I was raised in several places around the world. I was born in Seattle, Washington, USA. When I was four years old, my parents and my brother and I moved to Fargo, North Dakota, for one year. Then we moved to the Philippine Islands and lived there for almost six years and traveled all over eastern Asia. When I was 11 years old, we left the Philippines and flew west from Manila to Taiwan, Bangkok, India, Lebanon, Greece, and Germany where we picked up a brand new Mercedes Benz my parents had ordered. Then we drove through Europe … Switzerland and Italy, the Vatican, France and Spain, England and Scotland. In the port city of Southampton on the southern coast of England, the Mercedes was put in the hold of the SS United States (the passenger steamship) and we, too, boarded that ship and crossed the Atlantic to return to the USA. We landed in New York, unloaded the Mercedes, and drove across the USA. We built a home on Whidbey Island, Washington, where I finished grade school and high school. I then went to college at Washington State University, Pullman, Washington.
Although we traveled a good bit, the Philippines was and still feels like home to me. But eventually I grew up in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. My parents and my brother and I spent several vacations camping in a pickup truck with a slide-in camper in the Pacific Northwest. That camper was tiny for the four of us, but I remember having a great time and I remember loving the outdoors and the forests and the rivers and the mountains.
As a young adult in my 20’s in college and afterwards, my friends and I would go camping with small tents and sleeping bags … sleeping without any kind of mattress or padding underneath us, or minimal padding at best. It was a lot of fun and we spent time in gorgeous places. In my 30’s, I began to appreciate a little more comfort and traded sleeping on the ground outdoors for the pleasure of a nice motel or B&B or country inn.
As an adult in my early 40’s, my life-partner and I purchased a 26-foot 1978 Campion Toba power boat with a sizable cabin on it with lots of windows, an outside steering station up on the flybridge, and another steering station down inside the cabin for those inclement Pacific Northwest days. I owned that boat, Redhead, for 12 years and took her everywhere from the bottom of Puget Sound (Olympia, WA) up into Canada (Nanaimo and into Princess Louisa Inlet). I had the boat repowered early on and she happily skimmed over the water at 32 knots full throttle (about 36 mph) … but that was only when the water was flat calm and I felt like spending a lot of money on fuel!
My next recreational endeavor when I was in my early 50’s was to sell Redhead and buy a larger 40-foot 1939 Matthews classic wood-hulled cabin cruiser named Pied Piper (photo below). Pied Piper was definitely larger than Redhead, but because Pied Piper’s engines were larger and produced more torque and ran more efficiently (and pushed the boat at a slower speed), this heavy 40-foot boat used LESS fuel than the smaller and lighter 26-foot boat did. And, since she was larger, Pied Piper housed many more amenities than did Redhead … including radar, a full-size frig/freezer, a huge head (bathroom), real furniture in the main cabin, a larger cockpit aft, a gasoline generator that produced 120v electricity when I anchored out, more storage space and more room for humans, and even a real wood-burning fireplace in the main cabin. I owned Pied Piper for 18 years and spent thousands of hours over those years cruising into every corner of Puget Sound and the Canadian Gulf Islands.
During those boating years, I also spent a bit of time (not by boat) in Mexico and Alaska and Hawaii. As well, I enjoyed a 3-week road trip with a friend through the southwest canyon lands in the USA and flew to Scotland for three weeks with a friend. But mostly I’ve been boating as an adult and I have loved it. On the other hand, I have missed opportunities to see other parts of this world. Because of the time and money it takes to maintain a boat, I didn’t do much else in life … either local travel in the Pacific Northwest or anywhere else in the world. I missed traveling and, since I was still healthy and able, I decided to sell Pied Piper and see the world by land and air again. This RV travel trailer that I now own is a perfect way to travel on land and is so much less expensive than the boat that I can afford some international air travel as well. Travel allows me to see new things, taste different kinds of food, meet all sorts of wonderful people, and enjoy the pure fascination I have with all of that.
Now I’m single, happy and healthy, 76 years old (not old). I purchased a home in a senior independent-living community. I own that home and can simply lock the door and leave for a period of time without worrying about security or maintenance. I can travel with this RV lifestyle any time I want. I’m planning a few international trips, too. I am so fortunate and so happy! Life is wonderful.
- 2017 camping destinations here (with one photo from each destination).
- 2018 camping destinations here (with one photo from each destination).
- 2019 camping destinations here (with one photo from each destination).
- 2020 camping destinations here (with one photo from each destination).
- 2021 camping destinations here (with one photo from each destination).
- 2022 camping destinations here (with one photo from each destination).
- 2023 camping destinations here (with one photo from each destination).
- 2024 camping destinations here (with one photo from each destination).