Travels with archy and beyond

I should have started this blog site two years ago, when my husband and I first set out to cross the country to pick up our tiny teardrop trailer. But even that starting point would not consider the four years of research and 18 months of searching until I found one we could afford on our retiree pension. What I wanted was just one step up from tent camping: no sleeping on the ground, no struggling with poles, flaps and stakes, no finding out that your batteries are dead on the air mattress pump, or that the cord is not long enough to reach from the tent to the (former cigarette) lighter on the dashboard.

Since the teardrop was with its current owners in Richfield, Ohio, we had five days of travel to get there with no trailer. I compromised by purchasing a single air mattress to fit inside the back of our Subaru Forester (we’re small) and also a tent that can either fit over the liftback of an SUV and keep you dry and also provide a place to stand up in and have some privacy. Our route was Interstate 80 with nights spent in 1) Winnemucca, NV; 2) Salt Lake City, UT; 3) Jelm, WY (try finding that on the map!) at the Little Cabin with a View, operated by the welcoming and gracious Linda through HipCamp; 4) on the La Platte River on the eastern border of Nebraska; 5) at Jubilee College State Park in IL; and from there to a delightful the Arbor Hill Inn in La Porte, IN.

But for the rest, I’m going to paste in the letters I wrote from our first two trips in @rchy, both across this great country and back.