Out of Our Rut Blog Welcome Page

Welcome to the Out of Our Rut blog landing page.

Who we are:

We are a couple of former engineers that lived and worked in the Rochester New York area for over 30 years. When we were laid off from two different companies, one day apart, we took that as a sign to change things up. We had built a beautiful home on 50 acres and loved the place, but with plenty of time on our hands, we began to travel more and realized that when we were on the road for weeks on end, we didn't really miss all the “stuff” we had back home. Plus the work involved with maintaining our home and property seemed to be the only reason we would head back home. That prompted us to get out of our rut and sell 95% of our possessions and our home and move into our 38 foot motorhome and travel the country full time starting in June of 2016.

Chris and Jack Hiking in Washington State

At Pullout Along Rugged Oregon Coast

Our mission:

To explore the country with a strong bias towards outdoor activities. Our passions are hiking and geocaching with some mountain biking on the side. I am an avid photographer. I guess working at Eastman Kodak for 32 years had an influence in that. And while we live in a motorhome and stay in many campgrounds, we really are not campers. We seldom have campfires and don't have a corn hole game. We rarely stay at a campground for its amenities. We pick a place that is near where we want to explore. We think of it more like our home happens to have wheels and can move around. Our desire in these travels is to slow the pace. We didn't want to see if we could get to all the National Parks as quickly as possible. We like to keep a travel day to less than 200 miles and if the place warrants, stay for a week or more.

At Geocaching Headquarters in Seattle for #10,000

The blog:

For friends and family (as well as us) to keep track of what we have been up to, we have created this blog. It chronicles where we've been and what we've done as we wander around the country. Each stop along the way will, at minimum, get mentioned in the blog. Some longer stops in areas we enjoyed may get multiple blog posts in order to give that stop it's due. Generally the blog has lots of photographs as I find it difficult to eliminate photos I like. The blog will talk about the campground to some extent, but it shouldn't be considered a campground review. We seldom seem to exhaust the things we want to explore before we exhaust ourselves and need to move on. That means we may completely skip some activities or places in an area that others may consider essential. We look at that as a reason to come back in the future.

Pretty Sunset in Quartzite Arizona

At the Window in Big Bend National Park

This landing page:

The problem with just about any blog is that fact it is chronological. This is fine since that is how the events occurred in real life. But since our blog is so much about a given location, it can be difficult for somebody to find a specific blog post for a given location. I even find it a challenge to remember when we happened to be at a given location if I wanted to look something up. For instance, if someone asked about Twin Falls Idaho. I know we stayed there but it might take me awhile to figure out that we were there in June of 2017 to get them to the right post. If I could only look at a map of all the places we have stayed and have an easy way to get to the relevant blog post.

Since I already use Google My Maps to keep track of our locations, I have created a special map that has all of our stops since going full time. None of the routes are included in the map since that just seems to clutter it up and don't really add value. By clicking the link below the map, an interactive map with all of our stops will open in another window. It is then possible to move around the map and zoom in an area of interest. Clicking on any pin on the map will pop up the name of the location along with a link to the blog post(s) associated with that stop. Since I am nearly always 2 to 4 weeks behind in the blog, some of the most recent map points may not have a link to a blog, but they will in time. The GREEN pins are locations that happen to include one of our annual or yearly reviews.

So if you want to see what we found to explore in a given area, this should provide a much easier way to find the blog post.

Click HERE to open interactive Google map

2024 Year End Review

As 2024 comes to a close, we get to celebrate being on the road as full timers for eight and a half years. We stuck to the eastern side of the country this year and in fact stayed within a couple hundred miles of the Atlantic Ocean the full year. I suppose the most significant aspect of this year’s travels was our decision to purchase an RV lot in Titusville Florida at The Great Outdoors (TGO). And to a large extent, this purchase was our reason for staying in the east instead of heading back out west. We started the year finishing up a monthlong stay at TGO having rented a different site trying to determine if we liked this place. We found a site we really liked that fit our needs and closed on the property in mid January while we were exploring other parts of Florida during the rest of the winter.

There were a few factors that told us we should have some sort of place we call home but instead of repeating the details of that thought process here, I will simply refer to the blog post from late December 2023 (Xmas at The Great Outdoors) which goes into the decision. One update to that blog post relates to the ongoing cost of ownership - HOA fees and property taxes. In that post, I had used historical data from the rental office regarding the possible income from renting out our site when we are not in Titusville. I had estimated that if we were here for the 6 months during the “high season” but had our lot in the rental pool the other 6 months, our site would cost us $23 per day. I don’t have what our income is yet from our lot being rented during the month of October before we came back. But based on the income for the first three quarters of the year, I suspect we will come in below my initial estimate. For the time being, the daily cost I have used in my spreadsheet for keeping track of camping expenses has been $25 per day so my stats I talk about later in this post should be fairly accurate or just a little high.

The first 3 months of the year found us bopping around Florida. It was a mixture of private campgrounds, state parks, Elks Lodges and a Habitat for Humanity build in Vero Beach. We had planned and booked all but two weeks well before we knew we were going to buy a site at TGO so we only came back to our site for those two weeks at the end of February. By early April, we had completed all our original plans so we could return to TGO for 3 weeks before starting our journey north to New England for the bulk of the summer and early fall.

The map below shows the route we traveled this past year. While there was some overlap on the route we took north in the spring and south in the fall, we tended not to duplicate the actual camping stops in order to allow us to see slightly different places. Just below the map is a link that will open the actual Google Map which permits you to zoom in and pan around to better see our stops. Each red pin represents a place we spent at least one night at and by clicking on a pin, a new window will pop up with the name of the place we stayed as well as the links to the blog posts associated with that particular stop.

Click HERE to open Google Map

We spent about 5 weeks working our way from Florida to Vermont and then had two different monthlong stops near the Green Mountains of Vermont and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. There were also a couple weeks spent in the Adirondacks and a few more weeks in Burlington and northern Vermont. We wrapped up our New England journey by spending nearly all of September exploring some of the interior of Maine. We wrapped up the journey with another 5 weeks to make it from Maine back to Titusville Florida.

It was definitely an action packed year. The hiking in the mountains of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine was outstanding and we even found some excellent bike trails along the way. We also fit in a couple of train rides and a few boat rides over the course of the year. We managed to stay at 19 different Elks Lodges during 2023 - the majority of them ones we had never visited before. And with these additions, we have now surpassed the one hundred mark of how many different lodges we have camped at in the last 8.5 years bring our total number of nights spent at lodges to 407!

I have a few different “heat maps” that show where we have camped. Each state we have stayed at is shaded in red. The darker the red, the more nights we stayed in that state. The first map is just for 2024. You can see that we stayed in 14 different states this year. Florida came in the top spot at 179 nights. Vermont was in second place with 79 nights. We managed to add one new state to the list - Rhode Island. The second map shows our stops for the full 8.5 years, now up to 45 states instead of 44 from last year. The only states not colored in are Alaska, Hawaii, Oklahoma, New Jersey and Delaware. Technically, we have camped in all of these states other than Hawaii but those camping trips occurred prior to going full time. I am also including a version of second heat map but this one is divided into the counties within each state to get a better view of where we stayed in the state.

Our 2024 Camping Map

Our 8.5 Year Camping Map

8.5 Years at County Level

Like in past reviews, I have a table showing some of the statistics for our full time lifestyle. It includes facts like how many stops we had as well as the number of miles driven in the motorhome and car and the costs associated with our travels. Since we have so many years under our belt at this point, I only show the numbers for the past 6 years. Previous year end reviews will have the data from earlier years.

Just the Stats for the Past 6 Years

There aren’t too many surprises in the table. We camped in a few more places this year compared to last year which brought our average number of nights per stop to under 12 versus over 15 last year. This one is simple to explain. In 2023, we stayed at a  campground in western New York for over 5 months. So even staying for a couple of monthlong stops in New England and a few stops a week or longer, we ended up moving around more often. Even so, it didn’t seem like we were moving at too fast of a pace. Our number of miles driven both in the motorhome and the Jeep were very similar to last years.

In terms of the types of places we have camped, I break it down into one of 4 categories - boondocking, state parks, private campgrounds and Elks Lodges. This year we stayed two thirds of the nights in private campgrounds similar to last year. But we did stay a few more nights at state parks versus Elks Lodges this past year. That is likely just a function of there being fewer Elks Lodges on the eastern side of the country and we spent a fair amount of time out west in 2023 where the lodges have more camping options. For the keen eye observer, the breakdown of style of camping shows 376 nights total versus the expected 366. This is simply to show that we did boondock 10 nights over the course of the year but those nights also happened to be at Elks Lodges. I only show it because we had a new solar and lithium battery system installed in early 2023 and I wanted to prove that we did use it - albeit sparingly. The net result over the course of the year for camping costs came in at just over $30 per night. This is pretty consistent with prior years.

As we sit on our lot at TGO in Titusville Florida this winter, we are finding that having a nice place to stay with a shed to store our bikes and other stuff out of the weather is quite nice. I can do some of the maintenance chores on the motorhome that are more difficult to do in a gravel lot in a state park. Since returning to TGO this November, I have washed and waxed the rig, replaced the return springs on our leveling jacks and even had one of our air conditioners replaced - although I hired that job out to people more skilled at that task. We also did start to get established with a doctor and dentist in the area. This was part of the reason for buying the RV lot - needing to have “shallow roots” so we can take care of ourselves as we get older.

Like we have done in previous year end reviews, we have looked over the 42 stops for the year and tried to identify several of our favorites. Even though I will provide the campground we stayed at in an area, do not look at this as a campground review. We seldom pick a campground based on its amenities. We are more looking for a great location and the campground tends to just be the place the motorhome gets parked for the duration of our visit. In fact, one of the top stops this year was the gravel lot on the side of an Elks Lodge with no RV services. Many campers may consider that too primitive, but we found a lot to do in the area and would love to go back for more in the future. For each of the stops, there is a short description of the stop, a link to the first blog post for that location which will provide more details about the stop, and a couple of my favorite pictures from the stop. In chronological order, here is the list for 2024:

• Indian River Habitat for Humanity ReStore Vero Beach Florida - This place isn’t your typical campground. In fact, if you find yourself in Vero Beach, you won’t be able to stay here unless you have signed up for one of the Habitat for Humanity RV Care-A-Vanner builds at this local affiliate well in advance. We were here for a 2 week assignment in early March. Vero Beach is a pretty area with lots of small towns along the coast to visit and quite a few wildlife areas to walk around or go for a bike ride. The Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge is the oldest NWR in the country and we drove around the Goodwin Waterfowl Management Area but should have visited with our bicycles. I’m sure we could have found plenty more to see and do in the area.

But the true reason this place made our list was being part of a large group of like minded RVers here to help lend a hand from building new homes, refurbishing existing homes or working in the ReStore. This was only the third one of these builds we have been part of, but this affiliate runs their program like a well oiled machine. They can accommodate just about any skill level so you don’t need to have been a general contractor to find a job at the build site. And while swinging a hammer and helping out a good cause is therapeutic in a way, it was the camaraderie of the eight couples that made this a winning stop for us.

Vero Beach Blog Post 

Our RV Care-a-Vanner Crew at Vero Beach

Wall Raising Ceremony

• Collier Seminole State Park Naples Florida - We spent 10 nights at this state park in the southwest corner of the state. There are both state and federal preserves in the area that were wonderful to explore. We spent two days on long bike rides at both Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park and Big Cypress National Preserve basically riding with alligators! There were also lots of less strenuous (or dangerous) things to see and do in the area. Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary has a 2 plus mile boardwalk though a very scenic area. And for an even more laid back day, Marco Island was a fun visit.

First Naples Blog Post

One of Dozens of Gators to Bike Past

Royal Terns on Marco Island

• Green Mountain Family Campground Middlebury Vermont - We spent the whole month of June at this place in the beautiful Green Mountains of Vermont. The hiking was excellent but challenging at times. This stop gave us one of our favorite hikes from our eighth year review - Mount Abraham. But there was more to see and do in the area than just hike. We spent a day each at both Shelburne Museum and Shelburne Farms and really enjoyed them. We also learned all about the granite industry in this part of the state. I wrote 8 blog posts about our stay so it is tough to summarize another than to tell you to check out this part of Vermont.

First Green Mountains Post

Chris Enjoys View at Buck Mountain

At the Granite Quarry

• Moose River Campground St Johnsbury Vermont - While we technically were camping at this place in Vermont for the month of August, we were here because of its proximity to the White Mountains of New Hampshire just a a few miles away from camp. The hiking here was excellent as well although it seems like the White Mountains are a bit more popular with hikers so we ran into more crowds on the trails. The two places we went back to multiple times were Franconia Notch and Crawford Notch. I suspect we could move to this area and spend the rest of our lives hiking and never need to repeat a hike if we didn’t want to. We also found several excellent rail trails that we spent multiple days exploring 20 to 30 miles at a time by bicycle. Lamoille Valley Trail may have been our favorite but the Ammonoosuc River and the Presidential Range Trails were quite nice as well. And then there were the two train rides. One to the top of Mount Washington via the cog railway and the scenic train ride out of Conway New Hampshire.

First White Mountains Blog

Our Ride to the Top of Mount Washington

Covered Bridge Over Ammonoosuc River in Bath NH

• Katahdin Shadows Campground Medway Maine - We only managed to fit in a week here around the second week of September. The main draw for us to this out of the way spot in central Maine was Baxter State Park. It’s a pristine wilderness area that has very limited services to help keep it that way. There are excellent hiking opportunities and for the really hardcore hikers, this is the location where the Appalachian Trail starts/ends. But we found other things in the region including a lumbermen’s museum and possibly one of the nicest biking areas at the Penobscot River Trails. Had we known how much we were going to like this place, we likely would have tried to book a spot for a month or longer.

Medway Maine Blog

Mount Katahdin from Penobscot River Trails

Keep Maine Beautiful

• Wareham - New Bedford Elks Lodge Wareham Massachusetts - This lodge does not have any RV services like electric, water or dump station. But they do have a fairly large and level gravel lot next to the main paved parking lot and we had decent sun exposure for our solar system to help charge our batteries while boondocking here. This place is in southeastern Massachusetts and it worked out well for visiting Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod. It would also have worked to take in Nantucket had we only been able to stay another day or two, but now we know that staying just 4 nights wasn’t long enough. We spent a very long day taking the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, walking 10 miles around the island and trying to fit in as many sites as we could manage in a single day and then returning to the mainland. We also got in a nearly 25 miles bike ride along the Shining Sea Bikeway. The drive onto Cape Cod was nice but there was to much to see along the drive that we weren’t able to get all the way to the tip of the cape.

Blog post to be written

Ned's Point Lighthouse

Sunset on Ferry From Martha's Vineyard

Below is a map showing all 386 places we have camped in the past eight and a half years. For additional information on any of them, click on the link below the map which will open the actual Google Map I use. Pan and zoom on the map and by clicking on any pin, a window will pop up with the name of the location and a link to the blog post(s) for that place. Those interested in hiking, mountain biking, geocaching or nature photography, may find some of the posts useful if you plan to visit an area we have explored. Our blog posts are more about the interesting locations we discovered during our stops and less about campground reviews so don't expect to find much information about what campground is the best in a specific area.

Click HERE to open interactive Google map

So what does 2025 hold for us? Originally we had reserved some state park campgrounds down in the Florida Keys and the Everglades for most of January and the first half of February, but we are reassessing those plans as I try to get past a couple of health concerns our newfound doctor has identified. We figure it makes more sense to stay in the Titusville area to deal with tests and appointments until I get the all clear. We also haven’t put any thought into where we might spend the warmer months but will eventually figure it out.

Maine Conclusion

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

We still have a three days left in our stay in Topsham Maine but based on the weather forecast, the middle of these days was going to be a very rainy one. So we decide to go out and try to get some hiking and sightseeing in before the trails get wet. This part of coastal Maine doesn’t have as many good trails like those found in Acadia National Park about 100 miles to the east. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t hikes to be found, we will just need to visit a few smaller parks and preserves in order to achieve some reasonable distance. Like we often do, we let geocaching help guide our plans and head off to Sebascodegan Island south of camp. Our goal is the Cliff Trail. A 2.2 mile loop that starts behind Harpswell Town Hall.

The trail starts out as a very nice gravel trail next to a small inlet. This part of the hike is actually handicap accessible and we have a few geocaches to find along the first half mile. We were here near low tide so the inlet looked more like an oversized mud pit.

Starting Out on the Cliff Trail

Low Tide Muck

One part of the trail was identified as the “Fairy House Building Zone”. We have come across a fair number of these in various parks all over the country. This one was a bit unusual. Most fairy houses we have seen had been constructed by someone from material they had at home and were often quite whimsical. The “rules” for the fairy homes here were to be made purely of things found on the forest floor. That definitely limits how elaborate a house design can be. In fact, we were having a hard time convincing ourselves that we were seeing a fairy home instead of a simple pile of sticks and rocks.

Fairy House Zone

Possible Fairy House?

The gravel ended and the Cliff Trail continued into the woods and became a much more normal woodland trail with planks over wet areas and lots of roots from the trees.

A More Traditional Trail

Roots

The trail eventually worked its way over to a body of water called Long Reach. And it was at this point that it became clear where the trail got its name. A short but steep climb got us to the top of a cliff overlooking the water about 100 feet below.

Overlooking Long Reach

Climb to Top of Cliff

Small Island

Up to this point we had been the only ones around, but now we started to run in several locals out for a run or walking their dogs. The trail follows along the top of the cliff for about a half mile before cutting back to the west and heading down into the woods and coming along the backside of the town’s recycling center and back to the town hall. It was a pleasant hike.

At the Edge of the Cliff

Mossy Roots

Next we would drive south onto several other islands. We had several places we hoped to check out but the weather right along the coast was looking questionable so we drove 7 miles to the other place we really wanted to see - The Giant’s Stairs on Bailey Island. This destination was a bit secluded in a fairly residential area. There were “no parking” signs along most of the road. The parking area at the north end only has a few spots and none were open. We continued down the street and eventually found a gravel pullout on one side of the road there parking was permitted and another entrance to the path overlooking the ocean.

Southern Entrance to Path 

The rock formations along the shore were very striking with them tilted up in such a way to have the layers nearly ninety degrees to the ground instead of parallel like is more common.

Cool Rock Formations Along Atlantic Ocean

Closeup View

The waves were crashing on the shore but likely would have been even more impressive had we been here closer to high tide. Near the northern end of the path, we came upon the namesake for the trail. A plaque designates the Giant Stairs although had the sign not been there, I may not have identified the staircase nature of the rocks at this location.

The Giant's Stairs

Path

Once to the northern end of the path, we could have headed up to the road and walked back to the car, but it seems that walking along the path next to the water would be much more scenic.

Very Colorful Rocks

We got back to the car to decide where to next. We saw there was a place called Land’s End Gift Shop and a Lobsterman’s Statue less than a mile south at the end of the island. So we make a quick detour down here and check out the views. There appears to be a home situated on the very small island less than a quarter mile away. It must take a different type of person to want to live on an island at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.

Lobsterman's Statue

At Lands End

Jaquish Island

Bailey Island Beach

So far the rain has held off with us experiencing a few brief bouts of mist from time to time. Since we were at Lands End, there is only one way out so we head back north stopping at some of the pullouts overlooking some of the small bays full of boats on this dreary afternoon.

Crowded Bay Along Maine Coast

Our last stop of the day was right along Harpswell Island Road at a set of trails known as the Devil’s Back. We felt obligated to stop for this set of trails simply because we seem to have been on a run of Devil themed hikes this past year. There were loop trails on either side of the road - each being about a mile in length. We started with the trail on the west side since there was a geocache hidden along it. There were a couple of sailboats moored in the bay as we followed the trail along the water.

Uprooted Tree Along Trail

Catamaran

Sailboat

The loop back required a climb up a rather steep section that even had some heavy ropes to help pull ourselves up and out. By the time we got to the parking lot to start the loop on the east side, it started to rain and this time it was looking to be more substantial than just mist. We ended up with maybe a total of 4 or 5 miles in our three stops. Had it been a sunny day, they would have been even better but we still enjoyed the trip.

Steep Section of Trail

We had a lot of rain the following day and we were starting to question how solid the camping sites are at the fairgrounds. But we ended up not sinking or floating away. For our last day in the area, we wanted to head into Freeport. It’s only about 10 miles southwest of Topsham, so it’s a quick drive. This is a very popular destination in Maine because of all the outlets stores. There isn’t an outlet mall, per se, but to some degree the whole downtown feels like one.

Freeport Shops

We do wander around some of the shops but the real draw for Freeport at least for us is one specific store - L.L. Bean. This is the home of the company and their flagship store is huge. In fact, there isn’t just one building but several scattered around a several block radius.

L.L. Bean Flagship Store

We end up spending a long time wandering around seeing if there is something we need. I don’t find anything I must absolutely have but Chris does find some comfy slippers. There are lots of animal displays around the store as well and of course there is the iconic boot outside the main entrance.

Finally Saw a Moose!

The L.L. Bean Boot

We picked up a lobster roll to celebrate our several week stay in Maine before heading to the nearby Mast Landing Audubon Sanctuary just east of town. There are several trails with the longest one being a 1.5 mile loop. We head out for a walk and find one geocache along the way.

Start of Trail at Mast Landing

A Newer Boardwalk Section

The land used to have a stream powered sawmill. There are also a couple of old buildings that look to have been used to some degree in the past decade or so, but are now mostly boarded up and vacant.

Old House on Mast Landing Property

We do find the old granite blocks that were part of the old mill but not much else of the original holding remains. But at least there is an informational sign that talks about the mill back in the early 1800’s. It was a relatively easy walk and we were the only people wandering around today.

Large Granite Wall from Old Mill

Snake Watches Us

One last stop for the day was another one of these small parks that seem to be in the middle of private homes. Tidebrook Preserve is a 44 acre parcel south of Freeport. We drive to the parking area and it definitely looked like we were just parking at someone’s driveway. One homeowner was out trimming some bushes but they didn’t seem to be concerned about us being there. Then we noticed some signs for various trails that go through the preserve. We pick the Red Trail that heads south along the Harraseeket River. It was near low tide again so the water level was fairly low.

Fence Along Meadow

River View

The Red Trail came back out to the road and we decided to walk down to check out the view. There is a causeway out to Bartol Island but there are also private property signs so we turn around and head back up the road to the intersection with the Yellow Trail. This trail wanders around more of a meadow area that overlooks a bay. There were some maple trees that we starting to get some bright fall colors but it will be weeks before we hit peak colors. We head down toward the bay to the end of the trail.

Trees Starting to Change Colors

Overlooking the Bay

At the edge of the Bay

The trail comes back up through the meadow and sort of looks like we are walking into the backyard of one of the residents. But we continue to find trail markers and we cut into the woods to follow the Blue Trail. This section is nice too but doesn’t have the good views of the water. In all, we likely completed a 2 mile hike and found one of the geocaches along the way.

Trail in the Woods

That concludes our 26 nights in Maine this year. Combined with the 55 nights we spent in the state back in 2018, we have experienced much of Maine but we now know there is more to see and do, so we will need to keep a return visit in the cards. We still have 15 nights before our next camping reservation down in Richmond Virginia. The plan is to almost exclusively use Elks lodges as we work our way south. We have a couple of stops planned for Massachusetts with the first one being less than 200 miles away.

Since our monthlong stop to see the White Mountains of New Hampshire was actually done out of St Johnsbury Vermont, I sort of felt that we really should spend at least one night in New Hampshire before we head south. There is an Elks Lodge in Dover NH that has electric hookups and is more or less on our route so I decide we should split the distance in half and stop in Dover. We pull into driveway at the lodge and find it was lined with dozens of cars. Turns out there was some sort of event taking place in the field right next to where the electric pole is for campers. It didn’t look like the party was going to be ending soon so we headed to the large parking lot behind the lodge and found it was nearly empty. We know we can easily dry camp for one night so we don’t even worry about trying to move out front once the party is over. We head into the bar and check in with them and the bartender was fine with our parking spot.

We have been doing fairly well finding caches in counties of several of the states in the northeast so far this year but we were missing two counties in New Hampshire. This might have been another part of my reason for stopping in Dover since one of the needed counties was where Dover is situated and the other was just 15 miles or so to the northwest. I headed out in the afternoon to complete my mission.

In the town of Alton, I came upon a virtual cache that highlighted something a bit unusual. I was brought to the town cemetery which in itself isn’t odd but I was led to the grave of a horse! A former resident of the town that had fought in the Civil War requested that his horse from the war be buried next to him. When the time came to bury the horse, the town would not allow the animal to be buried in the cemetery so the horse’s grave was placed outside of the cemetery grounds near the soldier. But since 1885, the cemetery expanded and soon horse was now in the cemetery. RIP “Old Tom”.

"Old Tom" The Horse Buried in Alton Cemetery