A Fresh Start

The Big Dipper BBQ - Home of the best ribs I ever tasted.

What and Why?

So I wanted a way to share some of these awesome trips with others.  I had a blog that I had used to chronicle motorcycle trips, but it didn't seem perfect for the camping, hiking, eating, driving and general "dive worship" that we do on a regular basis.  So I decided to try my hand at a new travel blog.

So this is going to be focused on our trips.  And if you are looking for fancy trips loaded with expensive dining, lush accommodations and extravagant side journeys you can probably just go back to Google and search for that.  Because you won't find that here.  Not that I think those things are bad, but we simply can't afford it and we like the "fun of the hunt" in finding new ways to have a blast on the cheap and discover hidden gems in the greatest country on earth!

Now I fashion the trips after Clark Griswold.  Looking to take it all in.  Setting expectations that are too high.  Overcoming rain, sleet, heat, or cold with a smile sometimes or a fit other times (where's the Tylenol).  But in the end, it works out.  And here is the "mantra" that helps make the trip special.

The Trip Should Be Special

Most people travel for the destination.  But traveling on the motorcycle (and the pain of sitting on it for more than 2 hours) has made me change my view of the trip itself.  Gone are the 700 mile "we are only stopping for gas" days of my youth (and sleeping kids).  Now we try (and fail at times) to limit our travel days to 450 miles and take all day to do it.  We search out excursions along the way.  We read road signs and just turn if we see something interesting. We never know exactly where the day will take us.  

It is reminiscent of the trips with my family when I was little through the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.  When the 2 lane, winding roads would take us past some tourist trap with a sign that said "Baby Rattlers".  We would stop, petrified to look over into the pit that was teaming with little toys that babies shake to make a rattling sound.  We would go in and get some candy and maybe a coonskin cap or a book of Redneck Jokes that our parents would grow to hate over the next week.

Those were the trips of my youth, and they are now the trips of my future.

Big Balls of String Are Cool, Interstates Not So Much

Ok, so we haven't seen the worlds largest ball of string.  But we have taken a sharp right turn (too quickly) in Vermont because we saw a sign for a covered bridge.  And there we found the most quaint  general store where the "Express Checkout" was a guy who didn't talk to you (10 words or less it said) and the "Regular Checkout" guy wouldn't stop talking.  We stopped beside the road to get maple syrup and learned more about how its made from him in 15 minutes than you could get from a PBS documentary.  And I swear he was still talking to us when we went back the next year.  

We don't travel from exit to exit.  We try to stay off the beaten path as much as possible.  We pull over when we see something cool (like the stream that is the backdrop of this blog).  We even use a paper map!  Its all about seeing as much as possible along the way and not being concerned that we "ain't gonna get there on time". 

Get Outside and Expand Your Horizons

This also grows out of the motorcycle trips.  Especially the one to South Dakota.  We weren't sure we could do it or even if we wanted to do it.  But we just left, prayed and tried to have a good time.  When our 25th Anniversary came along, we couldn't afford a cruise or a trip to Europe.  We had 2 kids in college and a piggybank that was pretty light.  So we put a 2 man tent in the Jetta and we started a 2 week adventure to Maine.  Never camped before.  Never been to Maine before.  We had no idea what it was even going to be like.  And now its an annual trip.  

You can do more than you give yourself credit for.  You will survive overestimating yourself (most of the time).  So don't rely on everyone else to tell you what you should do!  Plan a trip, take a chance and see where the journey leads.

Make Memories, not Time

The goal should be to remember the trip, not to make it in record time.  The entire trip should be about making memories for you but not just for you.  You should also make memories for the people you meet.  Be nice, joke, tell people where you are from, tell them how much you love their town, ask them about their town!  People are going to remember you.  Just make sure they remember you for the right reasons!  One time we bought a dessert for the elderly group at the table next to us because they said they weren't going to try it and it was so good I felt like they needed to! 

But the best way to make memories is to change your perspective.  From the time you get in the truck, change your mindset.  If you're doing this right, there are going to be things that don't go as planned.  And those things are going to make the biggest impression on you.  View them not as failures or problems but memories.  Like last year.  We took along my sister and her husband for what we promised would be the "trip of a lifetime".  Camping, eating, drinking and hiking.  But we provided one unexpected thing the first night in Pennsylvania.  Drowning.  Well, almost.  The first night when the tents were just setup the most wicked monsoon set in.  The tent they had (which we had loaned them) flooded.  Not leaked.  Flooded.  And in the midst of the monsoon we drove through hail to a Gander Mountain to get a new tent.  When we woke up the next morning the campground was empty.  We were the only ones that had stayed the night.  We were wet for 2 days.  And since that time what do you think is the thing we have laughed and talked about the most?  It was those 2 days.  We made a memory.  A lasting memory.  If we had bolted to a hotel and watched a rerun of CSI, we would not have had that memory.

The Food Should Be Fun, Not Fast

Nope, I don't want to get dressed up.  Nope I don't want a cloth napkin (unless a towel counts).  Nope I don't want a franchise.  I want a dive.  Thus the name of the blog.  I want a place where the locals eat.  I want the people to look at me when I walk in and think "He's not from around here!" and wonder what brought us to their little slice of heaven and wonder if we've exposed them to anyone else.  

We plan the trip around each days places to eat.  We drive 30 minutes each way out of the way for the best ribs in New York (Big Dipper BBQ).  We go back to the same places sometimes.  We try new ones other times.  We strike out sometimes.  This year we are going out of our way to get a slice of pie from a shed outside a house in Vermont (Poor House Pies).  Because we saw it on TV.  

And if I can get a chance to watch a Sunday School class of Seniors (and not the high school kind) shoot their big bras over a light fixture at the same time I'm getting this good food, then all the better!!  (Honestly, that happened)  Its about the experience and some good home cooking.  And everyday brings a new dive.  

So come along.  Join us as we travel "One Dive at a Time".