Day: June 23, 2025

So here’s the plan for 2025

No photo. (Already he starts with the “no photo” nonsense….)

I still plan to leave Durham July 1 – a week from tomorrow. Most of the first two weeks will be visiting friends and family in Pennsylvania and Ohio. I doubt if I will post anything during that time (well, I might sneak one or two in since I generally wake up well before anyone else when I visit people).

Once I hit the road in earnest I will be making a series of one or two night stops as I work my way to Seattle WA. I will stay there 4 nights before crossing into Canada. All those stops have already been booked, and I have a few activities and photo ops planned.

After I cross into Canada I plan to spend 8 weeks visiting the southern parts of British Columbia and Alberta provinces, and the southwestern part of Saskatchewan.

Now comes the tricky part. Wildfires. The worst wildfire in Canada this year (so far) seems to be in the upper part of Manitoba, well east of my target area. BUT. Many fires have erupted in all three provinces I plan to spend my time in and are getting more than a little close for comfort. I have booked about three of my projected 8 weeks in Canada already. That puts me near Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. After that, who knows…. I am not booking anything else until I get my boots on the ground in Canada and can assess the situation at that time. I have Plans B, C, D and E mapped out, just in case.

My original plan was to spend 8 weeks in Canada, return to Seattle, put my car in storage and fly to Alaska! I have 5 weeks available to spend up there before I must start my departure from Seattle to make my rambling trip through the western and southern US on my way back to Durham by Thanksgiving.

For anyone who might be thinking of robbing my apartment, I have cleaned out all the food from my refrigerator and freezer and have taken my clothes to Asheville and Swannanoa in WNC to help the victims of Hurricane Helene, so don’t waste your time picking the carcass apart in Durham…. not much left here! I have all the good stuff with me – my wits, phone, computer, cameras, FitBit, prescription meds, Passport, new-to-me car and, of course, my Platinum card.

I will start posting some pictures once I depart to head west (instead of north) about three weeks from now, both with road trip pics, though there will be many travel days when I just drive on the dreaded interstate, and several stops I have planned around specific activities. Once I get to Canada I will stop the hysterical historical photos and stories and focus on real time photos of The Great White North (let’s hope it’s not white quite yet).

The momentum is building….

I’ve been working on this for weeks and it is about to start! Let me whet your picture appetite with some photos from “Nawlins” taken in May 2016. That’s New Orleans if you don’t speak southern.

And more importantly, let’s see if I remember how to do this! (Come on, JohnBoy, it’s like riding a bicycle…)

You can’t start a photo array about New Orleans without beignets and chicory coffee from Cafe du Monde.

No, that’s not me… I’m a few pounds heavier…. (where are my rolling eyes emoji’s when I need them)

I won’t tell you where I found this reverse image…

And to answer your next question….

So this is the type of thing you can expect from time to time. Flashbacks from past trips I took before starting the blog. These were taken using my Android phone which took very good pictures but don’t seem to be as big as photos taken with my various iPhones. And this was well before I had any of my digital cameras, the first of which I acquired in 2017.

I have downloaded 3,749 pictures from 2015, and 13,750 pictures from 2016, to my computer. I started the blog in 2017 but I traveled throughout the eastern United States and stayed mostly in Airbnb’s during those two years and other than amusing JohnBoy stories I have shared from time to time (like the Bike Gate fiasco in Memphis) I have just been sitting on them. I know, I know, COVID was the perfect opportunity to have used my isolation to post them but I am a terrible procrastinator.

My next post will spell out “the plan” as it stands right now, at 821 EDT on June 23, 2025. My life seems to be in a constant state of flux lately so we’ll all just have to muddle through this together…..