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A Year on the Road and a Tour of Libraries

One year ago today, we finished up all the business of selling our house on Covedale Avenue and hit the road. We didn’t have our Scamp yet; first we headed to the Flanders family cottage on Martha’s Vineyard for three weeks of well-deserved R&R after all the packing and other business involved in selling a house and not having anywhere to move into directly. But then we headed up to Minnesota and got our brand-new camper, ready for a full year of adventure on the road.

The year has not gone exactly as we hoped. For one thing, although we diligently made doctors’ appointments and came back to Cincinnati for them, we didn’t anticipate that they would/could lead to issues that caused us to have to find a place to stay for months in the spring, when we had planned a nice springtime loop around the middle south to southwest. We never did get that loop in, but . . . maybe someday.

Our original plan had been to stay on the road for a year, but because we were off the road for more than three months, we decided to extend our road trip for a few more months. However, there were more doctors’ appointments first, and we didn’t anticipate Mike’s sciatica keeping us in Cincinnati for awhile, either.

 “Improvise and Compensate,” as my father used to say—that became our motto. I had a chance for some solo camping and learned I was capable of setting up the Scamp and keeping things running smoothly by myself. Mike took refuge at our nephew’s house, where the guest room bed was a little more comfortable for his back than the small camper bed, and he found a new chiropractor. I had the chance to explore the nearby towns of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and Harrison, Ohio, more than I had in the past. I discovered a couple of great coffee shops, and there was a nice farmer’s market in Lawrenceburg, with live music. Including a horn player. The music was great!

Both Lawrenceburg and Harrison have nice libraries, and I’ve become a connoisseur of libraries. I haven’t found one yet that compares to the newly renovated almost 200-year-old Mercantile Library in downtown Cincinnati--but that’s a private library, and my fond favorite—but there are a lot of perfectly lovely libraries all across the country.

When it comes to public libraries, Winnemucca, Nevada, stands out with comfortable seating and a whole rack of paperback books you can take and keep whether you are an official patron or not. The library in Redmond, Oregon, is pleasant and had a quilt show going on when we visited, a definite plus. Port Aransas, Texas, has a rather strict librarian, but the fact that they have a live feed of the ocean waves nearby coming over a sound system is pretty awesome. More recently, the library in Billings, Montana, kept us cool and gave me the wi-fi and electricity I needed to finish a newsletter; it was a charming downtown library in a western town. We have encountered a few bummers, and I have an ongoing problem with libraries that have more DVDs and comics than actual books, but all in all I have been enjoying a good tour of the public libraries across the country.


The public library in Billings, Montana

We had a wonderful time following the Natchez Trace through history last fall, and then we found another great way to follow in the wheel ruts of history when we headed out west along the Oregon Trail this summer. The islands off the Texas coast in the Gulf of Mexico were a very pleasant (and warm) destination last winter, and the Pacific Northwest coast kept us cool when a lot of the country was broiling this past July. Most recently we cooled our heels at a local Hamilton County Great Parks campground, Miami Whitewater, which we hadn’t camped at in many years. It’s convenient, shady, and except on weekends, nice and quiet.


The harbor at Miami Whitewater Forest,
a Hamilton County Great Park

Mike’s sciatica wasn’t happy with camping in the rain, though (and we were also plagued by stink bugs at Miami Whitewater), so we checked in to a pleasant motel in Harrison where we’d stayed before when it was too cold to camp on a swing through town. They have an indoor pool with water warm enough to suit me, so I enjoyed playing dolphin most afternoons while we were here.

The motel was nice, but it was clear we needed to make some longer-term plans, so we set things up to stay in a furnished apartment in town for a month, because Mike has doctor’s appointments spread through the month of October, and we both have dentist appointments at the end of the month. With luck, we’ll get good reports all around and will be heading south by the beginning of November. Fingers crossed. Update: Nope, we now plan to be at the furnished apartment in Westwood for three months, and our plans after that are still up in the air, as they say.

In the meantime, we have parked the Scamp back at the carnival storage area where it spent some time last spring (we are lucky to know someone who knows someone who has a place to store carnival rides out of season.)


Scamp Shrimpi has made some new friends!

Although this report sounds a bit like a trip wrap-up, we are still hoping to find it was just a hiatus that gave us a chance to look back on a most interesting past year, and we’ll soon be ready to plan for a continuing adventure. We’ll keep you posted!

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