Looking Toward Home... and Already Making 2023 Plans

 Hello and Happy Fall!

Suddenly it is September!  Tonight the temp here in Rhinelander, WI, will dip down to 46 degrees. 

I am doing some domestic chores preparing for the journey home.

I talked about the trailer's emergency brake cable in my last blog.  Bill D. emailed me and told me how to fix it.  I still didn't get what he was saying until he sent me pictures of the clamps you can buy to clamp onto a cable (to make a loop for example) without having to buy a bulky and an expensive crimping tool.

I bought more cable and the clamps and fixed it myself!  Thanks Bill!  

I felt a little Rosie-the-Riveter pride as I called Schroeders RV Service center and canceled the appointment I had made with them to install a new emergency brake on my trailer.

The cable goes from that little black box to the hitch on my truck.  If the trailer becomes un-attached when I am going down the road, the cable will pull the emergency break on the trailer.

Today it was cool and I didn't have any bike or kayak plans.  No rain was in the forcast.  So I borrowed a putty knife from my sister and cleaned off the old caulk on the roof of the trailer and applied new caulk.  I had a small leak at the top of the back door the last time in poured.  There is a flashing that sheilds the top of the door.  I added caulk to where that is attached.  I will know soon enough if that fixed the problem.

Then, thinking about going to a couple Sisters on the Fly camping events on the way home and a gathering of people who have Weeroll Campers, I decided I needed to spruce up my decorations.

I got some things from Goodwill and Mary had a small can of light-purple paint.  I liked the color of the paint and just kept finding things to paint.  I even painted the red Folgers coffee can where I keep my coffee grounds. 

I had broken my cute green broom that looks so nice hanging on my camper.  All I could find were ugly big brooms.  So I got one and put some purple paint on it.  It is a nice broom, but when I saw a smaller broom, I bought that too and this picture was taken before I added some purple paint to that broom as well.

Now I have to decide if I keep both brooms or just one.  I don't NEED two brooms.

How do you like my decorations so far?

I leave this area, and Wisconsin, on September 9th.  I then head up to Lake Superior where the Midwest Weerollers are meeting for a few days.  I hope to learn a few things as well as unload a few items that I bought but don't use.

Later in September I will be in Ohio at the same time as my friends, Regis and Cindy from Florida!  Yay!

And Amy S. tells me that the Ohio Trikers are having a Rally the weekend of September 25 in Xenia.  I will be there for that!   

Also, Roger and Bernie are from the Cincinnati area and they said they would lead a ride on the trails in that City while I am there.   It is  best to have a guide when the city has lots of trails that intersect and places to see just a  block or two off the trail.   I am excited.

That all means that my five nights near the Little Miami Trail in Ohio will be a whirlwind of biking and socializing every day.

Today I got happy and then not so happy.  

A while back I was told that Jekyll Island in South Carolina is a neat place to bike.  And then I was talking to a woman who said that I REALLY should do it with someone else because when she did it solo she was frustrated because it is a ride to share with others.  

Steve and I were talking and I told him I had made a reservation near Jekyll Island and I asked if he was going to be heading to Florida at that time and we could meet up and do it together.  Today he said he might be able to do that, but then after he checked the distance and the timing, it wouldn't work.  He isn't leaving for Florida until November.  

If you ride bicycle 20+ miles and want to ride with me around October 26th on Jekyll Island, let me know.  I'd love it! 

Speaking of Steve, he had a great time camping and canoing solo in the Adirondacs. He is trying to convince me to do it next year. On one remote lake he had five loons fly closely over his head, calling all the time.  What a neat experience!

After Ohio I am heading to the Smokey Mountains where the campgrounds don't have electric and some I even have to haul in my water.  It is peak season (fall colors) so I found three nights at a time in different campgrounds.  

While there I am meeting up with Susan H., the woman that gave me a ride way back in April to get a rental car when I was stuck in the campground in Florida after my car broke down.  She educates people about the Elk in the Smokey Mountains.  And I am meeting up with Connie M. who was a full-time traveler but now owns a small home in an Audubon neighborhood I want to see.

Plus I am popping up to Tennessee to meet up with Terry.  We have been emailing and texting and talking on the phone but I have not met him in person yet.   I didn't think he had a good time on his whirlwind trip to Sturgis, SD and then up to Glacier National Park and down to Texas.  But I guess he did, because he is already working on making some changes to his truck-bed camper and planning his next trip.

The last time I wrote about hiking with my nephew Tom and his wife Sarah.  As I was walking I thought how no picture could capture the trees towering around us.  Later Tom shared this picture he took.  We look mighty small.

2023 Plans

I am already thinking about next year's travels.  We have to because many of the campgrounds fill up early on the weekends and folks will need to make reservations.

Last I wrote, my plan was to get a seasonal job.  I know some of you were thinking, "I will believe that when I see it."  Because I always say I am going to work but then I get too busy living and change my mind.  It is weird, I can be so sure of a thing and then I am not.  Who knows, maybe something will fall into my lap like last year when my friend Jean needed some clerical help.

I am thinking that my years of travel will be few and I gotta do it while I am able to hike and bike and get in and out of a kayak.  While I can still plan and make reservations and navigate...

Today, for now, at this moment, my plan is to spend the first half of the 2023 summer over by PA, NY (Finger Lakes and the Adirondacs), and VT.  Then in late summer I will come on over here to Wisconsin again see family before heading home to Florida for the winter.  

We will see.  As my sister would say, "It's all good."

Thank You Friends!

Thanks to all of you in Florida and fellow travelers too that continue to reach out to me and let me know I am still welcome.

It is so good to be remembered.  Thanks. 

For now I am still enjoying this area. I have connected with some other women that like to hike and kayak.

The mushrooms have continued to provide interest.  The one in my screen tent continued to get bigger and now has turned from creamy white to rusty brown.  The big rotting mushrooms are now a black smelly puddle.  

We'll be in touch.