Week #1 - Getting our Sea Legs and the Demise of our Beloved Scout

While we've been on the road for just over a week, we've only spent two nights in the van so far. We visited my sister and her husband in Fairfield, CT for a couple nights and then visited friends in Brooklyn, NY. We left Brooklyn on Sunday and spent the first night in the van next to the banks of the Delaware River at the NJ/PA state line, which we found using the iOverlander app. 

Traveling in the van has been pretty good so far despite not spending huge amounts of time in the van. It was a little stressful driving into NYC the other day mostly due to the low bridges on FDR Dr. The previous owner of our van (Amazon) drove the van into something that caused considerable damage to the van roof so we're a bit leary of doing something similar. Our high-roof van has a clearance of 9' 6" without the solar panels and probably 9' 8" with the solar panels. We saw several signs along FDR that indicated 9' 6" clearance restrictions so we quickly exited and found another route through Manhattan. I am a little skeptical on bridge clearances though as there's a bridge around the corner from where we stayed in Brooklyn that has a sign stating a clearance of only 8' 7" and I drove our van under the bridge with considerable room to spare. 

We had a great visit to NYC seeing friends and my cousin Isabel who recently moved there after graduating from college. We also visited my old neighborhood Clinton Hill in Brooklyn which has changed so much since I lived there more than twenty years ago. It's now super gentrified which I found to be kind of sad as it was a cool gritty neighborhood when I lived there in the late 90s. The NYC marathon was happening on Sunday so I ran some of the course along 4th Ave in Brooklyn as part of my long run which was really fun. I also got to see the elite women and men come through at the 10K mark - there's nothing quite like seeing some of the fastest humans in the world fly by you like they're not even trying! See a few photos below from our NYC visit. 




Our dog Scout has been struggling with his health the past couple months and we fear that the end of the road is near for the poor fella. After a few weeks of GI issues, inconsistent appetite and an incident where he fell down a flight of stairs at my Mom's house, we brought him to the animal hospital where they diagnosed him with cancer. We're not pursuing any treatment for him as he's thirteen and a half and has lived a great life. He has good days and bad days and we're just happy that we gets to do a little travelling in the van before he moves on to doggie heaven! We're going to miss that guy as we love him to pieces and he really has been the best dog ever. Photo below is Scout proudly wearing my finisher's medal at the NH Marathon last month! 


We've been in Philly the past two days visiting friends and we've been really impressed with the city, although we haven't really made it to the city center yet. There's tons of tree lined neighborhoods, lots of windy, hilly roads and some great parks such as the Wissahickon Valley Park. We parked our van next to that park last night and I did my morning run through the park which was really spectacular. Lots of great single track trails, beautiful old bridges and the picturesque Forbidden Drive which was the 2018 Trail of the Year. We'll be in Philly one more night and then we'll continue south to our nation's capital where we'll be visiting friends and I'll be running the Rock 'n Roll half marathon on Saturday. I even got a free elite entry into the race and am one of only 10 seeded runners (see elite field below)! I'm treating this race as a training race for the California International Marathon but I hope I can hold my own and beat a couple of the other seeded runners!





Comments

  1. runninginheelsNovember 10, 2021 at 11:36 AM

    What a great report, happy to hear from you. I too was in NYC recently and visited the WTC as well, my first time seeing the new configuration (I had lived in NYC for only about 3 months before 9/11 happened, and used to run past the WTC along the Hudson River every day). Good luck with the marathon! ~Natalie Lozano in Portland, OR

    ReplyDelete
  2. MargieNovember 10, 2021 at 12:10 PM

    This is AWESOME Sam!! Great fodder for a book at some point! I am so sorry about Scout, but he is blessed to be riding with you for now, and that he has the love and respect of two such awesome, loving people. I def want to keep reading about your travels. It's very vicariously satisfying, since I haven't gone anywhere in more than 15 years except to my dad's house!! Be very well and know that you are SO loved!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. WillyNovember 10, 2021 at 2:38 PM

    Love it!! Scout is a good boy, I hope he has wonderful final days. Forbidden Drive sounds epic

    ReplyDelete
  4. blownawayNovember 10, 2021 at 4:06 PM

    Oh I’m so sorry about your little Scout baby! I remember when you guys got him. He’s such a good boy! Hugs.
    Susie Srour

    ReplyDelete
  5. KPVNovember 11, 2021 at 5:35 PM

    Very sad about Scout you guys :)
    Sam one of my most repeated stories about living in NYC is that time I took the subway to your place, but was on an express and so went 3 stops past your Clinton-Washington stop into either Bed-sty or East NY. And instead of taking the train back, I WALKED through those neighborhoods back to your place. At night. With two bags of groceries. I am still surprised that I am alive to tell the tale. If I recall correctly, there were the occasional stabbings or shootings on your street too. Times have changed

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pacific Northwest and Vancouver Island

Image
We’ve been back in the van for about three weeks so it feels like it’s time to fire up the Tumbleweed Blog again. I’m sure you’ve missed it sorely but please do not fret as it’ll be coming to your inbox intermittently for the next three months or so. After a soggy winter parked at our friend Susie’s house in Lakeside, CA, Gemma was in fairly good condition. We had to jumpstart Gemma to get her started as the battery was dead, which had happened last year as well. The bigger issue though was that we discovered mold all over a couple of our sleeping cushions, the interior siding and the bench. We’ve had a small roof leak ever since we bought the van and despite our best efforts to fix it, it obviously still persists. We were fortunately able to buy some foam in Santa Monica to replace the moldy cushions and we spent a couple of days sanding and treating the moldy wood to rid our van of all of the mildew. We’re hoping to find covered parking for our van this coming winter since that’s p...
Read more

Canadian Rockies

Image
We’ve been in Canada for over a month now and have thoroughly enjoyed our visit. The wildlife alone is worth the visit – we’ve seen mountain goats, moose, elk, bald eagles, red tailed hawk, caribou and both black and grizzly bears (the grizzlies viewed from inside our van thankfully!). A number of places we visited on Vancouver Island had recent cougar sightings, but we fortunately didn’t see any. We’ve also gotten good at talking to ourselves and generally making lots of noise when walking through grizzly country to let them know we’re coming and avoid any surprise encounters. And of course the scenery is incredible as you can see from some of the photos below. Ginny and me in Banff National Park Banff is crowded but the scenery is spectacular At first blush, it can be challenging to find many differences between Canada and the USA – even the Canadian accent is virtually identical to the American accent for crying out loud! And of course they love ice hockey more than any other spor...
Read more

Guangzhou and Guilin, China

Image
Ginny and I recently took advantage of China's visa-free transit policy and spent 10 days in China. We were mostly visiting Ginny's folks in Guilin but we also did a couple of side trips to play tourist for a day or two. It had been 11 years since we last visited China and some things had changed quite a bit while other things seemed pretty much the same. China's transportation system, for instance, has been completely transformed over the past couple of decades (more on that below) but many Chinese men still smoke like chimneys.  We took three different trips on China's high speed rail network and each trip was a breeze. The trains are well utilized but also very comfortable and far superior to flying in my opinion. The national network includes approximately 48,000 km of high speed rail lines connecting all major cities across 31 provinces. China has plans to expand the network to 70,000 km of high speed rail lines by 2035 so they have truly been bitten by the high s...
Read more