Goodbye 2020

Used our Pull-Start-Fire kit to get this fire going and we went through three log bundles rapidly! Maximum BTU!

New Year

Prepping our New Year hors d'oeuvres... smoked salmon, sparkling rose wine and Glenfiddich 15...

Daytona Lights

With tickets purchased online we were marshaled into the Daytona International Speedway and proceeded at a leisurely 5 mph through the Christmas light circuit which was quite lengthy and varied. It was a fund raiser so we felt good about donating for a worthy cause and had a nice evening out experience !

Daytona Festival of Lights

Reserved tickets to the drive through light show at the Daytona International Speedway... a two mile circuit with seasonal themed light shows. The level of animation was pretty average and not quite as exciting as I had hoped! However it was splendid nil-covid risk entertainment driving the RAM through the Speedway complex through a million lights!

Christmas dinner

Improv on the grill and Airstream oven... Christmas evening treat... grilled lobster tails, white wine/white balsamic/chicken stock/shallot reduction sauce, mashed potatoes baked over prosciutto, asparagus and roasted cherry tomatoes... followed by individual creme patissiere tarte aux fruits...

Gamble Rogers

Moved up the coast a few miles from Christmas at Cape Canaveral to New Year at Flagler Beach. Love being close to the ocean and walking the long beaches with very few folks on them. Fine tuned out curbside pickup with Publix grocery stores after we turned up the wrong store location! So far successful in avoiding public spaces. Set up zoom calls to UK and to California for New Years Eve and lit a huge camp bonfire!

Celebrating Brexit!

The rainbow was appropriate symbol of regaining sovereignty and freedom from bureaucratic overkill...

KSC pad 39B

Lunch on Playalinda beach less than two miles from KSC Pad 39B where Shuttles and moon shot Saturns lifted off from. Slightly south is Pad 39A which is in constant use by Spacex but my visits to Canaveral so far have not coincided with any launches...

Canaveral Seashore

Lunch at the beach with David and Diana with Margaret and myself on opposite ends of the bench! Making our annual pilgrimage down the east coast and checking in with friends along the way... we all started off in sailboats many years ago and moved on to Airstreams. David and I are both avid bread bakers and grillers, photographers and love working with wood - where David excels is his exquisite bird carvings!

Savannah camping

Beautiful Spanish Moss hanging from the trees in Skidaway Island State Park and fortunately not in pollen season! Met up with Steve and Claudia who are wintering aboard their Nordhavn 47 at the Isle of Hope Marina about two miles away as the crow flies! Steve and Claudia have just bought an Airstream Interstate and expect delivery in the Spring. We wanted to give them a taste of real camping with a huge camp bonfire and fireside lunch!

Newly-weds!

Glamorous location to meet Harrison and Christine- the Charleston Target parking lot - because we know there is enough room to park our rig! Harrison has signed up for half a life in the Navy and has a several year long training program to work with nuclear reactors on aircraft carriers! They were married a couple of weeks ago in the Temple in Columbia SC. They are so happy it's wonderfully refreshing to see a young couple start out on life with do many dreams going in the right direction! We will be passing through Charleston regularly to check in on them!

New Airstream Table

Replaced our mottled green Formica dining table with a home built custom made maple, cherry and black walnut version that took weeks to build. Lots of quality control on the hardwood meant 50% was rejected, and agonizing about the irreversible gluing of the biscuits extended the project! Completed it looks great and it is an uplifting experience and great pleasure to have in our Airstream.

Brisket variations

One of my Covid stay at home projects has been learning to use Sous Vide techniques along with smoking and grilling. A 4 lb beef brisket was rubbed with Himalayan salt and coarse ground pepper, put in the SV for 36 hours at 155 F and then transferred to the smoker for 4 hours to develop a beautiful blackened crust. Plenty to take along on the road and enjoy!

RivaHaven sunrises

They are just spectacular at this time of the year. This is our bedroom window and this is the view we wake up to most mornings! By the time I've made my first cup of coffee the sunrise turns into a regular day and the magic has gone! It only 10 to 15 minutes!

Hatteras - part 2

Following our successful initial visit to Frisco we watched the weather and made a week long res and came equipped with beach tent and table. Lunch on the Surfline! Feels very Côte d'Azur at negligible cost and no crowd!

RivaHaven Yacht Club

Serious upgrade to facilities in the fall by adding a propane fire pit that made the evenings very enjoyable. Excellent venue to invite friends and sit on opposite side suitably distanced with a wall of flames between us and enjoy happy hour... or two!

Hatteras

Early fall made a couple of week long expeditions to the Hatteras National Seashore campground at Frisco. Selected a higher elevation site with great view of the Atlantic and secluded from all other campers. This is dry camping so solar energy, electrical and water conservation were top of our priorities. Purchased a off highway permit that allows 4WD beach driving for miles in both directions. Reestablished our love for the beach and simple ocean front living and grilling!

The beach awaits!

Lots of vehicles on the beach but well spaced out and mostly for determined and serious beach fishing....

Hoskins Creek and RYC

RivaHaven Yacht Club....

Assateague

Highlight of our summer Airstream adventures was the Assateague National Seashore with its wild ponies. Spaciously laid out camp site allowed us to leave the rig in our bare feet and walk over the dune to a vast flat white sand beach that stretched for miles and with very few visitors.

A crabby summer

Spent the entire summer harvesting crabs! Our four pots delivered large quantities of hard shell for steaming and grilling and we supplemented that with occasional soft shells from the local seafood store. Lots of crab cakes, crab salad, crab imperial, tempura crab, deep fried soft shells, grilled hard shell, crab spring rolls, plain crab with melted butter, in fact so much crab we are traveling with a couple of dozen frozen crab cakes for Christmas and well into the New Year!

Georgetown SC

Here we are messing about in Airstreams in Georgetown SC .... cute little town on the river that manages to dress itself pretty good including a reception by the mayor, closing off 3 major streets for us to park for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Restaurants, museums, theater, nice small businesses and shops.... Just shows what a small town can do when it sets its mind to....

Georgetown SC Rally

Joined up with South Carolina Coastal Airstream Club for a silver on the street weekend rally called "Streamin on the Harbor". Really well organized by Henry Knight we had 40+ rigs in the downtown area for two nights! Had a mayor's reception and recognition for all the folks who made this happen!

Atlantis

Terrific new exhibit at Kennedy Space Center featuring the Atlantis shuttle after some 33 missions. Obama neutered the NASA space program in 2010 and its only just getting back on its feet with the first US astronauts being launched from KSC this year!

Flagler Beach

Love those boardwalk so much we walked it back and forth twice, passing busy and fragrant restaurants and folks sunbathing even on a rather cool day. We were well wrapped up and stopped for a shadow photo in one of the gazebos.

Home made salsa....

Love spending half an hour chopping a bunch of fresh veggies and trying out variations. White onions and shallots, pickled jalapeño slices and green chili's, lime and lemon juice, spring onions, and tomatoes. All pretty healthy stuff!

Apalachicola!

Try saying that quickly! Apala-chi-cola... while on St George Island which is on the southern tip of the Florida panhandle we heard about a farmers market and parade so we dashed over the two 5 mile long bridges to check it out. We picked up a bunch of seafood, oysters, shrimp, smoked tuna fish dip and grouper for a couple of feasts in our camp site. Like many other fishing ports they claim to be the oyster capital of the world but I had to make do with some excellent Texas oysters since there were none of the locals available!

Another stunning state park

Gamble Rogers SP located between Ormond Beach and Flagler Beach has an Oceanside camp ground with power and water but no sewer. It's not a problem! We are ten paces from the beach and the sand is quite coarse and fairly sloped which makes for tough power walks- so we amble along and enjoy the ocean breeze!

Future aspirations

Quick Whole Foods pit stop in Tallahassee FL we found 6 contiguous parking spaces to park truck and Airstream. Just on the other side of the pavement were multiple Tesla charging stations! Wondered how long in the future that we will benefit from this technology? Rainy day adds to the reflection!

Sand sculpting

High winds across the St George's beach left some interesting miniature sandscapes as each shell obstructed the wind flow and created a beautiful tail.

Apalachicola!

Try saying that quickly! Apala-chi-cola... while on St George Island which is on the southern tip of the Florida panhandle we heard about a farmers market and parade so we dashed over the two 5 mile long bridges to check it out. We picked up a bunch of seafood, oysters, shrimp, smoked tuna fish dip and grouper for a couple of feasts in our camp site. Like many other fishing ports they claim to be the oyster capital of the world but I had to make do with some excellent Texas oysters since there were none of the locals available!

St George’s Island

A flurry of attractive and colorful developer houses built on the seashore at St George Island. Someone did the math and figured a couple dozen very narrow houses would turn a better profit!

St George Island State Park

One of the outstanding state parks and campgrounds we have ever been to! Twenty miles of uninhabited soft white sand beach, a grove of palms and pines with camp sites well separated and in pristine conditions! You have to admire Florida's department of parks and the excellent quality experience they provide for the public.

Cedar Key

Low Key Hideaway looks great on the web and it still looks good if the camera is pointed in the right direction at the right time. The campground of only ten sites is squeezed between the main highway into Cedar Key and one of the lagoons!