Left Coast to Right Coast, It’s Only 5,000 Miles…

One can’t get much farther across the continental U.S. than from Montesano, Washington to Key West, Florida. The west (left) coast to the east (right) coast – from the northwest corner to the southeast corner. Our route is only 5,000 miles…

Most of our travels have been over roads we’ve crossed before. Paths that follow an endless summer. The traditional snowbird follows the same route that takes them to warm climates with a seasonal return to their home in the North. However, we no longer have a traditional home and are snowbirds that have become wanderers.

We have traveled to Big Bend, Texas from the Northwest twice now. We’ve stopped at various places along the way and have spent months in the harsh and beautiful desert along the Rio Grande. This year brings us new wanderings, new sights, and new adventures while we explore the Gulf, east coast, and Europe this spring.

 We’ve made a commitment to visit friends and relatives along the journey and have made stops in central and east Texas to visit relatives and friends. We have found that life is too tenuous to delay a visit and have lost friends before we could see them. It is best to do it now and we are currently visiting friends who are camp hosts on St. George Island, Florida.

 Do we just wander aimlessly? No, we also have a nerdy hobby that utilizes multi-million dollar satellites to find Tupperware in the woods…. Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location. Caching has taken us to some interesting and beautiful locations. We admit that we are obsessed and have found over 1,300 geocaches in 17 states.

 Finally, the homestead is gone. After a nearly year of agony, we sold our house in Gresham. It ended up as a take-the-money-and-run situation. Suffice it to say that we took a pretty good hit but are still in the black. We feel very fortunate.

The Great Blue Herons are nesting on the banks of a pond near where we are camped. And, it is time to watch the pelicans, terns, and gulls in a feeding frenzy on the water’s edge.

 On to the Florida Keys!!