Baby Got Back

In the last four weeks Mab has backed up and parked our trailer rig (20-foot van + 16-foot trailer) completely by herself five times now. It's really an accomplishment, and a hard-won and incredibly useful skill that she gutted her way through until she learned. If you've never had the pleasure: small trailers jackknife and go off in any old direction they decide, usually the opposite of what the newbie driver is aiming for - just because. 'Backing up' is the number 1 cause of arguments between couples who camp:

Go left.

I am. 

No, my left, the other way. 

Like this? 

No, the other left. 

I am turning left!

Right, left!

I am!

You're going right, right, right. Stop!

Argh! (Cuffs the steering wheel, puts it in Drive to start all over again.)

So it went. Our trailer is stubborn, but here was a case of stubborn versus stubborn, and no one's stubborner than Mab. It took a lot of time but she wore that ornery trailer down. She hung with it and never accepted help: she insisted on doing it herself, no matter how many attempts it took, no matter how many sour faces from other drivers who had to wait a minute. (Truly, most have been completely gracious about it.) She gratefully accepts help in the form of directions, and there is a whole country of helpful ace drivers in campgrounds everywhere. But no matter how impossible the space is (most are reasonable, but there have been a dozen or so complete headaches), she will never hand over the steering wheel. Leggo my Eggo. And now, after almost three years, Mab's got skills! After a few back-and-forths, she's in that space. What a champ. That's what kind of travel partner I've got. She keeps the whole train running. 

Look, Mab: stairs!

RV travel isn't really easy, at least not for us. There's more work than simply checking in and checking out, especially when one person is doing it all. While she is going through the list of tasks for making camp or breaking camp, I am hovering around like a gadfly, a second set of eyes for safety or to see that nothing is forgotten, that windows and latches are in fact closed… all of the little detail things that could come back to bite us. It's not much, but I do catch things. A guy's got to earn his seat on the ship, right? But in spite of that, she loves traveling this way and wants to keep going. We both do. It is seeing the country from an angle we never have before.

Onward. Can't wait to see her skills three years from now.

Pictures: Boulder Campground Carlyle Lake, 801 Lake Rd, Carlyle, IL, (618) 226-3586 – off of I-55, about 50 miles east of St. Louis. This is a Army Corps of Engineers campground. They are required to provide public facilities like campgrounds with their projects, and these are really worth seeking out! We started looking for them about a year ago and every single one has been ship-shape: clean and well-maintained, with ADA sites that have typically spacious, level concrete pads and look pristine. And cheap! With a senior discount, it's often less than $10 a night. The ones we go to are all on lakes or rivers – like, right on the shore, because usually there's plenty of availability. They are the best-kept secret. Find an area you want to visit and then search for a COE campground nearby, either through Google or Recreation.gov.

Boulder Campground site 53 is a good example of what you'll find at COEs: electric, a super-wide concrete pad that in this case required all of our leveling blocks, which is unusual because most COEs are level. But lush greenery all around, without absolute privacy but plenty of space in between campsites, and of course facing the largest man-made lake in Illinois directly behind us, with sailboats gliding in and out all day long. Total cost of $36 for four nights. You have to fill up water at a public spigot on the way in, and there's a dump station on the way out. Verizon and T-Mobile were four bars. (Unfortunately another lovely COE on I-55, Moraine View State Recreation Area in Leroy, IL, did not rate in spite of its awesome accessible trail through a wooded island, because the Verizon signal was 1 bar and unable to sustain an Internet connection and that's a safety issue for us. T-Mobile was 4 bars. But I increasing suspect that the iPhone I just purchased is not a reliable hotspot for us. We never had these problems with my old $20 Android. How disappointing.) 

A first: wheelchair-accessible grill, Moraine View State Rec. Area, Leroy, IL 

One of our closest friends met us at Carlyle Lake for the weekend. This is why we camp.

B****** gave me the Mummy's Curse...

And I died in nasty ways. Perfect ending to 5-star weekend.

Gulf Islands Natl Seashore / Ft. Pickens / Pensacola - Castles in the Sand

Gulf Islands Natl Seashore     228-230-4100

Fort Pickens  1400 Fort Pickens Rd., Pensacola Beach, FL            850-934-2600

There are fees (recommend buying the America the Beautiful pass for all natl. parks & sites)

        Driving around downtown Pensacola, and the area around Plaza Ferdinand, the park where Gen. Andrew Jackson (later, president) accepted control of Florida from Spain, you are struck by the foreign influence in the buildings. I don't know what you call this architecture, but anyone who's been to New Orleans will recognize the same 2-storys with shops below and apartments above, with covered walkways on both floors. The foreign flare comes from the port of Pensacola having been ruled under 5 different flags: Spanish, French, British, Confederate and American.

Right there at Jordan Valley Cafe (201 S Jefferson St, Pensacola, FL, 850-505-3528) we stopped for spiced potato salad that bummed us out when it was gone. Tabbouleh was delicious and fresh, same for the hummus with pita. Crazy good, smiles all around. That kind of meal.

Naval Air Station Pensacola has incredible visitor attractions, like Blue Angels simulators. Too bad it was still locked down (Feb. 2020) from a shooting incident months earlier. We were definitely on edge after making a wrong turn down the road to the front gate when we knew very well the place was locked down because we'd tried to get in the day before. I'm pretty sure we bypassed a sign saying the base was closed, only because it's a narrow road with no turnoffs. And here we show up in our outsized and unmarked white cargo van. Creepy enough? But the sentries were good to us. Phew.

The day was too cool for Pensacola Beach. We went on to cross the bridge to the barrier isle (why does crossing the water always makes me sing?), heading to Gulf Islands National Seashore. A single road stretches about 8 miles to the western end of the island. You pass rolling white sand dunes topped with brown grasses, but we weren't here for beaches. On the western end stands Fort Pickens, which makes for some excellent wheelchairing around.

Pickens' big guns guarded the coast from the 1830s until 1947. The ruins are a complex of brick, cobblestone and concrete. It's not one for the postcards, but was a playground for me. I plowed my wheelchair all over this place. In it, around it, through it, Fort Pickens was mine. I couldn't get everywhere: there are a lot of chambers and a whole top-level of parapets and outlooks I couldn't access. (Which bums me now that I write about it.) There are plenty of rough, bumpy sections, and narrow, inaccessible doorways. But listen, I was a kid here. I went everywhere, investigating stuff, on my own. I want one of these in my backyard. I went until I was exhausted! Mab and these chill people we met were kept coming at me with different nooks and areas for check to out. After a while I told them, Enough, stick a fork in me, I'm done. And that is what I my search is for.

Built by slave labor, including Geronimo.

We wandered to the fishing pier across the road. Plenty of people, and as you scan through the crowd, wait, go back - there, standing perfectly still like a floor lamp was a tall, spindly seabird, about 3 1/2 feet tall. I swear he averted his eyes when we spotted him. He was undercover, in plain sight.

See him? Undercover, baby. 

        The 10-year-old next to us said, "He's been here the whole time I've been here. If you don't watch, he steals bait. I went to my cooler and when I came back I think two of my fish were gone."

Smooth operator. 

Sunny St. Petersburg FL - murals and munchies at Love Food Café = many smiles

On a beautiful mid-February day, it was cool outside and besides we didn't have enough time to hit the beaches, but definitely wanted to see the Salvador Dali Museum and the murals all around this town. There's beaches all up and down the Sunshine State, right?

I don't know when it all started but there are dozens of murals everywhere (map) and even though I know they are everywhere around Chicago too, I simply never get tired of exuberant street art like this (another map).

We'd covered a lot of distance for a couple of days to reach St. Pete, and had another big day of driving ahead (to Labelle FL to surprise my folks), so mural-gazing made for a fun and relaxing day. All afternoon it sounded like we were watching fireworks: ooh... ahhh... what the... More often than not, the work is mind-blowingly creative. A lot of them are around the lively wheelchair-accessible tourist drag on Central Avenue, though we covered a wider area by staying in the car.

Like when you're watching fireworks, it helps to have some picnic along. Our picnic was carryout from Love Food Café, 2057 Central Avenue, St. Petersburg, FL, 727-317-2034 lured by great reviews on Yelp.

What a lunch. The reuben sandwich packed a spicy black pepper-type kick behind each bite, and came with a side of dill potato salad. Mab's fiesta salad was the daily special with avocado slices, black beans and a lot of other good stuff. It and the potato salad tasted so fresh. It was packaged in cardboard cartons. So satisfying for $10 a plate, and we showed around our blissed-out post-lunchtime grins to the rest of the murals and then to the Dali Museum. Wonderful day.