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Allen Taylor
I hope your Christmas was a merry as mine and more full of joy than a jar of peanut butter. Since this is the last Travelogue post of the year, I think it would be appropriate to look at the top five most popular videos from the Adventures of Allen and Theresa YouTube channel. Interestingly, the top three are about Georgia small towns.
For people new to Allen and Theresa, here's a little background about how we got started in van life.
We were minding our own business, and that of our church's, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania when the pandemic reared its ugly head and disrupted the entire world's lives. The governor of the commonwealth shut down the state for three months, which delayed a little plan we had concocted before a lot of other people had the same idea.
Just before Governor Wolf shut the state down, our pastor came to us and said the church planting office to which our little church answered wanted to use the parsonage in which we were living at the time for ministry. So, they asked us to move. Graciously, they gave us four months. About a year before that, I had mentioned to Theresa that I wanted to leave Gettysburg and travel the country while writing and selling books. She wasn't interested. I dropped the subject and didn't mention it again. But when we were asked to vacate our home, Theresa said, "You know that idea you had about traveling and writing books?
Of course I remembered.
"Let's do it!"
Wow! All of a sudden, my wife was on board something she had first put the kibosh on. I prayed about it for a couple of days and received a clear and muddy vision from the Lord that it was something we could do. We called our pastor and invited him over to our house because we had something to share. Our message to him was this: We love the church, we like being its groundkeepers, but we just can't see ourselves renting property anywhere else in the area. Therefore, we're saying goodbye and moving on.
One week later, the governor shut down the state.
Now, we had no idea how long that would last. As it turned out, it lasted just three months. As soon as we could, we shopped around for something we could turn into our personal RV and found a shuttle bus for sale. We bought it and Theresa did the handiwork to make it a personal living quarters on wheels while I continued to operate my freelance writing business. Six weeks later, on July 4 (U.S. Independence Day), we hit the road.
We lived in that bus for about eight months before deciding it wasn't for us. So, we downsized to a Chevy van. Like before, Theresa turned it into a tiny house on wheels while I continued to work clients. During the summer of 2021, we had quite an adventure in our little van.
Of course, there is much more I could tell about our early adventures in van life, but I'll leave it there for now. For a couple of years, we've been traveling around the south and east parts of the U.S., shooting videos of small town historic districts and walking tours. Below are our five most popular videos.
Three of the following small town historic walking tour videos feature small towns in Georgia. The other two are about other small towns in the south. One of them is in the neighboring state of South Carolina. We hope you like them.
Brunswick, Georgia is one of the cutest small towns we've visited, and we discovered it entirely by accident. In fact, we had pulled off the highway on our way to somewhere else to eat lunch. While sitting at our table munching on tacos, our waitress asked us where we were headed. We told her what we were up to and she pointed out that Brunswick, the small town about a mile up the road, had a beautiful historic district. She wasn't lying. It was amazing! So, we toured the historic district right away. We think you'll love it. Watch the video below or check it out on YouTube.
If you're wondering what to make of a town called Waycross, wonder no more. We think you'll love our walk through this small Georgia town. We know we did.
The town got its name from the junction of two different railroads that went through the town. It has an interesting history and a wonderful culture. We had fun making this video and we think you'll like watching it.
Our walking tour video of Madison, Georgia is our third most popular video to date. While the Brunswick video has had more than 2,000 views and the Waycross video has had 1.8 thousand views, our video of Madison has humbly attracted 1.7 thousand views. Named after President James Madison, this little gem of the south is full of charm and beauty. We think you'll enjoy walking the tour with us.
Of our travels so far, the South Carolina Sea Islands are some of our favorite places to have visited. This video has attracted just under 1,000 views, but don't dismiss this region of the U.S. as less interesting than Georgia. The history is amazing and the culture is awesome. Dollar for dollar and inch for inch, we had more fun here in the Sea Islands than we've had anywhere else. Check out the video and see for yourself.
Our fifth most popular video is from our home state of Texas. Yes, we lived in Pennsylvania for 17 years, but I grew up in Texas and my wife sounds like she grew up there. It truly is our home.
Jefferson, Texas is one of the most interesting little towns in Texas we've visited, if for any reason because it calls itself the Bigfoot Capital of Texas. I got to have my picture taken with a monument dedicated to this Texas legend, and if you can't tell the difference between this hairy creature and me, then you might have more challenges than we do!
Just kidding.
Needless to say, we think you'll enjoy watching the video of Jefferson, Texas. Not only does this town have some interesting history, but it's a beautiful little town with a lot of culture and charm. See it for yourself.
Well, those are our top five YouTube videos. Three from the state of Georgia, one from South Carolina, and one from Texas. We don't know why these are our most popular videos, but we had fun making them. There are plenty of other great videos from these states at our YouTube channel too. We hope you'll check them all out.
Have a Happy New Year!
