Celebrating Our 1 Year Anniversary as Nomads!

One year ago today we officially signed the closing papers on our house and began our lives as Nomads wandering around the United States! In an interesting coincidence we signed those papers in our RV over a video conference from Yogi Bear's Campground in Fredericksburg, TX, and a year later, we are again sitting here at Yogi Bear's on what is becoming an annual tradition!

This past year has gone so quickly and we have done so much that it is tough to summarize it all here. We buzzed out of town quickly on 7 August last year when the temperature was climbing up from 103 and expecting to hit 106 in a couple of days. We looked at each other and said "we are selling our house so we don't have to suffer these summers anymore" and promptly set about planning to find some cooler weather. Some quick planning later and we were heading out for higher elevations in Colorado! We haven't slowed down much since. You can check out our Travels section on our website for the details on our trips. BraysAway Travels

We have been concentrating on hitting as many National Parks and Monuments as possible which means moving a lot and that's a hard and expensive life. We know we'll slow down in the coming years but are getting a nice sample of the various regions of the US and making a list of those areas where we plan to go back for a month or more at a time to do a real deep dive into that area to see a lot more of what they have.

We also haven't spent hardly any time in major cities. It's really not my thing anyway. I much prefer to be out in the country seeing the wilderness and the incredible geology and geography of this beautiful country but that does leave a lot of very scenic towns to be explored yet and we are compiling a nice list of ones we know about and others we have read about.

So what's ahead for BraysAway this year? Glad you asked! Our first trip out the gate is up to Michigan and the Upper Peninsula where we have heard the weather is much cooler AND it's incredibly beautiful! Both being important to us given the heat and humidity of south Texas right now! After circumnavigating Michigan and the UP we are heading across Ohio, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Following that we repeat some states on the way back home but are planning to see Gettysburg, Shenandoah NP, New River Gorge, and Mammoth Cave NP. On the way up we will hit Indiana Dunes NP, Cuyahoga NP and Acadia NP. So we are continuing to visit a lot of America's National Parks and all that they encompass and protect!

Following that trip we'll return for our month of R&R, doctor's appointments and spoiling of Grandkids before heading out for Tennessee to see the Christmas lights of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge which we understand are amazing. These two towns apparently really go all out for Christmas and, though we've visited them before, we did so right before they put up all the lights! We just can't miss that again. On the return trip back we are considering touring the Gulf Coast if we can find room given all the Snow Birds that flock south and suck up all the camping sites!

Our big trip for next year will be our Alaska Trip which we are planning with another couple we met camping who have also dreamed of making the drive to Alaska and there's safety in numbers so we are grateful for their company! That's likely to be a 2-3 month trip minimum and we have heard horror stories of how bad the roads are so we are doing upgrades to our rig to help handle the roads and give us some more boondocking options. Constant small repairs seem to be the life of the RVer.

So, check out our website BraysAway.com, and look us up as BraysAway on Instagram and Facebook to follow along on our amazing journey around this beautiful United States!