Julia A. Keirns – Author, Blogger, Writer – Traveling with Rich & Julie

Substack Here We Come

I did it!

I created an account in Substack, figured out how to create my own travel newsletter, and wrote my first welcome post.

I am proud of myself and excited to see where it will go. I would love it if my readers here would go check it out and subscribe. For now, it is free. I will probably post most of my travel articles and stories there.

Yes, the photo is me and Rich. We were in Chicago at Navy Pier several years ago and one of those artists talked us into getting ourselves drawn. Oh my gosh, she did a wonderful job and I have always loved this picture of us.

Why I never thought of using this photo before for our travels I don’t know but I think it is perfect.

You can subscribe there to get a regular newsletter by email so you will never miss another one of our travel stories. Go ahead and hop on over there right now why don’t you and give us some love. Thanks.

substack/travelingwithrich&julie

RV Life Daily Blog – 1/28/24

Stormy Rainy Days – Traveling with Rich & Julie

It’s been cold, chilly, and rainy here in southern Alabama for most of January more days than not.

I can only convince Rich to play so many games with me. He almost always loses at Battleship. I just bought this brand new.

When we get sick and tired of being inside the RV, it’s time to find someplace to go indoors just to get out and do something fun.

Today we tried a bar and grill called Lillian’s Front Porch. It had great reviews and reasonable prices.

I knew we were going to enjoy it as soon as we walked in. It looked like a nice down-to-earth dive bar.

And because it is so close to Mardi Gras, there were bead necklaces on all the tables.

And evidently, Lillian doesn’t own it anymore because the new menu said it was Johnny B’s Front Porch. But I think it is because it is located in the town of Lillian.

We had a great time listening to a couple of live musicians.

The sun is shining today and we will spend the day preparing to head north. Stay tuned for the adventure. Thanks for reading.

RV Life Daily Blog – 1/13/24

Traveling with Rich & Julie

I am sitting here this morning drinking my coffee inside. It is cloudy and sprinkling.

A few short-lived downpours graced our morning and by noon it was warm and muggy. 71 degrees, sunny, and breezy. A nice day to open the windows finally.

I made a pan of chicken nachos for a late lunch.

It’s very simple. I spread tortilla chips on the pan and cover them with cheese first, then shredded chicken, onions, green and red peppers, tomatoes, and more cheese. Bake in the oven for 10 or 15 minutes. Voila!

Homemade Chicken Nachos. We top them with shredded lettuce and add sour cream and salsa to taste. Yum.

5:00 pm rolled around before we knew it and I realized it was still daylight outside.

I crocheted on my friend’s scarf and think it is almost long enough now. I will ask her to come look at it and let me know for sure before I finish it off.

Another quiet boring day in the RV is in the books.

Hope you all had a great day. Maybe tomorrow will be a little more interesting.

RV Life Daily Blog – 1/12/24

Gone Fishin’ – Traveling with Rich & Julie

It might look like Rich is fishing but he isn’t. Here’s the story…

Today we got up early and headed to Walmart to get one-day fishing licenses for the state of Alabama.

As soon as we entered the building, we were bombarded with Mardi Gras decorations.

I’ve never seen anything like it before. In Ohio, red hearts and Valentines come out right after January 1.

I might have to buy some of these to take home to the granddaughters. People in Ohio don’t see this in their local Walmart.

Anyway, back to the fishing story.

Rich gathered all the fishing equipment and I packed drinks and snacks. Our new friend Alex tagged along too.

It was a frustrating morning as we discovered that nobody sells fishing licenses in Alabama. The process is to go online they say. One-day non-resident fishing licenses are supposed to be only $8.55 but are not available for purchase online either.

So, after Walmart told us no, we tried a few bait and tackle shops. Still, the answer was no. Then we went to the Gulf State Park Headquarters because we wanted to fish in Shelby Lake which is in the state park. They didn’t even sell them. They said we had to go online. But online doesn’t sell one-day licenses!

Everyone told us we had to purchase fishing licenses online, but online said that one-day non-resident licenses were not sold online and needed to be purchased at the local WFF office. WTF is WFF?

We called two other Walmart locations and they do not sell fishing licenses. Neither did the National Wildlife Refuge. No one was helpful.

I was beginning to get perturbed.

Finally, we called a game warden personally. We told him the situation and he couldn’t help either. But he did acknowledge that the fine for fishing without a license is $50 plus $100 court costs, per person. Thank you very much for that information. Good to know. Not.

Next, we checked the state of Florida because we are quite close to the state line. We received nearly the same information and run around as Alabama gave us.

Why don’t they want to make it easy for visitors to fish for only one day? It’s all about the money and they think you will just give in and pay $35 for a seven-day license. Nope. We are not paying $70 to fish for a couple of hours.

We succumbed to the fact that we would not be spending the day fishing as planned, but our friend Alex could because she is over 65, and is staying in Alabama for a couple more months so she went ahead and purchased a yearly non-resident fishing license for seniors at $60 online and it was immediately sent to her email.

A one-day non-resident permit should be just as easy to do. Just saying.

She wanted to fish and she wanted Rich to teach her because she had never fished in a freshwater lake before. It was fun to watch Rich give her lessons.

We went ahead and found a gorgeous spot on Shelby Lake to picnic and fish.

We picnicked for lunch on some meat, cheese, crackers, sub sandwiches, and chips, and I got a few good pictures. We like to keep small snack bags of chips in the RV for picnics.

This is a Northern Mockingbird and I don’t believe I have ever seen one or photographed one before.

This is a Great-tailed Grackle which is also a first for me.

The grackles stayed close by in a tree just in case we dropped any crumbs. I bet they are used to being fed.

And this flock of American Coots swam by the bobber more than once.

I’m pretty sure this is some kind of military helicopter flying above us. The fact that it has no doors gives it away.

As fun as it was, it was quite breezy and chilly by the lake so we only stayed about two hours.

Not a single bite, or even a nibble, but we still had a lot of fun sort of fishing today. And our new friend Alex can now say that she has fished in a freshwater lake.

We came back to the campground and sat around a fire for the first time since leaving Ohio.

Another day in paradise is in the books.

Thanks for coming along with us on our adventures.

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RV Life Daily Blog – 1/9/24

Post Storm – Traveling with Rich & Julie

The storms and wind rocked and rolled the RV most of the night and sleep was intermittent at best.

Thunder and lightning woke us up, along with the weather warning system on our phones. My stomach sunk just once and thoughts of damage entered my mind.

I am so glad we have a NOAA weather radio in the RV.

I have to admit though that I do love the sound of the rain hitting the roof. You just don’t hear that in a well-insulated house.

I believe the warm gulf air was fighting with the cold north air and lost.

Temperatures overnight were near 70 degrees, and it looks like we will be getting temperatures below freezing this coming weekend.

We just can’t get away from the cold. A friend of ours is parked down near Tampa, Florida and their temperatures are only in the 50’s.

The campground shuts off the water in the entire park at 32 degrees. Looks like we will be without water for several nights.

Today we did a Walmart Grocery Pickup and decided to drive around and see if there was any storm damage I could photograph.

The first thing we noticed was how badly the stoplights were swaying in the wind. It is still quite windy here.

Check out the high waves in the top photo. We were told they were 12 to 17 feet high.

We drove along Highway 292 to 98 out to Pensacola Beach and Pier. We found a few places where water was across the road but it wasn’t very deep.

I saw one broken telephone pole and almost wasn’t quick enough with the camera.

There were quite a few palm tree leaves on the ground but we didn’t see any fallen trees.

In some places the white sand was drifting across the road like snow does up north. I wonder if they call them sandplows down here instead of snowplows?

The white sand blowing and drifting sure reminded us of Ohio.

Most of the beaches were closed today but we were able to get some cool pictures of the waves from the road.

We heard on the radio that the Navarre Beach Pier sustained some damage and will be closed until further notice.

We drove all the way there and couldn’t see anything in particular.

A sign was tipped over and a worker truck was there to fix it.

It was a fun day driving around looking for something to photograph. We came home and played cards with two friends. Walt is from eastern Ohio and Alex is from Arkansas, although she has lived in a lot of different states over the years.

Walt lost a piece of his RV in the wind, but not a vital part. I don’t think anyone else in the campground had any damage.

Life in the RV was good today.

We left our traditional house and way of life behind and pulled out of the driveway in an RV on April 25, 2022. We are coming up on two years soon and I have loved every single day of the adventure.

Thanks for reading and allowing me to share our adventures with you.

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RV Life Daily Blog – 1/8/24

The Stormy Days – Traveling with Rich & Julie

I am combining two days into one post, January 7 and 8. Why? Because it was windy and stormy both days. We stayed home for the most part.

Today is January 8th and we are under high wind warnings, storm warnings, and coastal flood warnings here in southern Alabama. I saw on the weather channel that tornadoes could be possible closer to Mississippi and Louisiana. But that isn’t very far away from where we are.

If you look closely in the photo above you can tell there are raindrops on the windows. It’s been windy and raining most of the day.

Rich went outside and put everything away. He put the awning in, the lawn chairs and tables away as well as anything else that could blow away or get damaged by the wind. We have noticed several of the other campers doing the same thing this morning.

On the radar channel, it looks like the worst of it might miss us thank goodness. My right knee continues to get worse, so the more I stay home and keep it elevated the better.

I crocheted some more on the alpaca scarf for my new friend. It is coming along quite nicely. This is called a v-stitch. It is simple and easy even for beginning crocheters.

I find a lot of free crochet patterns on Pinterest.

Rich and I were playing cards and he said he needed to run to the gas station for a pack of cigarettes. I told him to bring me home something to drink. I didn’t specify.

He came home with something new. A 24 oz. can of Simply Spiked Peach. It is 5% alcohol, kind of like a beer. I’ve never had it before but he knows I liked the Busch Lite Peach when we tried it. I love this. It tastes exactly like carbonated peach juice with a little kick.

I thought the neighbors from Canada had a funny-looking dog until I looked closer and discovered that it was a huge fluffy cat. I’m glad to see that they leash it when letting it out. They have it on a 30-foot leash so it has room to roam. Some campers don’t.

I remember when we camped in the state of Washington, and we heard a horrible catfight outside late at night. The next morning the neighbors told us they were outside and saw it. One cat almost killed the other one. We heard quite a few catfights in that campground.

I don’t feel it is right that they let their cats loose like that. Dogs can’t be let loose, and cats should not be allowed to be loose either.

Either the strong winds affected the wi-fi signal or everyone else stayed in and was overloading it because our television was iffy at best.

We dug out the DVDs and watched movies on the DVD player. We haven’t had to do that for a while. We have a nice DVD binder that we keep them in. We had a lot more DVDs than this, but we sold what didn’t fit. You can buy binders that hold up to 400. I wish I had done that when we moved into the RV. We sold and gave away some great movies.

As the daylight goes away and darkness sets in tonight I have received more warnings on my phone.

We are in the dark yellow high wind warning area only ten miles north of Gulf Shores. Orange Beach is only nine miles away.

The whole time we have been living in the RV and traveling around America, we have never encountered too severe of storms. We’ve been lucky so far.

The RV rocks when the wind is strong.

Hopefully, we survive the night. See you tomorrow.

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RV Life Daily Blog – 1/6/24

Traveling with Rich & Julie

It was such a nice day today, 65 degrees and sunny out, that it was too nice to stay home or stay inside. We are currently living in Foley, Alabama.

We’ve been wanting to visit the Pensacola Lighthouse and the National Naval Aviation Museum, so today was the day.

From where we are camped right now it is only 26 miles to the lighthouse.

Getting to the lighthouse and naval museum requires entrance to the Pensacola Navy Base. Civilians must enter through the West Gate and show a valid government-issued ID such as a driver’s license or passport.

The 1859 lighthouse is the tallest lighthouse on the Gulf. If you want to climb up the lighthouse there are 177 steps. I opted not to do that — like I had a choice. Rich has been careful to not let me do much. He doesn’t want my knee to get worse than it already is.

The museum at the base of the lighthouse costs $9.50 per person to get in and is three full stories. It opens at 9 am and closes at 4 pm. We did not go into the museum. If you have been following our travels you will know that we always try to save money by seeing the free stuff. And, Rich didn’t want me to do very much walking.

Construction on the lighthouse began in 1856 and the lighthouse was lit in 1859. The light is still lit today. Construction was going on when we were there. I’m not sure exactly what they were repairing but they were working on the tower itself. It looked like they were repairing cracks in the structure. If you look closely you can see a lot of cracks.

After the lighthouse, the National Naval Aviation Museum is less than a mile further down the road.

The museum is filled with historic aircraft, cockpits, interactive exhibits, and a vast collection of artifacts that are fun for all ages. Children were allowed to sit in the pit of a Blue Angel flight simulator and cockpit.

The National Naval Aviation Museum is home to tens of thousands of items and millions of documents that span the entire spectrum of Naval Aviation history.

The Blue Angel pilots flew the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet for 34 years from 1986 through 2020. They currently fly the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet.

This museum is huge and we only touched a small portion of it. The Blue Angel displays are what we wanted to see the most. I walked slowly and took my time. Walking on flat firm surfaces in good walking shoes is the only way I can do things right now. I really like Skechers and am wearing a pair similar to the one in the link.

I sat down when I needed to. The seats located throughout the museum are quite comfortable as you can tell by looking at how comfortable Rich looks.

Visiting the gift shop is something we shouldn’t do because we always find so much we would love to buy. We don’t have room in the RV and we are minimalists now. So as much as I wanted a US Navy coffee cup or Rich wanted a new US Navy t-shirt, we did not buy anything.

Visiting places like this is beginning to depress me because I just can’t walk on this stupid knee again. Another doctor visit is in the near future, I fear.

Entrance to the Naval Base is the only way to visit the Fort Barrancas Area of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. We pulled in but then saw that I would have to climb uphill to the entrance of the Fort. Rich said no. After walking around the museum a little bit, my knee was already swollen and hurt to walk on.

And just down the road is the Advanced Redoubt Area of Fort Barrancas. Same thing here. I did not get out to walk around.

The Advanced Redoubt Area was built to protect Fort Barrancas and the Navy Yard from a land attack. It was a fort that protected a fort.

Redoubts are usually square but this one was built in the shape of a trapezoid.

After taking a break at the Redoubt Area, we drove further down the road and thought maybe we would be able to see the Barrancas National Cemetery, but we hit a gate and were told to turn around and go back to exit out the same west gate we entered. We had gone as far as we could as civilians.

Thanks for following along with us as we travel across America and see all of these amazing places. I love showing them to you and telling you about them.

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RV Life Daily Blog – 1/5/24

Traveling with Rich & Julie

We spent the last couple of days at home, but they were far from boring.

On Thursday, we invited some new friends over for grilled hamburgers and homemade French fries.

After eating, we played some cards and games.

On Friday we blew a breaker. It not only made us lose electricity but also the next-door neighbor.

It took the campground maintenance guy and a few of the neighbor guys a while to figure out what happened. They finally had to go through each breaker in each camper until they found out it was our water heater breaker that was causing things to blow.

They finally figured out that our electric heating element blew in the water heater. Still doesn’t make sense why it caused the neighbor guy’s power to go off. He had to run his generator all night long.

Rich spent a couple of hours on Friday trying to get the element out but he didn’t have the right tools; or the right amount of strength. Neither did the maintenance guy.

Well, I take that back; the maintenance guy had the right tool, but it was worn and Rich was afraid it would round off the edges.

We had to run to Home Depot to get the new element which was only $10.98 plus tax. I’m pretty sure the heating element has never been changed in this RV. That makes it 20 years old.

I stayed in the car while Rich ran into all the stores looking for what he needed. The less walking I do right now the better for my right knee.

Home Depot didn’t have the deep socket Rich needed, so then we stopped at Harbor Freight.

Harbor Freight didn’t have the right-sized socket either. Next, we headed to Advanced Auto Parts. No luck there either. Why does nobody sell a simple deep well 1 and 1/2” socket?

While Rich worked on replacing the heating element in the water heater, I did some reading and writing and crocheted on the scarf for my new friend Alex.

Did I tell you that she gave me these three huge rolls of expensive alpaca yarn as long as I made her a scarf before we leave here at the end of the month?

She stated that she bought it in some other country and paid $300 for it. You bet I will make you a scarf and thank you so much for the yarn.

Friday night it stormed and rained. The wind was strong enough that Rich had to put the awning in. We noticed that almost everyone in the campground had put theirs in also.

Thanks for reading about our adventures no matter how boring they are. I’ll keep you posted about the water heater.

(As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a commission for purchases made through links in this post.)

Finding Hope As We Travel Across America

January 2, 2024 – Traveling with Rich & Julie

Where do you find hope in today’s world?

Rich and I find hope in the people we meet and the friends we make.

As we travel across America, our paths cross with countless individuals from diverse backgrounds, each with their own stories of struggles and triumphs.

It’s amazing to hear some of the stories that have led different people to move into an RV and travel. It is in these stories and these people that we find the most hope.

We met a man who wanted to join the strongman competition in the state of Washington. He succeeded this year to win second place.

We met a single lady who had just divorced her third husband and went on the road to find herself. She is the nicest person we have ever met.

We met a man from Cleveland, Ohio, who became sober and now lives in a camper on the road because he lost his house and it is easier for him to stay sober when he is not around his family, friends, and neighborhood. He is truly an inspiration for the human spirit.

We see the kindness of strangers offering help to fellow RVers in the campgrounds all across America. When a new RV or camper pulls in, three or more men head toward them to greet them and see if they need any help. These memories are constant reminders to us that even in our darkest times, there is always going to be a flicker of light nearby.

In the time we have been traveling, we have learned that this journey we are on is not always about the places we go or the sites we see but the people we meet and the stories we hear.

With each encounter, we are filled with hope for humanity and are inspired to believe in the future of the world.

It’s a new year. The best is yet to come.

RV Life Daily Blog – 1/1/24

Monday, January 1, 2024 – Traveling with Rich & Julie

I spent the morning reading and writing, drinking coffee, and watching some news. We haven’t watched any news for a couple of weeks, and I thought it might be wise to catch up on what’s going on in the world.

Elvis Presley movie on television. Photo by author.

Then, I watched the 1966 Elvis Presley movie “Paradise, Hawaiian Style.” I love all of his musical movies.

Our new RV friend Alex asked if we could drive her to Gulf Breeze, Florida to look at a vehicle she wants to buy. It’s a 2000 Chevrolet Tracker.

We jumped at the chance to go for a drive and help her out.

Having Rich along was great for her as well so he could help her check everything out before she bought it. It was a good deal for the price she paid and now she will have a working vehicle to drive.

The house where the vehicle was had some beautiful blooming azaleas in the yard and of course I had to photograph them.

Alex bought the Tracker and then took us out for lunch to thank us for driving her there and helping her.

We ended up at Olive Garden which was not very busy on New Year’s Day and we were seated right away.

Rich got classic lasagna and I got chicken parmigiana. Oh my gosh, it was so good.

I know what I’m having for lunch tomorrow.

After lunch, we drove under a graffiti bridge and I got some quick photos of it.

Making new friends and helping each other out is what the RV traveling community and lifestyle is all about.

For example, another neighbor named Walt is an enjoyable character who is parked across the street and he needed some tools to work on his truck. He said his tension pulley was squeaking.

Rich was the first one to offer his set of tools. Walt didn’t have the right-sized ratchet to reach where he needed to reach, but Rich did. Having a decent socket set and ratchet is a must in the RV.