The question came from a fellow Georgian, a member of The Stafford Challenge at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon on the last day of our poetry conference.
Do you want to go walk in the woods? one called out.
Seven of us set out to walk in the woods together on an adventure to see the world in the forest floor in the cloud-shadows of Mount Hood. And this is how we made friends.
As July kicks off and I continue to sort through old photographs and newer ones, I’m thinking of travel and vacations this month – reflecting on the experiences on the road, on campgrounds, and on educational conferences where we’ve extended the business to include personal travel as well. The earliest traveling I remember is going to camp and fish at Fernandina Beach, Florida with my parents and my mother’s parents. Granddaddy would put the truck camper on and pull the boat, and my parents would pitch a tent while I crawled into the camper with my grandparents. Early each morning, we’d put the boat in and go out fishing. I would crawl up under the front of the boat and nap on the life jackets and a blanket to get out of the heat. During fishing time, I worked the live well by catching bait with a net and taking it to whoever needed a replacement.
We took the boat out of the water each afternoon. We’d scale fish, fillet them, and cook some for dinner and still put plenty away in coolers to take back to Georgia. The sulfury-smelling showers in those campground bathrooms smelled like rotten eggs, but the memories they bring back are pure joy. We roasted marshmallows after supper, and I’d sleep above the cab with the windows open for the cross-breeze while the adults sat up by the fire well into the night.
I’m pretty sure that’s where the love of camping started for me. When I had my own children who loved to barrel race, we’d load the family and horses up along with my then-husband’s parents, and we’d pitch a tent by their horse trailer for small-camp rodeos. Our favorite was Buffalo River in Tennessee, where we camped right next to a river. The kids rode horses and did racing during the days, and the campground had a live band with two-step and line dancing each night, plus a cafeteria so we didn’t have to cook all the time. It was the first and only time I ever tasted rattlesnake from a trail ride where someone shot one to protect the horses, then brought it back to camp and grilled it up in slices. In those days, we were tent campers.
Soon, we graduated to a pop-up that we bought for next to nothing because the top was dry rotting and coming apart. I burned up a sewing machine stitching the repairs, but it was worth it because it lasted several years before we sold it and got a pull-behind camper with Florida windows and old tires that needed replacing right away. We used it for years while the kids were growing up, and we did the same things: swam, fished, cooked fireside, and played cards all evening.
Fast forward to my second marriage, and out of the blue one day my husband decided we should take up camping. I didn’t think he would like it since he likes to go out to eat dinner so much of the time and has a hard time sitting still. But we started looking for campers, bought a used Keystone Outback, and took it for a spin. And surprise of all surprises, he actually enjoyed it. We kept it for a few years and sold it, then bought a Little Guy Max teardrop camper that we kept for a couple of years and sold. Then we got another pull-behind – an InTech Willow, and kept it for a year before deciding to go with an RV. This time, we traded it in and got a Tiffin Wayfarer that both of us are able to drive and maneuver with setup and takedown, along with a good warranty. I can even dump the thing. I wanted to always be able for both of us to have the skill set to get us home if one of us takes a fall or doesn’t feel well enough to drive. At our ages, that becomes an important consideration when out on the road.
As I trace the love of camping back to the earliest days of my life, I believe those seeds were planted deep and bloomed and thrived. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s summer, spring, fall, or winter – – I’m always ready to back into a space, fire up the grill, and sit by a campfire, rooted in relaxation. Early morning coffee under trees filled with birdsong and the peaceful solitude of nature never, ever get old.
1969, Florida, on the front of Granddaddy’s boat
1969, Florida at the Live Well
Mom and me, Spring 1971, Fernandina Beach, Florida
In the spring of 1984, Dad took our family of four to London for a weeklong vacation. Those were the best breakfasts – broiled tomatoes, toast, bacon, and eggs. We stayed at Bed and Breakfasts where we had to share a bathroom with other families on our same floor. These are the family photos that make me want to push a button and make it real again – – to be able to sit and chat with Mom. Time stands still for no one, though, and now it’s just my brother and I who are here to have those talks.
I was in Portland, Oregon at the first annual Stafford Challenge Poetry Conference, and I’m not sure how one can feel exhilarated and exhausted at the same time, but I did. The days of writing held such magic here in the Pacific Northwest. From Powell’s City of Books to Lewis and Clark College to the Willamette River and the 30th floor of the Portland City Grill, I’ve breathed the air of artists everywhere.
This is a city of literature, visual art, music and dance. Have you ever been immersed in a city so filled with the unexpected?
But one humanitarian challenge is the homeless population here. All these years I’ve walked past, minded my business, tried not to look. But something has tugged at my heartstrings on this trip, and I’m rethinking my stance. Something must change.
Outside the Zone in Portland, Oregon
oh my ~ he was there/ on the street / outside Powell’s City of Books in Portland /this young man/
locking his white-blue eyes with mine/ pleading / Excuse me, Ma’am? / as I walked past/
outside the zone/a few blocks later it smacked my heart wide open/ this is someone’s child/ a mother’s baby boy/ and I? I have neglected this soul / a disco ball of fragmented pieces/ reflection’ll do that/
refracting in pieces that scatter and haunt my being as I walk on/ ripped apart / outside the zone/ wanting even now to return to hear his story/ a sermon of life there on the street/ giving more than he requests/ listen: he has a story/ we all have a story/
this poem knows regret can do a 180/ change a line like an edit/ a tide of change/ one small act of knowing someone/ asking their story/ seeing, listening, validating humanity/ on a concrete city sidewalk/ where someone needs a human outside the zone/ to enter the zone and see them, hear them, understand them
After six days of travel to Portland, Oregon for a poetry conference at Lewis and Clark College with Stafford Challenge members, I am back home in Georgia and attempting to transition back to my regular time zone. I made myself get up at 5:45 this morning for coffee and yogurt and a snuggle with my schnoodles. I stepped outside to check the world, and the birdsong assures me the harmony on the farm is still in tune here in the quiet hush of the rural countryside.
It’s my first day home being off contract for summer before I officially retire in August, and I have two goals: write/post, and get myself back in the zone. I might push it and do a load of laundry just to have clean socks. Memories are swimming in my head, full of the love and exhaustion of travel – the best kind of tired that tells you you made the most of it all and came home changed in a way that only travel and friends can change you. How truly Steinbeck the journey, the best kind that leaves you stumbling around with a cup of strong coffee trying to recover from one trip while simultaneously and secretly plotting the next.
But whatever the day holds, my heart and mind will carry all the fresh air and green trees and memories of the Pacific Northwest. I’ll read poems and remember my time there, holding it all close with a foot on both sides of the country today.
Allium at Lewis and Clark College near Agnes Flanagan Chapel – Portland, Oregon
Today’s host of the third and final day of the June Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Leilya Pitre of Louisiana. She inspires us to write poems about the souvenirs we bring home from trips. You can read her full prompt here, along with the poems of others and the feedback given. I have written mine today as I await a flight home from Portland, Oregon to rural Georgia, fresh on the heels of a delightful writer’s conference trip with my friend Glenda Funk of Idaho. I’ve used the style of Ada Limon’s Instructions On Not Giving Up.
Horsetail Falls
Souvenirs from Portland, Oregon
more than the t-shirts and canvas bags
more than the keychains and shot glasses
more than that obnoxious prayer request card
cussing to God about the souls
of His other children
in the pew back compartment
someone intentionally forgot
to put in the offering plate
that I claimed as a bookmark
so I can pray the same sort
of prayer for Sam, Gavin, Kellen and all of us sinful humans
(yes, all of us !*(^ing %*m#@$$es)
more than the signed books of other writers
more than the leather shopping treasures,
it’s the photographs that really get to me
that keep the memories alive
stances of trees, slants of slate rooftops,
smiles of strangers and those we love
(yes, all of us !*(^ing %*m#@$$es)
standing beneath waterfalls
in the bend of the rainbow
God’s promise of hope for all His children
cloaked in the prayer shawl of His grace and mercy
(yes, all of us !*(^ing %*m#@$$es)
yes, I’ll take them. I’ll take them all.
Actual prayer request found in a church pew back in Portland, Oregon
Leilya Pitre of Louisiana is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the June Open Write. She asks us to write a poem about the person we would choose to ask to go traveling with us this summer if we could take someone. I’ve been awaiting the release of Lauren Hough’s Monster of a Land for months. She takes a Travels with Charley journey, modern day, with her dog, Woody Guthrie. So instead of pre-ordering, I waited to buy the book at Powell’s City of Books in Portland. This bookstore is an entire city block and when you’re waiting on a book about a monster of a land, it makes sense to buy it in the monster of all bookstores.
Let’s Go, Lauren Hough!
a Steinbeck-like is Lauren Hough an author I would ask to go to join my summer travel band to see this Monster of a Land!
It’s kind of a rite of passage, that childhood pilgrimage to Orlando, Florida to see the castle and the mouse. Somewhere between 1974 when my parents took my brother and me and the late 1990s when I took my own children, the place got crowded – really, too crowded to enjoy. But there is this unspoken rule about taking the kids to Disney World, and so we packed them up and took them, checked the box and came home. The best memories from the 1970s trip were the A-Frame cabins we stayed in, Wilderness style, with one other family. The best memories from the 1990s trip were the night swims in the Wilderness Lodge pool. The memory of the mouse with my own children? Vague, except for the long line to get a picture.
Disney Downer Haiku
Okay, I confess:
Yeah, I’m a Disney downer.
Me?? Resounding meh.
Dad holding Ken, and me in Mickey Shirt, plus our friends, 1974
Mallory, Ansley, and Marshall with the mouse- 1997
My mother’s father, James Earl Jones, holding a family picture, – Christmas 1988
I’m sorting family pictures this month, making piles of who-might-want-what from the Haynes family photo albums. After Dad died, my brother and I discovered tubs and shoeboxes and plastic bins and entire furniture drawers filled with ephemera, memorabilia, sentiments, and photos. And just about everything else (he never threw anything away). Ken and my sister-in-law Jennifer have done the daddy lion’s share of the work of sifting and sorting and all the things that go with closing down a life or two, so these tasks of what remains that can be done from my home five hours north are gratifying and fulfilling to be able to contribute.
Photos were all over the place in the house, but figuring out what to do with them is no small task. I should be more grateful: I’m likely among the last generation of humans who will ever do this sort of thing now that pictures are mostly digital. I wish all of these snapshots were reduced to one simple thumb drive, but the upside is that I’m walking down memory lane and have found a theme for the month of June (and the rest of 2026, in a way): family pictures. Perhaps the easiest way to let go of old photos is to give them their proper moment in the spotlight and then share with others who can decide what fits into their lives to carry forward, and whether to keep or discard them. I have already tossed many, but the remaining ones landed in our truckbed to bring home on our most recent trip south.
If you’re a blog reader who has ever dreamed of taking pen to paper and writing, or if you’re a reader with a blog of your own and would like to join me in sorting your own family photos and sharing your stories, I invite you to come along and see what we can all unearth from the annals of time as we welcome the month of June. There’s really nothing quite like family photos to spark memories that inspire stories and writing.
So to start, I’ve created a system that I hope will help me simplify and sort. Below are the blog logos and themes I plan to use for the remainder of this year using family photos to drive poems and stories. I’m using them to designate piles to sort my photos and begin writing. Under each logo is a caption with the category I’ll use as I sort……I invite you to use the same system and share your photos and stories, too, allowing the memories to drive the writing and the writing to preserve all our family stories and traditions.
To prepare for The Next Chapter of travel in retirement, I’m learning a whole new way of wayfaring in our Tiffin Wayfarer 25 RW. My love of sleeping around the world in confined places started as a young child when my grandparents had a truck camper and went to the fish camp at Fernandina Beach for long weekends of camping and fishing. My parents came, too. Mom and Dad would pitch a tent, while my grandparents would put me to bed in their space above the truck cab and convert the dinette table into a bed for themselves. I think that’s where camping fever took hold of me, bypassing completely any love of fresh fried fish. I loved the cross-breeze of opening windows at night. Several tents, a pop-up, a teardrop and two bumper pull campers later, we decided to move to a Class C so we could blend more traveladventures into our lives.
And that’s where Harvest Hosts comes in. We’ve been members for over two years, but this weekend is the first time we’ve actually used our membership benefits.
We’ve mostly camped in State Parks and other private campgrounds, but we’ve joined a unique movement that has been gaining traction over the past few years for its innovative and inexpensive mutual benefits for travelers and business owners. Harvest Hosts allows travelers to purchase a year’s membership that offers one night of free camping per stay at wineries, farms, breweries, churches, and other types of businesses with space to park overnight. With a membership, we get full access to the directory of thousands of free overnight options. We can request additional nights in the same place, but many travelers use Harvest Hosts to get to a place where they are camping or staying for multiple nights. So on a cross-country journey where we might drive a few hours a day and then pull in somewhere to sleep at 6 or 8 different Harvest Hosts along the way, we could use one free night in each place for just the cost of membership and a purchase of something they’re selling as a way of providing some business for them.
We picked a brewery just twenty minutes down the road for our first Harvest Hosts stay, and already we see the attraction.
I used the map to find a place close by – just to test the experience. It’s all part of the learning phase of knowing new and different ways to be an RVer. I requested a same-day stay at the place we chose, Towerhouse Farm Brewery, and we pulled in and followed their check-in directions for the space to park and set up. Then, we put out the slide, leveled the rig, and started the generator before walking over to their dine-in option to have dinner and sample their craft beer.
We ran into some friends who were there having drinks and bar snacks, and so we joined them at their table and listened to the live music and shared stories. I work with one of them in the same office, and have taught with the other. They, too, are camping folks, so our stories were of travel and interesting people we’ve met along the way.
After dinner, we walked the dogs and checked out the lay of the land before retiring for the evening, There is a fairground in close proximity on this 80-acre family farm-turned-brewery tract, where they grow their own hops.
An important thing I learned about Harvest Hosts sites is to read the reviews more carefully. We’d read on the reviews that this was near train tracks, but we had no idea that the train would come by every four hours and that we would be parked right next to the tracks. Despite a shift from our typical night of unbroken rest, we made the best of it and appreciated all the things we loved ~ walking to and from dinner, seeing a new place, having an impromptu dinner with friends, and of course the joy of having our two schnoodles there for the excitement. And the train wasn’t enough to be a dealbreaker for staying there again – – we probably would!
Boo Radley (L) and Ollie (R)
The best part of camping with dogs is that they show us it’s okay to find joy being in small spaces with those we love. They would want you to know that while they let us believe it’s us they really want to be with, it’s more about getting that one small bite of a powdered donut at breakfast that makes them true camping dogs.
Our overnight spot at Tower Farmhouse Brewery
We can’t wait to discover more places along the way as we journey out more frequently in retirement. It’s not the draw of the popular places that we enjoy most – – it’s the places off the beaten path that hold just as much gravity in their own GPS points that anywhere else holds – only quieter and less crowded, despite the occasional trains.
Common Threads 