Seems we constantly find ourselves in different situations. We’re used to rain while traveling. Heck, we’re used to tornadoes while traveling. But a tropical storm… in the mountains of Georgia… in November?… nope!!.. not used to that at all.

This late hurricane, Nicole, slammed into the east coast of Florida and then after rolling out to the Gulf, turned right and headed north and east. We’d been watching it for days, as everyone on the east coast was, and for a while it looked like it was going to miss us at our campsite this week, Vogel State Park. But that was not to be.

On our last day at this remote park the rains and winds started. It was not as bad as predicted but the rain and wind was something to worry about for sure. We were camped under some pretty big trees and to be honest we thought of just moving to the visitors center’s parking lot to ride out the storm but chose to just stay put.

But staying put in a small RV in a place with no cell phone or LTE coverage… well, that’s tricky for sure. The day before the storm we drove out in search of LTE… might be the story of our retired lives, but that’s another story. We used that data to download several movies on Netflix and Hulu, we did one last check of the storms location and path and did one more thing. We cancelled our reservation at Stone Mountain in Atlanta and added additional days on the southern border of Georgia instead. No sense just sitting in the rain for days so we thought we’d take advantage of the fact that the storm had blown out all the clouds and rain near Florida and head that direction instead. Planning is really important when you’re traveling in an RV… but being flexible and creative when you’re planning may be even more important.

So as the storm rained down on us, literally, we hunkered down in our little Ekko and… watched movies… read… edited videos… and even napped. We woke the next morning to lots of rain still, a few downed limbs, some rushing water in the stream that luckily did not flood and most importantly… no damage!

In our video about staying at Vogel we show a little of this while also trying to make the most of this beautiful park and area.

This week we share with you one of our “surprises”. You know. We thought it would just be somewhere to go over the weekend because the campgrounds we wanted were all booked up. Little did we know it would be a lasting memory of a beatiful place full of nature and new friends.

Wow! It’s been 3 months since we bought our Ekko. Are we glad we did? Here’s our 3-month video review:

As much as we’re always together, every now and then one of us has something that we need to do that makes us have to be in different places. Such was the case this week as Lynn left me to spend some time with her high school girlfriends and that left Maggie and I to ourselves wondering what to do. So we took the Ekko up the mountain to a remote NC forest road and tried out the AWD in to see how it’d handle it as a stock EKKO with no lift kits or modifications. Figured might as well cook up an awesome liver mush sandwich and wash it down with a little milk when we got to our campsite.

Give us a little water and we’re happy. But give us a lakefront site right on the water where we can take our paddle board out to explore private islands and see epic sunsets. Well that is just the stuff for us. This week that’s what we’ll show you as we take you along with us on a fun camping trip in our Ekko exploring Lake Keowee at Mile Creek Campground.

This week we get lost while hiking and the app AllTrails bails us out. We then passed by a hiking pig, we griddle up Publix Bread Pizza and Maggie gets to be an uptown dog in beautiful downtown Greenville, SC.

Our days of traveling and being disconnected, out of touch, no cell phone coverage… whatever you call it… well those days are over for us. We like being connected for many reasons that we share in this video.

We also share how we have unlimited data and stay online without having Starlink. And why we don’t use Starlink even though many others have had great success with it. And unlike the thumbnail, we don’t have to climb on top of the van or a telephone pole with a cup and a string. Just 2 simple devices and plans and that’s it.

Here are links to the items we use to stay connected:

Calyx Institute: https://calyxinstitute.org

Wilson WeBoost:https://tinyurl.com/4z4aneze

When you think of SC face it… you don’t usually think of hiking. Beaches maybe. Seafood maybe… but hiking… not usually. Most folks don’t even know that SC has a mountain region and very few know that it is chock full of great hikes. And which SC state park has the most hiking? That would be Paris Mountain State Park… by a mile… actually maybe 50 miles.

So instead of heading to the coast like we always do in SC we headed north… to the SC mountains. Near Greenville, SC there’s an old, simple and kind of small, CCC campground known as Paris Mountain State Park. While the sites are rustic and limited they provide a perfect backdrop for all the hiking that meanders through these mountains. With lakes and streams and mountaintops it’s quite literally the opposite of what most think of when they think of the state of SC. Don’t get us wrong… we love the SC coast… but now we love the SC mountains too. Who knew?

The day we announced we had purchased the Revel we got so many different responses. Are you crazy? What are you thinking? Way to go! I could never do that! I wish I could do that! To be truthful we’d said them all to each other as we struggled with wanting to be more adventurous in our travels and thinking a 4×4 smaller van would help with that goal.

Well… it did. A lot! You know how you look back on pictures from 10 or 20 years ago and see everything you missed when you were in the middle of those times. Preparing our Revel for sale and creating this tribute of all the places we went in our Revel over the last 2 years made us feel all those emotions.

But we’d made a decision and that’s how we roll so we listed our van on RVTrader and waited for the “right” buyer. They finally showed up and we quickly agreed on a deal and part of that deal was us picking them up at the airport so they could fly in to take her back to Michigan.

This is the story of that morning. All the raw emotions and frustrations. And it’s the story of looking back on our first day with our Revel and all the highlights of the more adventurous travel life she helped us achieve. Oh the places we’ve been able to see with our own little eyes this past 2 years. It’s been our privilege to share those highs and lows with you through our channel. In a way, for many of you at least, this will be a sad then happy video as we sell something that’s part of your life each week for a short period of time. For many of you you’ll watch the second part of this videos with smiles and tears too… thinking I remember that. Or man I’ve been there! Or I hope to go there one day. Even I’ll never get to go there but I’m glad I got to go with Lynn and Owen.

There will also be those who watch who say “I told you so!”. What a mistake. They never should have done it. To you I’d say listen to the last line of the episode and know that our 4×4 small van was our way of going out and finding it.

No matter which of these groups you fall in we are forever grateful that you watch and connect with us. Your encouragement keeps us going. Your doubts and warnings keep us grounded. Your love for the 3 of us gives us purpose. Thank you for that!