New Additions to My Blog

My apologies, I am very far behind in my blog.  My hope for the next two weeks is to get it all caught up.  At the moment I am at least trying to get all of the photos up for each state I visited, then go back and add the text, notes, links to the photos.

8/2/2011-all photos are now up.  Adding text and links.

Here are the latest additions.

13th State: Aug. 14, 2010 – Wisconsin paddle and visit to Bayfield. Bayfield.

14th State: August 30(?), 2010 – First attempt. Sept. 5, 2010-Detroit River Paddle.

15th State: Sept. 25, 2010 – New York State near Niagara Falls.  10/3/10 - Visit with Vandweller Cuzzin’ Dick.

16th State: Oct. 16, 2010 – New Hampshire, slide show… text to follow later.

17th State: Oct.19, 2010 – Maine – Acadia National Park.  Friends-Jackie and John Morgan.  Fryeburg Faire – an other worldly experience.  Some of the BEST of Maine.

18th State: Oct. 19, 2010 – Vermont

19th State: Oct. 21, 2010 – Massachusetts – with vandweller Kay (oldmapsne).

20th and 21st States: Oct. 25, 2010 – Rhode Island and Connecticut.

22nd State: Oct. 27, 2010 – New Jersey and Mike (Hillwizard).

23rd State: Nov. 2, 2010 – Delaware.

24th State: Nov. 2, 2010 – Maryland.

25th State: Nov. 5, 2010 – Virginia

26th State: Nov. 10, 2010 – North Carolina (with Judith)

27th State: Nov. 13, 2010 – South Carolina

28th State: Nov. 15, 2010 – Georgia

29th State: Nov. 26-Dec. 31, 2010 – Florida (three paddles)

30th State: July 18, 2011 – Tennessee

31st State: July 23, 2011 – West Virginia

32nd State: July 24, 2011 – Pennsylvania

33rd State: July 28 and 29, 2011 – Ohio. Ohio (continued).

A couple other topics added:

An interesting trailer

My life transition

I am willing to do a 8.5" x 10.5” pencil sketch for anyone who donates a minimum of $15 plus $5 for postage and handling to my PayPal Gasoline account.  See my artwork.  Or on my old website… digroots.com.

A neat trailer… a prototype!

I saw this on my travels… and thought some people might really like this set-up.

Probably seen in Oregon.  I think this is the company, but I don’t see this trailer on their site. http://www.trailersplus.com/Oregon/Eugene/. 

I don’t see this trailer listed on the site.

Why, why am I kayaking the country!?

I just ran across this set of photos clustering in a folder by themselves.  I realized they told a story all by themselves.  I don’t know why they were in the folder together, or if that was my intent so I am putting them here… because I think it is an important story.

In the Spring 2001, I met my second husband-to-be.  We planned to be married in June 2001… but we married in the hospital in May 27, 2001 and he died in surgery June 4, 2001 (now I don’t write that to make anyone sad).  I cried for almost a year. I was suicidal.

To get my mind off my grief and try to reclaim my life, I took my little granddaughter, Tori, on a cruise to Alaska.  Somehow that didn’t quite do it for me… but this photo kinda kicked me into gear… realizing I am only happy when I’m outside.  The above photo and the one in the raft below were only taken about ONE month apart.  Yes, hard to believe.

So after the Alaska trip, I began working on my plan to downsize and become mobile.  The process can be painfully slow, especially if it involves two knee replacements, a car accident, two shoulder surgeries, and misc. other uncontrolled events (like trees falling through the roof of your storage unit in Washington state when you are in Califonia, or a month later after you moved your stuff into a new storage unit and returned to California, the new unit floods and you have to return to Washington again… this time buying a trailer and hauling what’s left away from there)  but I just kept the goal in mind and kept plugging away.

Eight years later, there I am camped in Quartzsite, AZ awaiting the arrival of other vandwellers… with everything I own is in tow.

Bob Wells took the below photo a month or so later… and it sums up the transition for me… I hope it does for you.  The moral of this story, is if it is your dream to live a mobile life – just keep plugging away at it.  Keep the dream in sight.  I think it saved my life.

Swankie 

(story of the name Swankie… my mom was a Bevis, she married a Beaty, and I married a Bailey first time – oh someone has got to change this pattern Bevis, Beaty, Bailey… so it was nice to finally get a swankie name – and that was really his name David Swankie – the love of my life)