Life After Jack

It has been a month since we said goodbye to our dear sweet Jack. I have to say, that the first week was extremely difficult. We all lived soo close in this RV together, that it was very strange not to have him with us anymore. The weather in Baton Rouge was dark and stormy, matching our mood. We had just bought him a brand-new bed and some other items, so we decided to donate them to the local animal shelter. That made us feel a little bit better. Leaving the area, we had mixed emotions. It was comforting to know that in our next location, he would be there (his ashes) ready to be picked up, but also, it was now time for us to carry on with our RV adventures 1 person (dog) less. He is currently in his fancy wood box inside the cubby of our front dash area. He will stay there traveling with us, until we find the perfect spot to spread his ashes. We have some ideas, but I think we will know when we know.

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I had planned a pretty busy couple of months visiting the south and as many Civil War sites as possible. We also try to find unique and other interesting places to explore so that we don’t get burnt out on Civil War stuff. I don’t think I could get Gannon to do all these battlegrounds if I did not make sure we had some other non “death zones” to visit. One of our favorite things we did was the cooking class in New Orleans. It was 4 hours of guided cooking, eating, and drinking. I highly recommend it! That is definitely something we could not have done if Jack was still with us.

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We have been to battlegrounds, cemeteries, museums, haunted plantations and sawmills, ghost towns, wineries, Mardi Gras, big cities, little towns, historical landmarks, seen locations where history has literally played out, been to the Gulf Coast (couple of times), learned the difference between a swamp and a bayou, hiked and biked along trails, and camped along many of the major rivers of the south. It has been fun and exhausting. We have about 1 month left until we reach Bridgette’s house. From there, we will explore North Carolina and surrounding area, eat, drink wine, laugh, drink wine, rest, and drink wine. Just kidding…we probably won’t get much rest.

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As far as RV life goes, it is starting to pick back up out here. People in the south are dewinterizing and starting to camp. This week is spring break and we are noticing a big uptick in seeing RVs on the road. Reservations are hard to come by. We had to cancel one campground and could not find any openings for a 4-day window we have between locations. I have filled those with Harvest Hosts, but even those were hard to get! At Bridgette’s we will see how hard it is to get reservations at a few locations in KY and TN. That will determine how long it takes us to get back to Nevada. If we can’t find anywhere to stay, we will be making a fast drive back, instead of the leisurely driving that we like to do.

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For the summer, we plan on taking a break. From what we are hearing, this summer is going to be the busiest summer RVing has ever seen. A lot of people still don’t want to fly or stay in hotels, so RVing is their only way to go on vacation. We plan on hanging out in the eastern sierra doing some backpacking and hiking. Staying local to see family and friends and maybe take a few short boondocking trips.

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We are working on getting back into backpacking shape (and size) as we have gotten soft and winded. It would be nice to get back to being able to do 11 miles without breaking a sweat. Right now, we are lucky if we can do 4 ½-5. Months of not being able to leave Jack and gaining the Covid weight have taken their toll on us. We are getting closer to the Appalachian Trail and very much looking forward to getting our feet on it. That will be a dream come true for us!

Long range plans are just dreaming at this point. We look forward to the Canadian border opening up and international travel to start happening again.  Oh, the places we’ll go……