April 13, 2016 Last Evening of Winter Trip in The Lark

Here we sit at Rocky Fork State Park in Hillsboro, Ohio.  Or Ohia…as the locals would say.

Our last stop over before the last leg of the trip home.  Four months and 5 days.  I’ll figure the mileage tomorrow, bet close  to 3800.  We have been to lakes and oceans and rivers, beaches  and even a “meander”.  We hiked countless nature boardwalks. We have observed and photographed 100’s of birds.  We have seen nature at it’s scariest (storms) and sunsets at their most spectacular.

We have made many new friends, and enjoyed countless encounters with friendly strangers.

Often our only company was Eze and each other.  We shared a whole week with Jason, Michaela, Savana and Rylan at a beach house. 

We suffered no-see-ums and mosquitoes. We enjoyed good health and rode miles on our bikes.  I prepared over 300 meals aboard the Lark.  I hand washed a lot of dishes….. If there was just  a place for a dishwasher……I left with a full fridge and it never emptied. I added a few condiments: Pure Sorghum Molasses, Maldon sea salt flakes and “Slap Your Momma’s Seasoning.  Always room for a condiment.

We watched little TV, listened to music and dragged along Ed’s “Laptop”,  an Apple Desk Mac with 27” monitor!  I think there is an Apple commercial in there somewhere.

We made new friends: Eric and Laurel  alias: RavenandChicadee.com 

Yummy "Chickadee's Crab Cakes!

We ate shrimp and oysters and crawfish (some of us) and fried catfish.  I found a weakness for sweet tea and grits.  We had beignets at Cafe DeMonde and I missed the turtle soup at the Jazz festival in New Orleans.  Good excuse to go back.

We read enough historical markers along the Natchez Trace to cover American History 101-102.

The old Natchez Trail

I “shot” enough early southern architecture to fill a coffee table book. We did the entire D-Day experience at the WWII Museum in New Orleans…there were other sections of the museum, but we ran out of time.  An amazing history lesson. We lived through the revolution, the War of 1812 and the Civil War.  We walked on the Trace where ancient American people walked, where the Choctaw and Natchez Indians walked and where the “Kaintucks” walked back to the Ohio land from selling their goods in Natchez and New Orleans.

We also walked the “Trail of Tears”…. Remember the Chickasaws, the Choctaws, the Seminoles and the Cherokees….so sad.  Only one Cherokee woman managed to live to come home to Alabama before her death.

So tonight will be our last dinner on the road. We crossed the mighty Ohio River in Maysville and on into camp.  A beautiful lake view, and chilly enough to cuddle.  Just in time to be home in Cle without winterizing.  No snow boots for me, bad enough I had to switch to real shoes and socks!

Last evening at Camp...on to Cle and home.
4 months 5 days on the road in The Lark
4256 miles
:)