Johns Trippin'

While we were driving to lunch yesterday, we started wondering about various "world's biggest" items that we might see on our trip. For example, did you know that the world's biggest ball of twine is in Kansas? You do now. We were more or less looking for roadside kitsch. As part of our investigation, I asked Julie to look up the world's biggest playground. It felt like something that would be in the US, and I figured maybe we could weave it into our trip. Well, wouldn't you know it, the world's biggest playground is in the great state of Kentucky, where we happened to be: The Lazy Dayz Playground at Smothers Park in Owensboro. But size isn't everything, so we then followed up with an arguably more important question: What is the best playground in the world? Not subjective at all, right? Ready for it? The Lazy Dayz Playground at Smothers Park in Owensboro! The best playground in the whole wide world was just around the corner (figuratively speaking)...

I sat and watched the fire around the community fire pit.  The chairs were a hodgepodge mix.  The free marshmallows that I had roasted and ate had chocolate marshmallow in the middle.  As I watched the fire, Peggy came over. Peggy and her husband have been selling random antiques in their yard for 5 years. They also sell pigeons, do pedicures, perform massages and have an Airbnb in a few of their antique sheds turned into living spaces. She was very welcoming and met us at the road when we drove into her big field. She placed us on the top of the hill, next to a sign with our names on it. Michael was able to level it!  Go Michael!   Not only was Peggy welcoming, but she was very generous. We had free fire wood (It is usually between $4 and $7 a bundle). She bought too many pizzas for our family and 2 others and brought four leftover boxes to some nurses. One family was a Mennonite family that had a job in the area for the week.  The other couple s...

Cave Country was a lot like a resort. It had a small pool behind the office that we swam in and once there was about 16 people in it.  On Wednesday we went to Mammoth Cave National Park. As we started down in the cave, we got hit by a blast of cold air (About 54 degrees). We walked down a tunnel and into the rotunda. We walked around the cave and looked around. There were some rangers who were talking, so we listened to them. After the cave we got lunch at the restaurant and ice cream parlor. Then we went on a few trails and we saw another cave called Dixon Cave. After that we went to Crystal Onyx Cave. The entrance was inside a building! Crystal Onyx was a lot smaller then Mammoth Cave, but it had formations. Rimstone Dam "The Great Wall" with "The Great Lakes" behind it Flowstone. See the moose? Rock formations Rock formations When we got to the benches in the picture of The Great Wall, we turned the lights off and did "Pitch Black." It looks like this: ...

We woke up to the sound of birds chirping, bunnies munching, kids yelling, and Fiji walking. We went outside and had a normal breakfast. Then a girl came outside. I learned that Kelsey was friends with Livia, and I got their phone numbers so that we can still talk with each other! We also went to the pool with Livia and Kelsey! We went on walks, played and even cleaned the bunnies cage together! There was a office with a store that dad gave us money for. I got a ice cream cone. This was my most favorite campground ever so far!

After weeks along the coasts of various states, we headed inland. We cut all the way across South Carolina and up into western North Carolina, just outside Asheville. We need to have the RV back to the dealer in early June for some service work, and we wanted to get headed in that general direction. Hominy Valley was a nice change of pace from the parks we've been at. There couldn't have been more than 10 sites, and one of them was populated by a tiny house that had been there for quite some time judging from the flat tires on the trailer upon which it was built. It was also the first park in about a month that wasn't next to one or more major highways. It was nice to hear the sounds of nature. Granted, some of those sounds were from the neighbor's 3 donkeys, but hey, I'll take it over the semis. Our site was one of four that backed up to a beautiful creek bordering the property. And the property? It was Fred's. And the office? Fred's house. I guess Fred dec...

Quick heads up to anyone who may subscribe to the blog and therefore get updates as we post... Starting out, the goal was to write something on every place we stayed, even if it was brief. One of the main purposes of this blog is to give us something to revisit years from now, so we wanted a way to remember the places we stayed. Alas, that quickly fell by the wayside in the early days of trying to figure out how to live in a vehicle. We're going back and fixing that now. As we post about previous stays, we're backdating the posts so that they are ordered properly within the blog. Years from now, we'll probably forget that we posted them out of order. But if you subscribe and get an email about one of these posts, it's probably confusing. It may not be apparent that the post is about something from a month or two ago! It'll probably take us a week or two to catch up, and time should return to normal after that. via GIPHY

When we got to Lake Aire RV Campground it was a nice warm day. Jordan went to the pool but I didn't go for fear of the pool being too cold. Then we went through the arrival checklist and got set up and then later ate dinner and went to bed. In the morning we kind of checked the place out. We played on a nice sized playground they had, biked around, and saw waddling ducks. I liked the last campground (Red Gate Farms), but I also liked this one especially because this campground had wild Muscovy ducks waddling around the park. I was happy about that because I missed our ducks so bad and the fact that there were some there made me happy. We repeated doing those two things until later we went to the pool, swam, ate dinner, and went to bed. The next day we did pretty much the same thing except I think we did a little school also.  The next day we went to the Magnolia Plantation where we went to a petting zoo. We saw all kinds of animals but there were a few animals running around free ...

Have you ever played the game "Would You Rather?" You are given two outlandish options, and you have to pick the one you'd prefer. For example, would you rather have all of your thoughts visible in a thought bubble above your head or scream everything you say? Caleb would make a great writer for this game. He is so creative, and he is constantly asking us deep questions. They aren't deep in a ponder-the-mysteries-of-the-universe sense, but they always make us pause and think before answering. That can't be said for conversations with a lot of people in life. I say that as backdrop for what I'm about to share: the list of things Caleb definitely doesn't want for his birthday. That's right, he made such a list. In fact, he made four lists: things I really want things I'd like to have meh NO  ⬅  ⬅ Capitalization, arrows, and emphasis his. Without further ado, here is a lightly edited (only spelling corrections) list of the things Caleb doesn't w...

At Red Gate we were playing tag with some of our new friends. We met them because they asked, ''can I pet the bunnies?'' YES!!! We were just doing school when I heard a scream! It was Andy. He had scraped his foot and could not walk much so we played hide and go seek. We also went on a pony ride with Dipper. It was so much fun! We played with the goats and fed the goats a lot! We also went turtle catching! I honestly was sad when we had to leave. We went to Tybee Island