TRAVEL

Free Camping in Alabama State Parks Feb. 8-12

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Click for More Photos By Glynn Wilson – Hey, get this! Free camping this week, everybody. Alabama State Parks are free from Sunday, February 8 through Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015. The Department of Conservation is calling it “Customer Appreciation Days,” according to a n press release online. “In recent years, our visitors and partners have…

The Many Birds of Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge

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By Bob Wells – SOCARRO, N.M. — Back in November I went over to Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Recreation area near Socorro, New Mexico for the Festival of the Cranes. It’s held every year to celebrate the arrival of the Sandhill Cranes to their winter home. I wanted to get the chance to photograph…

U.S.S. Alabama Battleship Memorial Park Enshrouded in Fog

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MOBILE, Ala. — A strange fog converged on the Mobile County side of Mobile Bay on Monday even into the afternoon, creating an interesting lighting situation at the U.S.S. Alabama Battleship Memorial Park. It was not the “fog of war” created by smoke from exploding shell from the weapons of war, but I suspect an…

Tannehill State Park Flash Flood of December 2014

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TANNEHILL, Ala. – This video was shot to show the flash flooding at Tannehill State Park in Alabama on Dec. 28, 2014. Video created for the New American Journal @ NewAmericanJournal.Net, an alternative, independent news publication registered legally as Locust Fork Publishing LLC.

Ducks on the Pond at Tannehill State Park

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A Photo Essay in Progress – Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – We pulled into Tannehill State Park on a cloudy, drizzly Friday the week before Christmas and stumbled onto perhaps the best deal on a campsite we’ve seen after three months of camping all over Maryland, Virginia and the Gulf Coast. There’s a…

Controversy Surrounds Mobile Alabama’s Art Walk

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MOBILE, Ala. — A video tells the stories from December’s Art Walk, where controversy spurred a movement to set the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest gathering of Santa’s Elves. The count fell short. But according to observers, it would was great to see such a large and diverse number of people having…

How to Obtain Health Insurance Coverage for Camper Van Dwellers

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Editor’s Note: Because we’re in the annual enrollment period for Obamacare I’m going to write about health care. I don’t pretend to understand most of this stuff, in fact, much of what I know I learned from a fellow blogger. For that reason I encourage you to go to her blog and read one of…

A Van Dweller’s View of Consumerism in the Christmas Season

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By Bob Wells – This month I’m going to be doing posts on how our society got so addicted to stuff as evidenced in Black Friday and Christmas shopping in general. I’ll offer explanations and suggestions about what we can do about it including alternative ways to celebrate Christmas without the orgy of greed. This…

My Home Town Birmingham: Can’t Support a Football Team

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – OAK MOUNTAIN, Ala. – My home town. That line from an old Andy Griffith episode keeps going through my mind this morning sitting in the campsite listening to the woodpeckers work. Passing through my hometown of Birmingham on the way to Mobile this week, I heard a…

Documentary Released on Mobile Living

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By Bob Wells – Back in the summer of 2012 I was contacted by Michael Tubbs, a Professor at the University of Texas, about the possibility of being in a new documentary he was going to make about mobile living. He had started to do research on the topic and had come across my Website.…

From New Mexico’s Festival of the Cranes to Flagstaff

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By Bob Wells – I’ve just arrived back in Eherenberg, Arizona from my trip to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico. It was an amazingly wonderful trip that I liked so much I’m already planning to go again next year. I took four classes and they were all truly outstanding; I…

The Problem With Washington, D.C.

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – The world is populated by many very good people. Then there are the assholes, who simply do not get it. When I set out on this adventure back in September to live with a very low carbon footprint in a camper van in the…

Today Feels Like ‘The Day After Tomorrow’

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Could a Massive Climate Shift Really Happen? – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – LURAY, Va. — It’s been so cold the past couple of days that I’ve felt like a character in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow.” I woke up just before dawn this morning and the iPhone weather said it…

Shenandoah’s Lewis Mountain Campground Welcomed African Americans

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Watch the Video – By Glynn Wilson – LEWIS MOUNTAIN, Va. – When the National Park Service was established in 1935 and the U.S. Department of the Interior along with President Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps began building roads, retaining walls, campgrounds and trails to get ready for visitors, there was an interest on the…

Why I love The Southwest: Sunrise, Sunset and Rainbows

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If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive. — Eleonora Duse By Bob Wells – Sometimes I get to…

The Jefferson Memorial and Legacy at Monticello in Autumn

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Thomas Jefferson As A Tactful Tactician – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MONTICELLO, Va. – In the introduction to one of the versions of The Writings of Thomas Jefferson available online at Project Gutenberg, former West Virginia Governor George W. Atkinson describes Jefferson as the quintessential tactful political tactician and statesman. “Thomas…