Freedom in a Can: Adventures with Hamlet

Love National Parks?  Earth Day kicks off the Annual National Park Week sponsored by the National Park Service.   As self-proclaimed National Park Nerds who have visited nearly every national park in the nation, we’ve made it an annual tradition to share our own National Park Week Trivia Game to celebrate this fun week!  Each year, w e give away an annual U.S. National Park Pass (aka the America the Beautiful Pass worth $80) and a 1-year subscription to The Dyrt PRO (our favorite campground locator app worth $35.99) to the person who answers the most trivia questions correctly during the 9 days of National Park Week. Planning your own national park road trip?  Check out our Tips, Tricks, & Favorite Resources for Exploring Your National Parks here !   Explore The Dyrt PRO campground locator app and  get 30 days for FREE! Here's a recap of the questions (and answers) from our 2023 National Park Trivia Contest... QUESTIONS: Question #1:  How ...

We've always referred to this newsletter as "almost monthly" because we couldn't promise that life wasn't going to get in the way of a monthly deadline.  But, April 30th came and went in the middle of our Hamlet interior restoration.  Now that we're back on the road, and Hamlet is all fresh and shiny, we're catching up on our "other work."  Hamlet Renovation 3.0 "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!" This line from The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again!" resonates with us on Hamlet's most recent 65th Birthday renovation.  There's been just enough time in between projects that we've perhaps forgotten how much work is involved, and just how sore we become after holding an electric sander over our heads for hours on end.  While it's oh so easy to kvetch about middle-aged aging, we have to remember that we got sore even in our 40's when we first dived into bringing Hamlet back to life.  Hopefully we...

I  remember one night, years ago, when I was leading a paddling adventure with college students.  We were spending the night in a SC state park during a 427 mile paddle along one waterway from the Mountains of North Carolina to the Atlantic Ocean.  It was a weekend night, and our group had plans to arise well before dawn.  A group of kids arrived somewhat late in the evening with their families and proceeded to scream, run around, making animal noises while doing laps in the campground, playing games well past 10 pm.  I lied on my sleeping bag, fuming over the childish racket until a voice in my head vigorously screamed at me; "idiot, you rant and rave about kids these days and their disconnect from nature. Here are kids, being kids in nature! Now, shut up and go to sleep!"  I rolled over with a smile and didn't stir until my alarm.  Camping is one of those things that reconnects us to that inner kid, the person full of possibility and no agenda but to...