Little Niece Jordan

San Diego was short but sweet. Lots of hanging out, walking on the bluffs over the beach, and a pleasantly sunny Sunday BBQ. My brother Jason and his wife Joanna had their first baby this last New Years, a little girl named Jordan. She has the whole family coo-coo for coco puffs, and you can see why when she gazes at you with those perfectly pure innocent blue eyes. She is an amazingly good baby, and they are such doting new parents. I love to see my brother melt when he kisses her little forehead.

Babies can really soften you up. Even me, I came home and said, “I want one!” Ron had the typical slightly frightened, slightly excited expression on his face. Maybe after the trip…

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My Pink MGB

Yesterday I drove my little car down to my brothers in San Diego.. My Dad flew out to drive it back to Oklahoma to store for the year. He is the bestest in the world! He not only spent a year, painstakingly and lovingly restoiring the car but then even painted it PINK just for me. It was so fun having a convertible, throwing the top down on a warm day, driving in the salty California air. It’s too bad I only had it for 5 months!

The drive was pretty lame. Even though I left at 7:45am I didn’t get to SD until after 7pm. Ugh. Most of the problem was that it was the Friday before Memorial Day so a lot of folks were hittin the road. I thought I would be safe getting to LA at 2pm but boy was I wrong...It took 1 hour to go 10 miles. I was hot, sweaty, dehydrated, stuck with the top up as the ipod and gps both ran out of battery, in a jam-packed 6 lanes wide bumper to bumper as far as you can see.

Now I remember why I hate SmelLA. Traffic is horrendous, drivers are rude, if you don’t ride up on someones ass you are cut in front of mercilessly. Zero to 80mph to Zero. Over and over and over. But at least I got to see my girl Vanessa at her work, which was a pit stop from heaven! Gatorade is thirst aid, let me tell you.

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The Green-Eyed Monster

Now that most everyone in my life knows I’m going, an interesting phenomenon is occurring. And this time I’m glad to be on the other side of it.

I remember clearly when a few years back my friend JC announced he was quitting his job to travel the world. I smiled and nodded as he talked about his plans, inside alternating between screaming at the top of my lungs and just blanking out because it was too much to hear about what I secretly dreamed of doing but didn’t have the guts to do.

Now I see this same look in the eyes of some people who are wishing me well on my journey. They sort of loathe me. They don’t want to admit it but they do.

This is only a few people mind you. Not everyone really wants to do this. Some can say “Oh how wonderful! I’m so jealous!” but the reality of really doing it would never be seriously considered. Why? Because it’s tough. It’s not for everybody. It’s complicated and messy and involves a series of unknown mishaps. Believe me, I like the consistency and stability of a life with boundaries you can see clearly and the rules are well understood. But not for every single year of, what I hope to be, a long and fruitful life.

So to those who want to go. GO! I’m proof you can actually just get up one overcast Sunday and decide to do it. You can overcome any challenge or obligation if you get persistent and creative.

Money is easy, live below your means for a couple years, anyone can do that. Do you really need another <fill-in-the-blank>? Chances are, probably not.

For those of you with children, who think it can’t be done, this blog puts that excuse to rest: 360 Degrees Longitude

So start planning your escape already!

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REI Wonderland

I don’t like to shop. I am not very trendy, not a fashionista, nor a big consumer. I know those in my former life at Macy’s are wincing at this blasphemous statement. Yes, I said it. My dirty little secret is exposed.

But at least every week these days I wake up, pray silently towards the north and scramble excitedly to the the mecca that is my neighborhood REI. The one exception where I buy things almost uncontrollably. I can spend hours looking at all the millions of handy items that would make my camping, backpacking, and hiking trips more bearable if not luxurious. I even linger on things that I could never use, often talking myself into buying something cool that I may need “someday” and it ends up collecting dust in the garage. Never mind that REI has been a slight addiction, it remains a veritable wonderland for the adventurer or those that dream of being adventurous.

And thanks to my former colleagues extremely thoughtful gift cards for my departure, I got totally set-up this week for our final purchases. Two large shoulder bags, long sleeve shirts, water filter, and travel towel. If you’re reading along, thanks again! and I miss you!

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A Second Job

Getting ready to goof off for a year is really a lot of work. Nobody told me I’d be working 10 hour days and still feel a bit overwhelmed. Now I know you can just get up and go. Plenty of plucky adventurers just buy a ticket and hit the road. I even did it once when I was 22. Threw some old clothes in a secondhand backpack, got a passport, and jumped on a plane a few weeks later.

But a decade later it’s a little harder to just up and leave. Things need to be organized, somewhat. Loose ends tied up, if not in a boyscout knot at least in a scissor-curled bow. I do hold out on the hope that once every kitty is nestled in its fuzzy catbed and everything else is nestled in its storage cube that I can let go a little more. Not have to have it all figured out. Not have a 12 tab excel spreadsheet of stuff to categorize, calculate, and remember to do. Not live by a list to check off.


And just float for awhile. Somewhere in the Aegean sea perhaps...

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First Need XL Water Purifier

Dubbed the best portable water purifier for hiking and camping by Modern Outpost, we are hoping this doohickey will save us loads of money on bottled water simultaneously saving us from waterborne illness.

The specs on the First Need XL Water Purifier that make it special include a 0.1 micron filter that filters out all 3 classes of microbiological baddies, including cysts, bacteria, and viruses. JC has even purported such extreme uses as drinking water filtered through this purifier from rivers in Calcutta and Nepal, and has lived to tell tale. That gets my seal of approval!

And as an added bonus, I do hear that you get big biceps from filling a few containers a day so Ron has his daily workout regimen to look forward to. I’ll be sure to make him switch it up so he doesn’t come back all outta whack with one arm brawny and the other scrawny.

Yes, I am also a poet.

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Feckless Drifting

We went up to the Olympic Peninsula to visit my Mom and drop off camping gear and other essentials for after the trip, like a business suit (banishing the thought about future job interviews for now!). They have an incredible house with an equally incredible view of the bay. And we ate like kings, my Mom the chef recreating Lamb Shank with Mushroom Bolognese from the Tra Vigne cookbook, and drank like royalty with “her Ron” as the always savvy sommelier serving wine from his home-crafted wine cellar. You know its special when a Ledson makes the line up. I am careless to not have a photo of this masterpiece. And this is on Mother’s Day!

I should have been the one cooking. Although I did chop some of the ingredients like a dutiful sous chef, I would then disappear into the office to offer meager technical support to the home network configuration kerfuffle in progress. Just 3 days ago I configured Rocky’s router, network, printer, and file sharing in under an hour. That is the bliss and then ultimate aggravation of technology. One minute easy, the next impossible. And then Vista, forget it!

But after the plate was licked clean, the last drop of wine drunk, and the router was secure and purring it was almost already time for our departure from the warmth of my family.

My mom is just amazing and we are so incredibly lucky to be as close as we are even, and especially, as the years go by. She had tears in her eyes as we gave our last hugs for the year, although hopefully we meet up at some point on the trip, “perhaps New Zealand!” saying she felt like she was birthing me into the world again. That moment made me feel like a little girl full of a mothers love, which is like no other, and confident to follow my heart wherever it may lead. My mom with her unwavering support is unabashedly proud I’m running off to see the world. With full permission to be a "feckless drifter". I like the sound of that! But I admit I didn’t know what feckless meant and had to Google it later.

Feckless (Adj) Lacking purpose; Without skill, ineffective, incompetent; Lacking the courage to act in any meaningful way; Lacking vitality

Hmmmmmm. This doesn’t seem exactly what I thought it meant or what I think she meant. More of a drifting with no ulterior motive but to drift. Travel for travels sake. Not needing to get anywhere but to be just where you are when you get there.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

That will be my definition of fecklessly drifting around the world.

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