Tilly and the Love Bug

Tilly Tour: The Bathroom

2014-08-05T13:00:00.002-07:00

If you follow me on Instagram, or if you're my friend on Facebook, you know that we've had some mechanical issues with Tilly and are staying in Austin, TX, until further notice. While we're here, we are doing a bit of deep cleaning to get Tilly in tip top shape.
It occurred to me recently that aside from the people who have seen Tilly in person, nobody knows what she looks like on the inside. I figured now would be a perfect time to share her insides with the world so everyone can see how we live. Since the bathroom is the smallest room (seriously, so so small), I decided to start there.
Before I go into what the bathroom looks like now, here are a couple of pictures of what it looked like before the renovation:

We didn't change all that much during the reno, but what we did made a big difference. We chose a pretty green-blue to paint over the fuggo wallpaper, painted the cabinets white, ripped out the hideous window treatment and replaced it with some simple white curtains, installed a fan in the roof vent, and put in a ruffled shower curtain to add some texture and interest to the room.

Counter with my cosmetics, which get packed away when we're driving. Also a good view of the toothbrush holder I "installed" (aka stuck to the wall using sticky tape. It's crooked).

Shower curtain.

Cabinets, and the fan we (Josh) put in.

We keep most of our everyday toiletries in these two cabinets above the window for easy access.The right hand cabinet has mostly my stuff: shampoo, conditioner, face wash, moisturizer, dry shampoo, etc., plus some of Josh's vitamins. These items are secured inside the cabinet with a tension rod so they don't move while we're driving, and fly out at us when we try to open the door.

The left hand cabinet is mostly Josh's stuff- shaving cream (or "beard lube" as this particular brand calls it), hair gel, beard trimmer, etc., plus toothpaste and first aid stuff. We keep these items in a set of 3 stackable acrylic bins we got at the Container Store for $10 each.

The whole left wall is a giant mirror, which makes it ideal for bathroom mirror selfies.

Nothing too notable about the shower, so I chose not to include it. All you need to know is that it's very, very tiny. Josh and I are both fairly large people- I'm 5'7" and he's 6'3"- so a larger shower is definitely on the wish list for our next home, mobile or otherwise.

DIY: Painted Coconut

2014-08-04T10:35:00.003-07:00

I wanted to share with you all a fun DIY project I did during our time in Key West awhile back. Painting and mailing coconuts is the cool thing to do down there (at least for tourists), and I really wanted to send a special gift to my former coworkers up in Boston. Since commissioning an artist to hand-paint a custom coconut is quite expensive, I decided to grab some watercolors, and paint my own design on a coco I had found near the resort where we stayed. Here's a step-by-step of what I did:

Step 1: Choose a coconut, The coco must be able to stand on its own (unless you want to provide a stand as well). It should be dry and drained of milk.

Step 2: Sand the coconut. This will give the paint a rough surface to adhere to. It also removes many of the little fuzzy hairs that will get in the way of your brush.

Step 3: Paint the coconut. I used watercolors, but you can use whatever you want. Some artists will prime the coconut first, but I didn't, because ain't nobody got time for that.

Applying the background

Painting on the first palm tree.

Done with the first tree; on to the second.

Both trees done. After I took this picture, I went over the background colors again to blend them better, and added a message on the top right corner that said "love from Key West" as well, but I forgot to get a photo before I sent it off. I also painted the company logo on the other side.

Step 4: Seal with several coats of spray polyurethane. You can find this at any hardware store for a couple bucks.

Step 5: Mail it off. The post office where I mailed it didn't have any Key West-themed stamps, so I just used the most colorful ones they had. I also put clear tape over the stamps so they wouldn't fall off. Mailing my coco cost about $11, since it was large and I couldn't get all of the milk out, but would obviously be less for a smaller, empty one.

Pensacola

2014-08-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

It was tough to leave Grayton Beach, but we eventually tore ourselves away to continue our trip. Our next stop was in the Pensacola area to visit my former nanny, Claudia. We got to her house at around 5pm, and after saying our hellos, she and her boyfriend Frank whisked us away to Bands on the Beach. Bands on the Beach is an outdoor music event that's held every Tuesday night at Pensacola Beach. They have a different band playing every week, and hundreds of people show up toting lawn chairs and coolers full of tasty snacks and drinks. They also have a bar that serves Bushwackers, a Pensacola drink that's made with vanilla ice cream, half and half, Bacardi 151, Kahlua, creme de cacao, and coconut cream. You can order it with an extra shot of rum (which we obviously did), and barely even taste the liquor. It just tastes like a slightly alcoholic vanilla milkshake.

Claudia and me with our Bushwackers

Definitely not a low-calorie beverage.

The next day, Claudia and I spent the afternoon visiting various antique shops, and finding some interesting treasures...

Looking at you, Gomez.

That night, we all watched the movie "RV" with Robin Williams. Have any of you seen it? It's a comedy about a dad who takes his family on an RV road trip and everything goes wrong for them. It's kind of cheesy, but also pretty funny, and Josh and I could relate to a lot of things that happened to the main character.
Before we left, Claudia snapped a cute family photo of me, Josh, and Gomez in front of Ol' Tilly.

4th of July in Seaside

2014-07-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I posted about our stay at Grayton Beach State Park, and briefly mentioned the neighboring town of Seaside, Florida. I'd like to go into a little more detail about Seaside today if that's cool with errbody.
Let's start with a little history. Seaside is a planned community, meaning it was designed and built all at the same time, instead of developing organically, as most cities and towns do. It was built around the principles of "New Urbanism" a civil design concept that originated in the 1980s, which "promotes walkable neighborhoods containing a range of housing and job types" (wiki). Seaside is so perfect-looking, it was used as the set for the movie The Truman Show. It also doesn't hurt that it's right in the Florida panhandle, which is home to some of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen (and I've been places). Also, the main square is lined with food trailers that are built into the sidewalk. Urban planning at its finest!

Guy in the blue has HAD IT.

As you know, Seaside is where Team Tilly spent July 4th. After an afternoon at the beach, we headed into town to partake in the city-wide celebration that included a performance by the Pensacola Symphony. And also this golf cart:

#florida

But seriously, it was beautifully decorated, and really felt like small-town America. Josh mentioned that it reminded him of Main Street USA at Disney World, and he was totally right.

After giggling at the golf cart and standing in a way-too-long line for snow cones, we headed back to the beach for fireworks just as the sun was setting.

We watched the fireworks back at our campground, Grayton Beach State Park. We were right smack in the middle of the panhandle, and every city and town from Panama City Beach (to the East) to Fort Walton Beach (to the West), a stretch of about 60 miles, was setting off elaborate fireworks displays at the same time. Everywhere I looked, there were shimmery explosions in the sky. It was a totally surreal experience, and one that my 2-year-old iphone couldn't possibly capture accurately. So you'll just have to see it for yourself one day.

To hear about what's going on with our trip right when it happens instead of 3 weeks later, you should follow us on Instagram @tillyandlovebug, where I post 1-3 pictures per day of our shenanigans.

Grayton Beach State Park

2014-07-29T14:45:00.001-07:00

It was 4th of July eve and Josh and I were stressed. Part of the appeal of this trip was being able to go wherever we wanted, whenever we wanted, and stay for however long we wanted. Because of this, we never book activities or campsites more than 1 day in advance. In fact, we book pretty much everything same-day, about an hour or two before we get there. What we gain in freedom, we lose in stability, and there we were, the night before the biggest summer holiday in the US, with nowhere to spend the night.
After calling around, Josh found a random state park along our route with 1 campsite available for a single night. Not wanting to risk having to sleep on the side of the road, we decided to take the spot. So began our stay at the most wonderful beach campground that has ever existed.
Grayton Beach State Park looks like this:

Literally paradise. After our first night, by some miracle, we were able to book two more nights. Great! We had a place to stay for the whole long weekend. 4th of July came and went (more on that tomorrow), and we decided to book another night. Then another. Then another. Altogether, we stayed 6 nights at this incredible park. We did have to change spots a couple times, but it wasn't that much of a hassle. The 6 days we spent there consisted of morning walks on the beach, afternoon snorkeling, dinner cookouts back at the campsite, evening beach lounging, and nighttime s'mores by the fire, peppered with trips to the neighboring town of Seaside for coffee and shopping.

Beach bummin'

I don't think we could have possibly had a better time here, and it has definitely been one of our favorite stops on the trip so far.

For more timely updates on what we're up to, follow us on Instagram @tillyandlovebug. I post 1-3 pictures a day of our trip.

Panama City Beach

2014-07-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

Panama City Beach is a gorgeous beach town that's an extremely popular spring break destination for Southern college students. In fact, it's nicknamed the "Spring Break Capital of the World". The boys and I didn't participate in too many raucous activities, though shit did get real when we found Gomez's mini-me at the restaurant where we stopped for lunch:

Gomez and Smaller Gomez.

For dinner, we went to Schooner's, a local beachfront restaurant, and then took a romantic sunset stroll on the beach. My phone died so I didn't get any pictures of the romantic stroll, but here's Josh enjoying a drink with dinner.

Overall, Panama City Beach was OK, but definitely not interesting enough to warrant staying a second night.

Suwannee River

2014-07-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

Our next stop after Gainesville was the Suwannee River Hideaway Campground, where we stayed for one glorious night. This is a campground that mostly caters to snowbirds, so it unfortunately closes for most of the Summer. Our timing was perfect, however, and we snagged a spot a few days before it closed its gates.
Right behind our campsite there was an elevated boardwalk that led over a swamp to the Suwannee River. It looked like a magical pathway to Fairyland, so we followed it to the end.

Once we got to the river, Josh decided to take Gomez for a swim. The little guy is a Bichon Frise/Cocker Spaniel mix, both of which are supposed to be water-loving dogs. Gomez, however, was terrified of the river, and didn't enjoy the swimming lesson one bit.

So Gomez isn't a water dog. At least he makes a great dash-puppy.

Gainesville

2014-07-13T16:17:00.000-07:00

After Rainbow Springs State Park, we stopped in Gainesville for a few days to visit our friends, Joe and Lauren, and their son, Joey. The last time we saw them was during our stay at Bonnet Creek in Orlando, when they drove down to spend a night with us.
Gainesville is located in Central Florida, about 2 hours north of Orlando. It is home to the University of Florida, and is the birthplace of Gatorade. It also had a really cool downtown area. Read more about Gainesville here.
We set up camp for several days on the street outside of their house, and spent our time there hanging out in their backyard and exploring the aforementioned cool downtown area. On one particularly hot day, we played a game called Splash Zone, which is kind of like softball, except with water balloons. And no bases or points. So basically someone throws a water balloon at the batter, who smashes it with at bat (or a shovel, if you don't have a bat) and gets everyone soaking wet.

We also got to spend time at a few cool local restaurants, including The Top, Loosey's, and the Lunch Box, all of which had nice ambiances and good food.

Poor Gomez was looking haggard after walking several miles to Loosey's on his tiny stub legs.

Creamed corn nuggets, fried pickles, and shrimp at The Top. The corn nuggets were the highlight of the meal.

We also went tubing at Ginnie Springs, but I didn't take any pictures. I've always wanted to tube down a river, so I was pretty pumped. It was beautiful.

On our last day there, they took us to La Tienda for delicious Mexican food, then on a short nature hike to a creek nearby.

Joe and Joey wading in the creek

Rainbow Springs State Park

2014-07-06T14:38:00.001-07:00

Last week, we spent one night at Rainbow Springs State Park in Dunnellon, Florida. It was absolutely beautiful! The park had nice waterfalls and a gorgeous spring to swim in.

One of several small waterfalls we saw

This woman had the right idea. She outfitted her kayak with a giant beach umbrella.

Since school is out for the Summer, there were a bunch of kids swimming around in the spring. This was surprising to me, considering there's a huge warning sign next to the entrance:

Yikes!

Fortunately, no alligators showed up. The water was the clearest I've ever seen, and though it was very cold and very deep (two things that I generally don't like), I thoroughly enjoyed swimming in it.

Our New Addition, or Why I Haven't Posted in the Past Few Weeks

2014-07-06T08:35:00.000-07:00

Hey, guys, remember me? Sorry it's been so long since I've posted about our adventures, but I've had a good reason. Meet Gomez:

Patriotic pooch on July 4th

Josh and I are pet parents! We found Gomez, a young bichon frise/cocker spaniel mix in Ft. Meyers, and, although we had agreed not to get a dog until we were settled down, we couldn't say no to this guy. He's the sweetest dog, and the perfect addition to our little family. We are so in love with him!

Now that we've had Gomez for a few weeks and have adjusted to life with a dog, I will try to get back into a regular posting routine.

Hope you're all doing well!

#Laterpost: Sanibel Island

2014-06-19T18:40:00.000-07:00

Before we got to Fort Meyers, we spend two nights on Sanibel Island. Sanibel is just off the coast of Fort Meyers beach, and is roughly 33 square miles. It's known mainly for the thousands of beautiful shells that wash up onto its beaches every day. At low tide, you can find hundreds of people combing the shore for all different types of shells, including conch, clam, snail, and mussel. Here are a few beauties I found on our first night.

Low tide was at 8:15 PM when we were there, so the lighting was not great. Also, these are all iPhone photos. I briefly misplaced my camera lens cap, and didn't want to risk damaging the lens, so I left the camera in the RV during our time in Sanibel.

Josh hunting for shells.

On our only full day on the island, we decided to visit the JN "Ding" Darling National Wildlife preserve, hoping to see some cool animals. We took the Love Bug all throughout the preserve and noticed that the other visitors all had fishing poles and coolers full of ice. I think the powers that be meant to name it the "JN Darling National Fishing Park", but the brochures got misprinted at Kinkos, so they decided to roll with "wildlife preserve" instead. Seriously, though, what the hell kind of wildlife preserve lets you hunt the animals?
Besides the other visitors, the only wildlife we saw was one raccoon.

None of you are safe!

After the raccoon preserve, we took the Love Bug to a different beach on the other side of the island, where we found more beautiful shells.

Shells on shells on shells.

We finished the day at a great Italian restaurant across the street from our RV resort called Matzaluna. All in all, our little mini trip to Sanibel was nice, albeit kind of boring. Instead of going back, I think I'd prefer to spend more time in Naples.

Myakka River National Park

2014-06-17T19:03:00.000-07:00

Tonight, we're camping out in Myakka River National Park. This campground is beautiful. There are trees everywhere, and the sites are very secluded. After we cooked and ate dinner, I laid on the bench of our picnic table and watched a group of giant dragonflies dart around the sky.

We were also treated to a beautiful sunset. Every sunset on the west coast of Florida has been spectacular so far.

At the end of last week, Josh inspected Tilly's tires, and found that the two front ones needed to be replaced. I pretended to look at them as well, and pretended to agree with him, even though I know nothing about tires. For all I know, Tilly rolls around on 6 jelly doughnuts. Of course Tilly tires are special order, so we called around and found a reasonable mechanic near Ft. Meyers who could both order them in and do the labor. We spent the past two nights at a sketchy RV park in Ft. Meyers waiting for them to arrive, relaxing, and preparing our home for some new additions to the family (more on that in a later post).

I don't write about Tilly's repairs too often because they're pretty boring, but just in case anyone was under the impression that driving a 25-year-old, pre-owned RV across the country is a piece of cake (or a piece of jelly doughnut) and we're on this glamorous camping adventure... no way. In fact, at the beginning of our trip, a new part would break every day. This started the day we left Falls Church with the brake rotors suddenly becoming worn down, and continued with the engine grounds burning out (all of them, one by one), the starter breaking, the accelerator cable snapping, the master cylinder clogging (which required a new master cylinder be installed and the brakes be bled), the generator refusing to power the air conditioner, and the toilet leaking into the bathroom. We also lost our bathroom skylight cover somewhere between Miami Beach and Key Largo, and haven't been able to find a replacement yet, so we have a garbage bag attached to the gaping hole in the ceiling to catch the rain. It has rained every day since we lost it. Josh would wake up every morning and say to me "welp, I wonder what's going to break today" and something inevitably would. And we would laugh about it, or sometimes cry, and then go to AutoZone and pick up the parts we needed to fix the Ol' Girl up and get her moving until the next breakdown.

Not that I'm complaining. I'm on the trip of a lifetime, and I'm grateful to be doing it, setbacks and all.

RV Storage: Folded Clothes

2014-06-15T05:39:00.000-07:00

One thing we noticed when we first went to look at Tilly was that she has a lot of closet space. There's a narrow closet on either side of the bed, and a very large closet in the hallway that separates the living room from the bedroom. This was one of the many things that set Tilly apart from other RVs we looked at during our search. My dresses, Josh's button-downs, and all of our jackets quickly found homes in Tilly's ample closet space once we started moving them in. Folded clothes, though, were a different story.
What we gained in closet space we lost in drawer space. There were no nooks or crannies in which to keep our socks, pajamas, t-shirts, or underwear. Since the closet space was so plentiful and we had 5 lifetimes' worth of hangers (for some reason?), I briefly considered hanging our foldables in the extra closet space... like a barbarian. But that wasn't going to work, either.
Josh and I took a trip to the Container Store hoping to find a reasonable solution to our problem. After exploring our options, we decided on a custom drawer set by ELFA.

Before we stuffed all our clothes in. Is this picture really calming to anyone else, or is that just me?

We had to sacrifice about half of our large closet to make this work, but we were willing to do that. The frame and the drawers are sold separately, so you can decide what depth of drawer suits your needs best. We chose varying drawer depths, based on what type of clothing we would be keeping in each drawer. For example, Josh has a lot of bulky jeans, so we chose a deep pants drawer for him. Most of my pants are pajamas or yoga pants that easily roll up, so we chose a shallow pants drawer for me.

Colorful pants fo' lyfe.

I also decided to keep some non-clothing cosmetic items in on of my drawers, since I have so much beauty stuff and I didn't want to completely take over the bathroom.

We're both very happy with our setup and would recommend it to anyone else who is having similar storage issues. It's the only thing we found that was the perfect size and shape for our needs. The set was $158 ($58 for the frame and $100 for the drawers), but we used a 10% off coupon and got it for about $140.

Naples

2014-06-14T10:35:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, Josh and I spent a lovely afternoon exploring the beautiful city of Naples. Naples is a wealthy beach city on the Western coast of Florida that has tons of good shopping and restaurants.

It also had an abundance of species of tropical flowers. Much to Josh's annoyance, I insisted on stopping to photograph most of them. "You should start a new blog," he teased, "'Flowers of Southern Florida'. I'm sure at least three people would read it." Little jerk is lucky I love him so much.

We left Tilly in an empty parking lot (as we often do, since RV parking doesn't grow on trees) and headed for Naples pier.

The pier gave us a spectacular view of the Gulf, the beach, and...

DOLPHINS!!

Much like the oxen I discussed in my Colonial Williamsburg post, I had never seen a real live dolphin in the wild before. They come up to the surface every so often to breathe, making a loud hacking noise as if they've smoked 3 packs of cigarettes every day for the past ten years. Besides that, though, they're super cute.

Naples Beach, from the pier.

It got pretty hot after we got off the pier, so we walked back to Tilly on the beach. There were a ton of people out, and it was nice to see everyone playing in the water and hanging out in the sand. This time last year, I went to Plum Island Beach in Massachusetts with two of my friends, and the water was so cold you couldn't go in past your ankles without turning into a human icicle. Here, the water feels like a comfortable bath. I love Florida!

No icicles here.

Must-Have Roadtrip Skincare Products Part 1: Face

2014-06-03T15:08:00.001-07:00

I've never prided myself on having particularly good skin until recently. I've haven't ever suffered from extreme acne, but I've always had a least a couple pimples compromising the integrity of my face. When I set off on this extended road trip, I was really concerned that the stress of constantly moving combined with the hellish humidity of the South would wreak havoc on my poor pores. But that didn't happen. Instead, the few zits I had when I left slowly cleared up, and no new ones appeared. I attribute this mostly to my diligent adherence to a simple but effective skincare regime. Here are the products I have been using to keep my skin happy*

*Keep in mind that I have combination skin, and that these products may not work as well for you as they do for me.

1. Kiehl's Ultra Facial Cleanser, $10

I wash my face once a day, right before bed, using this cleanser. The reasons why I love it are the following: it's non-drying, it doesn't have any discernible smell, and, most importantly, it melts off all of my makeup at the end of the day. Space is at a premium in the RV, so not having to own a separate cleanser and makeup remover is a huge benefit.

2. Cerave Moisturizing Cream, $14

I use this moisturizer at night, right after I wash my face with the Kiehl's cleanser. It comes in a GIANT container, which should annoy me, based on my love for the Kiehl's space-saving ability, but it doesn't because this is also a multi-use product. It is safe to use on your face and your body, so my days of using two separate moisturizers at night are dunzo! I've used this for about 6 months now, and I am not even halfway through the jar. At this rate, Josh and I will have lived in Santa Barbara for like 9 months by the time I have to repurchase this.

3. Mineral Fusion Facial Moisturizer SPF 40, $25

I found this moisturizing sunscreen in the cosmetics aisle of Whole Foods. It is kind of expensive, but totally worth it, in my opinion. I wear it every day and it keeps my face completely protected from any sun damage I may accrue while driving, camping, walking, swimming or any other travel activity. It also smells nice, kind of like incense (or some other earthy smell you would expect a sunscreen from Whole Foods to smell like). My only complaint is that it leaves a slight white cast on my face after I apply it, which is, unfortunately, par for the course with mineral sunscreens. I counteract this by dabbing a little BB cream on top.

4. Queen Helene Mint Julep Masque, $4

I used to use this stuff in high school, and I'm not sure why I ever stopped. Before buying this again, I dabbled a bit in fancier masques from Lush and Sephora, but I needn't have bothered. The Mint Julep Masque is cheap, makes my skin feel amazing, and is a lovely mint green color:

The perfect color for smearing onto your face and pretending you're Elphaba from Wicked.

I use this once per week to keep my skin clean and glowing.

5. Beauty(works) Wet Cleansing and Makeup Removing Towelettes, $6

If it's 11pm on a day that I've done 6 or more hours of driving in 100% humidity, I'm not going to have the energy to fully cleanse my face. These wipes work well to remove sweat, dirt, and some light makeup before I collapse face-first into bed. They advertise themselves as "makeup-remover" wipes, but they don't have enough power to remove a full face of makeup (If I'm wearing a full face of makeup, I don't trust any wipes to remove it; I haul my tired ass to the bathroom and use my Kiehl's cleanser). They do have the power to make your un-made-up or lightly-made-up face feel seriously refreshed after a long day.

6. Petroleum Jelly, $5

Petroleum jelly is awesome because it creates a barrier between your skin and the air around it, sealing in moisture. I have a tendency to get really really chapped lips, especially in dry environments, like, say, inside an RV that's blasting air conditioning at full power all night because it's 95 degrees outside. Before I go to sleep I slather a layer of this stuff onto my lips and wake up with a baby-smooth smoocher in the morning.

7. Stridex pads, $5

These are the last, and arguably the least glamorous, product in my skincare arsenal. The pads contain salicylic acid, which is a great chemical exfoliant for oily skin. Since I have combination skin, I use these pads every other day on the oily parts of my face, and have noticed a significant decrease in clogged pores since starting to do so.

Those are my skincare secrets. I hope this post helped anyone struggling with skin problems. What are your holy grail skincare products?

Key West

2014-06-01T20:11:00.001-07:00

We had an amazing (though way too damn short) time in Miami Beach. I will try to share more about that part of the trip later, but as for right now, please admire our amazing campsite for the next three nights in Key West:

Oh, you think RV parks are trashy? Our private dock begs to differ.

Our site is right on the water, which made for some perfect night swimming.

Josh made a new fish friend.

Social Media

2014-05-28T14:27:00.002-07:00

I recently made an Instagram and a Twitter account for our trip, both under the handle @tillyandlovebug. Let's be friends!

Miami Beach: Day 1

2014-05-27T19:40:00.002-07:00

We are staying in Miami Beach for a couple of day with Josh's friend Noam and his family. They have an extra apartment in the back of their house that they rent out via AirBNB and it happened to be vacant for the next few days, so they awesomely are letting us take it over. Noam is a private flight attendant, so he travels all the time. He had to leave early this morning to catch a flight, so we unfortunately won't see him again on this trip.

Josh and Noam

This morning I had my first experience with Cuban coffee. Cuban coffee, or cafe Cubano, is a shot of espresso with a ton of raw sugar added in while it's brewing. Espresso and sugar are two of my favorite things, so I enjoyed this immensely. After I finished my 6th lap around the block I considered going back in for another, but decided against it.

Where was this when I was in college?

I also went for a nice long walk around Miami Beach. I had been here once before a few years ago and not much has changed since then. I liked it then and I like it now. I came by myself and stayed in a hostel in South Beach. It was one of the best trips I've ever taken. Traveling alone is a lot of fun, though I do enjoy the company of the travel buddies I have on this trip.

The beach is seriously perfect here. Perfect sand, perfect water that's somehow blue and clear at the same time, and it's always the perfect temperature. I love it.

Jonathan Dickinson State Park

2014-05-27T15:21:00.000-07:00

A couple nights ago, the crew and I had the pleasure of staying at Jonathan Dickinson State Park. We needed to get from Vero Beach, where we had stayed the night before, to Miami Beach, where we are now, and the park was about halfway between the two. Since it was labor day weekend, the place was packed and we were lucky to get a spot.

We got there in the late afternoon after a difficult day of driving. Josh did some work on Tilly while I cooked dinner. We ate outside and drank PBRs (because 'merica). Our neighbors were very drunk, and sang a bunch of country songs very loudly and off-key, but it was kind of nice.

Me and the old girl.

#Laterpost: Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina

2014-05-27T12:49:00.001-07:00

One of the cooler places Josh and I visited during my blog hiatus the other week was Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Despite its spooky name, Kill Devil Hills has an awesome claim to fame: it's where the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, created, and took flight in, the first powered airplane. It's also the only thing that ever happened in Kill Devil Hills, and boy, do they milk that for all it's worth. The following are pictures from the Wright Brothers National Memorial:

The memorial is on a large hill, so that when visitors climb to the top, they have a great vantage point (much like the Wright brothers must have had during their successful flights). It's located in the Outer Banks, so the view is not bad.

Wilbur Wright's majestic bust.

I would definitely recommend visiting the memorial. There's also a small museum on the property that has a model of the airplane the brothers took flight in, and some other aviation-related exhibits.

Orlando

2014-05-24T19:31:00.000-07:00

Greetings from sunny (and hot and humid) Florida. Josh and I spent the 4 nights in Orlando. Orlando's city slogan should be "Orlando: A Bail Bond Service at Every Corner". It's a terrible place. Luckily, we stayed at Wyndham Bonnet Creek, which is one of my favorite hotels of all time.

The view from our room. Sorry, Tilly, I didn't miss you.

The hotel is on the Disney property, but we didn't end up going to any of the parks. There's no reason to ever leave this place. It's the best. 2 lazy rivers, tons of pools, restaurants, a sweet lake, and at night you can sometimes see fireworks from Hollywood Studios and/or Epcot, depending on where your room is.

From Wednesday night to Thursday night our friends Joe and Lauren and their son Joey visited us from Gainesville. We all had a blast. Joey is a little ball of energy. He had a great time swimming in the lazy rivers and pools and bonding with Uncle Josh.

Yesterday, Uncle Josh and I went into Downtown Disney to walk around and have dinner. We ended up at a Cuban restaurant called Bongos, which had decent food, but great margaritas.

On our way to dinner.

We unfortunately had to leave this morning, though we gladly would have stayed another four nights (and another four after that). Tonight we're at a campground in Vero Beach, and tomorrow we'll head for Miami.

#Laterpost: Amish Country, PA

2014-05-21T08:51:00.002-07:00

These are pictures from the first leg of our trip. We left Boston on March 28 and took about a week to travel down the east coast to Virginia. This picks up where my last Laterpost, about Philadelphia, ends. To read that post, click here.

After we left the Philadelphia KOA, we took a drive through Amish country. "Amish Country" is kind of a catch-all term that applies to Lancaster County, PA, and the surrounding farmlands, which are home to a high percentage of the US Amish population. It's a beautiful area filled with rolling hills, modest homes, farms, and the perpetual aroma of fresh manure lingering softly in the air.

I can smell the poop just looking at this picture.

The Bird-in-Hand Bakery

There are also some super cute small businesses that sell delicious baked goods, and/or little trinkets the Jewish side of my family would refer to as tchotchkes.

Josh admiring some tchotchkes

Christmas tchotchkes

Halloween tchotchkes

Pretty tchotchkes

Josh bought me these cupcake tchotchkes for baking.

We were on a tight schedule, so we unfortunately only got to spend an hour milling about the shops. My favorite part about this stop was seeing how the Amish people live. I loved seeing horse-drawn carriages, modest houses, and full clotheslines. The farmlands were beautiful and the horizons unmarred by tall buildings. I had no previous experience with Amish people, besides having watched a couple episodes of Breaking Amish when it first came out (and I have a tiny hunch that the show was not an entirely accurate representation of what the Amish are all about). It was a cool insight into what life is like for these people that I knew nothing about beforehand.

Driving Day

2014-05-20T06:01:00.003-07:00

Hi, everyone. Not much to report here. We are at a campground in central Florida right now, getting ready to head to Orlando for the next 4 nights. We spent most of yesterday driving down the coast and looking at beautiful beaches. We stopped in Beverly Beach for a little while to do some lounging under the new SPF 100 beach umbrella we bought in Myrtle Beach. I totally missed the memo on beach umbrellas for the first 24 years of my life. Josh insisted we buy one, and I was really not into it. I'm so glad we got it, though. Now I can spend hours on the beach without this happening:

Here are some photos from our day:

Beverly Beach.

Love this damn book.

He's cute

Once we got tired of beach lounging, we grabbed some iced coffee and hit the road again.

Coffee is everything.

RV Storage: Jewelry Edition

2014-05-19T15:34:00.003-07:00

When I lived in a stationary home, I kept all of my jewelry inside of this beautiful wooden jewelry box:

I love this thing to pieces. It's once of my favorite possessions; however, it did not work so well in our new mobile abode. All of the necklaces and bracelets that I had hanging on this rotation rack...

... ended up in a jumbled mess.

And all of my jewelry that was too short or chunky to hang was stuffed into these drawers:

My solution to this problem was less aesthetically pleasing, but way more functional:

Yes! One of those double-sided jewelry organizers your mom most likely bought you from the Container Store when you were in high school. I found this perfectly good specimen in my childhood closet, filled with tarnished necklaces from Claire's and several of those wallet chains I used to wear when I was 14 and thought I was punk. And a belly chain. In my defense, I was 14 in 2004 and that shit was popular back then.

The jewelry holder fits perfectly into my tiny RV mini-closet. It takes up barely any space and, since it's double-sided, holds the entirety of my jewelry collection.

The cost of this project for me was free, since I already had the organizer, but these are pretty cheap. You can find them here and here for $10, or, if you need more pockets, here for $25.

St. Augustine

2014-05-19T05:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we made it over the Florida border and spent the evening/night in St. Augustine, Florida, AKA the oldest continuously-occupied European settlement in the U.S. It's a cute little town. Definitely a tourist trap. Here are the highlights:

I realize I already geeked out about the beautiful architecture in Savannah, but St. Augustine also deserves some credit. It was the capital of Spanish Florida for 200 years, so, understandably, the buildings here look very Spanish (though there are design elements from other countries as well). Walking around St. Augustine feels a lot like walking around an older European city.

The gorgeous building below is Flagler College, which Josh hilariously accidentally mispronounced as Fag-ler College.

This portion of the college was originally built to be a fancy schmancy hotel, called the Hotel Ponce de Leon. It was constructed by a millionaire oil tycoon in the 1800s, but was converted in the 1960s when the college was founded. It truly is an incredible building, though maybe... just a little... over the top.

Nothing to see here..

Or here.

After visiting the college, we walked around looking at other beautiful buildings. Below is the Flagler Memorial Presbyterian church.

Very European-looking.

Amazing detail work.

Also in St. Augustine is the Castillo de San Marcos, which is an old-ass fort. It was closed by the time we got there, so we didn't get to go inside, but it was nice to look at. It's right on the water, so we sat there awhile and enjoyed the scenery.

Yours truly, enjoying some fine fort action.

Overall, I liked St. Augustine and am glad I saw it, though I'm not sure if I would count it as a favorite among the places I've visited so far.