Roadtrip! Atlanta to Quantico
We can't be full-time nomads. I'm not really even sure I would want that because I do love my home, but we like to try and be part-time nomads, which means working from the road sometimes. We recently upgraded our travel trailer to make working and living in the camper more comfortable on longer trips. We chose a 24-foot long 2022 Lance 1985 because it is still small enough to give us almost as much flexibility about camping locations as we had in our 21-foot long Little Guy Max. Since it has a slide out though, our floor space increased tremendously. We also have much bigger holding tanks and better insulation for four season camping.
We wanted to be in Quantico, Virginia for our son-in-law's graduation from The Basic School, a difficult program all new Marine officers have to complete. We also have a new Boykin Spaniel puppy who was far too young to leave behind. Perfect reason for a roadtrip.
The fast way from here to there is through Raleigh and then up I-95 through Richmond, but the beautiful way is through the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley. Even when we are going to Washington, D.C., we like to drive the more beautiful route. Crossing Virginia from the southwest to the northeast is one of the prettiest drives I've found on the East Coast. So this working road trip would let us hang out for a few days in an area we already knew we found beautiful.
When we take one of these working trips, we don't want to spend all of Randy's free time driving so planning for work, fun and movement can be challenging. We often end up double-booking one or more nights so that Randy can work during the day and then we can move a fairly short distance in the evening. This isn't ideal of course because we have to pay for two campsites and we often end up setting up in the dark.
On this trip, though, Randy would only be working Monday-Wednesday so planning was less of a challenge. We didn't have to double book, and we got to use a couple of Harvest Hosts. For a yearly subscription fee, the Harvest Hosts program gives us access to businesses around the country that will let us camp overnight in exchange for patronage of the business. We usually pick distilleries or breweries because they are often open fairly late, and we have trouble getting anywhere by mid-afternoon.
When we do a Harvest Host stay, we always feel more connected to the place then we would have if we just stopped in for dinner and a drink.
While Randy works his regular job, I like to find interesting local businesses to visit. In Luray, Virginia, I had a great time talking with a man who runs the local used bookstore, Bank Street Books. It was close to closing time, and he and a friend were drinking Scotch and talking politics when I got there. "Talking politics" could mean disaster, but they weren't ideologues just regular people, so it was just interesting, not stressful.
Connections like that make me love traveling. This trip abounded with that human element--not just when we were with family but everywhere we went. There was also plenty of beautiful scenery.