We are currently back in Columbus, Ohio after leaving in early November (after helping all the doctors with their Mercedes payments) and wandering down to Charlotte, North Carolina to visit my father's old girlfriend who is now in a retirement home. From there it was down to Columbia, South Carolina, and on to Augusta, Georgia. We made a diversion to Atlanta, Georgia to have another treatment done on Lori's eye before heading south to Florida because Atlanta was just too cold. In Florida we stayed in Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, and looped south through the northern part of Orlando before heading north to Lake City until the end of January. After a stay in Fort Walton Beach we stopped in Columbus, Georgia for access to Callaway Gardens during the peak of the azalea season. Then it was west to Shreveport, Louisiana to get some last items from my Dad's estate before getting back to Columbus, Ohio by mid April to again help the doctors with another Mercedes payment. Photos of our current travels are posted almost daily on the Instagram feed @RambleJohn. We plan to leave Columbus at the end of April which could be delayed with some medical issues but we only know we are going west and probably north but on August 21 we will be just south of Franklin, Kentucky to see the total solar eclipse.
This site is planed as a work in progress. After retiring in 2006, we started sending reports back to the wonderful lady that had always watched the house while we traveled. Unfortunately Ruth Lambert is no longer with us so the major incentive for the reports is also gone and sending color copies to all our friends and relatives does start to get rather expensive hence this more convenient website presentation. As in our rambling, the reporting tended to be rather erratic and although it only got into 2010 it was reaching 300 pages and filling two 2 inch notebooks. That puts me six years behind and four years to convert so its going to take considerable time if ever to get everything posted.
This second iteration covers our travels through 2007. I'm still trying to get about a year a quarter depending on how much time I can break free. 2007 required sorting through over 3300 pictures which has been a marathon. Generally I'm organized by year, state, city, and attraction like the menu bar above. When I can find some external links I think might be interesting I've added them in the standard blue color. Links to other parts of this site are in green and using the menu bar you can basically get from anyplace to anyplace and maybe get totally lost. Have fun.
We retired in mid 2006 and decided to wander the USA to actually see what it really looks like. In some 40 years of actually working for a living John has had extensive travel but rare opportunities to see an area. Usually it's dark going into the plant and dark coming out so most of the scenery is the inside of a plant, motel room, or restaurant. Actually in the last six months before retirement John put in two 34 hour days; ya walk into the plant and walk out 34 hours later. So we sold the house and the majority of the "stuff" and are now OLD (medicare recipients), UNEMPLOYED (retired), HOMELESS (not destitute), and enjoying the nomad lifestyle. NO! we don't have an RV; we sold the house, we're not driving it. We have two tents to camp when we want, but mostly motel camp. Staying a week or a month tends to be economical most places and we are definitely budget travelers. Look for us where its warm but not real hot with a reasonable cost of living.