Sunday morning is becoming my go to time to write. I may have to make Sunday Musings a recurring post or category. Coffee, sunshine (usually) and quite seem to feed thoughts and my keyboard. Usually on Sunday’s Cathy sleeps in and I still wake up early. It’s a great time to let my mind wonder. If you guys like these random flights of thought let me know in the comments.
Seasons
In the last week or two, our new friends have started leaving for home or other adventures. It seems we have barely settled into a routine of group campfires and clubhouse events and now those announcements are preceded by this is the last Saturday breakfast or sign up for the last burger night. If you had told me back in December that I would be sad to see RV’s pulling out. I would have scoffed at the idea. In our previous travels we have met lasting friends sporadically.
Now we have new friends in Nova Scotia, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee and so on. We said goodbye this morning to a sweet young family who are in their first year of full-timing. Two days before a super fun couple from Augusta, GA left.We’ve added Facebook friends, emails and phone numbers from groups of folks who are booked to come back next year and do it again. This is something to look forward to. As we enter our last month and half of our part-time designation as locals. I’m sad to think of leaving the beach life behind.
But more than the sadness of endings, I’m Impatient to be on the road. Exploring new campgrounds, new towns and all that comes along with them. I’m itching to see the Montana in my side mirrors and countryside streaming by. I feel the coals of wanderlust warming. As I sit here and start to plan our summer travels. Each museum, attraction, waterfall or hike I add to the potential list, stokes the flames of discontent further.
Social Media Muck
We are trying to figure out how to grow our site and ourselves as content creators. I find this challenging. I must be wired differently. I would rather sit and read a post or watch a long form YouTube video. I don’t enjoy or get the Instagram and Tik Tok stuff. I just simply don’t find it as entertaining as the rest of the world seems to. If I danced around for 15 seconds in a mini skirt on camera, would I get more followers or banned from the internet?
Now I’m trying to analyze the content out there a figure out how a make something eye catching enough to hold peoples attention for a few seconds and be informative. I know we will get better at this and I’m looking forward to making some snippet videos of visits to some of the cool places on our list.
Short video media is difficult for an old guy like me. I’ve always told people I’m as vanilla as it comes. Cathy is definitely going to be the star of this format. I’m probably better suited to be behind the camera, planning, filming, producing and editing. We are going to try some you tube “trip diary” format videos I think.
There is much more to this than sticking a camera in front of your face constantly. Especially if you want to have any chance of monetizing it. I enjoy graphic design and I’m enjoying learning the tools to create these other forms of content. However, being good with a tool set is not the same as being good at creating content that others find interesting.
Planning For RV’ers
As I turn my focus to planning I’m finding more a more useful tools. I really do need to put a post and maybe a video together on these. As a systems analyst with a dab of user experience in my background I find plenty of “opportunities” in this space. I should be able to do this with fewer apps. I’m excited about the growth of Open AI. I may play with it some and see how much of the work it can do for me. I’m sure it will soon be integrated into a lot of the applications I use.
I mean how cool would it be to tell something to plan a 1 month trip to a place, budget for gas and food and plan stops at the top ten sites, top 5 breweries and top 3 hikes. Then get an itinerary with a budget and booking to the best campsites returned to you. Yes folks that is closer than you think. I’m talking months away instead of years away. It won’t be great at the start but it will get better and better everyday. Don’t believe me. Check out my upcoming post Fun With ChatGPT.
Bluegrass Music
Last fall Cathy worked a bluegrass festival at the Caverns. I was only there for one day of it. Modern bluegrass is amazing! I never was a huge fan but I’m finding myself listening to it more often. I just found a station on Apple Music named Pickers. Check out the SteelDrivers and the Infamous Stringdusters. I actually saw the Stringdusters at the Caverns live. Do yourself a favor and check out some modern bluegrass. There’s going to be a bluegrass festival in Kentucky this summer while we are up there. We may check it out.
What’s Next?
Big Beach had a couple of new beers on tap this week. We will do an discussion on them. We also found another fun nightlife spot with a really good band. 70’s and 80’s funk and R&B. We plan to go see the full 10 member band this weekend so we will share photo’s and maybe a video or two.