Dreams of The Thaw

2017 Migration Map

It’s winter still, but we’re fattening the horses, bulking up supplies and getting the wagons ready for our first adventure across the mighty Mississippi into the wild west later this year.   Most of America is still covered in a winter frost and I sit here by the light of the candle, a little chilled by the morning’s 60 degrees, looking at my maps (google map) trying to plot our course across the mid-west and into the Rockies.

I think most all of us full-time roamers somehow find a cave or two somewhere to weather the goose bumps of winter. Many go out to the desert, or down to the tip of Texas or the hills of southern California.  We’ve stayed for the last three years down in America’s warm peninsula known as the sunshine state.  It’s hard to beat getting fresh tomatoes in January and picking grapefruit right from the tree during the chill of winter.

Manatee at Apollo Beach

I love the feeling that we are like the Canadian Geese now.  We’re migratory.  We follow the seasons.  We’re like the manatee. When the weather turns cold, these gentle giants leave their saltwater homes in search of warmer waters. Every winter they find their way into Florida’s freshwater springs that stay around 72 degrees year-round and they can nibble on the vegetables and green things along the banks waiting for the oceans to warm.

It can be a bit cramped here in our winter caves.  The ponds and springs can be quite full of us migrating flock, all shoulder to shoulder and wing to wing, but it is here in this cocoon that we begin our dreams for the thaw.  The visions of chasing spring’s flowers begin to sprout in our thoughts.  Our imaginations explode with new rivers, mountain peaks and unbeaten paths.  The wonderful unknown begins to haunt us at night.

One of the beautiful things about being a part of this flock of RV travelers is that we can all swim within our winter ponds, hundreds of miles from one another,  and yet we can still sing with each other.   Thank you internet!!  Our feathered friends in Texas tell us of their summer dreams for Utah.  Our compadres snuggled in down in the keys sing about their plans to migrate back up to Maine.  We all sit along our shore lines just cackling and singing.  We flap our feathers and prune our down tips as folks drive by wondering, “What are they so happy about?”

It won’t be long and I’ll be going underneath the wagon checking the wheels,  tightening the bolts and getting us ready for our migration back into the wilds.   At first it will seem as if it is just the two of us rolling forward, but soon there will be trail crossings with others from our flock and the wonderful wagon train into the west will begin.

Sometime in April we’ll leave our 72 degree spring and begin inching north along the gulf coast and up through Alabama and hope to be in Tennessee by the time the Iris’s are in bloom.    We’re planning to spend a week in early May helping out and learning more at the RV-Dreams spring rally  in the Smoky Mountains.   When we went to this rally for the first time in the spring of 2014 it changed the path of our life.   Not only did it confirm that there were others of all ages out there like us,  sitting on their nest, flapping their fledgling wings, with this crazy desire to live and work from the road in their RV, but it also taught us so much valuable full time RV travel and lifestyle information.  It gave us tools that we are still pulling out of the toolbox everyday.  In addition,  some of the friendships we made that week are some of our best of friends and part of the flock that we travel and explore with along the road.

Once we finish up with the rally, we’re pointing the wagons west.  We’ll linger in Arkansas and across the panhandle of Texas, but it is Colorado that is calling.  We hope to explore, hike, bike and taste a little of all of the four corner states thru the summer and early fall.   Last year we installed 880 Watts of solar panels on the roof of our buggy and a battery bank to match, thanks to our friends at RV Solar Solutions.   In 2016 we were able to dry camp using our new on-board power for about 30 days.  This year we hope to triple those nights and enjoy lots of off grid quiet in the many National Forests and free camping lands that are scattered everywhere out west.   There are so many amazing National Parks to discover.  So many hiking trails to walk along.   I hope to dip my toes in a hundred Rocky Mountain streams and taste a rainbow trout fresh from the river.

Lithia Springs

We plan to spend the summer in higher elevations where it is cool and then work our way down and south as the temps change.  Maybe the Grand Canyon in early fall.   We’ll mosey back towards the beautiful Tennessee hills once again as the autumn foliage fills the Cumberland forests and then we’ll quietly listen for the songs of the Canadian Geese in the sky.

That will be our sign to point the wagons due south, back to our winter cave, back to our bubbling spring, back to the land of oranges, palm trees, manatee and the place to kindle sweet dreams …. for the next migration.

Oh, wagon trains rollin’ along
They fade from my visions and in time will be gone
I, I see an eagle in space
My people will follow oh oh, a vanishing race

An Indian brave rolled along one day
On a lonely mountain trail
And he gazed below with a heart of woe
Where the prairie schooners sail

A vision formed like a mortal storm
In the dust of the wagon train
A vanishing race appeared in space
And he sang his sad refrain

Oh, wagon trains rollin’ along
They fade from my visions and in time will be gone
I, I see an eagle in space
And my people will follow a vanishing race

Oh, now great spirits on high
Please spare them the sorrow you show to my eye
Now my blankets are roll
And I ride to the valley of the brave Navajo
And I ride to the valley of the brave Navajo
A vanishing Navajo   –  Johnny Cash 

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