HMS Beangle

Welcome aboard! We're sailing across North America in our Bean Stalker teardrop trailer. Come share our journey.

Category: National Park Service

  • Drive it, hike it, bike it

    A lot of people out West like to talk smack about the Appalachians and other eastern mountains, and we admit to it as well. But after spending almost 4 months at or near sea level, it was a little thrilling to see the word Mountain in a campground’s name again. While hiking, biking, and driving…

  • The Rest of the (South Carolina) Story

    First and foremost, I have a grievous error to acknowledge. I have been misleading you all about Longleaf Pines for some time, and for that I apologize. What I often thought was a Longleaf (Pinus palustris) was instead a Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda). I know. I know. It was a careless, but I also learned…

  • It’s three, three, three forts in one (newsletter)!

    At first I was going to write about three different forts individually. Then I decided that three forts in a row, when they all followed the same basic design and were part of the Civil War conflict, was asking a bit much of anyone’s patience. So I’m going to mostly write about Fort Pulaski, which…

  • Fancy Pants Florida – Part 2

    When I say the temperature dropped the last night we stayed near Cape Canaveral, I mean it dropped. The temps slid downward all day Sunday and the winds climbed steadily upwards. Overnight, wind gusted up to 50mph and the actual temperature fell to 20°F on Monday morning. Our camp hosts were so concerned about us…

  • Fancy Pants Florida – Part 1

    Grab a snack, this is a long one. The company that Jeff used to work for has an office in West Palm Beach so he wanted to make sure that we stopped there long enough for him to say hello to some of his former colleagues. Now that coastal community is rather $$$Fancy$$$ so we…

  • No Swimming or wading: Alligators

    The irony of writing about the warmest week we’ve spent in Florida while wearing parkas, gloves, and stocking caps is not lost upon me. It’s cold here in north-central Florida at the moment. Cold cold cold. My hope is we’ll soon see the back side of anything below 40°F for a while. I fear we…

  • Chattanooga, Chickamauga, and Chance

    Grab a cup of something, this is a long one. We fairly raced south from Kentucky. The weather projections were looking quite bad across KY, with heavy rain and extreme cold in the forecast, even the possibility of tornadoes in northern Tennessee. Waking early, we slid well south to Chattanooga and set up camp for…

  • It’s pronounced Past-ee

    When we heard that some of our favorite people were going to be camping near Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, we decided to head to Munising, MI. We didn’t know what to expect with the governmental shutdown, but even if we couldn’t get into the park, we knew we wanted to see Rob and Kate. If…

  • The terrain in Badlands National Park speaks for itself, so I’m going to just post some photos and keep the commentary to a minimum. Phone viewing tip: turn your screen brightness all the way up, set True Tone on (iPhones only?), and turn night shift off. It will make a big difference here. We want…

  • After leaving Deadwood, we decided to head east instead of sticking around for the night. I saw that Badlands National Park had a free dry campground on the north portion of the park, so we decided to give a it go. It wasn’t quite boondocking as there were vault toilets, formal parking spots, and picnic…