We Have Arrived in Baltimore!

 Baltimore, MD

This isn't some super secret waterfall in Baltimore, this is in Ohiopyle State Park PA.

Home Base Baltimore

So today we pulled into Baltimore, MD where we are staying for a month.  We are in a neighborhood called Pig Town.  So far we are very pleased with our accommodation.  It is large and has what we need.  It isn't fancy by any stretch but we don't need fancy.  The link is here if you are curious.  We found easy street parking when we arrived and the unpacking the car went quickly.  We still have settling to do but that is the part you can take your time with.  After unpacking we walked to the Federal Hill neighborhood for dinner.  It's a popular place with bars and restaurants and shopping.  It was hopping on a Friday night.  We took Francis with us because there seems to be a lot of patio seating and we want Francis to get used to the new place before we leave him.

We can walk to both the Football and Baseball sports venues.  We will hit a baseball game soon.

I recognized the name Johnny Unitas as we walked by

We had no real plan so we ended up at Abbey Burger Bistro.

I got the Baltimore Burger.  The Crab Dip was really good.

I also got tots.  They were legit.  They had a modest beer selection as well.

We will go to the Cross Street Market when we don't have Francis

I snapped this sign and then when we walked by it was packed with bros playing cornhole.  

We have only had a taste of Baltimore but we are incredibly excited to see all that it has to offer.  I feel like we are in a great place to explore the area by foot and by transit.  We do have a couple car road trips planned too.  Stay tuned!  

If you missed the last quick post of Francis you can see it here.

Our First Airbnb Cancellation and the Recovery

 Kansas City, MO

Cancelled!  Oh No!

Out With the Old

Yesterday eagle eyed readers or just readers that read the post, saw that we got some bad news yesterday.  We were given notice that our Panama City FL month long (actually more than a month) stay was cancelled.  The reason the owner gave was that construction was being done but we looked and it looked like he has raised is prices and he might be cancelling so he can get more money during the time we were going to be there.  We won't know for sure and in the end, it doesn't really matter why.  If any stays were going to be cancelled (and this does happen), we are glad it was Panama City.  The only thing that was somewhat bad about this cancellation was that it was a REALLY cheap stay so we were going to use it as a home base and camp around in Florida and finish all of the counties in Florida this year.  

Recovery Planning

At first we were a bit annoyed.  I was one day away from booking all of the stays on the 2 week trip from Baltimore to Panama City.  It was a happy accident that I was lazy and decided to delay a day because the plan was in place.  We spent the first 6 hours or so looking for new stays and it wasn't going well.  It takes a lot of searching to find the right place for the right price with the right amenities for a month long stay.  At the end of the day we gave up and went to bed without solving the problem.  The stay is 2ish months away which seems like a lot but there is a lot of competition for good places right now.

The next morning we looked at it with fresh eyes and a clear head and stays started popping up all over the place.  It's funny how hard it is to choose a place to stay when you can stay "anywhere".  Pretty soon we were emailing properties back and forth to each other and coming up with stays that we were actually excited about.  The Panama City Cancellation was starting to look like a great opportunity to improve our trip.  Just after our oatmeal breakfast Donna found a stay in a city that I had never considered.  Thinking outside the box you have created for yourself is key to finding good stays and having good adventures.  It's how our "racing the moving van across the country" turned into putting our stuff in storage and going nomadic.  After we both scrutinized the new stay in mind we booked!  We have a place to live and now we have an amazing new plan!

The New Place

Red Stick!

We decided on staying just an hour and a half away from our December stay in New Orleans.  We are staying in the heart of it all near the college in Baton Rouge, the capitol of Louisiana.  This will give us a chance to see more of Louisiana with less driving and take our time visiting the capitol building and climbing to the top of the tower. We will also have time for the museums and botanic gardens in the area.

And We Don't Miss Out on Finishing Florida

The Florida State Park Planning is going well

I spent the day yesterday planning our route while Donna thumbed through this awesome Florida State Park book to find parks we really wanted to stay in and visit.  We have 20 days between Baltimore and Baton Rouge, so a lot of time to stay visit Florida State Parks (which are way better than I know you are thinking right now).

Florida progress as it stands now

We will be camping in / visiting great state parks like;

Constitution Convention Museum State Park  and the replicated convention hall features the debate of delegates Robert Raymond Reid, William P. Duvall, David Y. Levy and Thomas L Baltzell. These life-size, audio-animated mannequins offer a realistic demonstration of the debate and process of drafting a state constitution.

Ponce de Leon Springs State Park and the amazing 68 degree year round natural spring (with no alligators we hope).

Stolen from the State Park website

Florida Caverns State Park with a cave tour in Florida!

Another borrowed image from the Florida State Parks website

All totaled, we will be visiting at least 13 of Florida's State Parks on this leg of the trip.  As you can see, we are very excited about this Panama City cancellation.  It has opened up great opportunities for us to rethink the weakest part of our trip with new learnings from the road.

That's really all we did today.  We had planned on going to a history museum but that can wait.  We still have 13 days left in Kansas City, MO.  

If you missed yesterday's adventure you can check it out here.

Getting Settled in KC

 Kansas City, MO

The view of the Missouri River from our walk

Morning Dog Walk 

This morning we walked up the hill to see something we have never seen before, a private dog park. The West Terrace Off Leash Dog Park is $50 a year.  For that, you get a very nice dog park with plenty of live grass.  If we were living here we would probably pony up the money because it is close and very nice.  We walked Francis in the nice grassy area around the dog park instead.

We wanted to walk up the steps because there was a fountain cascading down the side but the water was attracting giant hornets and we weren't sure if they were the attacky kind.  Turns out they are not aggressive. They are called Eastern Cicada Killers and they are pretty scary looking.

$50 a year!

Kite Statues

The view was very nice and the park was great.  We will be back

We can't get away from Lewis and Clark.  They have been everywhere we have been only years before and they walked it.

One of Kansas City's nicknames is City of Fountains.

Grocery Shopping and Accidental County Collecting

We needed to get food supplies so we routed a course to closest Hy-Vee, the local normal supermarket, and headed out.  To our surprise, we got 2 new counties.  I guess it shouldn't be a surprise since we are surrounded by counties we haven't been to.

They're crazy about their Chiefs around here.

Almost every direction is a new county!

Getting Settled

The rest of the day we rearranged cabinets and put our stuff away.  We are mostly settled now.  Tomorrow we will start checking things off starting with public transit and a museum.  There seems to be a lot of great things to do here so we are ready to get exploring.

When we move things, we take photos so we can put them back when we move out.

If you didn't read about yesterday's adventure, you can check it out here.

Downtown McKinney and Airbnb Host Policy Change

 McKinney, TX

Viva McKinney!

Downtown McKinney, TX

Today is the last Saturday we will be in McKinney so we decided to go to the farmers market again.  We saw a knife sharpener there so we brought our chefs knife.  It's getting really dull and honing wasn't helping.  We had tried to get it sharpened in Kirkland before we left but the knife store moved to Seattle and we weren't going into Seattle just to sharpen our knife.  While we were walking around I took the opportunity to take more photos of Downtown McKinney.

This eatery used to be a gas station so they have the old pumps on display.

Howdy Honey!  Is he talking to me?

The local comic book shop.

Little Sebastian!

Sharpening was $1 an inch.

No thank you.

I sampled the Wild Turkey Whiskey caramel.  It was just okay IMHO.

Donna had been complaining about her wallet recently and how old it is.  It is falling apart at the seams.

These wallets came with a $1,000,000 Babe Ruth Bill so we bought one for Donna.

Purple micro greens

Santa!  I assume the no photos sign is for the inside.

Cool bike mural

More Petroliana

Our sharp knife!

And Donna's functional souvenir from Texas.

Airbnb Policy Change

As we look for future stays we are sure to keep on top of the latest Airbnb Scams.  The most common one is listing the same property multiple times at different price points and accepting requests to stay.  Just before your stay, the host tells all of the lower priced stays that the unit is no longer available for some reason and offers a different unit for your stay.  This different unit is less desirable than the unit listed.  This hasn't happened to us but we have read reviews by people this has happened to.  Airbnb just announced they are upping the Host Last Minute Cancelation Fee from $100 to $1000 in hopes to end this scam.  You can read about it here if you are curious.

Oh and this doesn't deserve its own subheading but I bought Hollow Knight and am trying to play through it.  Erika showed it to me and I liked it a lot.  I am stuck on what's maybe the 2nd boss.  Get Better Noob!

If you didn't read about our future plans in the post from yesterday you can check it out here.