Tag: Traveling

The End of an Era

It has begun…today we officially sold our Adventure Van, SleepyTurtle. The UTV and trailer got sold to a friend we’ve been selling cars to forever. All of our toys and our “home” have gone to good homes. This we are happy about. The universe has been at play in the last 3 months.

As sad as it was to loose Gandaulf, we were in the right place…not in Baja. His death was the beginning of the avalanche of change in our lives. Our entire lives have been geared around Gandaulf, so when he went over the rainbow bridge, we felt a great loss and confusion.

This entire week has been all about getting back on our feet, liquidating everything and getting on with our new chapter of life. Mornings are getting easier, and we are beginning to accept whatever has happened as our path. It’s bucking against things as they come up, that causes us discomfort. As we listen and pay attention to the signs, being aware of the subtle nuances of our daily life, things fall into place. Things that seemed insurmountable.

Farewells have also begun this week. This is where I struggle. We have touched so many new lives, and made so many new friends over the last 3 years which may not seem like that big of a deal to some but for Chris and I, we never have been able to develop friendships outside of work. Now we’ve connected on a deeply personal maybe even spiritual level, and unknowingly influenced their lives by just being ourselves. This for me is a gift. It is exceedingly difficult to connect with people at a meaningful level these days, perhaps due to mistrust and social media…Or maybe the later makes it easier? These special relationships will never go away, and there is no such thing as “goodbye” in our book.

May 6, 2023 will be our new adventure start date. Until then, the universe has our backs.

Love to all of you. J

Ocean Breath

This vessel has brought me to this place

A place untouched for hundreds of thousands of years

Magic

Miracles

This vessel has brought me to this place

I stare off into the endless horizon

Breathe deep the salt air

Breathe with the ocean

Breathe into the endless sky

The horizon bent ever so slightly

Breathe into the endless sky

The rhythmic crashing of the waves

The white froth running across an unseen force

The slow rocking of the boat

Breathe deep the salt air

Breathe with the ocean

Breathe into the endless sky

JA Galapagos 2021

My new book

 I believe that we were born free spirits, destined to meet each other from birth. We met in our late twenties in Salt Lake City Utah in 1991, after I had moved from Connecticut, 2,300 miles. One of the first things Chris asked me was…”would you be willing to sell everything you own and travel with me?” My answer didn’t take a second thought…”Of course” and the world opened up to us. We hit the road in 1993 and haven’t looked back since. Our need for travel and discovering new cultures, took us all over the world.

We traveled long before. Cell phones, GPS and computers. We had to get maps from AAA, travel books and a big paper map for each state and country we planned to see. When the cell phone and GPS came out, the world became so small and our lust for travel and increased our thirst for overseas travel.

Fast forward 32 years… we set ourselves up so we could retire early. We started planning a life overseas. My dream of being a writer, photographer and artist finally came to fruition.

This book is a collection of travel memoirs taking you, the reader, along with us on our travels. Submerse yourself in the descriptive words and stories. Laugh and cry with us. Feel our fear and our joy, but most of all, enjoy.

Here’s the link to the Amazon book

https://a.co/d/dxpbRIF

Some Days

Some days things are just right

The morning brings sunshine

Birds sing

The warmth fills into the spaces, the night has left behind

The chill escapes unnoticed

I drink in the early light

Today, the sun was missing

The clouds laughed at my wishes

Wilderness Travelers: Part One

Life Off Grid

Life on the road is not a vacation. You are not going home. You are home. You didn’t skirt any chores, honey-do fix it project, or little things that need to be done, because there’s always something to fix on the van, and it’s sometimes harder on the road. 

Living off grid is a wonderful adventure if you have the right state of mind, as my grandparents used to say,”got enough gumption.” Where ever you land is where you call home. Some places feel like a place you’d like to stay and experience all it’s energy. Others are just quick over nights. 

I think that life in the wilderness affords you a certain peace of mind, softens the heart, and gives you a connection to the earth. You live with the flies, the mosquitos, the ants and mice. You’re in their home as a visitor. You live sometimes on dusty roads with the humidity just right, and the air just still enough, that the dust hangs like a heavy cloud, suffocating all manor of life, including you. Other times you’ll live on a desert plateau or a beach, or a mountain riverside. Each pallet a different experience. Each is your little place in the world at that second. Your footprint is very small. 

You may meet people here and there. Each with their own story to tell. Each exist in their struggle to belong, to find something they think is missing. Out on the road there’s only you to deal with (except in a COVID-19 pandemic). With COVID, anyone you meet and even the air you breathe can make you sick. In general most people are kind and courteous, following the rules. We are all on the same path to be calm and stay healthy.

I have a certain affinity for trees, perhaps I was a squirrel once. The taller the better. These enduring sentinels hold years upon years of memories of season upon season. In the Wild I connect to everything animate and inanimate. The depth of the silence, the rivers voice heard loud and clear and echoing through the canyons. The peel of a bird of preys call. This is a place of magic and whimsy. 

You need only 4 things when vagabonding… food, a clean source of water, gas (petrol and LPG) and a safe place to park. We prefer places away from people but this isn’t always possible. So you bend and accept whatever accommodations you can for that night. We are always able to move in the morning to a more suitable place to call home. Everything is fluid.