We had been at the Little Bay campground a few hours when a couple in a side-by-side ATV rolled onto the gravel beach and cut the engine. “Fine day, isn’t it?” the driver said. We agreed wholeheartedly – about 70 degrees with the sun shining on the wooded arms of Little Bay and the islands out past the point.

The driver said they were at the beach to assess the day’s squid-fishing prospects. The squid were in, the driver said, and folks go into a bit of a frenzy to catch them when they arrive once every seven years or so.

“Do you like squid?” our new friend asked. (With the dialect in this part of Newfoundland, it was “Does yuh like squid?”) Before we could do much more than nod our heads, the couple sped off on the side-by-side, returned five minutes later, and handed us a bag with a couple of pounds of fresh, cleaned squid. “You’ll like these,” said our friend, who added that he had caught plenty enough to share.

Stumbling in our thanks, we agreed we would like them and asked how to prepare the squid he gave us, which looked like a tubed filet, sans tentacles. He said stuffed and baked was his favorite way, but since we didn’t have an oven, he said we could cut them into strips and fry them in butter. Oh my, but he was right.

We were touched by the generosity of these folks to total strangers – doubly so when a couple hours later they dropped off a bag of codfish they had just caught.

It was seafood night for Liz and Tim.

+++++

I’m taking a nonchronological approach to this installment of the Kudzu Coffee Club because I’m a sucker for an anecdotal lede, and this was such a tasty one. So let me back up a week or so and catch you up on our most recent time in Newfoundland.

Liz’s post from last week told you about our visit to L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site, the thousand year old Norse settlement at the very tip of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula.

The day after our trip to the Norse settlement, we booked a whale-watching boat tour along the Atlantic shore of the Great Northern Peninsula. Dark Tickle Tours is a family owned business that does wildlife, whale, and iceberg tours. We were well past iceberg season and getting close to the end of whale season. But our zodiac boat with seven passengers and one skipper came upon a humpback mother and calf just a mile or so from our launch point. We all quickly learned to spot the whales blowing when they surfaced. Over the next 90 minutes we discretely followed the pair from a distance while they swam, dove, rolled, and breached – a couple times simultaneously. It made me giddy. (Watch a couple of short videos HERE [be sure to watch the end of that first one!] and HERE.)

Our guide, Veric, was a local man who told us a lot about whales and other sea life. He talked about the cod moratorium, which was enacted 30 years ago as the fishery collapsed from international trawling and other over-fishing. The island’s economy was reliant on cod in the same way Eastern Kentucky was reliant on coal, and massive outmigration and economic upheaval ensued. The moratorium has been eased slightly in just the past few years. Locals may catch a few fish every day for their own use, and licensed commercial fishers are allowed a limit that begins to provide a modest living for a few.

Our skipper also showed us some local landmarks – the remnants of fishing villages that had been moved under Newfoundland’s relocation program, the site of an old French-era fishing oven like the reconstructed one we saw working in Port aux Chois, the island where his great-grandfather is buried, and a rebuilt home from the relocation era where an owner had moved the steeple off the destroyed church onto the top of his tool shed to make the place look like it did in the early days. “He’s not the kind of man you’d be expecting to build a church,” the guide said.

The next day we headed back down the Great Northern Peninsula and spent another night in Gros Morne National Park, this time at Shallow Bay. The bay is a rare bit of sandy beach on Newfoundland’s rocky coastline, and we both found the water entirely enjoyable, warm enough to linger in, even for me.

Our next stop was in Little Bay, where the squid and mackerel have been active. The campground is run by the village of Little Bay and has only four sites, all with a view that land developers would kill for if they could get a superhighway put in.

Little Bay is a former copper mining company town. The community has invested in a trail and signage that interprets landmarks for visitors like us. Parts of the community remind us of the Appalachian coalfields – mine tailings and a vague post-industrial feel. But the area is beautiful beyond description and folks seem to be looking ahead for what comes next, not wondering if the mine might reopen. The mine was shut and abandoned more than a century ago, and that is a different timeline than Central Appalachia’s more recent mining history.

From Little Bay, we visited nearby King’s Point, which has a display of a humpback skeleton – amazing to see after our experience with the whales last week. We had lunch on the waterfront, toured a heritage museum, and bought some souvenirs at a local craft shop.

Our next stop was Gander in the central part of Newfoundland, but first we took a quick detour to hike the short trail into Thunder Brook Falls. The water was indeed thundering down, but we had a great time swimming in the creek beneath the falls.

In Gander, we saw a Broadway-quality production of “Come From Away.” The musical is about the 38 flights that were diverted to Gander’s airport on 9/11. About 7,000 passengers spent several days in Gander, nearly doubling the city’s population. The musical tells the stories of passengers and the folks in Gander and surrounding towns who fed, clothed, and housed the unexpected guests. (Oak Ridge Playhouse staged the show earlier this year.) The production was fabulous – wonderful singers and actors in a full theater that seated about 250 folks. We sat behind Newfoundlanders who were back to see the show for the fifth time and next to a couple from Colorado, who, like us, were there for their first. It was a special treat to see such an exemplary performance while sitting in the town where this incredible story of generosity occurred.

Next, we are off to the Bonavista Peninsula in search of puffins and more.

ROAD TRIP QUESTION

What’s one of your earliest memories of making someone laugh?

Liz: Singing the words wrong in hymns at church to make my brother Martin laugh.

Tim: I can’t remember early memories, so I’ll say sticking a green bean up my nose to make Liz laugh. It was before we got married and she still married me!

It’s not easy to get to Newfoundland. There’s no way here except by boat or plane. We took the 7-hour ferry from North Sydney, Nova Scotia, to Channel-Port aux Basques, arriving around 6 pm in the pouring rain. Fortunately, we were able to spend the night just 15 minutes from the ferry landing at JT Cheeseman Provincial Park, trying desperately (without much luck, I’m sorry to say) to avoid running over the multitudes of frogs enjoying a night out in the rain on the road.

Because of its remoteness, Newfoundland remains relatively uncommercialized and uncrowded. And yet it has some of the most incredible scenery Tim and I have ever laid eyes on: soaring green mountains, multiple lakes (called “ponds” up here), and endless views of the Atlantic Ocean and its rocky shores found around every turn in the road.

That remoteness – especially on the western side -- also means amenities like gas stations are not as plentiful, restaurants leave a little to be desired (see sidebar below: “Eating in Newfoundland”), and the roads are … let’s just say, “adventurous.”

But we are not traveling for amenities or fancy restaurants – we are here for the beauty and the culture. You will find French, Irish, English, and Indigenous cultural influences here, as well as miles and miles of undisturbed landscape.

We headed up the western side of Newfoundland to Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland’s largest park and a UNESCO World Heritage site. We stayed in the Berry Hill Campground in Gros Morne for four nights. It’s a very wooded, quiet campground with no electrical hookups, but a bit of wifi at the bath house. We do fine without electric, thanks to Tim’s many solar/battery upgrades to Little Maxine.

On our first full day at Gros Morne we took the Western Brook Pond boat tour through the freshwater fiord, and it was truly breathtaking. It didn’t hurt that it was a beautiful, sunny day, not very typical for Newfoundland. We walked a 3 km path to the edge of the pond to get on the boat, and I felt like I was walking toward one of Tolkien’s Middle Earth landscapes. If you ever get up here to Newfoundland, I highly recommend this tour. (Watch a very short video HERE.)

That night we spent a little time eating fish and chips and listening to live music in the village of Norris Point, which of course made us think of home. It seems like a long way from here!

The next day we visited the Tablelands, where you can actually walk on the mantle of the earth. The mantle here was thrust up as ancient continents collided about half a billion years ago. It is accessible on the surface in only a few other locations across the globe, and helped prove the theory of plate tectonics. To us it looked a bit like Mars.

While in Gros Morne we also swam in a local pond (of course!), hiked up Berry Hill for the views (short video HERE), walked around Berry Hill Pond and listened to the loons (short video HERE), visited Lobster Cove Head Lighthouse, and tried a moose burger and a cod burger. Probably don’t need to do that again.

On our last night in Gros Morne, we discovered there was a theater/song production in nearby Cow Head that was part of the Gros Morne Theatre Festival. It was a wonderful production of traditional Newfoundland music (reminiscent of our own mountain music) and stories from the area.

Next we headed up the Viking Trail highway to the northern most point of the island of Newfoundland. Along the way we stopped at Arches Provincial Park and Port au Choix. At Port au Choix we visited a burial site of the Maritime Archaic Indians, the earliest known people to frequent the area (7500-3500 years before present (B.P.), which was a bit mind-blowing. We also had tea and buns at a traditional French Bread Oven. This is a reconstruction of the type of ovens the French used to bake bread for their fishing fleets, which operated here by treaty until 1904. We also visited the lighthouse there and saw their resident herd of wild caribou lounging around the scrublands on the hillside. One mama caribou and her baby were hanging around the visitor’s center, getting out of the wind. (Watch a short video of the baby HERE.)

The main reason we drove all the way up to the tippy-top of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula was to visit L’anse aux Meadows Historical Site. In the 1960s, the remnants of a Norse trading establishment were found here, providing the only archeological evidence that the Norse people came to North America way before Columbus did. (Note that many people call this the “Viking” site. We discovered that “Viking” is actually the word for the warriors of the Norse people. These people were not warriors – they were explorers and traders.) Of course, there were Indigenous people in this spot already, and we learned about them too, as well as their unfortunate demise. Damn.

The exhibit included not only the archeological sites of the original Norse dwellings from around AD 1000, but replicas of the sod buildings with re-enactors talking about the history there. A fascinating exhibit!

We took a short hike around the grounds of the site and saw some locals hunting for “bakeapple berries.” This area is known for its multiple types of berries, so you’ll find many food items flavored with them.

In addition to the caribou, we have seen a couple of moose far away, and one by the side of the road, but we got no decent photos of either. We also heard coyotes close to our campsite one night but didn’t see them. Everyone here warns you to be careful of moose, caribou, and other wild animals, and guess what … it turns out they are right!

And speaking of wild animals, in our next installment, we’ll go hunting for humpback whales and discover that one way to track them is by smelling their fish breath.

Eating in Newfoundland: Come for the scenery and the wildlife, not the food.

We started this post with a note about the remoteness of Newfoundland, particularly on the western side, and we LOVE the fact that this province is mostly undiscovered. We hope it can remain so. It means the miraculous scenery and quaint villages are unspoiled and the history and culture remain in tact. It also means sketchy cell service and rare wifi, lots of potholes, and a decided lack of variety in food options. Newfoundland is the land of the cod, so you will find plenty of fish & chips, fish cakes, cod chowder, and … for fun … moose burgers. Yes, there are a few “nice” restaurants around, but they are small and usually require reservations in the busy season. That can be hard for campers. But we are okay with all of that. We will try almost anything … once.

ROAD TRIP QUESTION

What’s something that most people are afraid of but you’re not?

Liz: Jumping in cold water

Tim: Rewiring an electrical system

In the past week, we have walked on the seafloor of the Bay of Fundy, hiked out a narrow ridgeline a thousand feet above the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and wandered around the gardens of Gampo Abbey. And we’ve also repeatedly thanked the folks at REI who designed our bug-proof screen tent.

We camped two nights at Bay of Fundy National Park near Alma, New Brunswick. The Bay of Fundy has the world’s largest differential between low and high tides. The tide swings 40 feet in the span of six hours, floating boats in Alma’s small harbor that were resting on pilings a short while ago. The water line recedes about half a mile near Alma, and we walked among the rocks, sand, and mud, getting a close-up view of what normally would require SCUBA gear. I was struck by the similarity of some of the seaweed-covered rocks to my hairline. Mother Nature abhors a comb over.

The park was the site of massive logging operations until less than 100 years ago. The tidal swings helped logging companies move the harvest out to coves, where they were milled and shipped to American and European ports.

From Fundy National Park we moved on to the province of Nova Scotia. As Nova Scotia means “New Scotland,” we were appropriately greeted by a bagpiper at the Visitors Center. We stopped for a few minutes at Peace by Chocolate, a business started by Syrian natives whose chocolate business was destroyed by war a few years ago. After years in a refugee camp, the family was invited to Canada, where they have resumed their work and now have shops in three locations. They donate a share of their proceeds to peacemaking work in the Middle East.

We stayed at a pleasant family campground near Linwood and the next day crossed a short causeway onto the island of Cape Breton (the northern part of Nova Scotia). This causeway is the only road access to the island, and road construction made the crossing tortuous. We managed the delay with the help of Louise Penny’s latest Three Pines mystery, “The Black Wolf.” (If I don’t mention Canada’s summer road construction season again, assume it’s because I’m trying to avoid tedium and self-pity. On the bright side, the flaggers are universally friendly. O Canada!)

The end of the day took us to Cape Breton Highlands National Park, which covers the northern third of Cape Breton. The mountain range plunges from about 1,500 feet to the shoreline along rocky cliffs. We hiked the iconic Skyline Trail (which requires a reservation it’s so popular). We started in mist and fog, which changed to clear skies when we neared the precipice. A carefully engineered boardwalk protects the fragile undergrowth from Vibram-soled tourists like us.

We also enjoyed the short Bog Trail, which wanders through fields of insect-eating plants like the Pitcher Plant, and hiked next to the Cheticamp River on the Salmon Pools Trail, which started a few feet from our campsite in the Cheticamp campground. The water temperature was moderate – not the glacier-fed ice bath we experienced earlier this summer in the North Cascades.

We drove out the Cabot Trail (annually voted one of the most scenic drives in the world) to the northern end of the Cape Breton, where we stopped at Gampo Abbey, where Pema Chodren is the abbess. They don’t give tours, which is understandable, but welcome guests to walk the grounds out to the cliffs over the water and visit the Stupa, a traditional Buddhist monument and a place of reflection and prayer. We walked the Stupa clockwise, as instructed, and read the Buddhist slogans engraved on the wall. The abbey was quiet, modest, and perched on a narrow strip of somewhat flat land looking off the northern tip of Cape Breton. It is much as I have imagined it in the past when I’ve read or listened to Chodron’s writing.

In more prosaic undertakings, we made a few runs to town for ice, a meh dinner out, and grocery shopping. We missed Cape Breton music night at the Doreyman Pub but heard a few songs from a local country-folk band that played Dylan and Monroe with equal and satisfactory results. (Fun fact I learned from Wikipedia: Bill Monroe wrote “The Kentucky Waltz” a couple years before “The Tennessee Waltz” was written.)

This morning we hooked up the camper in the drizzle and drove to North Sydney to catch the seven-hour ferry to Newfoundland, aka “The Rock.” We’ll return to Nova Scotia in about three weeks. As I write this, we are a little less than halfway through the crossing and I see no land in any direction. But never fear. There’s no wifi onboard, so if you’re reading this, we made it.

Road Trip Question

What fictional place do you wish really existed?

Liz: Rivendell in Middle Earth

Tim: The US republic

Tim and I can’t seem to sit still for too long, especially in the heat of summer in East Tennessee. So of course we’ve headed north with our little trailer, Maxine, this time to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland in Eastern Canada. When we left Norris on August 4, it was a sweaty 85 degrees. Three days later in Lewiston, Maine, it was … 92. Excuse me? Not what we were hoping for, but no worries, fun times were had, as well as the usual mishaps. If you’re interested, read on for the details …

We were eager to get to Canada, so we zippidy-do-da’d the first several days – if you call 65 MPH (max) and expensive gas stops every couple of hours zippy. But we did manage to get in some great visits with friends: Andrea and Delbert fed us on fresh summer veggies in Harrisonburg, Virginia; my brother Martin and his wife Cindy treated us to their favorite diner in Katonah, New York; and my women’s retreat friend Carolyn and her family hosted us at their off-the-grid summer place on Little Moose Pond in Maine. We also met our East Tennessee friends Christy and Brandon for lunch in Concord, Massachusetts (they were headed south to home while we headed north – great timing!), and toured Bates College Campus in Lewiston, Maine, with our friend Scotty, who is a professor of chemistry there. All of it was lovely.

On our fourth day traveling we made it to the Canadian border in New Brunswick, where the weather had thankfully cooled down a little bit. That night we camped at a Hipcamp spot – someone’s property where they allow camping. Mouth of Magaguadavic Campground near St. George is really quite a magical place overlooking the Bay of Fundy where it meets the mouth of the river. The owner’s family has lived there for generations cultivating mussels in the brackish water.

We would not be honest if we didn’t add that we experienced some “issues” along the way, but we are grateful to be here, grateful to our house-sitters and others keeping the home fires burning back in Norris, Tennessee, and grateful for the loveliness of the world.

What’s gone well:

• Damn, we’ve got a lot of great friends!

• The clear, healing waters of Little Moose Pond after a long drive.

• Not too much rain so far.

• Our bug tent – a necessity up here.

• Playing the guitar and singing with friends.

• Amazing vistas.

• Maple twist ice cream.

What’s NOT gone so well:

• Scraped the edge of the trailer on a tight corner within the first hour of the trip. Fortunately, duct tape seems to have solved any issues – we’ll keep an eye on it.

• Our little refrigerator in the trailer stopped working on the second day, which honestly sucks, but there is an old-school solution: cooler with ice!

• Our first night actually sleeping in the trailer (night 3), as we were getting into bed, we discovered a large corner of the bedding was wet. Why? It’s a mystery – something else to keep an eye out for. Turns out sleeping without bedding is not that fun.

• “Why is this damn phone not syncing up to the Apple Car-Play … again?!?!?”

• Forgot the fly to the mosquito tent.

But all these problems are solvable in one way or another – they are nothing compared to what many people experience in the world. They teach us to pivot and be flexible, and most of all to remember how lucky we are to be having this adventure.

ROAD TRIP QUESTION:

Would you rather be able to converse with animals, or have lifelong fluency in every language?

Liz: Fluency in every language. Talking to animals would be cool, but that would be too many conversations for me.

Tim: Talk to animals. If Liz can speak all languages and I can talk to animals we can interpret for each other.

In a world that seems to grow louder and meaner and more frightening every day, it’s helpful to be reminded that the media sources we drown ourselves in daily rarely reflect the ground on which we are actually walking. Yes, we have some real reasons to worry about the future of democracy and the planet. But inspiration and hope and joy abound, my friends. You just have to hang out with some real, honest-to-goodness people for a while – preferably in a beautiful setting with live music, merry dancing, and sourdough donuts.

Tim and I got a healthy dose of humanity-at-its-best this past weekend at the Red Wing Roots Music Festival near Harrisonburg, VA. Started 13 years ago by the band The Steel Wheels, this three-day, small to mid-size festival (5,000 people maybe?) is held at Natural Chimneys Park and features about 50 acts spread out between two large stages and three smaller ones.

How to describe the music? Eclectic: Americana, folk, bluegrass, jazz, indie, Latin, hip-hop – some that’s melodic and thoughtful and some that makes you jump out of your camp chair and move. The main thing to know is that ALL of it is live.

This was our fifth time to go to Red Wing, which shows you how much we like it. We meet up with friends and camp there together, making a little compound. This is old-school festival camping: tents or trailers smooshed up together in a field with port-a-potties and a few trucked-in, cold showers. (There are also a few glamping sites.) But it’s totally worth it – especially if the weather is as perfect as it was last weekend.

Yes, in many ways this is a classic music festival, but there is something about it that I find uniquely beautiful: the vibe is just plain lovely. I swear every one of the hundreds of volunteers is warm and helpful. (And there are HUNDREDS of volunteers – this festival is very well organized.) And the festival-goers are the same: “Can I help you with that?” “Yes, you can sit in my chair in the shade when I’m not using it.” “Please break in line for the port-a-potty if you’re in a hurry.” “Here, let me pull you out of the ditch where you wrecked your bike” (a story for another time). I guess it makes sense for a festival with two basic tenets: “(1) Music brings us together; and (2) EVERYONE is welcome and worthy of respect.”

This festival is eco-friendly (plastic water bottles are discouraged and they have plenty of water filling stations), and the food for sale is all local and REALLY GOOD – see the reference to delicious sourdough donuts. Alcohol can’t be brought in, but local brews and wine are sold in two designated areas, which we nicknamed “beer jail.” But it’s not really jail – you can still hear and see the music from those areas. There’s also yoga beneath the “chimneys”, bubbles, hoola-hoops, cool local jewelry and clothing to spend your money on. … I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

Some favorite acts we knew going in:

• Anna Tivel (who conflicted with James McMurtry – hard choice!)

• Lucius

• The Wood Brothers

Some of the new-to-us musicians we liked:

• Mon Rovîa

• Spectator Bird

• Erin Lunsford

• Ric Robertson

• Driftwood

Great to dance to:

• Los Mirlos

• Big Freedia

• Squirrel Nut Zippers

There were many others we enjoyed – too many to list. And many of the songs carried messages of social justice and hope for the future. If you’re looking for a reminder that there are some really good people in the world and some really great music, put this festival on your list.

And get hopeful with these lyrics from Mon Rovîa’s song “Heavy Foot”:

Love me now
Hold me down
And the government
Staying on heavy foot
And they tried to keep us all down
No they never gonna keep us all down
No they never gonna keep us all down

ROAD TRIP QUESTION:

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT OUTDOOR MUSIC FESTIVALS?

Liz: The late-night sounds of people singing together around their campsites.

Tim: Dusk, when the air cools and the music gets a little louder.

Written by Tim

Since a quick visit to the North Cascades more than 15 years ago, Liz and I have wanted to return to the national park that lies just south of the Canadian border in Washington.

The mountain range is nicknamed the American Alps because of the granite peaks, year-round snow caps, and glaciers. It is a stunning landscape that we’ve remembered fondly all these years. We were happy to have the chance to return for a longer visit in early June.

The North Cascades is a complex of National Park units, federal Recreation Areas, and National Forests. The formal North Cascades National Park is mostly wilderness, accessible only by hiking or paddling into the backcountry. Most day-hikers like us skirt the edges of the park to get glorious glimpses of the nearby snow- and glacier-covered mountains. The North Cascades, which is an active volcanic range, is the most glaciated region of the Lower 48.

We stayed near the Skagit River, which bisects the park from east to west. Home base was an old-school tourist “resort” between Rockport and Marblemount called Glacier Peak Resort, RV Park, Campground, and Winery. We flew out, so we didn’t get a chance to try the primitive campground on the banks of the Skagit River. But it was beautiful – large Western cedars with moss and ferns, with the snow-fed Skagit making the surrounding air noticeably cooler. We stayed in an old cabin (the original structure built in 1909 and adapted many times since). The cottage was wonderfully funky – a hodgepodge of used furniture, oddly placed fixtures, and mismatched silverware. It felt as if the cottage could have been plucked out of a Catskills summer camp.

The area was quiet because school was still in session, and the main road (Route 20) was closed about 20 miles east of us because of rock slides. The restaurants had limited hours but were all local. We got a great burger and Indian food locally.

We did a few short hikes around the North Cascades visitor center in Newhalem. There were small patches of old-growth along the Skagit, a pre-settler archeological site on Newhalem Creek, and, always, the white peaks in the distance. The first day was warm enough to brave the Skagit River, which was 54 degrees, according to the thermometer on my watch.

The second day of our trip, we drove 10 miles or so up a forest service road on the southern side of Mt. Baker, a volcanic peak that rises about 11,000 feet above sea level. (Watch a short video of Baker Lake HERE.) We hiked a few miles into the backcountry for a closer view of Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan, which hid behind clouds for much of the day. We also drove to an overlook of Diablo Lake (watch a short panoramic video HERE) and realized after a few minutes of deja vous that this was one of the places we had stopped on our 2007 cross-country trip with the kids. The lake and mountains were no worse for the wear, although I felt just a little older.

Part II – Orcas Island

Written by Liz

After three days exploring North Cascades we headed toward the ferry landing in Anacortes, WA. Since I am a sucker for roadside attractions, I had to stop at the “Concrete Welcome Center” and the local Bigfoot carving. Bigfoot looked a bit forlorn, and honestly – who can blame him (her?).

The ferry from Anacortes to Orcas Island, WA, takes a little over an hour and provides a gorgeous view of the islands and inlets of the Salish Sea. Orcas is the largest of the San Juan Islands – about 60 square miles and shaped like two saddle bags. We have visited this island a few times before because we are lucky enough to have good friends who have a house on top of the island’s Buck Mountain.

Orcas is a magical place – full of old-growth forests, huge trees, lots of birds, and a profusion of flowers. The vibe is low-key and artsy. It has excellent restaurants and galleries, but it is (so far) not commercialized and well worth a visit.

The purpose of our visit was to chillax and hang out with our friends, so we didn’t do a lot of exploring this time, but we highly recommend you visit! Places to explore include:

• Moran State Park (lots of hiking)

• Cascade Lake (swimming and canoeing)

• Any of the sea-kayaking or whale-watching tours

• One or more of the little villages – Eastsound is the biggest

• Mt. Constitution (drive or hike – amazing views)

• Ferry rides to the other islands

I would not be honest if I didn’t add that traveling to these islands from this neck of the woods is NOT EASY. We’re talking multiple plane rides, car rental or car service from Seattle to the ferry terminal, and a ferry ride (make reservations), or an expensive puddle jumper plane directly from Seattle to Orcas.

But it sure is a beautiful spot and a great place to stay nice and cool in the summer. We hope you get to visit someday.

ROAD TRIP QUESTION:

WHAT’S SOMETHING THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE AFRAID OF, BUT YOU AREN’T?

Liz: Jumping into cold water.

Tim: Rewiring an electrical system.

Spring is here, friends, and that means it’s time to get Little Maxine back out on the road. Not that our little trailer hasn’t been out of the shed over the winter months. In fact, Tim did some more renovations recently, mostly adding more solar panels and battery power. If you want to nerd out on the details, Tim has added a short description below for the voltage-enhancement-inclined.

The real impetus for the trip was a concert at the Grey Eagle music venue in Asheville on March 26. Headlining the show was Anna Tivel, an indie singer-songwriter from Oregon. We are fairly new fans of her gorgeous voice and story-rich songs that find so much beauty and power within the mundane. She had a band of three musicians with her, so it was a full sound. Opening for Anna was Alexa Rose, another singer-songwriter we have come to love. She also has a lyrical voice and writes sad and evocative songs, often about her hometown in rural Virginia.

The Grey Eagle is two notches up from a dive, but it is still a great place to hear music because it is so intimate. Just make sure you arrive early enough to find a place to park on the street. It’s usually not a problem but be aware. We loved the concert and hope you will check out these fine musicians. And downtown Asheville is always fun to visit because of the funky stores (like Malaprops and Madam Clutterbuckets Neurodiverse Universe) and great restaurants. We had a nice outdoor meal at Carmel’s Kitchen and Bar. If you go, try the pimento cheese grits.

It’s not always easy to find a decent campground close to a city, but Lake Powhatan Campground in the Pisgah National Forest is an exception. This was our third time staying at this wonderful campground, which is shaded with pine trees and hard woods, has a small lake for swimming and fishing, and is only a 25-minute drive to downtown Asheville.

This campground has about a hundred sites, though only 21 have electricity. We are fine for a few days without electricity (see the nerdy description below) and actually prefer that because the non-electric sites are quieter. Bears are common in this area, so you have to be careful about storing your food. We didn’t see any bears (other than Smokey), but we did see a pileated woodpecker and a row of sunning turtles on the lake.

Another amazing feature of this campground is the approximately two-mile trail through the woods that leads straight to the backdoor of the North Carolina Arboretum. The Arboretum is a lovely place to visit and has cultivated gardens, numerous well-marked walking and biking trails, and a nice snack bar. If you drive, you’ll need to pay $25 to park your car. But riding your e-bike through the woods is free!

Here’s hoping your spring is off to a good start.

Nerd Alert: Camper Improvements

Written by Tim

Partial retirement has allowed me to spend more time tinkering with our camper, adding features to the electrical system that make camping more comfortable and enjoyable for us on the road.

Last year before our circumnavigation of Lake Superior, I added components that allowed us to run a coffee maker, kettle, and microwave off the camper’s 12-volt battery when we aren’t plugged in. This year, I doubled our battery capacity and added an air conditioner that will allow us to cool the camper when we aren’t on the electrical grid. I also installed additional solar panels on the roof and added panels we can set up on the ground to catch the sun when we are camped in shady spots.

Next, I’m installing a DC-to-DC charger, which will charge the trailer’s batteries from the truck’s alternator. This should ensure that we arrive at our campsite with a full charge on the batteries, giving the solar panels a head start on topping up the batteries each day. We love the flexibility of being able to camp off grid while still having the convenience and comfort of a few electrical appliances.

Road Trip Question

If you could have any animal for a pet – and they’d be friendly like a pet – what animal would you choose and what would you name them?

Liz: A fox because they are so cute. I would name her Rowan (“red”).

Tim: A dog named Jordie.

Written by Tim

Not infrequently, our road trips develop an instantaneous theme song that we start singing together as if on cue. (I know; we are too cute for our own good a fair bit of the time.)

Some musical themes of past trips:

• En route to Rock Island State Park. Going to Rocky Island, sow a little cane.

• Lake Superior. The legend lives on …

• Cross-country trip with the kids years ago. Where you lead, I will follow … (We were watching “The Gilmore Girls.”)

Most recently, Handel came along for the ride on a day trip to nearby sites, and we found ourselves singing, Every valley shall be exalted. We never got past the first line, because, hey, it’s a Handel aria and we are folk musicians.

Nevertheless, the song joined us at vantage points on the Cumberland Plateau: descending the highway on switchbacks into the Sequatchie Valley, climbing the plateau’s escarpments three times, and seeing the Tennessee Valley stretch from horizon to horizon a thousand feet below our perch on Mount Roosevelt (see photo above).

The experience was, well, exalting.

Sandhill Cranes

The impetus for our day trip was to see the sandhill cranes at the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge, about 100 miles south of our home in Norris. A large portion of the eastern sandhill crane population stops during migration to fuel up at the confluence of the Hiwassee and Tennessee rivers, now Chickamauga Lake, thanks to TVA.

Sandhill cranes are big, loud, and beautiful. Four feet tall in their stockinged feet. Wing spans of up to six feet. A bright red patch on the head. Bugle calls that are audible for a mile. They are hard to miss, especially given that they travel in flocks of thousands.

There’s a Sandhill Crane Festival in mid-January. We opted for a quieter time when we could park at the observation area and take our time.

The birds covered acres and acres of ground, looking like sheep on the hills in the distance. But they did not say “bah.” To hear a little of the chatter, CLICK HERE.

Cherokee Removal Memorial

A few miles from the Hiwassee Wildlife Management Area is the Cherokee Removal Memorial Park. The park is located near Blythe Ferry, a staging ground for Cherokee people who were forced in the late 1830s to move from their homes in the southeastern United States to what is now Oklahoma.

The memorial park has informational displays about Cherokee history and culture, focusing on the policies that led to the removals and the experiences of the people who endured – or perished – on the trip. Especially moving is a monument bearing the names of Cherokee families that were identified in the 1830 Census. These were some of the people who likely traveled the Trail of Tears less than a decade later.

The park is a joint venture of Meigs County, Tennessee Valley Authority, the state wildlife agency, and Friends of the Cherokee. The National Park Service includes the site in its Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. I’m proud that local residents and the county government were a big part of the leadership for creating this memorial park.

Dayton and the Scopes Trial

About 15 minutes north of the removal memorial park is the small city of Dayton, famous for the 1925 trial of John Scopes for violating a state law banning the teaching of human evolution in public schools. There’s a small museum in the basement of the Rhea County Courthouse, where the trial occurred. Also on the courthouse grounds are statues of Clarence Darrow, who helped defend Scopes, and William Jennings Bryan, who assisted the state with prosecution.

In 1925, Dayton leaders fought to get the test case for the law tried in Rhea County, thinking it would attract attention and business to the city. One hundred years later, we stopped by, so score one for the boosters, I guess.

Walden Ridge

From Dayton we headed west to climb out of the Tennessee Valley (Every valley … ) onto a protrusion of the Cumberland Plateau called Walden Ridge. The top of the ridge is just a few miles wide, and the highway quickly descends – with switch-backs and a couple hairpin turns – into the Sequatchie Valley (... shall be exalted). The valley is narrow, ruler straight (not crooked) and 65 miles long. It’s a lovely area and a unique way to see the Cumberland Plateau, with its escarpments rising on both sides of the highway.

We stopped in Pikeville for a croissant and tea at a nice local bakery downtown called Miller’s Bread. Pikeville might be a town to visit again some other day.

Heading north to the head of the valley (yes, another refrain) near Crossville, we stopped to check out the campground at Cumberland Mountain State Park. It’s promising, and there’s a Civilian Conservation Corp memorial like ones we’ve seen in other states.

Mount Roosevelt

Taking the old road (U.S. 70) from the head of the valley back down the eastern escarpment to Rockwood, we made a spur-of-the-moment decision to follow a sign to the Mount Roosevelt overlook. The one-lane road wound up a ridge to an elevation of about 2,000 feet, overlooking the town of Rockwood 1,000 feet below. There was a great view of the Tennessee Valley, which stretched to the horizon to the south. It’s quite a sight and worth singing about. (CLICK HERE for a panoramic view.)

Boy Scout Memorial

In Rockwood, we spent some time finding a monument erected in memory of members of Boy Scout Troop 45, who were victims of a 1929 flash flood. The memorial is about six miles south of Rockwood where U.S. 27 crosses Whites Creek. The modern, four-lane highway that crosses the creek on a long causeway was built after the monument was erected. That means visitors have to double back on an unmarked service drive and walk under the highway to see the stone monument up close.

Home Again

We logged 250 miles on our outing and were gone about eight hours. We sang the Handel phrase an estimated 37 times in the course of the trip, not even close to setting a record for road-trip theme songs.

We returned wondering how many more nearby attractions we need to visit and what songs we might sing along the way. It’s what we do.

BONUS CONTENT

Click HERE to read a poem about watching Sandhill Cranes.

And HERE is a non-folk singer performing Handel’s “Every Valley” aria.

ROAD TRIP QUESTION

What’s the weirdest roadside attraction you’ve ever been to?

Tim: The UFO welcome center in Bowman, SC.

Liz: The last remaining clam-shaped Shell gas station in Winston-Salem, NC, complete with the weird figures inside.

Tim and I don’t do new year’s resolutions, but he will tell you that I love a good list. (Who doesn’t?) Here’s a partial list of what I’m planning for 2026:

• Visit the Sandhill Crane Festival January 17-18 in Birchwood, TN. We’ve never been to this festival, but we have friends who go often. It’s all about viewing migrating sandhill cranes and other birds, being outside in winter, and celebrating our natural world. Sounds perfect.

• Take another long camping trip, probably in early fall 2026 – maybe to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia? If you’ve been, send us some suggestions! Other, shorter trips are also on the horizon.

• Get in the water whenever possible. The photo below is from December 27. The air was relatively warm (60s) but the water was 53, which is the edge of what is possible for me when it comes to cold-water “swimming.”

• Complete some household projects that have lived on another list for years, namely: “House Projects To Do After We Retire.” Dammit, the time has come.

• Continue to boycott Amazon, Home Depot, and Target (read why HERE if you’re interested), as well as Spotify (they are running ads for ICE; try TIDAL instead, which also pays its musicians more).

• Continue to fight the dismantling of our democracy. I do this through our local Indivisible group (find a group near you HERE), as well as many other organizations, all of which give me hope.

• Listen to Tim play the guitar. He makes it look easy, but he spends hours practicing and figuring out new chords and songs. If you think listening to him play one phrase over and over would be annoying, strangely – you would be mistaken. In fact, it is both fascinating and beautiful. Watch this short video of him practicing.

• Keep being silly. Case in point, here is our family’s latest photo.

• Stay connected. This Substack is one way of doing that.

Tim’s list:

For the most part, my list of 2026 possible activities could be described as “I’ll have what she’s having.” Except for the cold water bits:

• I will keep tinkering with Maxine, our camper.

• I’d like to write a song or two and sing a few times, mostly with friends in my living room and theirs. If I keep a good set of callouses on my fingers, that means I’m playing guitar enough to keep my head on straight.

• I’m still working a couple days a week at the Center for Rural Strategies. 2026 marks our 25^th anniversary, and we will do something to acknowledge that.

• And I will take the time to enjoy a second or third cup of coffee before I get going in the morning. Truth is, I’ve been working on this goal for a lot of years, but there’s always room for improvement. This morning, it’s cold but the sun is out. And Jordie is lying in her bed at the window, snoring contentedly.

  

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May 2026 bring us all perseverance, wisdom, laughter, sincerity, courage, and above all – joy.

from Liz & Tim

Orchard Lake Campground in Saluda, NC

Since Tim and I didn’t have any special plans for Thanksgiving, it seemed like a good idea to join our friends Gina and Beth on their camping trip to Saluda, NC. That is until we saw the weather report: Highs in the 30s and lows in the 20s.

“Well, this is going to be interesting,” we said to ourselves. And it was. Cold, and very interesting.

Downtown Saluda, NC, population 680

Saluda is a little Blue Ridge Mountain town about a 40-minute drive south of Asheville – almost to the South Carolina border. It used to be a railroad town, and tracks still run right through the middle of it, but there are no more trains. With a population of only 680, it has a surprising number of local shops and restaurants, so it attracts retirees and tourists like us — people who want to get away to the mountains, but would also love a good chai latte.

Tim and I don’t often go for the “full hook-up” camping experience, but given the time of year, it was a necessity. Gina and Beth found the Orchard Lake Campground in Saluda, which looked promising. The bathhouses are closed up from November to April, but since we had full hookup, we were okay.

Orchard Lake Campground does indeed have a small lake — two, actually. Most people stay at this campground to fish or swim. Obviously, we did not do either of those things. (I thought about getting in the lake for two seconds, but I worried someone might haul me away in a straight jacket.) In fact, we were practically the only people there. This campground has quite a few semi-permanent trailers on site — you know, the kinds with built-on porches and signs that say “Life is Better at the Lake.” Very few of these vacation homes were occupied during our visit. And who can blame them? Like I said, it was quite cold.

One of the lakes at Orchard Lake Campground, surrounded by empty vacation RVs

The campground also has some “non-permanent” sites like the ones we stayed in, some non-electric tent sites, and even a few small cabins to rent. It’s probably a bustling place in the warmer months. There is a long list of rules one must agree to follow (like “no public displays of affection” and “no foul language”), but since it was too cold for our usual public displays of affection, we were fine with it. It’s a Christian campground (the Wi-Fi network is called “Jesus Loves You”), which — I’m sad to admit — can make me wary, but it had a friendly vibe and was quite lovely.

Welcome sign

Our little camper Maxine kept us toasty when we were inside where we could read and nap, and Tim could play the guitar. Even our dog Jordie, who had her bed on the floor, approved. And Gina and Beth brought an amazing tent — complete with heaters — that we set up between our two sites. Very cozy! We did take short walks, but a lot of time was spent inside with the heaters.

Jordie enjoying the view and the warmth from the tent.

We took a couple of outings. One day we strolled through Saluda visiting the shops and had dinner at the Purple Onion restaurant. We highly recommend it. Another day, we drove to the 400-acre Jeter Mountain Farm, about 45 minutes away. In the summer and fall they provide pick-your-own apples and other fruits, but they also have a hard cider taproom, a bakery, a coffee house, a kids play area, etc. It’s quite a complex. There were not any apples to pick while we were there — they were selling brought-in Christmas trees instead — so we enjoyed the cider, scrumptious apple donuts, outdoor music, and a tractor ride. Check out a short clip of the musicians who were playing OUTSIDE in the cold; bless their little ol’ hearts. (Note the gloves.)

Brisk tractor ride at Jeter Mountain Farm

“But what about Thanksgiving dinner?” I’m sure you’re asking. No hotdogs on a stick or chili in a can for this crew! Gina and Beth had the foresight to order a Thanksgiving feast from Fresh Market in Asheville, which Tim and Gina picked up Thanksgiving morning. Carving a turkey in a trailer is indeed tricky, as is trying to warm everything up with only two teeny microwaves, but we made it work.

Jordie “helping” Tim carve the turkey

Given the state of our country right now, this was a nice break and a good way to spend Thanksgiving: a beautiful setting, good friends, yummy food (cooked by someone else), and a glittering array of stars filling the dark night sky. Yes, it was cold, but we stayed warm. We hope you did too.

Moon over the campground

ROADTRIP QUESTION:

If you could make one inanimate object come to life, what would it be, and what kind of personality would it have?

Tim: My Gibson LG2 guitar. Practical, down-to-earth, helpful, and unselfish.

Liz: The wooden, laughing Buddha on my meditation table. Jolly and happy at all times.

Cades Cove, the most popular part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, is known for its wildlife and beautiful mountain vistas.

It’s also known for traffic jams and irony.

The 11-mile loop road in the cove can take a minimum of a couple hours to complete by car during summer and leaf season. That’s the traffic jam part. The irony stems from the park service’s decision in the ‘30s to remove the cove’s landowners, then create an idealized version of a “typical pioneer community” after they had emptied the valley.

Traffic and irony aside, Cades Cove is popular for a reason. It’s beautiful, accessible, and a great place to see wildlife.

We’ve camped at Cades Cove several times, most recently a couple months ago. It’s an easy trip for us to “the quiet side of the Smokies,” which is how the gateway community of Townsend bills itself (a comparison to the viral commercial development that swallowed Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, the other primary Tennessee entrance to the park).

The best time for us to visit Cades Cove is Wednesdays from the first week of May to the last week of September, when the road is closed to motorized vehicles. That gives bikes and pedestrians free rein. No “bear jams.” No incessant idling. No out-of-staters blocking traffic to gaze at a horse. E-bikes make the 11-mile loop in an easy 1-hour circuit with a couple stops. With regular bikes, add a half hour or hour and expect to walk your bike up a few hills, if you are me.

Left, Liz and Tim on regular bikes in 2022 (nearing heart-attack territory). Right, Liz and Tim on e-bikes in 2025 ( much happier).

The first couple of miles have a gradual descent, making for a speedy entry. Don’t get cocky. For each decline, there is an equal and opposite incline, with an ascent of about 700-800 feet total, though my thighs scoffed at this number when I rode the loop on a regular bike in 2022. The low point of the cove loop (about 200 feet lower in elevation than the entrance) is about halfway around, where there’s a visitor’s center with facilities. From there, the back half is a little more challenging, reminding me of the “bike hikes” we used to take when I was a kid on a single-speed stingray in the hills of Jackson County, Kentucky. (In those days, I spent a lot of time pushing my bike up hills and trying to outrun dogs.) There are many places to pull off and enjoy the view, visit an old church or cabin, or take short walks to other points of interest.

Cades Cove Methodist Church, circa 1830. Two doors were built to
separate males and females. Below — inside the church.

On our most recent visit to Cades Cove, we camped in Little Maxine on Tuesday and Wednesday nights in the campground at the head of the cove. That put us just a quarter mile’s ride to the start of the loop road on Wednesday (bike day). If you want to stay just one night, you can make it back to the campground in time for noon checkout if you don’t dally over your scrambled eggs. And note that the Smokies have started charging for parking everywhere in the park except at your campsite. Buy your pass ahead of time to save time and trouble, print it out, and leave it on your dash. Easy peasy. And all the money stays in the park to help run and maintain this one-of-a-kind public resource.

Cades Cove is one of the best places in the Smokies to view wildlife, especially if you’d rather not hike into the back country. Unlike most of the Smokies, the cove offers unobstructed views; your eyes can see what’s out there. The last couple of springs, we’ve seen several mama bears with cubs on each circuit, and once an adolescent bear sleeping in the notch of a tree near the campground. (In two autumn excursions, we haven’t seen any bears.) Also abundant are turkey and deer (which are no big whup for folks who live in Norris). Liz had a rare sighting of a wild boar this fall in woods near the loop road.

Bears in Cades Cove, spring 2022.

The other big attractions in Cades Cove are the pastoral, mountain views, courtesy of open fields maintained with human intervention. These views are beautiful any time of year but are especially vibrant in spring, when dogwoods and sarvis trees are blooming, and fall, when the deciduous forest primps for leaf-peepers. On our September trip, we were a little early for autumn colors but had a beautiful, sunny fall day.

The Cades Cove Campground is relatively quiet on the non-generator side where we have stayed. It’s shaded, with the bare necessities – no showers, no electricity, but flush toilets and a camping store. There are good spots for tents and smaller campers and RVs. There are bike rentals and a horse-riding stable. Bears can be a nuisance in the campground, and the park service seems serious about enforcing food storage rules. Dogs are allowed but can’t go on the trails and must be on a leash in the campground. Jordie, our dog, did not go with us. She had a sleepover at Nell’s. (Thanks, Herb and Kathleen!)

Cades Cove non-generator campsite.

Another popular attraction on the Townsend side of the park is the Townsend Wye, or Y. There’s a bend in the Little River, a cascade, and a wonderful set of deep swimming holes and small sandy beaches. We went swimming twice. The water temp was a perfect 65 degrees on a sunny September day.

Brisk!

Townsend has some places to eat. Nothing to blog home about, that we’ve found so far. There are gas stations, a small IGA, a coffee shop or three, some motels. There’s also a paved bike path that runs the length of the town, making it another great place to pedal your blues away.

We took a one-hour ride in the truck to Elkmont to check out the campground. We’ll definitely be camping there in the future. And we took a gorgeous hike along the Little River while we were there.

Little River at Elkmont.

There is so much ground to cover in the Smokies. We will likely visit some other sections in the future. But Cades Cove offers a lot of what we like. It’s quiet, bikeable (on the right day of the week), and nestled at the foot of the Smokies. And with our current cascade of irony in the U.S., the relative trickle coming from Cades Cove feels more than manageable.

P.S. If you’d like to learn more about how the National Park Service developed Cades Cove, take a look at this master’s thesis on the topic. Kristen Olsen wrote the paper as part of her degree in historic preservation planning at Cornell.

The Blue Ridge Parkway is a ribbon of highway running straight through my past. I grew up visiting Western NC every summer, hiking for huckleberries, visiting the blooming rhododendron at Craggy Gardens, and climbing the tower on Mt Mitchell, all of which meant a ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway. All it takes is a glimpse of those hand-lettered signs and I’m transported.

I was definitely feeling nostalgic back in August when Tim and I (and Little Maxine) spent four days in the Mount Pisgah Campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway southwest of Asheville, NC. We had never camped there before, and I’ve got to say that it is now one of my favorite campgrounds of all time. Why? So cool (temp-wise / 5000 feet). So lush. So quiet. So close to hiking trails and waterfalls. And oh so accessible to the fabulous mountain views and great food at Pisgah Inn, right across the street.

More about the inn in a minute, but for those who are interested in the campground, this one offers no electricity and has sketchy cell service, but it does have nice bathrooms with flush toilets and a shower. Most of the sites are what I would call “old-fashioned,” meaning people mostly camped with tents back when it was created. Most sites have a parking area, and off from that, the firepit and picnic table are tucked back in the rhododendron and hardwoods where folks can pitch their tent. We had no trouble getting Little Maxine and our truck in the parking area and used the tent area for hangin’. Nobody would accuse me of being “old fashioned” in general, but I like this type of campsite. The campground is open May through October, and sites run about $30 each.

View from the tent area of our site

The weather while we were there was either lousy or lovely, depending on your point of view. It drizzled and rained a good bit, and about half the time we were surrounded by a fog so thick we thought we might step right into Brigadoon at any moment. But the fog brought with it an element of mystery and silence that was magical (except when we were driving through it).

Driving in this fog is nuts!!!

Despite the clouds, we saw some stunning views across the street from the campground at Pisgah Inn. This charming inn has been around since 1919, and the views from its observation deck and semi-circle of rocking chairs are quite spectacular. You don’t have to be a guest of the inn to hang out and enjoy the scenery, which I think is pretty down-to-earth of them. Of course, they don’t mind if you buy a glass of wine at the wine bar for way more than what you would spend on an entire bottle back home, but it’s not required. We had an excellent dinner in the restaurant there one night. Tim had an elk steak, and I had mountain trout. It sure beat the warmed-up soup we had back at the camper.

View from Pisgah Inn

We took our e-bikes with us and did bike the parkway for a few miles. It’s super fun, though it can be a bit unnerving when a lot of cars pass by or when you go through one of the parkway’s many tunnels. Don’t forget to turn on your light!

There are numerous places to hike near the campground. I wanted to visit Graveyard Fields because I often camped there with friends when I worked in the area in my early 20s, and I hadn’t been back since then.

Graveyard Fields got its name because hundreds of years ago a huge “wind-blow” uprooted the spruce forest there. Eventually the leftover stumps and uprooted trees rotted, leaving dirt mounds that looked like headstones. But a fire in 1925 and the ensuing growth mean it’s no longer reminiscent of a graveyard, at least to me. In my memory, my friends and I used to just pitch our sleeping bags in the open areas of the fields (which – by the way, like most of the things I did as a youth – is not allowed!), but I didn’t see any such open areas during this visit. You leave a place for 40 years and everything changes — sheesh!

I wanted to hike to the falls we used to dip into back in my youth, but it turns out there are two falls on this Graveyard Fields trail, and we went to the wrong one. (We went to Upper Falls, a longer hike. We’ll go to Second Falls next time.) But it was still a gorgeous hike, though the trail is gutted and very muddy in places, as a consequence of Hurricane Helene’s destruction last year.

Yellowstone Creek on the Graveyard Fields hike

Upper Falls

Though it was August, fall was on display

This camping adventure was definitely a trip down memory lane for me, but anyone would enjoy the delights of the Blue Ridge Parkway, so I highly recommend it. And if anyone reading this has memories of Graveyard Fields in the early 1980s, I’d love to hear them!

Me at Second Waterfall at Graveyard Fields, early 1980s

ROADTRIP QUESTION (yes, we’re stilling doing these!):

If you could teach a dog to do one human thing, what would it be?

Liz: Watch British mysteries with me.

Tim: Mow the lawn.

Written by Tim

Liz and I live in our Someday House. That’s a term we borrowed from our friend Anne Shelby, who wrote a delightful children’s book by the same name.

A Someday House is the home you dream of living in … someday. “Someday we’ll live in a house in the woods.” “Someday we’ll have enough room to keep a jigsaw puzzle going all the time.”

Everyone’s Someday House is different. For us, we’ve dreamed of natural beauty and room for family, friends, and music. Lots and lots of music.

One of the things we love about our current home is that there’s enough room for rehearsals, recording, and even live performances. In the past 10 years or so, we’ve hosted several house concerts. At house concerts, or house shows, as they are also called, touring musicians perform in an intimate space for a group of friends and neighbors. The audience gets to listen closely to the performers and directly support their work.

For our house shows, we convert our living room and dining room into a small performance space. Thirty or so people can listen to musicians in a perfect environment, sitting a few feet away from the artists, who use little or no amplification. Typically, we provide overnight accommodation for the musicians. We feed them supper (often from the potluck that our friends provide for the evening). In the morning, we provide breakfast and send them on their way with a cup to go and, frequently, a hug goodbye.

In September, Lowland Hum, a husband-and-wife duo, entertained about 25 of us in our living room. It was our favorite show yet.

The evening was half concert, half potluck, and half sleep-over party. Yes, I know that adds up to more than 100%; this was an evening of abundance.

Lowland Hum, who are Daniel and Lauren Goans, create magical vocal harmonies delivered with an honesty that penetrates my heart. While I also love vocal stylists who can growl, emote, and dramatize, Lauren and Daniel create a sound with no artifice. It sounds simple and unadorned. But performing that type of “simple” singing requires a lot of skill. What you hear is what you get. There is nowhere for an untrue note or careless delivery to hide. And it is this singing style that first attracted me to Lowland Hum.

I found Lowland Hum’s cover of the Beatles “I Will” after attending the wedding of our friends Stacy and John. The couple walked in together to a live version of “I Will,” and thereafter I spent a few days exploring various covers of the song. Lowland Hum’s performance of “I Will” transfixed me. I played it for Liz, and she had a similar reaction. The highlight of the performance for me is Lauren’s voice. The quiet honesty of her performance softened my heart.

We quickly found the rest of Lowland Hum’s catalog, which includes several albums of their own hauntingly quiet and effective songs, plus covers of diverse artists such as the Zombies, Peter Gabriel, the Velvet Underground, and the Ronettes. Many of their own compositions focus on mystery and wonder; their arrangements often have a chant-like quality. And always there is the interplay of beautiful harmonies that follow unexpected lines.

Another joy of house shows for us is getting to spend some time with musicians whose work we admire. Lauren and Daniel came with their two sons, ages 4 and 2, and a helper. We talked about parenthood, music, books, mentors, and the directions our lives have taken. We grew to admire them even more and were inspired by the intentional way they lead their lives.

And our friends who attend these shows? Well, the artists always comment on how attentive and supportive the room is. Performers always respond to a room that really listens. And our friends do just that. In most cases, our house shows have been a gracious experience filled with mutual affection. Can an artist or an audience ask for more?

Daniel and Lauren are just starting to tour again after taking a break from the road to start their family. We hope they’ll make it back to our Someday House someday.

Click the photo below to watch Lowland Hum’s version of “I Will.”

Welcome, friends and neighbors, to the Kudzu Coffee Club, which we are launching to stay in touch as we wander the world, trying to live reasonably meaningful lives amidst the chaos.

The Kudzu Coffee Club will offer occasional posts on our adventures from the road in our little camper, Maxine, and our thoughts on music, politics, relationships, and how to love this crazy world. These musings are written by us (Liz McGeachy and Tim Marema) from the little town of Norris in East Tennessee or from destinations to be named at a later date.

We have no motive other than to share some stories, stay connected without making Mark Zuckerberg richer, and scratch the itch to write even as our status as professional communicators is winding down. (Liz is retired, and Tim has cut back to 40% employment.)

If you haven’t subscribed already, we hope you’ll consider subscribing to this FREE Substack!

Subscribe now

Meanwhile, if you want to know more about us and the origin story of the Kudzu Coffee Club, read on.

More coming soon,

Liz & Tim

The Story of Us:

Both of us grew up in the South in musical families. We met at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1985, where we were each getting our master’s degree in journalism. In addition to our mutual interest in the media, we liked the same kind of music and started performing together as Liz & Tim (which we’re still doing, by the way). We married in 1989 and worked in North Carolina, Kentucky, and East Tennessee in various communications fields until we both retired in 2025 (Tim is still working at 40%). We also had two wonderful kids in there somewhere. We’ve always loved to camp, and in 2019, we switched from tent-camping to the trailer life, when we bought a 21-foot Little Guy Max trailer. Now that we’re retired, we’re hitting the road even more.

The Story of the Kudzu Coffee Club:

In 1992 we left our home in Chapel Hill to work with the media arts center Appalshop in the Appalachian coalfields of Southeast Kentucky (Whitesburg, to be specific). While there, we volunteered with the radio station WMMT 88.7 as Monday-morning DJs. Our show was called “The Kudzu Coffee Club.” We spun records and CDs, joked around on-air about everything from marriage to vacuum cleaners to soup beans, and had a regular feature called “Stupid Criminals and Other Strange News.” We plan to bring back some of these baffling news stories in this Substack. That radio show ended in 1999, but clearly the spirit of the show just keeps on keeping-on, kind of like kudzu.

We’re home! It feels great … and strange at the same time. Here are some final updates:

The last four days of our trip were spent with family in Holland, MI, friends and family in Ann Arbor, and one more roadside attraction. In Holland we stayed with Tim’s sister and brother-in-law and got to see our great-nephew perform as the prince in “The Princess Who Had No Name” at Holland Community Theater, and to meet our brand new great-niece who was only 3 weeks old. These were both treasured experiences!

On the way from Holland to Ann Arbor, we stopped at the American Museum of Magic in Marshall, MI. Plenty of cool stuff, though no magic trick secrets were revealed. (Still don’t know how they cut that lady in half.)

In Ann Arbor, we visited briefly with my niece and her super cute dog MO (for Michelle Obama), then spent the night near Hartland with dear friends and their dogs, cat, chickens, and probably some other critters. We are grateful for the hospitality of all these folks!

Saturday, we drove our longest day (10 hours), making good use of the roadtrip questions our friends gave us. We arrived home safe and sound, grateful to our children and friends who helped us with the house, plants, mail, and – of course – our old dog, Jordie. I think she was glad to see us (watch a video of her hysteria HERE), and we were glad to see her. Almost the first thing we did when we got home was take a dip in Norris Lake. We have gorgeous lakes here too (though indeed, much warmer).

Thanks for coming along with us on the journey!

Liz and Tim

Details:

• 4,000 miles, plus local travel

• 22 stops for the night (shortest 1 night – longest 4 nights)

  • 3 Ontario provincial parks

  • 5 state parks (in Connecticut, New York, and Michigan)

  • 4 municipal campgrounds (Thunder Bay, Ontario; Duluth, MN; Herbster, WI; Marquette, MI)

  • 3 private campgrounds

  • 1 National Park unit (Sleeping Bear Dunes) plus excursions in 2 more (Apostle Islands and Pictured Rocks)

  • 1 National Forest campground

  • 5 stays with family and friends

• 39 wildflowers identified (favorites: Pink Lady Slipper, Bunchberry, Fox and Cubs)

• 17 types of wildlife identified (favorites: fawn, bald eagles, merlin, grebe)

• 16 wild water immersions (including Long Island Sound, 3 Great Lakes, and various other lakes, rivers and creeks)

Roses / Thorns / Buds from the trip:

(Roses are highlights, Thorns are low points, and Buds are things you’re looking forward to when you get home)

Liz:

R: Kayaking the sea caves / E-bike ride on Presque Isle and then jumping in Lake Superior / Seeing so many pink lady slippers at once

T: Multiple mosquito bites on my scalp and ankles / Trying to bike (fairly unsuccessfully) around Sault Ste Marie.

B: Loose leaf tea instead of teabags / Showering without flip-flops / Figuring out next steps in retirement

Tim:

R: Camping right beside Lake Superior / Seeing so much beautiful countryside / Spending so much time with Liz

T: Worrying about the less-than-appealing camping sites we ended up at (like Wilderness Resort and Van Riper SP)

B: A powerful electric toothbrush instead of the shitty battery-operated one I’ve been using. Also, getting back to daily guitar playing and seeing Jordie

LAST ROADTRIP QUESTIONS (for now, at least):

In what way do you think you’re similar to your children? Or different?

Liz: Similar: Our sense of humor. Different: I’m way neater than both of them put together.

Tim: Similar: We all love Liz McGeachy. Different: Musical tastes.

Is there anything you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t done yet?

Liz: See the Northern Lights.

Tim: Play fiddle tunes on an instrument at tempo.

Two thousand miles ago, we started a string of 33 consecutive nights of camping in our Little Maxine trailer. Today just one night remains in this 2,000-mile leg of our longer journey.

We have three more nights with family and friends before we head home. But this is our last evening sitting around listening to the sounds of the campground: birds, kids at play, the soft crunch of gravel from a passing car.

A quiet campground on a summer afternoon is hypnotic. The “rustic” campground at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore near Glen Arbor, Michigan, is nearly perfect for creating this experience: woods with lots of shielding undergrowth, no generators or huge rigs, kids on summer vacation with parents and grandparents, roads with enough potholes to passively enforce the 10 mph speed limit.

Flush toilets and showers would have been nice, too. But we try not to let attachment ruin the vibe (and it’s only two days).

Today we rode our bikes about 20 miles along a paved bike path that is part of Sleeping Bear. This kind of excursion has become a favorite activity for us, given that it gets us out in some wonderful places and the battery assist on our e-bikes reduces the workload considerably. We got a snack in Empire, climbed the dunes for a view of Lake Michigan and Glen Lake, and then went swimming in Lake Michigan, our warmest water yet – a lovely 70 degrees, we estimate. If you like cherries, you’ll love this area of the country. Everything from the wine to the chip dip is cherry-flavored.

Tomorrow, we will have a couple hours to enjoy another excursion and then pack up for a two-hour drive to Holland, Michigan, to see my sister, brother-in-law, and their kids’ families, which include a newborn great niece. Life is good.

+++

In the 10 days since our last email, we’ve covered a lot of ground. We stayed three nights in Marquette, Michigan, at the city’s “tourist park” campground. Marquette has invested a lot of thought and money into redeveloping the city after the decline of the iron-ore industry that helped develop it. There is still an active iron-ore dock, which is a massive series of bins and chutes that load ore into ships. There’s also a decommissioned ore dock that looks a bit like an Erector Set chapel or stylized Viking hat in the downtown harbor.

Marquette has an excellent bike-path system, and we rode our bikes along Lake Superior to Presque Isle city park, where we circled the peninsula on the road (closed to cars at the time) and went for a swim in Lake Superior. Liz has been doing this routinely. I’m more hesitant, but I was able to stay in for a minute or so, meaning things are warming up.

We ate downtown twice (another round of Lake Superior whitefish and chips on one occasion) and visited a beautiful stone sculpture, Seven Grandfather Teachings Monument, by Anishinaabe artist Jason Quigno. The sculpture is part of an effort to develop a range of art and cultural exhibits along the waterfront.

On our way from Marquette to Munising, MI, we stopped at Lakenenland, a private sculpture park of artist Tom Lakenen. Lakenen makes humorous, satirical, and political sculpture fabricated from iron. He welds and cuts pre-existing industrial iron and iron plate into fantastic pieces that condemn corporate greed, celebrate heroes, stand up for working people, and tell stories. The figures are a bit cartoonish and whimsical, if industrial iron can convey whimsy. The park is adjacent to an off-road-vehicle trail, and part of the sculpture garden is drive through. If you are looking for a place where you can tour an art gallery on a dirt bike, this is it. Well worth a stop, in my opinion.

Less than an hour down the road we stayed at a National Forest campground called Bay Furnace just outside Munising, the gateway to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (no power, no showers, but a short walk to a Lake Superior beach and a view of Grand Isle). This was over the July 4 weekend, and the crowds were heavy for the town of a couple thousand, especially compared to the early-season experience on the far-less-developed Canadian side of Lake Superior. We did a sunset boat tour of Pictured Rocks, swam at the beach, and got our first taste of a pasty (sort of a portable chicken pot pie). The best part of this leg of the trip was meeting up with TN friends who were camping nearby.

From Munising, we completed our grand circuit of Lake Superior by driving to Whitefish Point, Michigan, where we could see across the mouth of Whitefish Bay to Ontario. That part of Ontario is where we had first laid eyes on Lake Superior more than three weeks before. Whitefish Point has a lighthouse and the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, which we spent an hour touring before camping for one night at Tahquamenon Falls State Park. The next day we got our last glimpse of Lake Superior and then headed south over the Mackinac Bridge, which is a place of intersections. The bridge connects Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas and crosses the Straits of Mackinac, which join lakes Huron and Michigan.

En route to Sleeping Bear Dunes, we stopped at Light of Day Organic Farm and Tea Shop, west of Traverse City. This family owned farm is the only organic tea producer in Michigan and offers 20 or so different blends of tea they grow and purchase from others. There’s a peace garden and a prayer room. We spent a lovely hour sampling tea, walking the grounds, and talking to young people who had moved back to the area to participate in the family business (go, rural America!).

From Light of Day, it was a quick drive to Sleeping Bear, where this email started. While I finish this email and manage our power inverter, Liz is cooking salmon and steak for our last meal in Little Maxine for this trip. There will be enough power left in our battery to watch a couple episodes of Schitt’s Creek before we turn in and make coffee and tea in the morning. I am the quintessential happy camper.

Once we get home, we’ll offer one more email about our trip, sharing some final reflections and highlights. Until then, enjoy your journey.

Tim (and Liz)

TODAY’S ROADTRIP QUESTIONS:

What’s the strangest compliment you’ve ever received?

Liz: When a Canadian told me with amazement that they’d never heard anyone talk as slow as I did.

Tim: When I got a vasectomy and the nurse patted me on the shoulder and said, “You’re a good man.”

What’s the weirdest place you’ve ever slept?

Liz: The Lost Sea Cave

Tim: Laundromat

Yes, they let us back in the US.

When Tim and I crossed the border, we admitted to each other that we felt a little let down leaving Canada and re-entering the states. Maybe it was the scolding about (and the impoundment of) the eggs and avocado and limes we declared at the border. (Word to the wise: If you are entering the US, make sure all your food is highly processed and packaged – that’s all they allow.) Maybe it was the immediate evidence of excess and the giant RVs. And yes, it likely had something to do with letting go of our brief reprieve from our home country’s overwhelming political difficulties.

That said, we are also grateful for the many advantages of being American and the opportunity to travel to its interesting, diverse, and beautiful places and meet some amazing people. Here are our highlights from the last week:

Minnesota:

We didn’t linger along Minnesota’s coast of Lake Superior because we wanted to meet up with a friend of Tim’s in Duluth, so he could show us around. I had no idea Duluth was such a cool town! It’s a busy shipping port on Lake Superior in the shadow of a big hill (or small mountain?) with an amazing view of the harbor. Of course, we didn’t see the view since the whole place was socked in, but we enjoyed being there. We ate good food, saw a Bob Dylan display (he was born in Duluth), and drove over the famous lift bridge. Thanks to our friend for showing us around!

We were camped at Spirit Mountain Adventure Park right outside of town, so before leaving, we jumped on the “alpine coaster” for a fun ride down and up the mountain. The clouds finally broke up to give us a stunning view.

Wisconsin:

Wisconsin has only a short border on Lake Superior, but we experienced one of our highlights of the trip there: The World of Accordions Museum in Superior! (Just kidding, we didn’t pay to go in – at $20 a ticket they didn’t want gawkers like us.) Actually, it was the sea-cave kayaking trip we took through the Apostle Islands. It was a perfectly beautiful day, we saw two bald eagles, and the caves (only accessible by boat) are incredible. Highly recommend!

Leaving Wisconsin, we took a quick detour to see St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Odanah, WI. Tim’s friend Mary Annette Pember’s mother went to “Indian school” there (the school that was next door has since been torn down). Mary Annette wrote a powerful book about it: Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools, a difficult and courageous story about how our country has treated First Nations people. In the photo below note that the church still has a sign saying it is an “Indian Mission.”

It has been interesting to notice on this trip the difference in First Nations’ interpretive information between the US and Canada. Canada was consistently better at land ownership acknowledgement and pre-European history. In the US, history starts with white explorers, industrialists, missionaries, and settlers.

Michigan:

The Porcupine Mountains are the western gateway to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We enjoyed camping at Porcupine Mountain State Park, another beautiful site right on the banks of Lake Superior. I had the joy of seeing a grebe in the lake, carrying her young on her back. Like several of the places we have camped, this is a “dark night sanctuary.” If you can stay up long enough to see the stars, which we did, you will be stunned at the brilliance. Remember seeing the Milky Way as a kid? It’s still up there.

From there we started up the Keweenaw Peninsula, which is “copper country.” In the 1800s white people “discovered” copper mining here (First Nations people had been mining copper here for 5000 years) and it boomed. Of course, the copper eventually ran out, or became too expensive to mine, so now it’s all about tourism and history.

In Calumet, MI, we visited the Keweenaw Peninsula National Historic Park Visitor’s Center, which showed the history of the area. My takeaway? When mining became popular, guess who came together to do the hard work of mining? Immigrants! Just sayin’.

Copper Harbor is the tippy-top point of the peninsula and a cute little town, though once again, it was mostly covered in fog during our one day there. The highlight of this stop was the Estivant Pines Nature Sanctuary, an old-growth forest of pines saved by members of the community. Thank you, community! So still. So cathedral-like.

We also visited Fort Wilkins Historic State Park, a mid-1800s fort where the US military stayed after they kicked the Indigenous people out so white people could come in and get rich off copper. The fort was built and armed to make sure no “Indians” caused trouble, though there never was any trouble.

Touring the Delaware Mine was pretty cool, and kind of creepy, but an interesting experience. Again, Native Americans have been mining this area for centuries, but this tour takes you through the dank and dangerous tunnels of this mid-1800s copper mine created by white people. The mine was located at a prehistoric small surface mine, which the current owner highlights carefully in literature and displays. My takeaway: mining is unimaginably hard work, especially since you’re basically doing it to make a few already rich people even richer. (Is my prejudice showing?)

Today we are camped along the banks of beautiful Lake Michigamme in Van Riper State Park in Michigan. (Dr. Van Riper was a white physician who “took care of” the people in this area.) We took a 20-mile bike ride through the woods and saw snapping turtles, grouse, deer, and frogs (alas – no moose!) and then took a refreshing dip in the lake, which is warmer than Lake Superior (65 degrees maybe? Superior is about 50).

Over the next week or so we will finish up the UP in Michigan, then head down to Holland, MI, to visit family, and Ann Arbor, MI, to visit friends, before heading home. We’ll send one more update before our last hurrah.

Liz (and Tim)

PS. I have not read a lot of books in recent years, instead focusing on news, commentary, and other folderol. This trip, Tim and I have both read a few books, and I’ll mention one: 50 Poems to Open Your World, edited by Padraig O Tuama. It has opened my world and shares a lot of poems on the subjects I’ve mentioned today. Just for your FYI.

TODAY’S ROADTRIP QUESTIONS:

What would you do if you had as many stomachs as a cow?

Tim: Chew my cud. (gross)

Liz: Eat more pizza.

If your family had a theme song (ala Gilmore Girls’ “Where you lead …”), what would it be?

Liz: The Happy Wanderer

Tim: You Got a Friend in Me

I have turned into a bloodthirsty killer.
--Liz McGeachy

We are sitting in our REI screen shelter listening to the rush of Trowbridge Falls a few hundred feet away. Above us a crow caws impatiently, complaining that we have taken its campsite (sorry, crow, I made this reservation in January; crows are smart but don’t have opposable thumbs or credit cards). And nearby, my beloved Liz is wielding a rechargeable electric fly swatter, frying mosquitoes with a crackling zap, a flash of light, and jubilant curses. After nearly 36 years of marriage, I am still learning new things about my life partner.

We are in Thunder Bay, Ontario, on the last two days on the Canada leg of our Retirement Reset Sojourn. In the last week, we’ve camped on the north shore of Lake Superior in two provincial parks where we could toss a rock from our camper to the big lake. Our first stop was Lake Superior Provincial Park, a couple hours north of Sault Ste. Marie.

We went for several short hikes, seeing waterfalls, dramatic views of the lake, lots of wildflowers, and everywhere the granite that underlies this part of Canada. We saw no wildlife, save for some interesting birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and a lifetime supply of blood-sucking hummingbirds (aka mosquitoes). Signs warn of moose and bear. Our current campground has a hand-lettered sign warning that a lynx is about. Signs lie.

We camped in Agawa Bay at Lake Superior Provincial Park. This is a large but quiet and beautifully designed campground on the shore of Lake Superior. The best sites are for tents and are nonelectric. We got one of the few nonelectric sites that will accommodate a small trailer. It was just perfect – tucked into evergreens, with a narrow road separating us from the dune grass and beach. We used our solar panels and lithium battery to power coffee, tea, electric griddle, microwave, and a DVD player. As nerdy as this sounds, I loved stretching our ability to camp responsibly and comfortably off grid for special places like this.

We hiked up the cascades of Sand River, walked around a small lake on the “trappers trail” and were awed by the wildflowers, heard the songs of bullfrogs, and saw signs of beavers in old dams and chewed up trees. We also scrambled out to the pictographs at Agawa Rock – a wonderful but treacherous walk that must be a park superintendent’s nightmare during peak season, with lots of opportunities for twisted ankles and broken bones, especially for hikers like we saw wearing what amounted to slippers. And then the pictographs, which are First Nations and several hundred years old. These paintings require walking out on a sloping ledge at lake’s edge with no railing. So many ways to ruin your day in just a quarter mile walk. We paid our respects and scrammed before anyone yelled “help me.” It’s important to have boundaries.

At Rainbow Falls Provincial Park we stayed in the Rossport Campground, where we were even closer to the shore. Even someone with a mildly frozen shoulder could throw a rock in the lake from our back window. The first night we saw a full rainbow that covered the breadth of the bay. We paddled in a canoe on Silver Lake, scrambled up the Back 40 Lookout for a view of the bay, took a short walk down Rainbow Falls, and took a slightly longer dip in Silver Lake, which was marginally warmer than Superior.

After three nights at Rainbow Falls, we drove a few hours to Thunder Bay, stopping en route to see Ouimet Gorge, a relatively young fissure carved into the Canadian granite. Imagine the Grand Canyon as a toddler. We got a beautiful view of the Sleeping Giant peninsula from a memorial to Terry Fox just east of Thunder Bay. And we ensconced Little Maxine, our camper, in a Thunder Bay municipal campground on the banks of the Current River near a cascade.

On our second day in Thunder Bay, we shopped at the Thunder Bay Market, an arts, crafts, food, and farmers market. We got a bunch of little items, including a small strawberry rhubarb pie that we plan to eat with some vanilla ice cream for dessert. We also visited Fort William Historical Park, a recreation of the North West Company’s major fur trading center, circa 1815. I tried out the shave horse, something I’ve always wanted to do.

Next, we head back into the States, or, as some call it, WTF-land. Our only contraband is a succulent plant that has somehow survived a couple thousand miles in a camper, knocked over regularly and pinched in the window blinds. We shall see if it can withstand the might of the American agricultural import inspections. They can have the plant, if they must. But I draw the line at my strawberry rhubarb pie.

On a serious note, we know there are awful, evil things afoot in this world. I am grateful for this time to disconnect and recharge my emotional battery in a bubble of my own construction. It cannot last, but it doesn’t have to. The present is sufficient.

Tim (and Liz)

TODAY’S ROADTRIP QUESTIONS:

What’s one event in your life – not of your own making – that changed the trajectory of your life?

Liz: When I was 23 I applied to and was accepted into a master’s program in art therapy at the University of Louisville because it seemed like a good combination of social work, my undergrad degree, and art, which I enjoyed. I didn’t admit it to myself at the time, but I was ambivalent about the whole thing. A few weeks before I was supposed to go, I got meningitis and ended up recovering for several months at my parents’ home. I never went to Louisville. Instead, I eventually realized I didn’t want to be a social worker and went into journalism instead.

Tim: I was teaching introductory newswriting as a graduate assistant at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1988. After class near the end of the semester, I found a message in the graduate student lounge from someone I had worked with briefly at the Durham afternoon newspaper. It said, “Tim, call Jon Ham regarding a ‘unique employment opportunity.’” And it was unique. I helped Jon start a zoned edition of the Durham Morning Herald for Chapel Hill, eventually becoming editor of the publication, which was called “The Chapel Hill Herald.” That job set up the rest of my career in journalism and nonprofit communications.

Another big one was getting Type 1 diabetes when I was 31.

If you were a pet fish, what would your name be?

Liz: Oliver Boliver Butt

Tim: Chubby

Greetings from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario!

The highway from Niagara Falls, Canada, to the eastern side of Lake Huron and up to Sault Ste. Marie at the mouth of Lake Superior consists of miles and miles and miles of deep, green forest. This type of uninterrupted wildness is new to us and makes us feel a little untethered, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Occasionally the mostly two-lane road is interrupted by a tiny town (maybe with a giant chair or a first nation trading post) or glimpses of waterfalls and rapids or a lake as huge as an ocean. It sounds idyllic, and in a way, it is – but the towns we do travel through have an industrial edge to them: gravel lots full of bulldozers, small warehouses, people wearing safety-vests. There is no opulence here. The riches are the waterways and the trees.

From Niagara Falls we drove to Killbear Provincial Park on the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron and camped for four nights. Georgian Bay is known as the home of 30,000 islands, and we saw a few of them on our hikes and bike rides. Our campsite was right on the lake, so I ventured into the water, of course. It was pretty cold, but tolerable because it was so shallow where we were. (50 degrees maybe?) The park was great – full of chipmunks and early spring flowers like Lady Slipper, Solomon Seal, and other wildflowers new to me. It is still spring here – temps in the 50s to 70s.

From there we drove to Sault Ste. Marie. My friend Mark asked me what “sault” means so I looked it up: “rapids.” The town was named for "the rapids of St. Mary” in 1668 by Father Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit missionary. We expected the Soo (as it is nicknamed) to be a bit more of a tourist town, and we did enjoy much of its bike path around the city, but again – it has a bit of a tired industrial town vibe to it. Everything from the lines on the streets to the signs over the businesses seem a bit faded out. (Honestly, I get it.) We spent a while watching the Canadian locks in the canals letting recreational vehicles move from one area to another.

Today we will leave the Soo and head to the more remote part of the trip: Agawa Bay in Lake Superior Park, then Rainbow Falls Provincial Park, and on to Thunder Bay – the last stop before heading back into the U.S. on June 22.

One other thing we want to mention: We have seen very few Americans while on our travels. The Canadians we have talked to are very friendly. When we have conversations, they often start with “Where are you from?” and then lead to “Welcome to Canada!” Or “We want you to know you’re welcome here.” We’ve had a hard time figuring out how to respond to that. Being who we are, our inclination is to assume Canadians are anti-MAGA, but that’s not necessarily true (at least around here). We’ve met at least one Trump fan. A few people have said they are afraid to visit the U.S. anymore, whereas they used to visit often. We have learned to say something like “Thank you for making us feel so welcome here. We hope you’ll feel welcome visiting the U.S. I want you to know that the majority of Americans believe Canadians and Americans have always been and will remain friends.”

I’m sorry to be missing the protests that will be happening in the U.S. today. They are very important. Thank you to those who are participating and helping to turn this train wreck around.

Missing you all but still having a grand old time!

Liz (and Tim)

TODAY’S ROADTRIP QUESTIONS:

If our car could talk, what would it say to us right now?

Tim: What’s a kilometer? Or … Wash Me!!!

Liz: Where the hell are we?

What are you too old to do?

Liz: Alas, I fear I will never reach my childhood career goal of becoming a smoke-jumper.

Tim: Water ski

Hi everyone,

The second week of our Retirement Reset Sojourn has included a surfeit of wonderful people and beautiful places.

We spent three nights with Liz’ brother and sister-in-law in Katonah, NY, a lovely little New England town north of New York City. We enjoyed an excellent hike through Brewster’s Preserve on a moody day.

About 1.5 hours east we camped at Hammonasset Beach State Park, where friends made a special delivery of New Haven-ish pizza to our campsite. Since one of our friends is a student at Yale Divinity School, she gave us a tour of the campus. We saw no ivy, but we did see a gingko tree. (Good luck maybe?) We also saw an old friend from our days at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism. We hadn’t seen him in 30 years, but he is as funny as ever. He reminded us of that quickly. And often.

On our way west, we stopped to see a buddy from my days at the Durham (NC) Herald Sun in Waverly, PA. John Cole’s editorial cartoons appear in several publications around the country, including States News outlets like the Tennessee Lookout. Check them out!

We stayed with other old friends (why is the word “old” used so many times in this post?) in the Ecovillage in Ithaca, NY, for three nights and explored state parks, the Harriett Tubman home in Auburn, NY (which coincidentally was the hometown of my mom), the Cornell botanical garden, and more. And we had a wonderful meal at a French restaurant downtown.

Those were our last nights indoors, as we will be staying in our camper for the next month as we circumnavigate Lake Superior.

On our way to our last stop in Niagara Falls, we stopped in Seneca Falls at the Women's Rights National Historic Park and took the opportunity for a photo op at the It's a Wonderful Life gift shop. "Merry Christmas, you old Building and Loan!"

Our last stop in the U.S. was at Niagara Falls. This was Liz’ first visit and my first time to ride the Maid of the Mist into the wet cauldron at the base of the falls. It was extraordinary.

Tomorrow we head into Canada to drive around the north side of Lake Huron and head to the “mouth” of Lake Superior at Sault Ste. Marie, Canada.

See you on the other side of the border.

Tim (and Liz)

P.S. The leak in Little Maxine appears to be fixed!

TODAY'S ROADTRIP QUESTIONS:

What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever eaten?

Tim: A whole, small octopus (minus the head) in Greece.
Liz: Grilled rattlesnake

Who said, “Oh no, I forgot my _______?”

Tim: … bathing suit!