hihosilvers6

Stop 1 – Laura Walker State Park

January 11, 2018January 11, 2018 by hihosilvers6, posted in Uncategorized

CJ enjoying her breakfast outside our first stop, the Waycross Walmart.

By The Rikker

After getting an 8:00pm departure out of Atlanta on Sunday night, we arrived at our first destination around 1:30am: the Wal-Mart in Waycross, GA. The overnight low was 26 degrees so it was a cool night in the trailer with no heat. The good news is that the freezing temperature inside the trailer motivated us to get an early start. After breakfast and grocery shopping we arrived at our first park, Laura Walker State Park, which abuts the Okefenokee Swamp. We had our morning coffee and watched the kids chase after dozens of Tree Swallows who were flying around us in search of their morning meal.

After lunch we took the kids on a 1.5 mile hike and while we didn’t see any wildlife we did observe a lot of scat (Liam insisted upon looking at every dropping with his magnifying glass) as well as a gopher tortoise burrow. Along the way, Liam learned that 250 species use abandoned gopher tortoise burrows for shelter.

Later in the afternoon we met the campground hosts, Matthew and Celeste, who are related to a friend of ours. They’ve been living in their RV full time with their two kids for the past 4 years. They were kind enough to invite us over to their Airstream to see their set up and let us pepper them with questions over beer.

Unfortunately, we were sad not to have been in Atlanta for the UGA game, but I think Rick felt slightly better about missing it after the Dawgs heartbreaking loss.

Next on the itinerary, paddling in the Okefenokee Swamp!

(Above clockwise: Laura S Walker was naturalist and our first stops’ namesake, Rick and the kids paddling in the Okefenokee, our only gator sighting and he was checking out the nativity scene, Liam showing off some of the huge pine cones he found, one of the many tree swallows that were zooming right past us as we sat by the lake, and finally, our campsite!)

Thank You.

January 11, 2018 by hihosilvers6, posted in Uncategorized

It’s official – after several weeks in limbo, staying at different family members’ houses, we’re finally shipping out. It feels both good and sad to be leaving on what seems like a long awaited and much anticipated trip.

We’d like to say a big thank you to all our family and friends who have shown us so much love, support, and generosity as we prepare for this trip. It is always uplifting when we share our plans to hear people’s responses of joy and excitement for us. It has been an intimidating process getting ready and we still aren’t completely sure of what we will encounter with life on the road, but having all of your support has helped to keep us moving forward.

To all the folks who have given us gifts, thrown us parties, or just shared heartfelt well wishes as we finalize our plans…THANK YOU! Your love and support means so much to us and it is spending time with our friends and family that we will miss the most.

We have talked to many of you about meeting us while we’re out on the road, just suggest a time and place and we’ll let you know if we can make it work – we’d love to see you! For those of you who aren’t in the Atlanta area…get ready because we’re probably scheduling you into our travels!

Run Before You Walk

December 23, 2017January 7, 2018 by hihosilvers6, posted in Uncategorized

Despite buying our travel trailer this summer, and it sitting in our driveway for at least two months after finally bringing it home, it’s taken us until the Christmas holidays to hitch it up and take it on a test run. So we figured what better way to ease into the RV lifestyle than by taking it on a 12 hour drive from Georgia to Delaware.

We spent the first night in our trailer at a Walmart somewhere in North Carolina. After pulling in at 3am and parking next to some truckers, we weren’t in much of a state to take in our surroundings. And after another 8 hour drive the next day we were just thankful the trailer made it up to Delaware in one piece….well sort of in one piece.

It wasn’t the most glamorous first voyage, but we’re certainly getting more comfortable with the trailer and have learned a thing or two. The most important of which is that we now have a pre-departure checklist to make sure everything is in its place…We may have misconnected a few pins and left the trailer post down a time or two (whoops!) but we’re getting the hang of things!