Raleigh

We love New England, and spending time on Cape Cod was a priority, before it gets too cold. So we decided to look for our first long stay somewhere roughly along the route to the Cape. Raleigh was our choice, largely because one of Phil’s closest high school friends lives in Durham, and also because I’d spent time there for business and was interested in exploring it more. I would take a week off, my first vacation time this year, so we’d have ample time for adventure.

We began by exploring our immediate neighborhood, an area called Cameron Village. We had chosen this AirBnB because of its walkability, and we weren’t disappointed. We walked ten minutes to the grocery store daily, and I have to admit we’ve explored a number of neighborhood restaurants offering outdoor dining. Our tiny one-bedroom apartment is conveniently located but has a very small kitchen with only a dorm fridge, so storing much food was not an option–nor was having both of us in the kitchen at the same time.

Once my vacation time set in, we began exploring the area. First on our list was downtown Raleigh, which is small and easy to navigate. Our favorite “find” was historic Oakwood, a 19th century neighborhood with a variety of beautiful homes. We explored it initially by car and later on foot. Two things stood out: first, Oakwood is an overwhelmingly liberal neighborhood, with ubiquitous “Black Lives Matter,” “We Believe in Science,” “Hate Has No Home Here,” and political signs. It was a balm after living in a conservative red town during election season. The second interesting thing was that Oakwood residents take Halloween SERIOUSLY!!! Pictures cannot capture the festive and spooky spirit of the area. We  had so much fun, especially after we staved off the hangries by walking to local restaurant The Raleigh Times, where we shared the best Ruben sandwich of our lives (with collard kimchee instead of sauerkraut!) and Phil had a wonderful craft cocktail.

On Sunday we decided to explore the Black Farmers’ Market and the North Carolina State Public Farmers’ Market. Rain was pouring down during the first visit, but everyone seemed happy to be there and appreciative of customers who came out despite the weather. By the time we arrived at the second one, the rain was reduced to a drizzle. We couldn’t buy much (tiny fridge!), but we bought some wonderful espresso beans and a few veggies.  And we tried two North Carolina delicacies: boiled peanuts (YUCK!) and a peach hand pie called a Jack. Jacks are fried in lard. Yep, lard. 

We also had some delightful day trips. On one day we visited the Glencoe Mill HIstoric District (only drove around because it was raining), a lovely historic neighborhood in Burlington, the Duke University campus (I love college campuses), and walked the historic district of Hillsborough.

The North Carolina Museum of Art was exceptional, with an astonishing range of works. They were issuing free tickets on a schedule to avoid overcrowding, and we felt very safe social distancing in our masks.

We were surprised by the Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield–much more interesting than we’d imagined. And we spent a couple of hours walking the historic district in Wilmington, which was lovely–but there were too many people not socially distancing, so we spent a lot of time dodging them.

But the best part of our Raleigh adventure has been reconnecting with old friends. We spent a wonderful afternoon with Phil’s highschool friend Lloyd and his wife Janet. Their outdoor entertainment area was beautiful, and they set up beverages and empanadas in separate areas so we all felt safe. At the end of our visit we picked up barbeque and spent another evening with them. We had another wonderful evening with friends Michael and Sara on their patio overlooking the lake. Michael is a wonderful cook and created a well-timed dinner of heavy appetizers–roasted dates with a soft cheese dip, mini-sandwiches, and summer rolls, followed by a spectacular apple crumble. We had not met Sara before, and it was one of those magical “instant friendship” experiences, We’re still talking about what a great evening that was.

And finally we spent an evening with my colleague Norm, his wife Marie, and their daughter Sophia. Norm is a unique blend of actuary and improv performer, and one of my favorite colleagues. We picked up dinner from their favorite vegan restaurant and feasted on great food and even greater conversation on their patio, overlooked by huge trees and stars.

So our first long stay has been a big success by all standards. Exploring a new area, reconnecting with great friends, and sampling wonderful food adds up to our kind of lifestyle. We are so far loving our Roaming experience!

where will we stay?

Wlhen we begin Roaming we plan to stay in each location at least one month.  I’ve never taken more than twelve days off work so this will definitely be a new experience!  We have some comfort with AirBnB and have been dreaming over apartments on that site for our first ventures, mostly in France, Italy, and Portugal.  Having vacationed in rentals six times, we decided to review each place and look for lessons learned.

Our first vacation apartment experience was on a trip to Paris with our kids.  We had a wonderful Palais Royale location, two bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms, and a tiny kitchen.  It was a splurge, but we loved it!  We discovered a lovely bistro at the end of the block and became friendly with the owner.  We’d love to visit again, but it’s too expensive now!  We used the same company a couple of years later, booking a smaller two-bedroom apartment with a balcony overlooking the Sacre Coeur.  It was just a touch shabby, but it was affordable and had everything we needed–two bedrooms, one bathroom, and beds for all five of us–and a tiny Parisian elevator so we didn’t have to lug our bags up several flights of stairs.

For our next vacation apartment adventure, I decided we didn’t need luxury and looked for something very affordable.  This was our first real lesson (and our first AirBnB experience!).  The ground floor apartment in Berlin looked cute in the pictures–crisp, bright colors, and compact.  When we arrived, however, it was a different story.  The bed, which looked big, was way too small, so I had to sleep on the sofa.  The bathroom turned out to be a wet room, and the shower drain was plugged and flooded the bathroom and part of the living room.  And when we opened the freezer, we found some horrible, very old, frozen food.  The first night, a drunken, angry man serenaded us outside the open windows, which we couldn’t shut because of the heat.  We paid well below $100 per night but spent as little time in this apartment as possible.

So, what happens after an experience like ours in Berlin?  You overcorrect, of course!  Our next trip was to Stockholm, and I was determined to find us a pleasant place–and I did.  Located a stone’s throw from the Old Town, our apartment on the top floor of an elevator building boasted two bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, a huge dining room with a piano, and a wonderful kitchen with an espresso machine that I spent an hour on youtube videos to master!  It was more expensive than a hotel, but it was wonderful!  In fact, it was much larger than we needed for only two people.  But it was definitely an overcorrection.

Our next adventure was in California, where we stayed with our daughter and son-in-law.  The place was close to the beach, old, and quaint.  We loved it!  However, we didn’t know that the owners  lived above us and shared the garden, and they REALLY enjoyed spending time with us, popping in unannounced just to visit.  We, however, craved privacy and family time.  Eventually I found myself hiding in my bedroom to avoid chatting.

Our most recent AirBnB experience was on a trip of a lifetime to Tuscany, in April 2019.  We flew to Rome for a couple of days, then met our kids for the drive to our villa.  The landscape was gorgeous, our host was charming but gave us privacy, the four-bedroom, two-bath villa was larger than we needed but very comfortable, and while it was too chilly to swim, we enjoyed both sitting by the pool and warming up by the fireplace.  And perhaps the best part was cooking together and eating in the spacious kitchen!  But we had to drive 20 minutes to get to any store or cafe.

So. . .what have we learned?  To shoot for a mix of luxury and frugality.  To focus on location.  To look for gracious hosts who are friendly but don’t want to spend lots of time with us.  To make sure the basics (a clean, workable kitchen, a comfortable king-sized bed, a bathroom with a good shower) are there.  And, when it’s booked and we’ve arrived, to remember that no place is perfect, to roll with the punches and make the most of our precious time in each temporary home, and to remember our sense of humor.  And most of all, to cherish the memories!

Roaming–At Home?

Things we’ll miss when we’re roamers

Wow, where to start?!  During this endless pandemic I’ve been trying to focus on the things that bring joy to our lives, the things for which we are endlessly grateful.  And I’ve realized that some of them are not going to be part of our lives as Roamers.

For example, family and friends.  Sure, they’ll still be in our lives, but we won’t be able to see them as often as we’d like.  And I’ll miss special gatherings, unable to come back to the U.S. without advance planning.  For example, I have a group of high school girlfriends who gather annually for a “Wild Women’s Weekend.”  I will have unbearable FOMO the first time I have to miss that.

We will miss Baxter, our rescue cat, more than I can say.  He makes us laugh every single day.  He is a cat with personality who never met a stranger.  How will we ever be able to say goodbye to him?  We’re hoping we can find him a new home with family or friends, so we can visit him when we’re Roamers.  But it breaks my heart to even think about giving him up.

Dinner parties.  I love to cook and love to entertain.  It doesn’t stress me out and it’s so much fun, especially when we can bring people together to form new friendships.  But when we’re Roamers, we probably won’t stay in one place long enough to form strong friendships, so hosting dinner parties will be a rare opportunity.  I’ll miss that.

Gardening!  I’m the opposite of an expert, but I love growing things, especially food.  Well, to be honest, what I really enjoy is harvesting.  The rest is just effort.  But if we’re somewhere that offers regular farmers’ markets, we can still get close to that joyful feeling of harvesting.

Getting in the car any time we need to go somewhere.  While we love walking and look forward to living in an urban environment, we’ll miss the ability to spontaneously jump in the car and go, often just driving aimlessly to see what we’ll discover.  We’ll have to plan ahead to rent a car when we want to drive anywhere.

Having a home.  This is a big one.  We love our little house and garden, and making it our own over the past three years has been a joy.  We’ve lived in eighteen different homes during our marriage, and this is my favorite house ever.  And we love coming home from a trip, getting back to this comfortable space that’s entirely our own.  I think as long as we’re together we’ll feel at home–but roaming will be the test!

We will miss these things, and so much more.  But one thing this pandemic has taught us is that life is short.  We truly cannot wait to discover new things on this big adventure!

PLENTY.

Anticipating that we may be able to begin roaming sooner than originally planned, Phil and I spent our quarantined 39^th anniversary weekend (!) going through our house and pulling out things we no longer need.  We’re donating them, trying to do a little good as we lighten our load.  This exercise has been very interesting in several ways:

1. We have so, so much more than we need. We are serial downsizers, but each time we reduce, our remaining stuff seems to grow.  There is so little we truly need.  This time we pinkie swore we’ll avoid stockpiling stuff—clothing, dishes, jewelry, linens, gadgets—and make sure we acquire only useful and necessary things.  And maybe the occasional treasure.
2. This is hard. As an English major and former teacher, I’m addicted to books.  Even now that most books I buy are digital, I still love the feeling of holding a real book.  We’ve downsized our books before, but this was the deepest cut ever.  I felt joy as I looked over beloved classics, contemporary novels, memoirs, histories, poetry, and of course my beloved cookbooks.  Phil drove to the donation center with about 600 of my books.  I felt a bit melancholy, tinged with a sense of freedom and joy. 
3. I’m learning that I don’t need objects to remember loved ones. Parting with treasured books, gifts from family and friends, and some of my mother’s and grandmother’s jewelry at first came with some guilt.  Would my friend Gwyn be hurt if she knew I gave away the meditation figure I’ve kept in my office for over 25 years?  Would my grandma be sad seeing me part with her favorite strawberry brooch?  They both died years ago, but I like to think they’d approve of my decision to release stuff in favor of adventure, knowing that I will always hold the memories close.
4. Deciding what to keep is becoming easier. There’s a bit of Marie Kondo magic in holding an object, feeling it spark joy, and deciding it has earned its place in the storage unit of our future.

This process is affecting us.  Roaming feels closer, more real than ever.  I wake up excited to reduce more, to plan, to get closer to the time when we can travel again, say goodbye to our house and our stuff, and embark on this adventure.  And thank heaven for technology that enables us to keep treasured images!

Community. serendipity.

Late in the afternoon, just as I’d finished my last conference call of the day, I saw someone walk up onto our front porch and ring the doorbell.  It was a neighbor I’d never formally met, one who sat on the homeowners’ association board with my husband.  And she was bringing a gift:  three giant zucchinis.

Her boss, she explained, decided to get into gardening—and REALLY got into it.  Not understanding that these are gourds that multiply, she planted ten of these beauties, and now the entire office was at risk of burial by zucchini.  I invited her in, and as it happened, on the kitchen counter was Vivian Howard’s cookbook, open to the squash section.  I’d been reading it and looking forward to later in the summer when zucchini would be plentiful and cheap.

My neighbor glanced with interest at the squash glamor shots, and out came her phone to capture several of the recipes.  She left with a promise of more zucchini and possibly tomatoes:  her boss had planted 50 tomato plants in her “garden.”

That evening we feasted on squash and onions (I pan-fried almond-crusted tilapia fillets to go on top).  Was it just my imagination, or did the meal taste especially good because it was a gift?  Was I more a part of the community for having accepted the gift, and given something in return?  Perhaps being part of a community where people look out for each other, something our grandparents took for granted, is a balm.

When Phil and I are Roamers, we look forward to making connections, even (or especially?) brief ones, wherever we go.  And we hope to spread and receive kindness, and to be good neighbors.