We are currently down in the Apache Junction area visiting with Terry’s parents and sisters. Yesterday we had an early Easter dinner with them, with lots of delicious food and great conversation around the table. Family times are definitely the best times. Though this area had triple-digit temperatures for most of March, breaking one record […]
On a visit to Tampa, Florida, we spent an afternoon exploring the rich cultural heritage of the neighborhood known as Ybor City (pronounced EE-borh), one of only two National Historic Landmark Districts in Florida. Today an eclectic community of students, artisans, small business owners, and descendents of the original Latin families that settled the community, […]
When we bought our house here in Alabama, I set a goal of being able to pay it off in two years. Yesterday, two years and six days after we signed the papers to purchase it, we wired the last the money to the mortgage company to pay it off. It would have been paid […]
Sometimes you live with something because it works, even if it’s not always convenient. I do that with the characters in my books. For each series, I have a list of the main and recurring characters, their physical traits, and a small bit of their history that I can refer to as I’m writing. That […]
Like a lot of people in this part of rural Alabama, we have a burn barrel to get rid of cardboard and paper and such, but I would much rather do the world a favor and recycle anything I can. However, that’s a concept that seems to be foreign to Pickens County. Residents are required […]
I’m back with more questions from blog readers about RVing, my writing activities, what’s happening in our lives since we hung up the keys, and all kinds of other things. While I try to answer all questions individually, I also share some here occasionally. Q. I know you guys sold your bus a long time […]
In the summer of 1935, much of the world was suffering through the Great Depression, an economic collapse that had begun in the fall of 1929. In the United States, men who had earned good wages just a few short years before during the Roaring 20s were lucky to get jobs paying $5 to $7 […]
Living in Florida, every time there’s the possibility of a hurricane or bad tropical storm we hear from friends and family members all over the country asking if we are all right, if we have plans to evacuate, and if we don’t, do we have enough supplies to survive in case the power grid goes […]
While it may seem odd to say that we enjoy visiting the dead, we have found some of our best stories while exploring cemeteries. After all, what better place could there be to learn about history than where those who made it are laid to rest? On a trip to Muskegon, Michigan, we discovered the […]
In a Q&A blog post a while back, somebody asked if there was any place that Terry and I wanted to visit while we were fulltiming but never managed to get to. As I said then, we crossed every place off of our bucket list that we wanted to see. A couple of days later […]
Mention Cape Cod to anybody who has never been there, and the image that comes to mind is probably one of scenic back roads leading to miles of pristine beaches, with the occasional picturesque small village along the way. At least that’s what I imagined. The reality is more like bumper to bumper traffic, people […]
Note: This article first appeared in the January-February 2009 issue of the Gypsy Journal. President Harry S. Truman was one of the most popular political figures of the 20th Century and helped shape the face of not only the United States but the rest of the world in the years following World War II. Under […]
I have to stop going to places they write songs about. I’m always disappointed. Jimmy Buffett painted a marvelous picture of sundrenched life in Key West with his classic Margaritaville, but the reality is that the island at the end of the road is crowded, over-commercialized, and all about separating tourists from the almighty buck. […]
I love the odd, quirky things we discover in our travels along America’s highways and byways, and a lot of them find their way into the blog, the Gypsy Journal, or my books. And we never seem to run out of new opportunities to find things to share with our readers. A while back, during […]
The other day we went down to Key West, where U.S. Highway 1, the Overseas Highway, ends at Mile Marker 0. So yesterday we decided to drive the other direction, up Key. We didn’t have any particular destination in mind, we just enjoy going for a ride together and seeing what there is to see […]
We would really like to get our Sea Eagle kayaks wet while we’re down here in the Florida Keys, but so far the weather has not cooperated. It warmed up nicely yesterday, but the wind was still kicking up some strong gusts and there were whitecaps in several places. We’re not whitewater adventurists, we’re old […]
We had decided that yesterday would be a good day to just stay home and hang out, do a little reading, play on the computer, and be lazy. But apparently we were the only ones expecting a slow day. I was comfortably ensconced in my Strongback chair reading my Amazon Kindle when I heard a […]
Yesterday started out bad, but it ended very well, so I guess it was a good day after all. But man, that bad part sucked! When we parked at Seasons in the Sun RV Resort a few days ago, I parked about one inch too close to the campground’s power pedestal, which meant I couldn’t […]
We’ve had all the fun we can have, or at least all the fun we have time to have, and today we plan to hit the road. There were a lot of things that we didn’t get done while we’ve been here in Florida, but we have to be in Yuma in mid-February to get […]
Today is the last day to take advantage of our Two For One Holiday Special. So if you haven’t clicked the link above, there’s still time. You can enter a new subscription to the Gypsy Journal for yourself, or renew your subscription early, and we’ll give someone on your Christmas shopping list a free one […]