Adventurenet.net

There are a few days left until I leave on the big road trip! I’ll sneak in a few more micro adventures before I head out to camp and travel across Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee.

Wednesday September 10th, 2025

Tonight we eat our second place spoils!

Our trivia team The Gabba Ghouls recently came in second place which won us a $50 restaurant gift card.

This beard, our savings and the the jankiness of this camera taking pictures in low light are on full display in the picture above.

Thursday September 11th, 2025

The beard is still out of control, but the camera is feeling so much better this morning.

Friday September 12nd, 2025

In preparation for the upcoming camping trip, I am taking on a new adventure.

An adventure of fire.

I’m making camping fire starters.

Look. “The song” probably just popped into your head. Here it is if you feel the need to listen to it now.

I’ve read about these things a bunch of times, and there’s a lot of great recipes.

I’ll be using the matches, toilet paper and paraffin wax recipe.

I ordered the paraffin wax off of eBay in preparation for this project.

I have also saved a food can to make an impromptu double boiler.

If you’re not familiar with double boilers, these are great for melting wax because the inner can can only get as hot as boiler water which is not a temperature that would burn wax.

Or something like that.

I’m not a scientist.

Next we need some strike anywhere matches, toilet paper, and parchment paper.

We’ll wrap some matches in toilet paper, hold the bundle together with masking tape, and then dip it into melted paraffin wax.

We’ll set it on the parchment paper to dry and if all goes well, we’ll have a strike anywhere fire starter to make the campfire a little bit easier to start.

With science.

I know that I just said I’m not a scientist, but I’m taking that back.

We’ll run camping experiments to see if this was worth our time and $8 of paraffin wax.

The wax is going quickly. I don’t know if I’ll have enough to coat all of these.

I do not.

I run out.

The bottoms of all are coated and I did the best with what I had to coat the tops as well and they’re not bad, but they’re also not as coated as I expected them to be.

Now to find a way to store these so that they don’t set themselves on fire.

Now is a good time to mention that the match heads are all coated in wax to avoid accidental strikage.

Note: I am not using the word “strikage” correctly at all.

In the meantime, Keanu and Penny are obsessed with a toy string video.

Oh! I wanted to test collecting postmarks and my first result has arrived!

I thought this was lost in the mail, but judging by the massive amount of damage, it just took some time to find its way to me.

I dropped this into a mailbox on a rainy day. I suspect the piece of mail above or below mine was wet and when separated, took some of the paper with my shipping address with it.

I really thought this was lost in the mail.

And now that I can see it, all I have to say is “Damn. That’s an ugly postmark.”

I love it.

On my camping trip I may stop and towns with funny names like Bumpass, Virginia to send myself one of these.

I believe the problem with road tripping is that there are gaps without entertainment and the best way to minimize these problems are to never go for more than 3 hours in a single drive.

Have a place to stop and be entertained before continuing the trip.

I’ve added some towns with funny names to my map as possible stopping locations.

If I’m passing through and have plenty of time, they’ll make a nice place to take a break.

Uh oh. Water leaking under the kitchen sink.

This pipe has a dent in it.

Annoying.

Time to let the landlord know so that he can ignore it.

Future Levi here. The landlord has ignored it. I have it wrapped in duct tape.

Saturday September 13th, 2025

Today we begin the big camping trip!

The plan: Nine days and eight nights of camping, traveling, and adventure.

We have goals of gathering postmarks by mailing index cards to myself, gathering national park passport stamps and stickers, and three bucket list items which are: See a moonbow, kayak in an abandoned mine, and visit Colonial Williamsburg.

Or something.

Last winter I booked all of the campsites and made the kayaking reservation.

I’m nervous about the kayaking reservation, though. There is a minimum group size to do the crystal bottom boat and I just picked the time that I wanted to go in hopes that as more people book events later in the year that they’ll match up.

No one has called me to tell me there’s not enough people.

They’d do that right?

We’ll find out soon.

Let’s go!

I’m taking a taxi to the car renal place at the La Guardia airport here in Queens.

It’s 3am.

I hate driving in the city, so I figure I’ll pick up a car super early, drive it home, load it up and get the heck out of the city while everyone is asleep and the roads are packed.

Success!

The open road in front of me and the city behind me.

One of the first things I need to do is shop for groceries.

To keep packing light, I didn’t gather groceries in advance.

I figure they’ll be cheaper if I buy them outside of NYC, and also I won’t have to carry them on busses and subways to get them home.

Shopping time.

It’s nice having space at a super market.

It’s been a while.

Fun story: I’ve been slowly expanding my Spanish living here in Queens. Several of the stores I shop at are worked by people whose first language is Spanish, and so I’ve been asking to learn new phrases.

While shopping here, I conversed in Spanish the whole time.

Just simple pleasantries and confirmations, but it’s exciting that I was able to do it all without English.

I don’t remember why I took a confused selfie in the parking lot, though.

I’m trying to figure out the car’s steering assist.

Cool feature, but I’m not 100% sure how it works, yet.

Night 1: Shenandoah National Park!

Check out the gift shop.

Smoosh a penny.

Walk over to the meeting center.

Learn about bears so that I don’t die.

Y’all.

There are so many Spotted Lanternflies here in Shendoah.

While the ranger was giving his talk about bears and how to store food, we were throwing a lanternfly stomping party.

I made it in time.

Getting to this first stop is one of the longer drives on this trip.

I wanted time to check in and to get my tent up before it got dark.

Also, since I knew I would be in such a rush to get here, I booked this site for two nights so that I can really enjoy my time here tomorrow.

Why is the fire pit smoldering?

Did the people before me not put out their fire all the way?

There’s another thing I need to bring when camping: A bucket.

Fire extinguished.

Enough chatter! It’s tent time!

Thanks to booking this site super early, I was able to get the location nearest to the restroom.

Hahha, I’m still using this $40 tent I bought back in 2010 or something.

I also brought my small ultra-light tent, but I forgot to bring trekking poles which are necessary to prop it up.

I prefer the larger tent, so I don’t mind.

I do miss the trekking poles, though.

I’ll be doing less hiking without them.

Time to see what state sponsored liquor stores are like.

Ew. It’s so clean.

It doesn’t look like it was run by smokers for 80 years.

Also the staff weren’t able to answer my questions since they weren’t really drinkers.

This is very different than the liquor stores that I’m used to.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice shop, but I prefer the Nebraska method of “Get your beer, wine, and liquor at the grocery store.”

Back to camp.

There are so many deer here.

I need to eat.

How about a simple ramen meal.

This little cooker is great.

Ey! Ramen just like mama used to make.

Oops.

I melted part of the handle.

The first time I used this system, I kept the heat at a low or medium setting and the water took a long time to boil.

I figured out that I can just crank it up and the water will get going super fast and that this is likely a more efficient use of the gas.

So I cranked it up again.

And melted some stuff.

🤷

And then spilled ramen juice on myself.

I’ve been up since 3 am.

I need to chill out for a second.

I brought plenty of reading material with me on this trip.

One book that I haven’t put much time into is this one.

I’m hoping to give it a good read and really see what this book has to offer.

The sun is about to go down.

For being as close to the bathroom as I am, I don’t have many neighbors.

I picked a good time to go camping.

It’s a Saturday today, but since school just started, folks aren’t out as much as they probably were in recent weeks.

I picked this week based on the temperature.

It’s difficult to sleep in a hot tent.

Oh! At the gift shop I got my Shenandoah passport stamps!

Hell yeah!

Time for a ranger-led learning experience: Shenandoah After Dark.

Ranger Bridgette came prepared with a slide display and animal noises to share the various things we’ll see and hear after dark.

For example the deer that I’ve been seeing everywhere are awake at all hours, but they have the most activity at dusk and dawn.

I have never spent any time in this part of the country, so I’m learning a lot!

For example the Woodcock bird sounds like a bug.

Evidence: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/083zTD62X-M

Bonus Woodcock video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_jrkwNSxuE

I also learned about other unique local creatures like Whip-poor-wills and Barred Owls.

A delightful learning experience.

I heard there was a tavern behind this theater area somewhere.

Oh! And the Appalachian trail comes through here!

I’ve read loads of books written by Appalachian through hikers.

Fascinating topic.

Damn. The cabins here are nice.

Ritzy af.

There’s a lodge and restaurant next to the cabins and under all of that is a tavern.

I think I found the way in.

After stepping through that door to get my bearings, a live musician to my right asks me who I am and razzed me a little bit.

Got myself a nice little berry drink.

That blur to the left of the drink is the man with the guitar.

He offered to buy a drink for someone who could answer his trivia question.

I was updating some notes on my phone and I was accused of Googling it.

The man with a guitar has made it a point to pick on me.

I played along.

Oh, there he is again, but a little bit less blurry.

The more I drink, the less blurry he becomes.

A nice meal and some postcards were written to friends.

The music and atmosphere are absolutely delightful.

What a treasure.

Back to the campsite to get drunk!

I mean, “While in Kentucky,” am I right?

Note: Shenandoah National Park is in Virginia.

Long day.

I need to sleep.

It’s important to maintain hygiene while camping and traveling.

Flossing selfie!

Now to relax to some X-Men comics.

I’ve really been enjoying these.

I’m glad that I decided to get a comic book subscription.

Shit.

My phone cord isn’t working.

Oh hell.

This is the cord I wrapped in electrical tape because Remus was chewing through to the wires years ago.

Why did I keep this?

Lucking I brough backup cords for everything.

The plan is to charge my phone at night with a power bank and to charge the power bank while driving.

I think it will work.

But I must sleep now.

Good night.

I’ll see you in Shenandoah again tomorrow.

Cheers.