Coconut Flour Coffee Cake

I’ve made this delicious recipe several times now. It’s the perfect gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free, not-too-sweet coffee cake. My husband and I enjoy it with breakfast, and I’ve also served it as dessert to guests. They asked for seconds and the recipe; that confirmed it, this recipe is a keeper. Hats off to Natalie at the Oven Love Blog; she’s the creator of this recipe. Enjoy!

Hard to Find Grocery Items

The hardest part about maintaining a healthy Paleo diet on the road is finding specialty food items. Things like coconut butter, organic almond butter, a dependable brand of coconut milk, and even unsweetened shredded coconut may be available in one city, then absent from shelves in the next 10 grocery stores you visit.

Homemade Gluten-Free Chicken Soup

We spent the past week with our brother-in-law’s family in south Texas – enjoyed it immensely, and just two days before departure, we all came down with a nasty cold. The entire family, all on the same day! Yesterday we made the short drive from there to Harlingen, Texas, and once we were set up my craving for homemade chicken soup took over. It’s a good thing I had all the essentials on board.

Once or even twice a month I cook an organic, free-range chicken in my crock pot for the sole purpose of creating a delicious and healthy chicken stock.

So Many Choices – Life on the Open Road

One thing I hadn’t expected was the overwhelming number of options we can choose from on a daily basis with this RV lifestyle. Back in our sticks and bricks home, we chose when we wanted to go to the grocery store, which trail we wanted to walk for the day, whether we would shower first or work first … all the mundane stuff, right? We still have those choices on the road, of course, but now there are so many more.

Going from Point A to Point B: The first leg of our journey took us to Loveland, CO, by way of our customer’s address in Liberty, MO. That was fairly straight forward … a finite number of days to get where we needed to be determined our route. Finding our stopover point for the night was the daily adventure, and we found some nice ones. Still, I found it a little stressful to navigate using only my Allstays app and Google Maps. I didn’t expect that.

Exploring Charleston, SC

We arrived at Lake Aire RV Park near Charleston, South Carolina on Monday evening after a beautiful drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Then, after a full day of work at our computers on Tuesday, we were ready to get out and begin exploring Charleston SC. Our challenge was to explore the area without spending much money. You see, we’ll be joining our son and his family in Orlando later this month, and the theme parks aren’t cheap. So what can you do in Charleston for free?

For starters, there’s Folly Beach County Park. There’s no admission fee in November/December. We packed a lunch, which we ate in the car before hitting the beach. I think we had a high of 74° and it was partly sunny, but it was windy so a sweater was called for. The sand was warm though, so our shoes came off and we walked barefoot at the water’s edge. Waves crashed over a sandbar a ways out from the shore – huge waves. From one angle it looked like the sea was boiling. The tide was going out and shore birds hunted the ebbing tide streams for small fish. Between the sound of the waves, the wind, and the shorebirds, it was downright noisy, but also peaceful and romantic. This was a perfect afternoon and our only cost was the fuel to get there.

Today, we explored Charleston SC on foot. We started at Battery Park where Jerry snapped photos of a Coastguard C-130, a Coastguard Cutter, sailboats and ships, and an artist capturing everything on canvas, before we set off down the sea wall. On one side was the ocean, on the other southern mansion after southern mansion. I love the architecture and the colors. With a two-hour time limit where we had parked and not having noted the time we pulled in, we cut our walk short to move our car to a proper parking garage near Waterfront Park, then walked the nearby streets – again snapping photos until we were tired and ready to call it a day.

We’ll venture out once more while we’re in the area, maybe to Edisto Beach or possibly to James Island for the Holiday Festival of Lights. Beyond that, we need to get more client work done and catch up on some of the less exciting household tasks … laundry, etc. We’re here until Monday morning, November 11, then will be heading for an overnight in Jacksonville, a few days in Titusville, Florida, and about two weeks near Orlando.