Category Archives: Travels with Maria

Blogging from the road.

To Migrate or Not to Migrate?

Posted on by
9

That is the question every damn year.

It’s that time of year again: the time when the days start getting crazy short and the nights start getting crazy long. The days when, because of geographic features near my home — namely, the 1000 foot cliff less than a quarter mile south of my property — direct sunlight reaches my home for fewer and fewer hours. The days when the leaves start turning brilliant autumn colors in preparation for the one big freeze that’ll turn them brown before colors actually peak and the one stiff wind that’ll blow them all away.

Gray Day
Today is a gray day at the aerie. Although the orchards haven’t started turning autumn colors yet, other trees have. It’s just a matter of time before the trees are bare and gray is the predominant color.

In other words, pre-winter.

Every winter since I moved here “full time” in 2013 I’ve spent at least part of the winter south of here in an RV. In the early years, it was the big fifth wheel I’d owned since 2010; later it was the big truck camper I bought to replace it, and, more recently, it’s been the slightly smaller big truck camper I bought to replace that. I leave my home in the able hands of a house-sitter (or two or three) in November or early December, and drive south until it’s warm enough to sleep in my camper at night without being plugged into a power source. I stay south until just past the point where I’m ready to come home, which is usually in February or March.

But before that, every year I have the same debate with myself: do I stay home this winter or migrate south?

The Argument for Staying Home

The best argument for staying home is that home is comfortable.

Although it gets cold outside — sometimes into the single digits at night — my home’s heat works fine. Because local power is renewable and so damn cheap, I have no qualms about cranking up the heat as high as I like to stay warm. My garage isn’t heated, but my jewelry shop down in the garage is insulated and the portable heater I use down there keeps it warm enough to work in comfort.

At home, I have everything I need to do anything I need to do. Want to cook a meal in a big oven or Insta-Pot? No problem. Need to store something large in the fridge or freezer? I’ve got space. Want to edit a bunch of video and upload it to YouTube? I can use a desktop computer with two monitors and upload via a super fast fiber connection to the Internet. Feeling under the weather? I can lounge in a comfy bed or on a sofa in front of a TV with a book close at hand. Want to explore new jewelry designs or techniques? The shop is already set up with any equipment I might need.

Staying home is easy.

The Difficulty of Travel

Traveling, on the other hand, is not. While moving from place to place in my truck/camper rig is not difficult — heck it’s as easy to drive and park as my truck is — finding a good overnight or multi-day spot can be. My problem is that I’m picky and a bit cheap. I don’t want to pull into a campground, hook up, and pay $40 per night for the privilege of having neighbors 15 feet away out my windows on all sides. I don’t care if that campground has full hookups, a laundry room, a heated pool, and a dog run. Places like that are like suburbia (or worse). I don’t live like that at home and I certainly don’t want to live like that when I travel.

I want to live out in the desert or in the mountains or at a lake or river or in the forest with the same kind of privacy I have at home. I want to let my dogs out by simply opening the door and letting them out — just as I do at home. I don’t want to hear a stranger’s voice or vehicle or generator or barking dog. I want to experience sunrises and sunsets without seeing them through wires or around buildings or over the tops of other RVs. I want to hear the wind and rain and see wildlife.

Last Year

Last year I camped at a site I knew well along the Colorado River south of I-10 in Arizona. It’s BLM land and, technically, you’re only supposed to stay there for 14 days before moving on. I stayed considerably longer. My friend Janet was with me for about half that time; she moved on to Quartzsite as she normally does in January.

I was set up with a little compound that included my camper and the cargo trailer I’d dragged down there. My mobile shop, I told myself. I later realized that it was a sort of anchor, limiting my travel possibilities. Because of it — and because the spot I’d set up in was so damn comfortable — I didn’t travel much at all last year once I’d parked and set up. It wasn’t until I hooked up with my friend Bill that I actually travelled.

Camper Setup
Here’s my truck camper, set up for a long stay at camp last year. You can read more about life at camp last year here.

My biggest fear in that spot was that some yahoo with loud equipment — generators, ATVS, radios, etc. — would pull into the area — it was big enough for multiple rigs, after all — and set up camp nearby, totally spoiling the peace and quiet I was able to enjoy. Yes, the spot did have visitors — there was a boat ramp there that saw some activity from fishermen — but no one (other than friends) spent the night. The fear of being intruded on by someone loud and obnoxious made my stay a little less enjoyable. And the knowledge that I was wasting time on a piece of desert when I could have been exploring new places convinced me not to spend more than a week at that spot again.

The realization that my cargo trailer was limiting my travel capabilities convinced me to leave it home in the future.

The Prospect of Traveling Light

Of course, not having the cargo trailer along would limit my comfort on the road. I couldn’t easily take the things I might “need” with me. After all, my truck’s huge cargo bed was full of my camper. My camper had some storage space, but not for large items. The back seat area of my truck was limited and there were some things I really needed to bring, including my generator and my bicycle (which folds).

It would also limit my ability to participate in art shows while traveling. I was all prepared to do shows last winter — I had all of my show equipment stowed in my cargo trailer — but COVID canceled most shows and the few that remained lacked the precautions that would have made me comfortable participating in them. (So yes, I lugged all that stuff all over the southwest for no reason.) Without the cargo trailer, would I be able to bring the tent, tables, displays, and other items I needed to do shows? I doubted it.

That meant that the trip would be strictly a vacation with no income-earning potential — and that didn’t jive with other plans I had for my life.

But This Is How It Works

I go through versions of this same debate every single year around this time. Lately, in the end, I make the same decision: stay home.

It’s a great idea. I can be comfortable and get work done. I can write, edit videos, and make jewelry — all of which have revenue potential for me. I can spend holidays with friends. I can go cross-country skiing for Christmas on some of the best groomed ski trails in the country. (And I do mean that literally; look up Methow Valley skiing.) I can spend the winter without worrying about where to camp, where to dump RV tanks, where to get water, and whether there’s enough solar power to top off my batteries before nightfall. Sounds great!

And then something happens that gets me packing my RV for the trip south: we change the clocks.

Suddenly, instead of the sun setting here at 5:46 PM, it sets at 4:34 PM. By December 5 of this year, it’ll be setting at 4:10 PM.

As someone whose life is governed by an internal clock powered by sunlight, I’m mentally ready for bed at 6 PM. And I can assure you that waking up at 2 AM after a full 8 hours of sleep is not optimal.

But before that, on around December 1, the Shadow Time will have begun here. And, most likely, the inversions will have started, shrouding the Wenatchee Valley in low clouds or fog that, because of my elevation, I’m often seeing directly out my windows. I remember being here one December or January when for three days in a row, when I looked out any of my windows, all I saw beyond the deck was white. I was living in a fog bank.

Truck at Home
Last year, I left home early, on November 15. With a cold snap and snow already on the ground, I couldn’t wait to get out of here. The trailer stays home this year.

This Year

I that’s where I stand today: I would like to stay home this winter but I know that as soon as we change the clocks, I’ll be eager to get out of here.

I have house-sitters all lined up and I know it would be disappointing to them if I told them I wasn’t leaving. So I’ll keep my current mindset to myself, knowing that it will change on the evening of November 7.

In the meantime, I have two Christmas art shows to attend in Washington State this November: one in Pasco on November 5-7 and one in Spokane on November 19-21. I’ll be taking my truck camper to both of them and I MUST be able to get all of my show gear on board. I’ve also started looking for shows in Oregon, California, and Arizona for December. If I can successfully pack for Pasco, I’ll head south right after Spokane.

Another winter south of the 45th parallel? You can bet money on it.

Differences in Cruising Styles

Posted on by
Comment

There’s more than one way to get around on a boat — and more than one organization to support your travels.

I’m not sure if this blog post should go here or in my Great Loop blog, so I’ll put it here. I think I prefer to keep that blog about specific Great Loop and other boating trips. This blog is a good place for some thoughts about my travels and experiences.

That said, I’d like to discuss the various ways cruising can be done when covering a long distance.

Great Loop Completion Fever

The American Great Loop Cruiser’s Association (AGLCA), which I shared thoughts about here, is a huge supporter of the goal to complete the Great Loop. They have members only and fee-based video webinars — think narrated slide shows you can watch for $25 a pop — and fee-based rendezvous events with seminars to help you learn everything you need to know to complete the Great Loop. They also have forums which, as we all should know by now, is the modern way for organizations to accumulate free content under the guise of sharing knowledge. As I discovered last week, the AGLCA’s forums are heavily moderated and a member’s comment can be deleted or edited at the whim of the moderator, even when no stated rule is broken. (So much for a free exchange of ideas.) When you start planning or doing your Great Loop trip, you can buy a burgee to hang on your boat; when you complete it, you can buy a different colored burgee to hang on your boat. And if you complete it more than once, open you wallet and buy yet another colored burgee to hang on your boat. And yes, you can save a few bucks on all of the burgees and a few other things if you are a member; discounts are a benefit for AGLCA members.

One of the things I learned on my ill-fated journey aboard Nano is that some people do the Great Loop cruise just so they can say they’ve finished the Great Loop, or “crossed their wake.” It’s not all about the journey — all those places they can stop and visit along the way — as much as it’s the destination — crossing their wake to complete the journey.

I learned this early on in a discussion with Dianne, the other crew member. It had to be the first week when she stated, as a matter of fact, “The only reason people do the Great Loop is to be able to say they’ve done the Great Loop.” I told her I doubted that but she did not agree. (Surprise, surprise.) I told her that I saw the Great Loop as a way to explore the eastern waterways without having to backtrack to a starting point. (I suspect she thought I was full of shit.)

Doing a trip like this just to able to tell people I’d completed the Great Loop was silly because where I live, no one knows what the Great Loop is. In fact, when you leave the eastern part of the country and its boating communities, very few people know what the Great Loop is. It’s no fun to brag about something when you have to explain it every time you try. In fact, as if to prove my point, every time we stopped at a marina and there was another boater there that she could talk to, she made a point of telling them we were doing the Great Loop and having to explain to half of them what the Great Loop was.

I was naïve when I started the trip. I thought other people thought the way I did — they were in it for the journey. But I was ignoring facts: primarily, the rough travel plan. Capt Paul had planned the trip with the first half at a very fast pace — 30 or more miles a day — but had assured me that it was a general plan and would change. It didn’t change, however, until Day 10, when I suggested Newark instead of Lyons for an overnight stop. As things turned out, we needed to go as far as Newark that night, but I still wonder whether we would have been stuck at a crappy marina nowhere near the town of Lyons if lock closures hadn’t forced us to keep going.

It wasn’t until we got out into the Great Lakes that I realized the trip was really all about completing the Loop. Capt Paul had already started the Loop from Stuart, FL past New York City to Portland, ME a few years before. So he had the east coast portion done. This trip was all about completing the Loop. When he got to Stuart in November, he would be done.

Because of this, we were prepared to simply motor from one point to the next almost every day, with few shore days. We had no ground transportation — for example, bicycles — and didn’t even have a dinghy set up and ready to use. Few planned stops on the trip had points of interest or even grocery shopping opportunities within walking distance. We passed up many potentially interesting spots along the way. Yes, we did spend multiple days in several cities — Buffalo, Cleveland, and the outskirts of Detroit — and we did visit more boating related museums than I was aware existed. But we did no exploration on the water and very little hiking/biking/touring on land. Other than breakfast, we ate most of our meals in whatever restaurants we could find.

It reminded me of long road trips I’d done in the past, like from New Jersey to Arizona. The goal is to get there so you don’t make many stops along the way. You just motor and stop for fuel, food, and a place to spend the night. But on the boat, there was only one stop per day and that had to cover everything you needed.

I don’t know why I expected otherwise. I did have that plan and I had programmed it into Aqua Map so I knew exactly where we were supposed to stop. I guess when Capt Paul told me that it was just a rough plan and could change, I thought it could really change. I didn’t realize that the changes would only come much later, when we were on the Great Lakes and lake conditions might control when we cruised. In a way, that made it worse. Although it was the part of the journey that we could easily skip stops — the planned stops were sometimes laughably close together, for example just 20 miles between Port Huron and Lexington, MI? — many of those stops had nothing of use or interest to us. Getting stuck somewhere because weather was bad made it necessary to skip stops on subsequent days to “stay on schedule.” The only hard point in the schedule was Chicago, where I was supposed to disembark and another crew member was supposed to board in my place. I’d originally built 8 extra days into my Chicago departure date in case we were delayed; I don’t know if the other crew member had flexible travel plans.

I guess my point is this: I had naïvely and irrationally expected the trip to give me opportunities to explore interesting points of interest along the way and, in most cases, it didn’t. Both Capt Paul and Dianne were doing the trip to say they’d completed the Great Loop. (Dianne still has to find someone to take her from Florida to New York to complete her loop.)

I should add a few things here:

  • The Great Loop, as it’s laid out, is logically completed over the course of a year. You do the southern part in the winter months and the northern part in the summer months. You travel south from Chicago in Autumn and north from Florida in spring.
  • Many people will do the trip at a leisurely pace and park the boat for occasional trips home while enroute.
  • Capt Paul planned to do 4,000 miles of the trip — that’s 2/3 of the total Loop mileage — in four months. That’s 1,000 miles per month in a boat that cruises at 10 to 12 knots.
  • In the book I read about a woman doing the Loop solo, Crossing the Wake, she completed the entire loop in about 6 months. She was definitely one of those folks whose only concern was “doing the Loop.”

My point: although the mostly retired folks who do the Loop take their time about it, not everyone does.

Enjoying the Journey

The other extreme is someone who does the loop at a slow cruising speed with lots of multiple-day stops and dinghy trips to explore smaller adjacent waterways.

I was contacted by such a person recently. We’ll call him “Joe,” because I don’t see any reason to identify him. Joe’s boat is down for maintenance right now on the east coast’s Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) and he’s home, but he’s thinking about his next leg. He told me a little, in an email, about how he cruises:

As far as how I travel, I’ve had 300 or so boat days of which about 100 have been travel days. Before I began I estimated that I would average 10 miles per day and that has pretty well happened, as well as my estimate of 1 travel day in each 3 day period. I have stayed in some spots for 7 days and alternatively have gone 80 miles some other days when there was nothing in between points. I’ve anchored out probably 10 times and would like to do more, especially now that I have solar panels. Some of the Georgia anchorages have been the most tranquil days I have experienced. I like to explore—have done museums, famous BBQ places, historic districts, biking through nature preserves, interpretive kayaking tours, popular Florida beaches by car when removed from the ICW, cities…all depends where we are. And now that the inflatable and outboard are repaired/replaced, I’d like to do some dinghy exploring if the opportunity arises. I like the social aspects of marinas and have traveled alone and with buddy boats. My travel is almost always at trawler speeds even though the boat is capable of more. I have stayed within the ICW when I had a choice, preferring not to have to find an inlet quickly should a situation require it, and also seeing the (more interesting and varied, I think) scenery from up close instead from a few miles offshore.

This is music to my ears (or eyes, technically, since I’m reading it and not hearing it). Here’s a person who is interested in the voyage more than the destination. All the activities Joe mentions are the kinds of things I’ve been dreaming about. I was really hoping to do some anchoring out on our trip and we did none — in fact, we were docked with a power connection every single night. (No roughing it!) I plan on doing a lot of anchoring out in my boat so I’m eager to experience it to see if it’s what I expected.

I’m also interested in the social aspects of marinas, which is one thing we mostly missed. Because most folks do the trip at a more leisurely pace than we did and just about all of them want to be to Chicago by Labor Day weekend because of potential weather issues on Lake Michigan in September, most long distance cruisers, including Loopers, were ahead of us. (We were in Detroit with a full month of cruising ahead of us on Labor Day weekend.) It was only when we reached Harrisville, MI on Lake Huron that we started catching up with them — or a handful of late Loopers caught up with us. Even then, stuck at a marina with them for an extra night due to a small craft advisory on the Lake, we did not socialize other than quick conversations. I was looking forward to more socialization with others, especially since my onboard socializations were so limited. It’s by chatting with other Loopers (without the fear of message editing/deletion by an overzealous moderator) that we learn about other things along the way, whether they’re great, good, disappointing, or to be avoided at all cost.

And finally, his comment about seeing the sights close up really hit home with me. There is nothing more boring than being “out to sea” on one of the Great Lakes for hours on end, miles away from anything that might be interesting onshore. Add rough water tossing you around like a cork in a blender and you’ve got a miserable travel day that really didn’t need to be so bad.

I suspect Joe plans his trips as he does them, making plans a few days ahead of his current location but being willing to change if he needs/wants to. That capability comes with the flexibility inherent in being more interested in the journey than the destination and deadlines. While it’s important to have some sort of plan with some sort of deadline — I don’t think anyone would deny that — I think a flexible plan is preferable to one created months in advance and almost set in stone.

My Preference for Cruising — and Planning

I think that when my time comes to plan my voyage along the Great Loop, I’ll take it more like Joe does. In fact, I have to admit that I’m not all that interested in “doing the Loop” anymore. I want to cruise along the Loop but it really isn’t that important to finish it.

Right now, I’m extremely interested in two parts of the loop:

  • For winter, the Florida Keys and ICW. This is a (mostly) heavily populated area with lots of people and facilities — very different from my usual travel. Maybe I need something different in my life? And I’ve always been interested in the ICW as a sort of slow-speed water highway up the east coast. How cool would it be to explore that and the rivers that feed into it?

  • Triangle Loop Map
    The Triangle Loop. In reality, there are a lot more options in that part of New York State.

    For summer, the New York State canal system. I had a taste of it on my trip but it wasn’t enough. I could easily spend an entire summer cruising the Erie and Canadian canals and the lakes they go through. Boat US had a great article about the mini loops that are available to explore; some version of the Triangle Loop looks good to me.

Why bother with the Loop at all? Well, as I told Dianne, it’s a way to explore a lot of territory without doubling back to return to a starting point. But what’s more impressive to me is the sheer volume of information available to Loopers about navigation, points of interest, and facilities. This makes it very easy to plan trips.

Most of the hard data about the Loop is available on services like Waterway Guide on their website and in their printed publications. (I’m not sold on their app; it needs a lot of improvement before I could recommend it.) The marine navigation app I like is Aqua Map, which offers the option of overlaying Waterway Guide data on the chart. So I can see a charted marina or bridge or lock or hazard and tap an icon to get more information about it right from Waterway Guide. I can’t tell you how useful this was for planning along the way. (It’s how I found Newark NY as a much better overnight alternative to Lyons NY on the one opportunity my input into an overnight destination was actually used.)

Alpena Map Alpena Marina
Here are two images from Aqua Map showing the Aqua Map chart with Waterway Guide icon for a marina (left) and the Waterway Guide info window that appears when you tap the marina icon (right). All the information you need, at your fingertips.

As far as supportive organizations go, there are alternatives to the AGLCA. The Marine Trawlers Owners Association (MTOA) was recommended to me by a AGLCA member who was appalled by my forum messages being tampered with. He told me that MTOA’s forums are not so strictly moderated so you can share opinions and information that a moderator might not like. Capt Paul is a member and hangs their burgee at the front of his boat.

For Ranger Tug owners, there’s TugNuts, a group of Ranger Tug owners. If I do buy a Ranger, I will definitely participate in their forums. As I discuss in the Day 27 post of my Great Loop Blog, their existing forum posts were helpful in troubleshooting a weird electrical issue we had in Detroit.

Those are just two examples. I guess my point is this: you don’t need to join the AGLCA and deal with their heavy-handed forum moderation to learn about the Great Loop and related matters.

Going Forward

While my first Great Loop adventure didn’t go as well as I wanted and ended before it was supposed to, I’m not discouraged. I know now that there are other cruisers who are more interested in the journey than the destination — as I am. Maybe I can even hitch a ride with one of them and learn firsthand about their style of cruising.

September 27, 2021 Update:
I have to add here that I’ve been contacted directly by several AGLCA members who claim that the management of AGLCA has driven friends of theirs from the organization. Clearly, there are problems and clearly AGLCA values the people who pay dues and keep quiet over those who question their operations or decisions. Is that the kind of organization anyone wants to be a member of? I don’t.

I’m also encouraged by the supporting messages and emails I’ve received from AGLCA members who were bothered by the heavy-handed moderation that caused some of my messages to be deleted or edited. (I can’t decide which is worse, honestly.) Thanks, folks! As we all know, it was the AGLCA’s moderator who blew the whole thing up and made it an issue. I now know better than to waste my time and energy participating in a forum where my comments can be discarded at the whim of a moderator.

Index to Great Loop 2021 Daily Posts

Posted on by
3

A list of all 35 blog posts about my 2021 Great Loop trip, in date order.

If you’d like to read the saga of my Great Loop trip in August and September 2021, here’s an index for all of the daily blog posts, in order.

My First Great Loop Adventure Comes to an Early End

Posted on by
Comment

I leave the boat after 35 days because of a crew member conflict.

I know I haven’t been blogging here for a long time, but that’s because I’ve been blogging on the My Great Loop Adventure website. For 35 days, I blogged every single day, falling behind more than once and managing to catch up. If you haven’t read any of those posts, I highly recommend that you do. Here’s a handy index in date order.

But I’m home now and back to work around my house. I’ve even managed to arrange to attend two art shows for selling my jewelry — shows that I would not have been able to do if I’d stayed on board the boat.

And that’s my point: I’m home about three weeks early. I had a huge problem with the other crew member and it got to the point where the trip just wasn’t fun anymore. I will expand on this in another blog post — I learned a lot about myself and dealing with other people. I will also blog a summary of the things I learned on the trip. And a summary of what was good and bad about the trip.

In other words, the 35 days I was on board Nano has given me plenty to write about. So stay tuned. I’m hoping to continue my one-post-a-day routine here in this blog — at least for a while.

Great Loop 2021 Gets Its Own Website

Posted on by
Comment

I copy all of my Great Loop 2021 posts to a new website where I’ll be publishing all posts about the trip from now on.

I’ve been posting to this blog since 2003 and, over the years, it has accumulated thousands of posts. If you know me, you know that I have a lot to say. This blog makes it easy for me to get the things on my mind off my mind so I can think about other things. It also offers a sort of journal of the things I’m up to — something I can turn back to in the future to see what was going on in my life.

And I’ll admit it: I keep this blog more for myself than for readers. Regular readers come and go but I remain.

Long ago, when I was writing a lot of computer how-to books, I broke out the content related to those books and put them into their own website. It was Maria’s Guides for a while and Langer Books for a while and I think it even ended up in Flying M Productions for a while. Those sites (and my support for those old books) are gone. The content is around somewhere, but it simply isn’t worth maintaining websites for it.

I’m hoping that’s not the case with the first new blog I’ve created in more than 10 years: My Great Loop Adventure.

I bought the domain name a few months ago when I first started seriously thinking about doing the Great Loop. I set it up but didn’t really have the motivation to give it a nice design or the “branding” that everyone expects. Frankly, I didn’t have the creativity to do it myself or budget to hire someone else. Since I didn’t think it was attractive enough to share, I kept it under wraps.

In the meantime, I kept blogging about the Great Loop and my upcoming trip here.

One of the big “rules” for bloggers — back when blogging was a big thing and people bothered to share advice about it — is to keep your blog focused on one topic. That is impossible for me. I have too many interests and blog about too many things. Did I really want to maintain a dozen or more blogs just so that each one could be focused on a single topic?

The answer was no, mostly because of another rule: add new content to your blog frequently. I definitely did not want to write and publish a dozen (or more) new posts a week, which would be the minimum to keep the blogs alive. So I continued to publish about all of my interests in one blog.

The problem with that is this: if someone is interested about just one of the topics I write about, he might have to wade through weeks of uninteresting (to him) posts to find one that does interest him. And let’s face it; no one is really motivated enough to make a bookmark for a single topic (category) or tag on the site, although that would definitely solve the interest problem.

Great Loop cruising is a relatively new thing for me, however, and I want to reach as many fellow loopers as possible. The best way to do that would be to collect all of my Great Loop related posts in one blog.

And since I’ll actually be starting my partial Great Loop trip as a crew member on a 27 foot Ranger Tug on Tuesday, I expect to blog about my trip at least once a day. That’s a lot of new blog posts — far more than non-boaters want to see on this blog.

So yesterday, I copied all of the existing posts in the Great Loop 2021 series and republished them with their original publication dates on the new blog. (I left them here so links to them wouldn’t break.) And then I spent far too much time fine-tuning the blog’s layout and appearance to make it presentable. And I linked it to my Twitter account so my Twitter followers could still see the new posts as they were released.

Great Loop Website
Here’s what the My Great Loop Adventure website looks like now. I said it was “presentable,” not a work of art. If you have any interest in donating some design skills for a banner or custom icons, I’m ready for them.

At this point, I’m ready to stop blogging about my upcoming Great Loop trip here. I may, however, continue to blog about my boat shopping progress and other things of general interest to boaters.

I did make one change to this blog to help readers find new content on the new blog: I added a link to the RSS feed for My Great Loop Adventure to the sidebar. That widget will show clickable links to the most recent five blog posts there, as well as a link to that blog.

If you’re interested in new content about the Great Loop, I urge you to subscribe to that blog. You’ll get notified every time a new post comes out. (And, of course, you can unsubscribe at any time; your email address won’t be sold, etc., etc.)

And if you haven’t subscribed to my personal YouTube channel, please do. That’s where you’ll see the videos I create on the trip; I’m hoping to release a few every week, including more than a few from my drone, which is coming along on the ride.