This seven-chapter series about our 9-month Civil Rights Trail RV road trip – an official NPS trail launched in 2017 with more than 100 sites of interest in several dozen locations across the United States – has come to an end.

Until our Civil Rights Trail Series began, our subscriber numbers always increased with every post. The big shocker is hundreds of followers canceled their Living in Beauty subscription during this series! Perplexing? Yes. Humbling? Yes. Fortunately, you are still here and we value your interest in our journey all the more.

We encountered disturbing revelations and uncomfortable truths on every RV stop along The Civil Rights Trail. Yet, our faith in America is renewed!

The post Civil Rights Trail – Chapter Seven: Final Thoughts appeared first on Living In Beauty.

“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.” - A.A. Milne, creator and author of Winnie The Pooh

Some of the world's greatest stories involve bridges.

Building bridges...

capturing bridges...

crossing bridges...

and lighting them afire.

For better and worse, bridges establish challenging and sometimes incompatible connections.

"Burning Bridges" can mean a bad decision made in haste or it can mean a deliberate act of self-renewal.

Every bridge crossing is an epochal moment, a promise to transport you into the future.

Beauty and the Beast are our Bridge to Adventure, our Boredom Evacuation Plan.

The post All The Bridges I Have Known appeared first on Living In Beauty.

In the late 1960's in California, I lived near the beach. Beaches were a place to chill, play volleyball and wax your board. But the song "Galveston" introduced me to a completely different idea where the beach was a place of poetry, mystery and romance, a beach you must see to believe.

Galveston Island State Park is 'on-the-way' to nowhere but Galveston, a barrier island at sea level with only three roads into and out of the 27-mile long island.

Click the "Continue Reading" button below to read about this beautiful and magical place.

The post Campground Review: Galveston Island State Park – Galveston Island, Texas appeared first on Living In Beauty.

The art of biscuit making is a tender process where contrasting ingredients are gently coaxed into an improbable friendship. No two biscuits are exactly alike, but a good biscuit is something you can give yourself wholly to, even while eyeing the next one. Satisfaction is elusive. There's always plenty and never enough.

Yeah, I'm talking about The Blues.

The Blues sweet-talks electrifying joy and benumbed pain into a soul-satisfying concoction and lays it all out on the table. Come and get it. Blues and biscuits. No one does it better than "King Biscuit" in Helena Arkansas, one of the best Blues festivals in the world.

The post All Hail The Good King Biscuit! appeared first on Living In Beauty.

What took us so long to BRP?

Well before before Day One of this Airstream adventure – in response to one of our earliest posts, Tell The Beaubeauxs Where To Geaux – Living in Beauty followers have advised us to visit the BRP: Blue Ridge Parkway.

Then, for more than seven years, we drove over the BRP, under the BRP and around the BRP, until... Bingo. We finally hit the target and gave the Blue Ridge Parkway the full focus of our attention for the entire month of July.

At last, we understand why the popular Blue Ridge Parkway is called “America’s Favorite Drive."

Don't ask if we saw this or that, just ask us how it made us feel to be there.

The Blue Ridge Parkway is a vacation for the senses, a re-boot for the ol' neurotransmitters–

The post Sweet Surrender🪽The Blue Ridge Parkway appeared first on Living In Beauty.

Dad was born in 1919 into a Louisiana factory-working family who barely made ends meet. He joined the navy on his 18th birthday.

Back in the 1950's and 60's, a kid could run loose in Louisiana while visiting relatives throughout the state. Even in New Orleans, I was allowed to go anywhere I wanted except Bourbon Street because my Aunt Marie said, "You stay outta dat mess young man!"

A few years ago while passing through Louisiana after a major storm, we pinned Lake Charles on the Living in Beauty list of places we like to explore. Even in that beat up condition, the region peaked our curiosity.

Our research turned up Sam Houston Jones State Park.

The post Campground Review: Sam Houston Jones State Park – Lake Charles, Louisiana appeared first on Living In Beauty.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. calls Montgomery, Alabama, "The Epicenter of the Civil Rights Movement" in his book, The Black Church: This is Our Story, This is Our Song.

In 1955, Martin Luther King Jr. was the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery when, Rosa Parks , just down the street, refused to surrender her seat on the bus to a white passenger.

Rosa Parks bravery – in response to the brutal murder of Emmett Till three months' earlier – activated the Civil Rights Movement.

With so much to learn and see in the Montgomery area, we easily filled two weeks with sightseeing, museums, restaurants and lectures.

Here we will share our visits to The Legacy Museum, National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Rosa Parks Museum, Freedom Rides Museum, Civil Rights Memorial and Center, Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, the Capitol Building, and the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site.

The post Civil Rights Trail – Chapter Six: Montgomery, Alabama – The Epicenter of The Movement appeared first on Living In Beauty.

We recently shared the post, The Magic of Number Nine, our completion of 8 years of full-time travel and the start of our 9th year.

Today is another milestone: 3,000 days on the road, as we live in Beauty.

This big day conjuncts with my 70th birthday. Yep, I've hit the big seven-o today, October 4th!

How has traveling 3,000 days changed us?

Click the "Continue Reading" button below to read about our renewed faith in humanity, respect for culture, admiration of the landscape, and appreciation for American languages and dialects.

The post 3,000 Days on the Road appeared first on Living In Beauty.