Pine Grove, PA

After spending the past several months pulled by the temptation, and concurrent need for creativity in participating in visits and fun time with family and friends, we headed South – intent on spending a few weeks in nowhere. Pennsylvania has large swaths of ‘nowhere’. Jake staked out a swath of nowhere that happened to promise trails and an hour’s proximity to a Wegmans. We found ourselves at an off-season RV Resort in Pine Grove, PA, where we stayed for two weeks. Two glorious, quiet, weeks dotted with morning runs and two trips to Wegmans. Twin Pines RV Resort, Pine Grove,…

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Olean, NY

We spent an anxious two weeks in Olean, NY. We originally thought we’d spend just a few days, or possibly a week in the area, with the intention of spending a bit of time near Fred, Jake’s father figure. We got COVID tested pretty soon after arrival, and then planned to quarantine until results came back so that we could see Fred as safely as possible. He’s 86. A sunny day run through St.Bonaventure Cemetery But then life happened in the form of a funeral for Jake’s grandmother, and we decided that we would attend her graveside service. I didn’t…

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Rochester, NY

We don’t pass through NY without at least a zip-trip to Rochester. It’s our ‘special place’. And it has garbage plates. Boxcar Donuts – now (good) donuts only. At this point, I have written so many times about visiting Rochester, that I don’t feel it prudent to write about visiting Rochester another time. With COVID closing or limiting many activities, and taking the non-donut breakfast foods away from the delight that is BoxCar Donuts, there isn’t much new to report. We cautiously visited a few friends – walking outside, hiking, running, or grabbing a beer on a patio in 50º…

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Lake George, NY

After spending many weird summer months in my hometown area of Owego, NY, we decided to join the rest of the country in ignoring best practice of ‘keeping it local’ and put our wheels on the road. With COVID-19 now present in every community in the U.S., we realized we were no longer the viral vectors we had feared we would be; that title had been claimed early in the summer by flocks of folks who ‘just need(ed) to get away from these COVID-19 lockdowns for a bit!’ One of my employment endeavors includes participating in customer service type activities.…

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Owego, NY – 2020 Edition

We wobbled and we wavered, but we finally decided to head ‘home’. As in, my original gangster home. The home where I grew up. The place I spent summers bridge jumping into creeks. The spot where I was sheltered from the larger, more diverse thinking and acting world. Owego, NY We’re talking Owego, and for a plethora of reasons, we’ve ended up spending at least a month here each summer for the past three summers. Needing to bring our niece Eden home to her father’s in Western NY after a few weeks of fun and stink, we decided to plop…

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Bear, DE

Everything is sticky. WHY IS EVERYTHING STICKY? Not even two full weeks of two nine-year-olds rolling with us in Dyna, and our rolling home is covered in zinc based sunscreen and STICKY. There are errant cowtail wrappers decorating random spaces in and around the rig. Where is this crap coming from? How do two 4 foot tall gremlins create so much chaos? We are Aunt Liz and Uncle Jake by luck. But every time we host these terroristic, fun-sized humans, we are reassured that our choice to not be parents (yet? ever?) is a good one. I love our two…

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Rehoboth Beach, DE

The Fourth of July – and other summer holidays – often feel like a little slice of hell for us. We’re those spoiled brats who enjoy camping areas all year round, especially enjoying the solitude and non-hectic aspects of them. We like to roll up without much advance reservation and claim whatever the best open site in the campground happens to be. On summer holidays, it feels like the rest of the U.S. joins us at camping areas – forcing us to preplan. It’s really fine and dandy and good for everyone in the U.S to flock to outdoor retreats…

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Clarksburg, MD

Accident, MD During our multi-hour drive through the winding roads of West Virginia, and into the still winding roads of backcountry Maryland, we happened upon the tiny town of Accident, Maryland, where we accidentally stopped for an accidentally delicious pond side lunch provided by the tiny town bakery nestled in town. Fueled by melty, fresh-baked bread sandwiches, we rolled into our campsite at Little Bennett County Park late on a Tuesday afternoon. Little Bennet CampgroundLittle Bennet Campground Little Bennett Campground is a gem of a place – chock full of hiking trails and spacious campsites. If we weren’t in the…

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Parsons, WV

Lion’s Head Knob, Dolly Sods Wilderness, WV Almost heaven is right. Confederate rags pocking up the place If heaven was heavily laden with racism flags. And no, I don’t wanna hear about your ‘heritage’. If you’re flying a Confederate flag, I know what your heritage is. But other than the Confederate rags and Trump flags, West Virginia is a panty droppingly beautiful place. I never dropped panties. That isn’t my style. But I did get down to the bare minimum to swim in a West Virginia waterfall post trail run one Saturday. The waterfall may have been gushing poison mine…

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Fries, VA

It’s pronounced ‘freeze’. Might as well get that bit of disappointment out of the way early. Fries, VA Fries, VA functioned as our soft place to land when the world felt as if it was locking door after door on us. The closures that prohibited us from moving about the U.S. did eventually taper off in late April, and then began to reverse themselves in mid-May. We initially booked a month in Fries, but in late April, extended out through the end of May. The looking glass into the future of campground availability was too foggy for us to trust…

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