In the last three months, we have done our fair share of traveling, but we landed in Michigan almost two months ago. So while we are stationary, the journey continues locally! This area is one of our Home Bases, so we came up to enjoy the Michigan summer and give the bus (and us) a break from the road.
We also had a lot of things we needed to get done in Michigan! Doctor appointments, dental appointments, eyeglasses, and work on our property. Lots of things that can only be done while we are actually here!
Bus and car maintenance, continued work on the catio … so much to do, and so much easier to do when you have one location to be at! Lucky for us, we have some great friends who let us stay with them until we gain vehicle access to our property. As of right now, it’s walk in only 🙂
Revamp Needed
I also wanted to do extensive work on the blog. I’ve rearranged the pages so they are easier to navigate.
In the Stops on the Road dropdown menu, you will find the United States broken up into Regions! Plus a list of the unique repurpose stores we find!
Just click on the region you want to visit, and you’ll be directed to a page that lists all the states in that region! Click on the state you are visiting and you can check out all of the attractions we have listed!
We have also created a map of EVERY destination we have listed!
Click the Map!
It looks cumbersome, but if you zoom in to the area you want to see, it becomes a lot less congested 😀 Just click on the little open box on the upper right side and it will pop up in Google Maps.
We’ve also added in some great travel resoucers all on one page! Ways to save, places to stay, pet travel info, and anything else we could think of! It’s a work in progress, so things will be added frequently! Make sure you bookmark it if you travel!
Resources For Travelers
I’m working on a catch up on our destinations post, which will be a quick town by town, state by state list of cool things we’ve seen. Super short, and will catch us up.
Catio News
We finally finished the Catio project! I have some videos that I need to take, but I’m at the mercy of our cats for that 😹 I want video of them going up the tree, all the way out the back cabinet! Plus, they can completely get in and out on their own now! How exciting for us! We don’t need to tend to their insane demands in the middle of the night!
Of course only 2 of them actually use that feature! The 2 littlest! Our “twins”, Heddy and Scabbers refuse! And I’ll tell you why! Heddy is SCARED to use it, and Scabbers is a creep and REFUSES to use it!
Watch for the update on that! It’s super exciting to me that they can come and go on their own. I know our two older kitties are being silly about it, and it may just be a matter of time before they give in and use it! But at least Phil and Bean use it! Our hitchhiker Bean has it down to a science! I never have to let him in or out! EVER!
We’ve had so many interesting moments since we last posted!
Like our car fire!
We were driving along and came to a left turn we simply should not have tried to make. I suggested just going straight and finding a safe place to turn around, but I don’t drive, so away we rolled…. to the left!
…. We didn’t make the turn ..
And essentially jacknifed in the road. Zach had to drop the car and move it (We flat towed it since it was a manual). Then he had to move the bus, hook the car back up and get us out of the road.
In the insanity of people just being inpatient in the road, he forgot to take the car back out of gear so it could be towed. A very easy to make mistake!
About a half mile down the road, Zach saw smoke coming from the back!
It was the car, on fire, from being dragged.
Well, oops !
We were so fortunate for the events that unfolded immediately after we pulled over.
→The vehicle behind us had already called 911 and the fire department was on their way!
→ He also happened to know someone who would happily come get our now useless car off the road, free of charge.
→ We were pulling away in under an hour! How is that?!?!
In the end, we lost our car, but the whole situation could have been much worse. As soon as Zach got down, he unhooked the car and drove the bus a safe distance away. The short time it took Zach to notice the smoke meant a considerably smaller fire! In fact, he had the fire just about out when the Fire Department arrived!
The Journey Continues, without a car!
But now we didn’t have a car. No big deal! We thought we could manage sightseeing in the bus.😃
WRONG!😂
Parking is hard in a bus, and even if we found a spot, walking to most locations was difficult. Plus, driving the bus is WAY more expensive than a car, so we really dialed down our sightseeing.
And that wasn’t working for us!
So that brings us to my e-bike. The one that tossed me around like a rag doll. We discussed trading it for something with less power, since I was never going to utilize the massive power it had. But we had put that on the backburner until we found the right bike for me.
And then we found someone at a PEV event who would trade us a car for my e-bike!
WHAT?!?!
Yup, we found some thrill-seeking peeps to trade the bike for a Honda! So now our journey continues, WITH a car!
It’s not brand new, and it isn’t the prettiest thing, but we can roll into any weird attraction we want with it!
And geocaching is now something we can do again! Really, really hard to stop every mile or so in a bus!
While we are pretty much back on track, we are in Michigan for a little while longer! There are only a few things left to button up before we get back on the road!
Plus, my parents are on a road trip of their own! So we plan on meeting up with them in the very near future! And then the journey continues with them! At least for a minute or two!