Little did we know on March 22 that we would spend the next eight weeks sheltering in place at Hampshire amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Jon began working from home on March 18, and will likely continue doing so until at least June. We’ve limited out outings to shopping for essentials, and then only Cliff goes…
It’s been said that all good things must come to an end, and so we concluded our coastal Christmas with a typical “weekday” breakfast before packing up and heading home to Dallas. Our days at the beach were made memorable by spectacular sunsets, mild temperatures, warm ocean breezes, waves crashing on the shore, and the…
The fourth day of our coastal Christmas found us at the beach, walking barefoot in the surf as we collected seashells. There’s nothing quite like the sensation of warm, wet sand between your toes. At one point, Cliff cleaned his shoes on some Sargassum (seaweed) that had washed ashore. The name seaweed is actually a…
Our third day at the Gulf coast held an unexpected encounter with friends from one of our Airstream groups, an evening campfire, and an unplanned viewing of a classic movie. The day began as expected, with coffee, Bloody Mary’s, and The New York Times. But as Jon was setting the picnic table for our al…
The second day of our Coastal Christmas found us engaged in our typical Sunday activities: enjoying Bloody Mary’s, watching “CBS Sunday Morning,” reading The New York Times. After brunching and napping, we took a long walk along the beach and the seawall, observing pelicans, sandpipers, egrets, herons, gulls and terns along the way. We were…
Texas has more than 300 miles of coastline bordering the Gulf of Mexico, so we decided to spend our five-day Christmas break at Galveston, a coastal resort city and port about four hours from Dallas. Our home for our Coastal Christmas was Dellanera RV Park, a beachfront camping site managed by the nonprofit Galveston Park…
Our Thanksgiving travel took us to the St. Louis area, where we visited Jon’s family. Although his mom lives in Alton, Illinois, our destination for the duration was about 40 miles away at Symond’s Dutch Hollow Village, described by Google as a “manufactured home community.” Jon’s nephew, Adam, lives there in a single-wide, two-bedroom, two-bath…
Our overnight stay at Ratón, New Mexico brought a surprise the next morning. As we watched the news on TV and read The New York Times online, we noticed people outside our windows gazing at the skies and taking pictures with their cellphones. Cliff stepped out to discover about 15 hot-air balloons filling the skies.…
Yes, that’s hail. About two inches of nickle-size ice balls fell from the sky and pummeled Cloud 9, just outside of Buffalo, Wyoming.We considered it the state’s parting gift. Fortunately, after several minutes of pelting, we were able to pull off the interstate highway and right into a truck wash bay for protection, so we…
Upon leaving Glacier National Park, we returned to Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton. The long drive to Sheridan, Wyoming, was occupied by vivid stories of Hamilton’s rise to power, influential position in the first Washington administration, and bitter rivalries with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Although written in 2004, if published today the book would…
