Processed pig bits, Civil War sadness and meeting the Amish

North Fork, Big Bend, Tygart Lake, Cowans Gap, Ohiopyle — to most foreign travellers in the US, these names mean very little as they hop from New York to San Francisco, perhaps visiting an ‘out of the way’ destination such as New Orleans, Chicago or Austin.

But to us these tongue-curling names signify the series of beautiful state parks maintained with a German-like attention to detail where we park the RockVan most nights. When we need to stay closer to medium-sized towns, we rely on the private RV parks, which have the bonus of ‘free’ wifi, but their fees are usually higher. Average fees in the state parks are around $30-40 per night for electricity and water hookup, whereas the private parks tend more towards $50-60 per night.

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Road Trip USA: royal repairs on the RockVan

Sit down, folks, and I’ll tell you a story about optimists, doubters, Craigslist, crooks, and something we call the RockVan.

The iconic Route 66 has offered asphalt adventure since 1926, and from Grapes of Wrath to On the Road and National Lampoon’s Vacation, America is the land of the Great Road Trip. For our own Griswaldian-Kerouac Road Trip USA, we deliberated at length about whether to do a mixture of camping and motels, but the logistics of either bringing or sourcing all our camping gear and then the expense of hiring a car as well as paying for accommodation in towns tipped us over to our decision to buy an RV. RV is short for ‘recreational vehicle’ to most, but when we found a 1977 GMC motorhome for sale, my mate Zoe quickly dubbed it the RockVan.

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RoadTripUSA: royal repairs on the RockVan

I’m not really keeping up with writing about the big RoadTripUSA just yet, but here’s my latest piece on Crikey, detailing the first week of repairs on the RockVan in Front Royal, Virginia. You can check out the earlier posts there too if you haven’t already…

I promise more updates on food, farms and reflections on culture soon!