Years ago, my (then boyfriend) and I had a fascinating chat with the man who drove us from Cairns to the Mossman Gorge in far north Queensland. He had recently returned to Australia with his family after spending the previous 5 years in Papua New Guinea. They expected to spend 5 years at this current Aussie adventure before moving on to the next. He called it The Five Year Plan.

“I’m a Farm Dog!” I imagine my 13 year old Blue Heeler proudly asserting, as he struts his couch-surfing self around his private, 5-acre fenced-in campsite.

The owner of a small town drugstore in the late 1800s, Charles Clemon Deam spent long hours indoors, often working to exhaustion. One day, after losing his temper with a customer, a salesman advised him to seek medical attention. The doctor recommended half-hour walks in the countryside daily. During his walks, Deam became interested in his surroundings, planting the seeds of a new career.

Located at the upper end of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula is a bougie vacationland offering proximity to ski hills, recreational trails, and miles of Lake Michigan coast. Each spring, stooped-back hobbyists scour the shorelines and shallows in search of the town’s eponymous and most famed resource—the Petoskey stone.

“Which art school did you go to?” asked Dan.

Up until that point, I had neatly pigeonholed our host under “missionary-turned-farmer.” A man who had spent 20 years of his life “doing whatever was needed” in South America before returning to LeRoy, MI with his wife to care for his aging mother. That origin story sort of explained why a couple of 60-something-year-olds were working their butts off trying to make a tiny family farm financially viable.

“Adopt me,” read the small flag dangling from the leash of a largish white dog. Kelly and Bertha were returning to their seats near the vineyard when they caught my eye. It took me several minutes to process what I had just seen—a dog, looking for a new home, by hanging out at a winery music event. 
 

Generations of Polynesian people have gathered for the ceremonial, or simply social, imbibing of a mildly narcotic “tea” made from the kava root. I first encountered kava while traveling around the South Pacific with my future husband. In both Fiji and Samoa, we were guests at demonstration kava ceremonies. That said, I have never experienced the sort of neighborhood kava bar described in the novels of J. Maarten Troost. Here now, on Haywood Street in Asheville, North Carolina, was my first.

“Do you see the yellow house on the side of the mountain?” asked our guide, René, indicating a brightly colored structure perched on the hillside. “It is the home of my father."

Available U-Pick:
Red Raspberries
Black Raspberries
Golden Raspberries
Blackberries
Beans
Corn

…read the handwritten sign. I was standing in front of it, staring dumbly while the girl sitting in the farm stand asked for a second time, what did I want to pick.

In 10 months of living in campgrounds all across the country, I thought I had seen most everything. But today, just a few miles from my home, I discovered the cloistered world of vintage travel trailer clubs. Color me intrigued.

The other day it occurred to me that, more than once over the course of our travels around America, savvy fellow campground-dwellers asked which of us was the navigator. And then I started to wonder… had I stumbled upon a major personality divide? Are we ALL divided into Navigators and Drivers?

Being a novice dog owner, it never occurred to me that a canine could be car-averse. The classic image of a head hanging out the window, lips flapping, saliva streaming in the wind—left me unprepared for the hysterics that accompany even a short trip with our new furry friend. Months of work have yielded only limited progress, so we planned a weekend away—sans chein.

Several of the 292 items that traveled 20,000 miles with us last year were art supplies. Our flameworking and enameling materials were surprisingly compact. My tiny "beehive" kiln fit nicely into an insulated lunch tote. His glass rods and gas occupied a portion of our motorhome's "basement" storage. We carried a single piece of sheet metal and a 12 x 12 ceramic tile to protect the picnic tables that generally served as our outdoor "studio."

If I could, I would do 2015 all over again. Idyllic, challenging, adventurous and transforming… it was life as I wish it could always be lived. But it was not sustainable, nor was it meant to be. From its conception almost three years previous, our time on the road was designed to be a splurge.

This is an entry that has been months in the making. That was not a conscious decision, by any means. Although I did intend to allow ample time for contemplation, I’ll admit that life off the road has been every bit as consuming as I hoped it would not be. Does that make sense?

We get a lot of questions—ranging from specifics about gear and rigs, to logistics and finances. But there are definitely some that come up more than others.

A dozen years ago I decided that I would get married in Grand Teton National Park on the shores of a mountain lake. I had never been there. My selection was based entirely on having seen photos like this one. We ultimately settled on a location closer to home (have you priced airfare to Jackson Hole?) and so last week's visit to the Tetons was my first.

Yellowstone is home to the largest concentration of mammals in the lower 48 states. 67 different mammals live here, including grizzly and black bears, gray wolves, lynx and seven native ungulate species. During your visit you are likely to see one or two of the animals listed above, but their impact will be dwarfed by the far more commonly encountered Yellowstone mammal—the visitor.

Although we are now two states away in Yellowstone National Park (more on that later), I didn’t want to skip over Idaho—something that I imagine happens quite a bit