Over the past month, I was more or less inactive on social media, so I’m here to update those who care. After Thanksgiving, my mom and I road-tripped across the country, from Colorado Springs, CO back home to Carrboro, NC over the course of a week. We watched documentaries on wind turbines after seeing them in Kansas, took a tiny people-mover to the top of the Gateway Arch, and had the best Chinese buffet of our lives in St. Albans, West Virginia (weird, I know). And, of course, I got a beer in each state to count them towards my United States map. Yes, I know you were there for all that, but maybe you forgot some details – I wouldn’t blame you 🙂
Once we finally made it home, I started my social media break. I’d lost sight of what the purpose of social media is for me and wanted a little reset. Since then, you’ve missed out on a lot. I’ve been able to see a number of my friends in NC. Last time I spent any time here was this time last year, when I was going through a bad depression, so I didn’t really reach out to anyone. It was kind of surprising to me how many friends I have and felt awesome to catch up with them. For some, it had been almost 2 years since I’d seen them!
Later in the month, the Rogers and Kenny families took off for a schooner vacation in the Carribbean – a bucket list vacation of my dad’s that he generously brought us along for. After obtaining our negative Covid tests and compiling all the necessary paperwork, we jetted off to Grenada (pronounced Gre-nay-da).
Once my sister and brother-in-law got there, we all piled onto a 100-foot schooner, alongside one other vacationer and five crew members.
After the initial day of seasickness, it was smooth sailing! We spent 6 nights on the boat, island-hopping around Grenada, Carriacou, and Petit Martinique. We did a ton of snorkeling when we weren’t drinking piña coladas at small beach bars.
For me, the coolest part was meeting people who live similar nomadic lives to me, but on the water. The crew work in contracts of 3-8 months at a time and a lot of them bounce around to different contracts. For example, the boat’s engineer lives on a boat full-time when he’s not working. Also, our captain moves to wherever the wind blows him, most recently in Hawaii, Alaska, and Thailand.
We got back on land on Christmas day, a Saturday. Since you have to show proof of a negative Covid test to fly, my dad planned for an extra day on the island to give us time to get tested, so our flight wasn’t until Monday. We spent the next day drinking more piña coladas by our beachfront hotel’s pool and waiting for our bodies to stop swaying with the boat! On Monday morning, we woke up to notifications that our flight was cancelled. I panicked a little bit because my dogs were being boarded only until Monday night. Long story short, we were able to get on the next flight on Wednesday and the boarding facility was able to keep my boys for another 2 nights.
Once we got home, I planned on driving up to New Jersey to see Lee and DJ, but, despite being fully vaxxed, I wasn’t able to dodge the Omicron bullet. Super drats. Today (January 4) is the first day I feel 100%. It was rough. Luckily, neither of my parents got it, despite being in the same house as me, but they are boostered. I basically spent about 5 days sleeping because being awake was painful. I had the worst sore throat of my life and nothing really relieved it. Towards the end of it, I had some fever-ish symptoms that I was honestly happy to have if it meant my throat wasn’t hurting anymore.
So now that I’m upright, I’ve obviously been planning what’s next, because that’s what I do 🙂 On Friday, I will leave Carrboro and start heading back out west. I plan to stay in each spot a little longer than I have in the past, and I anticipate changing my plans as I go, as usual. I only really have 2 places I need to be this year: Banff in June for a family vacation and Alaska from July through September because I secured a piece of land to stay on with full hook-ups.
Click here to see my 2022 route (with dates).
As you can see in my map linked above, I’m going to hit some of the places I’ve been most looking forward to, like the entire pacific northwest! I’m super excited for this year. I haven’t exactly figured out how I’m going to document it, since I’m kind of over social media, but rest assured I’ll be sharing my adventures in some way or another.
As always, thank you for joining me on my journey. Let’s keep kickin’!
Riles on the Road 
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