Despite Winter being right around the corner, it's that time of year when I start thinking about camping. Sure, I still have four or five months before I need to pick up the trailer from my parents house and start getting it ready for the season. I have to de-winterize it by draining the antifreeze from the water lines. I have to tear apart the wheel bearings, clean them, inspect them, re-grease them, and then put the wheel back together. I also have to check the gas lines for any leaks with my trusty spray bottle full of soapy water.
Meanwhile, @mrsbozz has a list of stuff that she needs to get done. Put everything back in that we took out so the mice don't get into it. A good deep cleaning, and we are ready to hit the road. The Michigan State Park system allows you to start making reservations for their campgrounds six months before your actual trip. That means if we want to make a trip over the weekend of June 12th to the 15th in 2025, I have to make the reservation today.
Which I plan to do when the window opens in about an hour.
You might think six months is plenty of time to get your reservation in, but I'm not kidding when I say some of these campgrounds fill up fast. Actually, what a lot of people do is book sites in the prime spots at some of the more popular campgrounds two weeks out.
Say for example, I wanted to book that weekend I mentioned above and I wanted to guarantee I got two specific sites. I might book June 2nd through the 15th, then I would come back in later and cancel all of the nights except the 12th through the 15th. I've actually never done that before, but many people do and it garners a lot of debate in some of the state park groups that I follow.
The state has actually started to implement cancellation fees to try and keep people from the practice I mentioned above. Depending on when you cancel, you only get a portion of your nightly fee back now, and there is always an $18 service charge on reservations that you never get back.
People still do it though, and people still complain!
It's about 14 degrees F here today with a wind chill that has the temps probably pretty close to 0 which would be something like -17 for the rest of the world I think. It's pretty easy to understand why my thoughts would be drifting towards the warmer months and nights spent around the campfire.
The hope is that @diamonddave will be recovered enough from his medical stuff that he is able to come along with us this year.
Although @mrsbozz gets her summers off from work, I do not, and that means we usually have to stick to long weekends when we camp. Especially this year since I already lost a week of PTO (personal time off) to my first battle with Covid. Talk about annoying! I guess I should just be happy we aren't in the lockdown era where people had to stay at home for two weeks!
Perhaps one day when we are retired, we might be able to take some longer trips. If it were up to @mrsbozz, she would like to sell the house and buy an RV and become "full timers". I like the idea of having a homebase to come back to though.
Anyway, with thoughts of warmer weather and longer trips kicking through my head, I thought it might be fun to put together an ultimate Hive roadtrip. Over the years, there are people on the chain who I have grown pretty close with. I'm going to skip the folks who live in my home state because most of them I could drive a couple of hours and meet up with at any time. There are others though who would take a bit more planning to visit.
I apologize if I leave anyone out. It's not that I don't want to see you, it's just that I either don't know remotely where you live, or I it just slipped my mind. As you can imagine, it would be a long list if I tried to hit everyone on my following list. I'd also need a boat or a jet!
With cold weather settled into Michigan, I'm thinking of someplace warm, so I would probably head down to Florida with the other snowbirds and stop in to see @ksteem and his awesome solar installation, maybe play with his drone(s) and catch some sun on the beach.
I think @solominer is down south somewhere too, so assuming I can find his semi off the grid farm, I might set up the RV for a couple of nights and load up on some garlic and perhaps a little herb.
I also think @enginewitty is down that way as well. I'd definitely be down for some fishing with @thealliance OG. I'd also probably swing by the Washington DC area to check in on @dswigle to make sure she is okay.
From there, I would definitely head North along the coast to New Jersey and bug @bdmillergallery for a bit. Drink some whiskey, tinker about on his Jeep, have him paint a portrait of @mrsbozz and I, kick it by the lake, nothing much really...
While in Jersey, I might even stop by to see @silverd510, check out his new workshop and drool over his silver collection.
Next stop... @tattoodjay in Massachusetts. I bet it would be fun to just take a walk with him and hear some of his stories from over the years. Maybe do some light trail photography and see in person all the cool places he has shown us over the years.
Dang, I just realized how long this post is getting. I guess I am going to have to split it up into two parts. Tomorrow is Friday, so that means my post will be about Finance, but check back next week when I continue my Ultimate Hive Road Trip.
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