Ka'a Nui (The Big Van Project)

Day thirty three of van life, October 31, 2025. Morning sunrise. Precious night sunset provided by oil companies burning off chemicals into the night air. Happy Halloween 🎃 👻 🎃  Janet's spooktaquilar relive video of today's drive We had a long night and now rank this as the worst spot to camp on the planet, maybe the solar system, after driving thru Texas the state sorta sucks as well. People drive super rudely and offensively just to demonstrate being ass hats, maybe that's why it is a maga state. Morning reflections of a long night. The Pacific gulp This blogger tool needs help post four pics and it burps... We head on out of town to Galveston, before we get stuck here. Oil rig in progress of something Well, the rocky raccoon 🦝 band, and his pose did two valid attempts to infiltrate our defenses. Luckily, we were ready both times. Once awake wonderin...

Day thirty two of van life, October 30, 2025. Janet's relive Ensconed at our campground for the night. It is a strange and bizarre place.  Walking the Gulf of Mexico Beach, my feet are wet, but feel like funcky water. Mosquitos are epic and the effing raccoons tried to break into our van till I started it and shined our lights. About six of the little fuck cakes.  Like I said, mosquitos are prevalent and hungry.  They are now well fed. We plan tomorrow out and hope to drive about an hour and half thru to port Bolivar to catch the ferry to Galveston. We shall see. But back to today up early we head into New Orleans to find parking and coffee. The ride is cool, but I pucker up driving over the super tall bridges going like 75mph.  A combo that can make anyone nervous.  Then we arrived into the French quarter for coffee and pasties.  We find parking and walk to cafe du monde for pastries and a hot chocolate, I get a hickory coffee as well to go, all superb....

Day thirtyone of van life 3.0, October 29th, 2025. Janet most epic relive video Our New Orleans walk thru town Our camp site last night was primo. A delicious mushroom rissoto and beef broccoli, paired with a nice Belgium beer!  On the lake, next to bathrooms and hot strong showers. Home of one of the worlds best Frisbee golf courses and white lightning lane (whiskey from progabition times). We are off to New Orleans for the night. The campground we are looking at is empty for the night, and that is not very promising.  Gusty winds or crazy people ahead stay tuned. Yes on gusty winds, very gusty but a great drive in our tall van.  People, well "NO" or neholins are, well different, alligators can be more friendly than these people.  Alas most everyone we have meet is super cool and wonderfully nice people.  From nice lady at Costco checking our tire pressure to the dude who worked there who had me drive over to his shop to check all five tires (checking spare). L...

Day thirty of van life 3.0, October 28th, 2025. Janet's relive for today's short drive. For Albert! Lots of these. This one looks like an armadillo caught in paint and pooping, but nice art.   Nice place, but every building is under reconstruction. Only one donut shop found. We woke up, we drove, we got gas, drove, then stopped to do laundry laundry. Laundry is, well laundry. Only three working out of entire row of dryers Don't ask about the washers....  But hey, mo Betta than washing at the river like I used to have to do, no sope these days. Now off to campground in Claiborne.   Supposed to have some more rain in the weather queued for us. After that, should be smooth sailing.  Looking forward to dinner tonight and a nice beer.  Fire... Maybe not... Mushroom 🍄 rissoto and beef broccoli. Yum.. Currently sitting at the lake, Jeannie and Robert have been here before  Super nice place.  I hope to...

Day twenty-nine of van life 3.0, October 27th, 2025. We head west now, as we park Ka'a Nui  Showers are our friend! But camping was warm, might be due to the nuclear powerplant down the road. Actually was a nice evening, we used our awning over the van side door and all worked great. First time using using in real life.  Footstool really helped. I like icecream... Progress happens, we woke up in Tennessee, drove thru Georgia for five minutes, then back into Tennessee for 22 minutes into Alabama.  Our stop was at the botanical garden.  Nice garden with Mamma Zelda.  This was fun as her hair is part of the maze and you need to find ten seeds in her hair maze.  Good fun and yes we found all ten seeds. Now in Batesville, Mississippi, with gas at $2.089 per gallon.  I wish we could fill the vans 25 gallon water tank with this gas 

Up early at domes head, day rise had to es of people showing up for sunrise. Janet's realive Morning Same sign, different side Not your not about this evacuation sign. Not sure if there would be much hope if this went bad.  N

Day twenty-seven van life 3.0, October 25th, 2025. We wake up at the domein the great smokey mountains. Janet super cool relive of the day How did I skip day twenty seven, or October 25th..? An amazing evening, we are parked at the top of the dome parking lot. I think we visited here in our family 2006 trip. We stay the night and have other campers not far away in vans. We return to the knife edge of Occams razor on the boarder of Tennessee and north carolina.  

Day twenty-six of van life 3.0, October 24th, 2025. Scurvy is starting to set in, the crew looks to the horizon, ahh, that was capt blog, we are doing great, van is heated, a fridge and a freezer are delightful and meals plentyful. We left Dublin Virginia after getting up at 6am, and heading to the lake for sunrise 🌄.  Birds and mist make for anze full morning. 

Day twenty-five of van life 3.0, October 23rd, 2025 Janet's relive of our drive today . We are off to the great smokey mountains, as we chase the warmth heading south.  We hope, as we have a frost alert for the morning... A brutally cold morning, but off we go.  We leave Crozet Virginia for the great smokey mountains.  Alas, we discover the blue ridge parkway and drive that.  What a bonus ride.  This road is perfect for bikes, motorized that is.  We stop and head into town for fueling up and come back for the scenic 35mph drive, occasionally 45mph, lol. Not to smokey mountains, but to Dublin Virginia.  Awesome drive and great weather.  We are keeping an eye on some bad weather from the west as well as huricanne from the south..

Day twenty-four of van life 3.0, October 22nd, 2025 We hike springs falls trail nice and part of the Appalachian trail system. Relive from the hike

Day twenty-three of van life 3.0, October 21th, 2025. https://www.relive.com/view/vevWzN4Koyq Our hike from the Rose river falls.  We give the falls a three, short not much water.  Check out the guy fly fishing. Up with the deer We leave the park to check out Loray caves, and what a great recommendation Let's see if copy and post works any better. Day twenty-three of van life 3.0, October 21th, 2025. https://www.relive.com/view/vevWzN4Koyq Our hike from the Rose river falls.  We give the falls a three, short not much water.  Check out the guy fly fishing. Up with the deer We leave the park to check out Luray caverns, and what a great recommendation by Jeff. Kinda magical  It's a big place. It's about a mile of walking underground. Reflections Hard to tell were one starts, and the other ends Can't get enough of the reflections  Or the warm smiles Enough already, but so cool.. Happy campers. Or spelunker's  The wishing well, has raised over ...