Travel - Pocketful of Joules

Do you Travel by Camper?

Source: Photo by Sara Darcaj on Unsplash.com

Like many people, the pandemic has upended our lives… and one impact has been that we had to cancel our Universal Studios vacation. We had planned to go there for a week in April, but then with the Stay at Home order we cancelled everything and got our money back with the intention of re-booking when things get less crazy.

Now, Universal Studios is opening back up on June 5^th with some restrictions (mask wearing, social distancing, etc.) but we won’t be going back for a while. However, we would really love a vacation!

So, we’ve been thinking outside the box and asking ourselves what type of vacation would be relaxing and also let us feel safe when it comes to our health. What can we do that will be fun, but still allow us to socially distance easily?

One of the ideas that keeps popping up is traveling by camper. We’ve never rented or used a camper before though, so we think maybe a short trip would be fun to try out camper life.

We have a 4-wheel drive truck with a towing hitch and my husband regularly drives tractor trailers, so we feel pretty confident about driving around. We can either rent a full RV or a camper to attach to the hitch on his truck. I’d like to go someplace with a beach, so there are a bunch of east coast options, including: Assateague Island in Maryland, Cape Henlopen in Delaware, and First Landing State Park in Virginia.

Here’s the thing though, I’ve never even been in a camper. I’ve never sat in one, cooked in one, or slept in one. Will I hate it? Will I love it? Who knows!

So, if you’ve tried out camper life, by either owning an RV or renting one… I’d love to hear all about it! What’s best, what’s worst, what did you not realize until you were in the thick of things?

Grab Your Boots, We’re Going to a Barn Sale!

I had planned to spend the weekend at Lindsey’s house (a couple weekends ago), and she texted me a couple days before about the barn sale. I’m never one to miss out on the chance to dig through someone else’s crap, so it was ON! I had planned to drive down to her house on Saturday morning and come home on Sunday… but everything else was unplanned.

Except the barn sale.

For those of you unfamiliar with the barn sale concept, it’s typically a barn in the middle of the country filled with random crap. There are some antiques, some random rusty tools and just an all around hodge-podge of what-the-heck-is-this and do-I-need-this-in-my-life and how-much-is-it?

Some barn sale junk:

As it was, we didn’t find any big winners at the barn sale, but one of us had the idea to google to see if there were any fun antique or consignment stores around. We popped by one and that is when we found out where we actually were…

Apparently Deale, Maryland is your place to get a deal (should I have warned you that there was a dad joke ahead…?). We had somehow stumbled into The Vintage Loop and one nice shopkeeper gave us this handy postcard which pointed out all the nearby shops!

If my memory serves me right, we ended stopping by: Vintage by the Bay, Somewhere in Time, A Vintage Deale, Second Wind Consignments, Somewhere in Time, Salvage Chic, Spice, This & That Treasures, Re-Find, Capt’n Harvey’s Antiques and The Red Dresser.

So. Many. Treasures. And a lot of crap too.

Oh, and we stopped at Happy Harbor Restaurant in Deale for a truly fantastic Orange Crush and crab cake sandwich!

Which brings us to… which treasures I brought home!

Each item in this photo ranged from $2.70 – $4.99. I loved the honeybee container and the pie bird for my china cabinet. The blue honeycomb vase will take the place of a similar white one I recently broke. The green bud vase was too cute to pass up. And I just realized as I was typing this that the white and green container came from another stop that I still need to blog about…oops.

This little oil painting is by a local artist, Glenn Stewart. There were a bunch to pick from, but I love this little 8 x 8 canvas. It was only $15, so I had to buy it and it now lives in my den.

This original painting also came home with me. The artist is also relatively local, Kimberly Scott Stein is based out of Vienna, VA. I have no idea how much her pieces typically cost. On her website it asks you to contact her for pricing, which is typically code for out of my price range. This one was at a consignment shop for just $31.50 and I loved it so much I had to buy it. It’s currently on my dresser in my bedroom, but I’m not sure if that will be it’s final place.

All in all, the day was super fun. And we certainly found some treasures in Deale!

Have you been to a barn sale before?

February Fun: Snow Tubing at Liberty Mountain Resort

As I mentioned in my 2020 goals post, I’m planning one weekend of fun for each month throughout the year. In January, we took a trip to Kingsmill in Williamsburg, VA for my mom’s birthday celebration. For February, we decided to do something a little closer to home… snow tubing!

We were initially considering doing an overnight trip, but when we saw that Liberty Mountain Resort offered two-hour snow tubing passes AND they were less than an hour from our house we decided to just go for a day. While I love to ski (but haven’t been in 10+ years), I’ve never been snow tubing before. Neither Travis or Jack has ever tried to ski, so I figured snow tubing would be a fun and easy way to introduce them to the mountain!

Joining us on our trip:

*Travis, me, Jaclyn, Jack, Jason, Katie & Craig*

The cost to snow tube for a two-hour session on the weekend is $34 per person. This includes your tube and unlimited tubing on the tubing trails. We grabbed our tubes and hopped on the people mover, which took us up to the top of the hill.

Jack is smiling here, but the first three times on the people mover were a little rough. He fell over each time and then insisted on holding my hand until he got to the top. The first time we rode it and jumped off, I was more worried about helping Jack walk off safely than myself… and I immediately slipped on some ice and fell to the ground like a ton of bricks.

Luckily, we all had on our puffy snow pants! Before he went down the first hill, Jack was pretty apprehensive. Especially when people requested to be spun around and the helper would yank their tubes in such a way that they would spiral down the tubing track.

Here’s the ‘regular’ non spinning way to tube, with Jack:

And here is my brother in law, Craig when he went down on his tummy and requested a spin:

We all had a pretty great time and snow tubing did grow on Jack just a little bit. After he mastered the people mover, he got more confidence after each run. He still didn’t want to be spun, but the fact that he was smiling was enough for me!

With that being said, when I asked Jack if he’d like to try snow tubing at another mountain resort, he said that he thinks he’s fine for the year.

Have you tried snow tubing?