It’s the end of another year, and a time to reflect back before moving on. This tradition of annual wrap-up posts has become part of the fun of sharing for us.
2023 wraps up 17 years on the road for us together!
We had a nicely split year between our 3 nomadic vessels:
- Y-Not (boat): 506.6 nautical miles – 204 days – 123 days in Sanford / 81 days cruising.
- Blooper (van): 6,942 travel miles (plus many ‘local’ miles) / 100 days traveling.
- Zephyr (bus): .5 miles / 2 months aboard / 61 days in Benson.
First here’s our 2023 interactive travel map:
The map is created by a WordPress plugin called Nomad World Map. It allows us to easily tie locations, dates, future plans and blog posts together as we go – creating a much more interactive experience. Use the arrows to scroll to different locations and/or click on the points. We didn’t write a post for every stop, but many are linked.
Travel Re-Cap
We brought in the new year with friends in both Germany and Ireland – well, at least in a German restaurant and Irish bar in Sanford, Florida.
While we had intended to resume the Great Loop in spring time, it was quickly pretty clear that wasn’t in our cards for 2023. But it wasn’t clear what would be.
Between hurricane damage at our marina causing a long waitlist to get back in if we left, an abundant network of friends we weren’t ready to leave and some medical concerns that cropped up early in the year – we just weren’t comfortable completely leaving our pandemic home base quite yet.
We enjoyed our winter in Sanford with friends and boat projects, and then in spring we did cruise up to Jacksonville for some boat projects and general exploring.
While Y-Not was left in the very capable hands of Lamb’s Yacht Service, we took off for some van adventures around Florida to fill in the time. Before returning to Sanford for peak hurricane season, we enjoyed some cruising along the coast – re-igniting our love of exploring by boat.
We returned to Sanford, celebrated my 50th birthday, got Y-Not prepped for hurricane season and then set off in the van across country with EclipseFest23 as the destination in Oregon in October. We looked forward to meeting up with several dear friends there.
We enjoyed many adventures along the way across country (part 1, part 2 & part 3), with a strong focus on finding more amazing biking & running trails and hot springs. The pace of travel was a bit on the rapid side for us, but we found some relative balance.
It’s been a great year!
Kiki in her Admiral’s Hat for halloween at Hoover Dam
In the power plan of Hoover Dam
Sand Dunes at Death Valley
Alabama Hills!
Mobius Arch Capture
Alabama Hills!
Lake Lundy
Meetup with Dan Heming on Fremont Street
Hoover Dam
After EclipseFest, we turned the wheels south with some fun adventures along the eastern Sierras for a long overdue rendezvous with Zephyr in Arizona awaiting us at SKP Saguaro RV Co-Op.
Winery visit with Amanda & Jesse
Hike at Saguaro NP with Amanda, Jesse and Paul
Horse back riding at Blakely Ranch
Horse back riding at Blakely Ranch
Whitewater Draw with Amanda, Jesse & Paul
Kristin Snow visits!
Exploring Benson’s murals
Hike at SKP Saguaro
One of many shared meals with Amanda & Jesse
Sonoran Museum with Amanda & Jesse
Kiki managing part of her fleet
Lana & Katie visit SKP Saguaro
Grace & Gypsy at SKP Saguaro
Drinks out with Amanda & Jesse and Mike & Nikki
Mt. Lemmon w/ Amanda & Jesse
Mi Casa with Larry & Maribeth and Amanda & Jesse
Back with Zephyr!
It’s been an abundant end of the year with lots of time with dear friends Amanda & Jesse, who we met back up with in Oregon and have been neighbors & adventure buddies in Benson with since.
All and all, a great year of adventures, travels and friendships.
General Life Updates
2023 was our first full year of being officially semi-retired – and we did pretty well with carving out work/life balance. Thanks to our amazing team over at the Mobile Internet Resource Center, we’ve been able to average about 15-20 hours a week working and the rest enjoying this mobile life and the things important to us.
This has enabled us to focus more on our health & fitness, time with friends & family, and exploring the places we visit.
It’s been wonderful – the stress levels & pant sizes are much lower, we’re less often face to face with burn out, and we experience joy far more often.
Overall, we feel incredibly blessed.
Fleet Update
We continue to enjoy having a nomadic fleet on both land and water.
Logically, we could be quite happy with just the boat and van. They make a great combination.
We honestly arrived to Benson with intentions to get Zephyr cleaned out and start trying to find her a next new adventure with someone else.
But we knew the moment we saw her again, that wasn’t what was in our hearts quite yet. We just love our old girl, and it’s felt like home being back. She’s so uniquely us and so comfortable to live in.
Perhaps basing her in Arizona was not the best choice logistically for us – as the trip has turned out to be quite daunting when so much of our life is east coast based. We’ve only realistically managed the trip every other year.
But the arid environment is her home, and much better long term. And we do enjoy our time spreading out on our lot with a casita at SKP Saguaro when we manage to make it back here.
So for now, we’ll keep things as they are. We’ll know when it’s the right time to mix things up.
What’s Next?
After we ring in the new year, we’ll be loading up the van, putting Zephyr back into the storage lot here in Benson and heading back to Florida to Y-Not.
We intend to enjoy the rest of winter in Sanford, and then actually resume the Great Loop (or at least cruising northward) in the spring time. Perhaps we’ll find somewhere to winterize and store the boat later this year and then van & bus adventures for the winter?
Thank you for coming along virtually on this adventure –
we so enjoy sharing this space with you!Wishing you ALL the best in 2024!
Our past year end wrap-ups:
2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013,
2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022
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