.

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Pharaoh Mountain Trip (Adirondacks)

Monday, May 28. 2007

Our first major trip (at least our first trip with photos). We've become less inclined to take photos lately, placing more emphasis on enjoying the moment than trying to have the camera enjoy the moment. This one was a three-day trip that was semi-planned, a coworker of mine grew up in this area and told me where to go and what to see.

In the tame

We set out after work on a Friday afternoon and drove North until it got late enough for us to want to sleep. We then spent some time driving around looking for a Walmart. (Edit: we later figured out that we can park in hotel parking lots, which are quieter and easier to find). Many WalMarts allow overnight parking and one can usually be found only a short detour off your highway route. A suitable store was soon found and we slept in the parking lot, away from the main entrance, and to our surprise we were far from alone. There were other RV's, there were pickup trucks with people sleeping in the front seats, there were some full size trucks with sleeping people too.

I cannot say that this was a very quiet experience, there are usually engines running, starting and stopping within earshot all night, and periodically a street sweeper would drive through the parking lot, polishing the pavement. We were of course very new to this so we didn't sleep that well, worrying that we'll get kicked out. Our standard equipment includes the built-in pull-down shades for the living quarters, and pop-up shades (incidentally, from Walmart) for the windshield and front side windows. Once these are all up it is fairly difficult to see inside the vehicle, especially once the lights are off inside.

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Posted by Akom in Van Trips at 13:44 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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