We took a break from van life and traveled to Ireland for a two week summer vacation. If we can’t take our van, we will take a bus! We did a tour with Trafalgar that travelled along the coast of Ireland on the Wild Atlantic Way. Major cities visited – Dublin, Belfast, LondonDerry Derry, Galway, Cork, Killarney, and Waterford.
Dublin and Belfast: Guinness Storehouse, Trinity College, Teeling Whiskey, Jameson Distillery, Peace wall, The Crown Liquor Saloon
Along the coast: very windy! Cliffs of Moher, Giant’s Causeway, Blarney Castle (countless castles)
The beers of Ireland: each city we visited we found our way to a local pub to try the brew. The winner: Murphy’s and the Kilkenny Cream!
We have countless pictures and highly recommend visiting the great little country of Ireland (it is approximately the size of Indiana). The people are the best and it lives up to it’s age old reputation of “40 shades of green.”
Weekend getaway to upstate Georgia. We traveled to Clayton for a weekend of hiking and drinks! We left Friday morning and stopped in a Walmart parking lot to work for the morning. At lunch time, we continued on to Clayton and arrived at our first stop, Currahee Brewing Company, to finish up work. Side note, we had to drive around a bit to get a Verizon signal strong enough. It is fun working from the parking lot of a brewery though. Closing the laptop and stepping into your weekend in a matter of seconds can be addictive. The brewery is in the middle of the city which is very walkable. We made our way to main street, ordered a pizza for the night, and enjoyed an ice cream while we waited at a local creamery.
Our final destination for the evening was a Harvest Host – RM Rose Distilling Company – located just North of Clayton in Dillard, GA. We did a tasting of their finest spirits and discovered a new favorite cinnamon whiskey (Fire on the Mountain). The distillery is located on the outskirts of a popular restaurant/retreat called the Dillard House. They had some horses and goats. We had a nice mountain sunset to finish off the day.
Day 2 – Saturday, time for a hike before we begin our day of vineyard hopping. We drove to the nearest park – Black Rock Mountain State Park. What a view. The pictures do not do it justice. The park has several trails, a lake, waterfalls, and a campground.
Time for some wine! Our first stop, 12 Spies Vineyard, a small vineyard tucked into Rabun gap just South of Dillard. We had the place to ourselves. Very nice wine and people. It would be a great place for a wedding or social event. We then traveled on to Tiger Mountain Vineyards and then finally Stonewall Creek Vineyards (our Harvest Host) for the night. Our host let us park in a field along a creek with a view of their vineyard. There was one other RV family that shared the field and they were very nice (up from Florida). It was a very peaceful night.
Day 3 – Sunday, we woke up early, packed up and headed home. Another great weekend getaway in the books.
Welcome back to Northwest Alabama. We tried to visit Dismals Canyon the first time around but the night tours were fully booked. Glow worms (or dismalites) are an unusual phenomenon. There are only two significant colonies in the world (Alabama and Australia/New Zealand). You can only get tickets the Sunday before the weekend you come and they sale out quickly. So what are dismalites? They are tiny bioluminescent creatures that emit a glow (or blue light) to attract their food at night. The night tour takes you through the canyon with a guide who points them out along the way. Definitely a unique experience. The canyon is a short walk, not strenuous and well shaded in the middle of nowhere.
Unfortunately we were unable to take pictures of the worms as it was pitch black. Check it out!
So how do you decide where to go first? We spent many of hours dreaming of travel to so many places but got quickly overwhelmed when deciding what to do first. We didn’t want to go far from home at first because we wanted to learn about the new toy and we have a older fur friend Abbey (14 years and happy as ever). And so we continued with our exploration of Alabama. It has been very surprising to say the least at how beautiful it is. Our week…
Day 2, we visited Little River Canyon, driving the rim and seeing the beautiful falls. We camped that night in Desoto State Park after an afternoon of hiking to see the more waterfalls and huge stones.
We wrapped up the trip with eating dinner at Rattlesnake Saloon, visiting Helen Keller’s birthplace and staying at McFarland Park campground on the Tennessee river.
Who doesn’t go and show off the new toy to the family? I lost my mother in 2018, but dad is 87 and still lives just outside Columbus, GA on a 20 acre farm. I was born and raised there. I grew up with black angus cows, chickens, and horses. Many memories of fishing with dad, unloading the hay bails for the farm animals, and creating forts inside the woods. It was a great playground. I am sure my love for the outdoors started here.
On our way back we stopped in West Point to camp for the night at R. Shaefer Heard campground. It was very nice. A smaller campground with big lots, Verizon cell service excellent, right on the lake, and quiet. It was a night with camp fires, picnics and walks by the lake. There are many campgrounds in this area. It is just outside LaGrange, GA where my mom grew up and all of my family on that side still live.
Continuing the trend of sticking close to home, we traveled to Lake Lanier, about an hour from where we live, to enjoy the weekend. Before we went to the lake we stopped in downtown Gainesville at a Harvest Host – Remedy Distillery. Located right near downtown it was a great spot to stay the night.
After our night in Gainesville, we made our way to Lake Lanier. We stopped at Point Royale marina for lunch at Pelican Pete’s and then made our way to the Bald Ridge Creek campground. The campground was cozy, right on the water and easy to walk around. We enjoyed some cheese and tomato soup for dinner and watched the beautiful sunset! Our neighbor brought us some wood for the campfire (I guess our looked sad) so we finished up the night by the fire.
A storm was brewing so we headed out early the next morning to begin our new work week. Overall, a nice weekend getaway!
So where do you go now that you have the RV? We have many ideas for long trips, but we still have to work. First things first, we need internet. There are so many options now. We looked at Starlink, cellular hot spots and other satellite options. We finally settled for a Verizon hotspot that works with the van. The van comes equipped with a WineGard Connect system. All we needed was the cellular sim card and we were good to go.
During our research we discovered Harvest Hosts. We wanted to find places to stay that would not break the bank (yea, we still have a mortgage, for now!!) and get an experience of some kind. Harvest Hosts fits right in nicely. They have farms where you can camp and get fresh eggs in the morning. There are breweries where you can park, enjoy their beers and are located near a downtown area for exploring. We found some wineries, distilleries, tea makers, drive-in movie theatres, and animal rescue and recovery farms.
Back to our first trip. We want to do each state and being new to the RV, did not want to go far from home on our first few trips. And so we chose to visit Albertville and Gadsden Alabama. We visited Noccalula Falls Park. The first Harvest Host we visited was a winery that offered wood fired pizzas. The wine was good, the pizza excellent and a cheesecake flight for dessert. We rolled back into the RV after. It was just outside Albertville and was a quiet spot to camp surrounded by wine (err… grape) vines and a quaint tree.
This trip broke us in. The month of March. It was 40 degrees outside. The wind was blowing quite a bit. We learned all about the propane system – hot water, furnace and gas stove. We learned not to store gallons of water on a high shelf. Kelly made us our first meal – breakfast eggs and sausage.
Thanks for joining us! We decided over many years we wanted to travel. And up until this point, we have. Just not in a van! We purchased the Thor Tellaro on March 3rd, 2023 after a year of RV searching and research. We went to many RV shows (link to Tampa and Atlanta here),visited too many Camping Worlds and watched more YouTube videos than ever. We started off looking a Class As, moved on to Class B+s and finally settled in on a Class B. And why did we choose a Class B and this one in particular? Some reasons why:
We wanted a RV that could go inner city or virtually anywhere. No excuses.
We needed a floor plan that allowed both of us to work remotely in comfort. We each have a work station.
We wanted sleeping options. There is a couch in the back and a pop up on top.
With the price of diesel, we wanted affordability. And good gas mileage.
We wanted something both of us could drive. Shy driver here…
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
Jess and Kelly travel 