This week featured three consecutive sunny, mild lovely days. Dare I say it?! It’s nice out in New England! The favorable weather gets the ants in the pants going! Let’s talk camping! Please enjoy today’s post: Summer Camping Strategy.
Like a sunset over the Pacific, this California dream slinks slowly away. So long for now, we’ll be glad to see you again in the future. Please enjoy the final installment of this three part series: How to Cruise the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH).
If you missed it, you can check out part 1 here and part 2 here.
California dreamin’ on your mind? Here’s how we did it. Please enjoy this three part series on “How to Cruise the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH).”
We explored two unique destinations, Washington D.C. and Newport, Rhode Island on back-to-back weekend jaunts. Ms. IS and I both have friends in D.C., so it was a chance for her to catch up with old pals (and try on wedding dresses!), while I visited one of my best buds who’s working through some health issues. Newport was totally different, I participated in a 1/2 marathon. Here’s a look-in on some good fun with these two weekend jaunts and maybe an idea or two on how to craft an adventure of your own!
One of my favorite feelings in the world is driving out of Boston. Compass pointing west, I downshift mentally to the measured, comfortable pace of the western massachusetts wavelength. With each mile, the tightness, harbored in my neck and shoulders, fades. Eventually, it’s discarded somewhere along the way entirely, can’t be sure which mile marker exactly. I grow stronger, I center. I’m home… The following is a tribute to the region, an ode to Western Mass (and its rivers and ponds).
But, before I get too far ahead of myself (which I do…constantly), where is this mystical place? Where is this western mass?
Well, you see, it depends on who you’re talking to…
Yeomanlike would be a good word to describe my bicycle.
It’s a “hybrid,” which is a fancy way of describing a machine that’s too slow to compete with a road bike and too wimpy to manage any surface featuring rocks or roots, for fear of popping or bending something somewhere.
Buuuuuuuut… I still beat the heck out of it anyway, while having a blast! Maybe I’m not giving it enough credit.
It doesn’t click into top gear anymore and the right-side handlebar end got shorn off in a small crash last summer.
I ride with the seat as high as possible and imitate a “cyclist” at times.
Typically, I’m single-pannierred and doubled-over, laboring along, dry goods and frozen berries from Trader Joe’s, an acceptable drag on performance.
On occasion, this well-seasoned tool accompanies me on an adventure.
Come thither my trusted steed! We’re off to the North Shore! Crane Beach!
I went back to check.
Sure enough, I wrote my first blogpost about a year ago. The exact date of the post was 8/30/2018.
Shortly in, I wrote about a camping adventure on Cape Cod, specifically Truro and the “Outer Cape” region.
We enjoyed the area so much, we thought it might be fun to head back this year… maybe we’ll keep it rollin’, you know, make it our designated Cape weekend or something…
In standard weekend warrior fashion, I’d pick up the lady at the commuter Friday afternoon and we’d battle traffic down that night.
Our foolproof plan (and non-refundable campsite reservation) began looking less attractive by midweek…
I strode into the office that Friday earlier than normal. It’s summer dog days, so it wasn’t a deadline driving the urgency. No, it was the excitement rather for what lay ahead: a camping adventure in the White Mountains of New Hampshire!
I felt pretty good about our rough itinerary. The plan was to shoot up Friday afternoon directly to a restaurant we previously settled upon (based upon a recommendation), then set up camp in the early evening and relax by the fire. For Saturday, we picked out an activity and planned an ambitious hike to follow with more relaxing fireside time carved out for the evening. Sunday, we’d break camp and hit a nature center on the way home. Outdoors adventuring at our own pace, my kind of a weekend.
Meanwhile… Up in JR’s brain land, a different adventure was playing out, something a bit wilder… something… fantastic.
With the audiobook: 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea, by Jonathan Franklin and the book book: How to Eat in the Woods: A Complete Guide to Foraging, Trapping, Fishing, and Finding Sustenance in the Wild, by Bradford Angier, close at hand through the weekend, the powers of imagination awoke.
As we enjoyed our (very tame) weekend, I daydreamed sensational tales of survival and self-reliance.
I was the Don Quixote of the Whites…
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