Running Away from Winter Blues

It is something we all put up with every year if we live in a place that the snow flies and the sun hides its warm, shinning face for days and weeks on end. The cold winter blues. The longing for that sun and warmth, longer days and for old man winter to quit dumping ton and tons of snow on us.

One of the reasons we chose Central and South America as our destination is to run away from the grey winter days which seem to go on forever. It’s funny how even our skin looses the life glow like the trees loose their leaves. It is only the second week of January and I am done with winter… but it’s not done with me.

I dream of warm beaches, colorful trees blooming in bright orange and yellows and green grass. Tropical breezes and an abundance of critters hootin’ and a hollerin’ swinging through the trees and flying in colorful waves through the sky.

The older I get the more my mind and body crave this warm stimulation. Freedom from the stress of white knuckle driving on snow and ice packed roads. Freedom from the back breaking shovels of cold wet slop on top of the old black frozen slop from a few days before. My very soul longs to feel the sun on my body.

Soon enough…

The Stories in Faces

Photo Gallery

In all our travels around the world… thee one thing we enjoy the most is the faces of the people. Faces tell stories. Stories of hardship, stories of happiness, stories of evolution. If eyes are the gateway to the soul… the face tells the tale of life itself.

The faces in this gallery are from Dominica, Costa Rica, Columbia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Panama, Ethiopia and Barbados.

On Becoming a Minimalist

So the biggest challenge that faces us is liquidating everything we own. It is amazing to me that two people can collect so much “stuff”.  Our first house was 1300 sq. feet. It was two bedrooms and a living room and a kitchen… simple and never too cluttered.  As with the American dream, and the desire to pay as little to the Man as possible we moved into a 2600 sq. foot home. More rooms and more “stuff”. Our third home, the one we currently occupy, 6500 sq. feet and even more “stuff”. Lots and lots of “STUFF”. The bigger the space to more room to accumulate.

If you asked me to name two or three things I could not live without, I would tell you some trinket, object or maybe a favorite bed. Ask me what I would grab if my house burnt to the ground… I would answer my GF, dog and cat, and perhaps iPad and cell phone. Isn’t it sad that aside from living things I would probably rank my media devices over anything else. Actually my past 20 years is stored on those devices so it would be like my grandmother grabbing her family photos and memoirs. Of course we do have “the cloud” so these devices are actually just material items.

Last year we began to eliminate the clutter. Can I tell you how freeing it is! Just last weekend we filled two 50 gallon garbage cans just from one room in our house. We have donated clothes, blankets, pillows, and other miscellaneous sundries that have been gathering dust for years. We are down to just the bare needs in the kitchen. Our closet of clothes that once spilled into two walk in closets has shrunk into less than one. Of course a girl must have her shoes so it has been hard for Chris to part with those, even though she hasn’t worn them in years.

Our goal is to have everything we own fit into a 1998 Toyota Land Cruiser. Like a turtle our home will be on our backs. This is not our first rodeo, we’ve done this before in 1992-93 when we hit the road in a 24′ fifth wheel trailer for over 10 months. We traveled all over the USA until we ran out of money. This time we are MUCH older and wiser and have more “STUFF”. This time we will be gone for 10-15 years or longer, till death do us part… This time the emphasis will be on spiritual growth and the accumulation of memories rather than treasures.

“Hitting the Road”…What Exactly Does This Mean?

This is the post excerpt.

What a great question, and one I’ve asked myself many times. When I first thought about it I envisioned the three of us driving on the highways and byways of Mexico down to Panama, stopping at beaches and pitching our rooftop tent. Wake up in the morning and hit the road again… My mind just couldn’t wrap itself around the idea that we don’t have any place to be at any particular time. This is an alien thought to someone with a full time job and daily responsibilities. We call this idea a “vacation”… a bit of time set aside to go recreate somewhere away from home with a finite timeline.

For us it will be more of a vagabond lifestyle…with means. Belongings “on our back” or in our 1998 Land Cruiser and all the time in the world to explore destinations unknown to us for now. It will be a serious unwind from 25 years in the same business. Time to reflect on our finite existence in an undetermined amount of time…as much as it takes. To enjoy creature comforts as they present themselves, a hot shower, flush toilet, real bed, and depending on how long we’ve been on the road, people. Time enough to connect to our surroundings without the ever looming time crunch of a “vacation”. It will be a new lifestyle not set in any boundaries of time or space.

I can tell you when I originally mentioned this idea to Chris I scared myself. At first it will be hard to just relax. Then there are the unknowns, which actually is what adds spice to life and the journey, but is frightening. We’ve done it before but in a country where we felt “safe”…for some reason. With propaganda and warnings from our own government telling us it is not “safe” to travel out of our little cushy country, it makes it tough to not be looking over your shoulder.

There is no rule book. No instruction manual. No “How to for Idiots”. It’s like jumping off a pier with 100 lbs of weight strapped to your waist and having faith that you won’t sink straight to the bottom of the ocean. It’s a combination of faith mixed with a bit of crazy. There’s only one way to do it. JUST DO IT! Look forward and embrace the unknown.