It was quite dark, although rather warm, when I made the last leg of my journey a couple of nights ago. I could just see the lights of downtown Seattle from my corner of Hwy 509 before turning up the hill into West Seattle. I was trying to decide whether I felt exhilarated or deflated as I wound my way along streets I knew all too well, stopping at the appropriate corners for lights almost without noticing. This was home—or at least as close to it as I was going to get for now—there was no doubt. The last bit of [View Full Entry]

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This morning there was a lot of dew on the van windows, and Lance noted a certain coolness to the air that reminded him of fall. This is a bit disconcerting, as it reminds us that there are only a couple weeks left to our adventure. It is mid-August, and Amanda has to go back to work by the end of August. While I am looking forward to certain aspects of my working life, it is difficult to imagine giving up the sense of freedom I have felt for so many months now. In our current daily reality, time has more [View Full Entry]

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You may not have read the news, but California has been having a heat wave. We recently read in the paper that many people have died, and we can personally verify that it has been well over 100 degrees. Happy to be escaping the humidity in China, it was a bit of let down to encounter such extreme heat back on US soil. Hence, it was with no hesitation that we headed for the mountains as soon as we could after our reunion with Van-gogh and a day of regrouping near LA. Our first destination was Sequoia National Park, the [View Full Entry]

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We have been back in California for a while now, and China is starting to seem like a million miles away, and yet my mind is still whirling with thoughts about the trip. We talk about China during our various hikes, continuing to process and clarify details and meanings, and thus it is that the trip will have a life well beyond the actual days we were there. When I last left off, we had finished our now infamous climb of Mount Emei, and were headed south, out of Sichuan Province. To reach Panzhihua, the jumping off point for the [View Full Entry]

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The miracle of flying still persists, even now, many hours after we have gotten our feet back on firm ground. We have just completed two journeys across the Pacific Ocean, the wonder of which never escapes me. I can only imagine the months it must have taken by sea not too many generations ago. Despite initial wondering how the trip to China would fit into the patchwork of experiences this year has held, we now feel very pleased with our adventure, and even wished we could have stayed there a bit longer to include things we ran out of time to [View Full Entry]

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We can hardly believe that we will be flying off to China in a day's time, and yet at this point, it is inexorable. We have been so immersed for so long in a camping, wilderness or VW fixing world, that any other kind of life is but a dream. But, theoretically, we will get off the plane in China in a large city called Chengdu, and start acting like typical tourists. I hope we don't accidentally try to drive off with somebody's van and head for the hills. We don't really know any Chinese, but have big plans for [View Full Entry]

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When it got over 100 degrees, we started longing for the Northwest. June in the Northwest is often chilly, with its share of rainy days, and is only sometimes sunny. The idea that it's over 100 in Utah in early June is sort of overwhelming—and it's only going to get hotter. Lance even started talking wistfully about the high Sierras, so perhaps that was the sign that we should leave the Southwest--all a good reminder of why I normally never plan trips to Utah for my summer vacation. We barely made it through our last night in Utah, driving up above [View Full Entry]

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We are firmly back in the Southwest now, and it is a very different place than it was last November and December. It is pleasantly warm and summery by day, cool by night, and it stays light until about 9:00pm (four hours later than before). It has struck me that our van has been through an amazing variation of temperatures, and we have struggled with different problems at each of these times. Last December, on the rim of the Grand Canyon, we had our coldest night, reaching down to below zero fahrenheit, and now, after our time in the South and [View Full Entry]

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By the time we finally got back in the van and began living in it again, we had almost grown unused to our routines there. After being in houses for so long, spending days on end in our van was a bit of a distant memory. I am pleased to report, however, that we have now recovered nicely (both the humans and the automobile), and are happily reacquainting ourselves with each other. The van has a new radiator, which makes her very happy. When we actually finished working on the radiator and associated features, and she ran like a champ, it [View Full Entry]

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I'm feeling a bit theatrical; things are getting to be of dramatic proportions. Shakespearian you might say. So many things have gone cross-ways, that we're at the point where we just laugh when the next happening crops up. I'll get to the most recent event in due time, but first we must catch you up to where we are. We're still in Hammond, Louisiana. Off and on we've been here nearly three weeks. The van just made the final 15 miles to where we have been staying for the last couple weeks, nineteen days after its scheduled arrival. We are actually [View Full Entry]

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