Winter is Over, Our First House Sit, Returning to Y-Not in Virginia

With winter showing signs of breaking and turning to spring, it was time to start a slow roll back east towards boat life.

But of course, not without some adventures along the way!

Here’s the route we took back after our time in the Rio Grande Valley:

Stop 1: Needville, TX – Brazos Bend State Park

Before our upcoming house sit in Houston, we took some much needed time in nature at the absolutely gorgeous Brazos Bend State Park.

So many amazing trails to explore by bike, run or hike. So much wildlife!

Ahhhh.

At just $25 per night for a site (plus $7pp day fees, covered by a state park pass) – such as gem for getting away from it all.

After we left the state park, we took the long way into Houston, routing south to take a day visiting the Johnson Space Center. A space geek must-do. Crazy we hadn’t been here before together (me, probably when I was a kid?).

Having lived on the Space Coast for many years, I had seen the shuttle be carried back to Cape Canaveral on the SCA piggy back many times, usually flying right over my house. And we were fortunate to watch the last piggyback flight ever as the shuttle program came to an end.

So to be able to tour the actual converted 747 was beyond amazing!

We also splurged for the Historic Mission Control tour, which got us into the delicately restored place where the Apollo missions were orchestrated from. And our tour guide told us that Tom Hanks sat in every seat in the viewing center we were in while filming Apollo 13.

Otherwise, there’s not too terribly much to keep one occupied for a full day here. The Kennedy Space Center tour definitely has an advantage there!

But these space nerds were happy to have crossed this stop off our list!

Stop 2: Houston, TX –  Equal Parts Brewing

After getting done with touring the Space Center, we headed to downtown Houston. Equal Parts Brewing is a part of the Harvest Hosts (affiliate link, also saves 20%) network, and offers up to 3-nights of free overnight parking.

The location in EaDo (learning our Houston neighborhoods!) was convenient to our upcoming housesit. And they have great beers, and an amazing flauta vendor onsite!

To kill some time during the day, we decided to check out nearby Cidercade Houston. This ciderary meets arcade offers a $12 day pass to play all the games you want, plus dozens of ciders on draft – and pizza.

It was super fun to try out a bunch of games and just play! They have locations in Austin and the Dallas area too – definitely a geek worthy adventure to check out!

In the evening, we headed over to meet our hosts and kitties we’d be taking care of – and get introduced to our temporary posh abode.

Stop 3: Houston, TX – Housesitting

Meet Nicolai & Lunita – our reason for being in Houston in the first place (and the base of Chris’ April Fools post)! Since Kiki’s passing, we have been opening our adventures to things we couldn’t have done as easily with her.

At the start of the year, we joined Trusted Housesitters (referral link, you save 25%, we get 2 months free) after many recommendations. This networks allows you to apply to stay in other people’s homes and take care of their pets while they travel.

We figured it would be a great way to stay in unique locations, get some temporary pet love and feel like we’re helping others out by taking care of their loved ones.

And we were right!

This was an amazing experience, and we scored the most ideal first sit at a posh penthouse apartment downtown with access to everything, two precious ragdoll cats and two awesome humans we’ve become friends with through the experience.

It was pure joy to get in lots of cat love & play time. And to soak up city living.

With access to so much around, we attended a live musical (Mean Girls), our first opera (La Boheme) and some geeky Star Wars themed burlesque (Empire Strips Back). Houston also has a ballet and symphony, but nothing lined up during our visit at attend.

We also hit several museums, the Houston Zoo, toured the underground Cistern (amazing!), went to an aerial yoga class, enjoyed lots of dining and ran & biked the Buffalo Bayou Trace trails nearby.

Eight days flew by, for sure.. and we had to consciously take some downtime to enjoy just being with the kitties, soaking in the hot tub, enjoying the view and partaking in the onsite gym.

All and all, our first housesit was a resounding success – and we looking forward to more during our land based adventures.

Stop 4: Sealy, TX – Stephen F. Austin State Park

After we said our goodbyes to Nicky, LuLu and their humans – we decided to also catch Echo – a Cirque du Soleil show that had just opened northwest of town. It was the wrong direction, and it’s not like we were lacking in shows this week.. but what the heck, it was great!

This put us not too terribly far from another state park, Stephen F. Austin. This allowed us to more fully utilize our Texas State Park Pass that saves days fees and grants 50% savings on second nights (great deal!).

It’s a smaller park, offering pull thru full hook-up sites for $30/night. There’s some hiking trails that kept us active.

But really not really much else.

Which was fine – our reason for retreating here was an impending arctic blast that brought temps down into the lower 20s. Having power hook-ups for unlimited electric heat made that much easier to get through in the van. But ugh, by this point we were so tired of crappy weather this winter.

Stop 5: Galveston, TX – Galveston Island State Park

The upcoming weekend was Galveston’s fabled Mardis Gras celebrations. With the gloomy weather, we were able to snag a site at Galveston Island State Park at just $20/night for the weekend.

On the way into town, we visited the Ocean Star Museum – which was super cool to get a peak at off shore drilling.

We then drove along the Galveston Seawall and to get a lay of the land and parade route. Noting many RVs already setup along the way, we researched and discovered that overnight parking along the seawall was allowed during the Mardis Gras weekends.

We proceeded to check in at the state park anyway, which was a decent 10+ miles away – not exactly convenient to the festivities.

So on Saturday morning, we decided to drive the van back down to the seawall and try to stake out our own spot with the intention of staying overnight and catching all of the parades.

We apparently made it in just the nick of time before they closed the road, and we found ample parking options to choose from.

In talking with others, usually you have to arrive by Thursday early morning to get a spot to stake out for the weekend.

Which portended to how the rest of the day would go.

The weather was still absolutely miserable – cold and windy, with rain storms predicted in the afternoon. The noon parade went on anyway, and we felt so bad for the participants. They were shivering, and there were scant few of us on the route to throw beads to and cheer them on. Blooper and us did get coated in adornments however.

After the first parade, we sought out some lunch and waited around as storms passed. At 5pm, police cruisers rode the parade route announcing that the 6pm parade was canceled. Apparently a rarity in the history of the event!

We decided instead of heading downtown for the other festivities, to just go back to our prepaid campsite and enjoy unlimited heat.

All and all, it was a gloomy experience that was matching our moods.

Stop 6: Abbeyville, LA – Palmetto Island State Park

We booked a non-remarkable Harvest Host in Beaumont, TX as our next stop to try to figure out where was next. In general, we thought heading to Mardis Gras in New Orleans might be fun.

But with prolonged gloomy weather and continued horrible news on our feeds – we were both feeling rather down energy and mood wise.

Seeing several free beach camping spots along the gulf coast, we decided to take the southern route with hopes of finding a lovely spot for a couple days to recharge as the weather cleared up a bit. But alas, nothing was calling us.

So we decided to head to the newly opened Palmetto Island State Park (around $30/night for full hook-ups), seeing there was wide availability.

The very kind office staff gave us our pick of sites open for a few nights, and we selected one with a secluded feeling. It was perfect to get our bearings, recharge, be in nature and enjoy the sun that was now peaking out.

We decided at this point to take a break from the news and from social media in general – sometimes you just have to disconnect for your own mental health.

Thus most of this post is freshly written content, as I didn’t post most of these stops to Facebook. I’m hoping I am actually remembering the details enough now!

Stop 7: Abita Springs, LA – Abita Brewery

Feeling a bit regrounded, we decided to skip New Orleans and the madness of Mardis Gras. And instead booked an overnight at the Abita Brewery on the north side of the lake. It was also right along the Tammany Trace bike trail – which allowed us to get in a run and some biking.

We grabbed a couple drinks, but the trivia night they were hosting just wasn’t at our energy level.

Stop 8: Prentiss, MS – Lake Jeff Davis Campground

We were wanting the hit the hall of fame Long Leaf Trace Trail, which we had explored from the Hattiesburg side on last year’s Total Solar Eclipse Van Adventure.  But we were coming up blank with campground options with access.

Then Chris discovered a little known first come first serve campground at Lake Jeff Davis outside of Prentiss, MS. We arrived on a Friday afternoon, and scored one of the last spots right along the lake for just $25. Amazing!

And it has a connector trail to the northern end of this amazing bike trail. We rode about 15 miles out and then back, and then into Prentiss for a bite to eat.

Stop 9: Forest, MS – Shockaloe Basecamp

We made arrangements the next day to meet up with the some friends in Jackson, MS for lunch, and with no after plan we spotted a forest service trail with a primitive campground outside of town.

The Shockaloe Basecamp is mostly an equestrian trail system, and it had just opened for the season.

When we arrived, the campground was empty, and there were absolutely no payment envelopes set out to pay the $7 overnight fee.

With the sun setting, we took one anyway for the evening for a pleasant quiet night on our own.

Stop 10: Tuscaloosa, AL – Deerlick Creek Army Corp of Engineers

The next morning was Sunday Runday, and after walking the trails at Shockaloe a bit – we opted to not run them. Horse trails can be quite the ankle turner for such things.

Instead, we headed on to Tuscaloosa for the afternoon to get our run in there along their lovely riverfront trail system.

After our run, we grabbed a last minute spot at the Army Corp of Engineers park in the area – Deerlick Creek ($28/night). The campground itself was lovely, and our spot was right along the lake with a patio deck.

But most of the trails were still shut down, and there wasn’t a lot to do here. One night (and a lovely sunset) was plenty.

Stop 11: Acworth, GA – Red Top Mountain State Park

We opted to make some serious miles back east, and booked a spot at Red Top Mountain State Park ($42.80/night) just north of Atlanta. We stayed here a couple years back, and really enjoyed it and their trail network.

After a long driving day we hit the trails with our bikes and it felt great.

This is also where we started our marathon training journey almost 3 years ago, so it was fabulous to get in a run on the gorgeous Ironside Trail again.

We took a couple days here to recharge before continuing eastward.

Stop 12: Anderson, SC – Cracker Barrel

Our next major destination was just a bit over our threshold for a driving day, so we broke it up with a simple overnight highway stop – not spotting many other open campgrounds along the way.

The Cracker Barrel we selected was next door to a movie theater where we caught a showing of Last Breath recounting a real life harrowing experience of a saturation diver on an oil rig (a fabulous tie in to our recent oil rig tour in Texas).

Stop 13: Charlotte, NC – AirBnB

Our dear friends Ann & Elliott have one of their home bases in Charlotte, but we had never rendezvoused with them there (instead, we’ve seen them all over the place over the years).

It was high time we did, since it would on our route back to Norfolk.

Our friend and business colleague Daniel of CLT Geek also lives in Charlotte (thus the CLT in his business name) – so the stop made total sense for a double feature.

With no reasonable RV options in town, we decided to indulge in an AirBnb. We found an adorable 900 sq ft cottage in the NaDo area that would be convenient to both our friends, light rail and the Little Sugarcreek biking trail.

With a weekly rate, it was a done deal to stick around a bit – we were within a days drive of Y-Not now and running a bit ahead of our needed time to return.

It was so lovely to have multiple outings with our friends – including attending the ballet! From casual dinners, hanging out, vegan ice cream, riding around in our old Mini Cooper (which they still own!) and more. And we just loved spreading out into this cute little house close to everything.

Stop 14: Raleigh, NC – AirBnB

With a long weekend left to kill before we needed to be back at the boatyard, we decided to also check out Raleigh, a place we had not visited before either. So we booked another AirBnb near downtown and just tossed our stuff into the van.

We stopped on the way at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, which has amazingly large natural feeling enclosures –  making the park very spread out.

Our AirBnb this time was a little 1 bedroom apartment over someone’s backyard garage – and it was precious too. We had easy access to Raleigh’s greenway network of trails, which we spent an afternoon on biking & running.

We enjoyed exploring Raleigh, dining out, hitting museums and caught a symphony performance of the music of Queen – quite the mash up!

Stop 15: Windsor, NC – Cashie River Campground

Y-Not was now within reach, but we didn’t know what to expect for the weeks ahead as far as where we’d be laying our heads.

Wanting to arrive with fresh holding tanks if the van would be our abode, we decided to make one last stop at a campground. There surprisingly aren’t many option between Raleigh and Norfolk, but we found Cashie River Campground with full hook-ups for $35/night (plus a $5 reservation fee).

It’s a cute little city park in Windsor, even offering treehouses over the river, with a tiny little city zoo down the road.

Not much to do here, but we appreciated a pleasant night getting the van back to livable mode after being in AirBnBs a lot recently.

Non-RV Travels

You may have noticed this winter that we’ve done a number of AirBnB stays, and our first housesit.

We recently did a LIVE video on YouTube talking about mixing in these sorts of stays into our travels (as well as recapping many of these stops). If you’d like to catch the archive, here it is:

Real Time Update

We have arrived back to Atlantic Yacht Basin in Chesapeake, VA – where we left Y-Not stored for the winter under a shed.

She’s looking great, and the team here has been working on projects on our list. They got her commissioned after winterization (thankful we opted for that, as this area had an unusually cold winter!) and we’ve been back to living onboard while the in-water projects wrap up.

Any day now, we should be hauled out to complete the under boat projects. Nothing too major – we hope – inspections, bottom paint and re-packing the shaft stuffing boxes.

With any luck, we’ll find storage for the van and hopefully be resuming our Great Loop later this month!

As the spring migration ramps up, we look forward to continuing to intersect with fellow Loopers and cruisers making their way north too.

We expect many will leave us in their wake, as we’ll be sticking to our ‘Slooper’ (slow-looper) ways. We have no idea how far north we’ll get this season. We hear the Chesapeake can keep one distracted for a lifetime.