Monday Evening Surrounding me are large pines, oaks and birches. Their leaves dance with the breeze in rhythms of a Fall melody, rustling like sequin designs presenting kaleidoscopic colors of greens, yellows, oranges and reds. Draped along branches swaying in a swooned throng, the arbors tower into a deep cast of infinite blue. “Simone,” I shout. Opening the fence, I step inside his property line and stride across a patch of freshly mowed grass. No response. I call out again. “Simone!” A disturbance swells from the bushes. I direct [View Full Entry]

---

---

Wow too much stuff. I needed another truck to get everything loaded. Of course I realised this about 2:30 in the afternoon. Penske was able to get me another truck to load. I hired the slowest movers in the entire state to load the truck. Fortunatly they were cheap. Such is the reason they were so slow. I picked up the second truck about 4pm and talked my father into a free ride to Florida following me in another truck. I still can't believe I needed two trucks. The gas alone is gonna eat my savings. Both trucks were loaded by [View Full Entry]

---

---

Just returned from a 7 day Alaskan cruise in the middle of this move. It was planned 10 months ago so it just made sense to work the move around it. It was quite fun we spent many hours in the card room playing Texas Holdem' and finding other ways to part with our money on the ship. On to the move... Home today to wash laundry and pack the remaining few items. It amazes me to think that I have packed everything in a room and I look behind a soda bottle in the kitchen and there is a trivet...not [View Full Entry]

---

---

So begins this blog with a push from my sister Laura and a nudge from my mother to "make it funny". What a daunting task. Funny is not something that can be bought when you run out or borrowed from a neighbor. Funny is something that happens when you least expect it. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Uggg.....I think there must be over 100 boxes in this house. My kitchen has become a labyrinth to the coffee pot. While that may be good for someone who wants to cut down on their coffee consumption it is frustrating to me as I stub my toes while making my way for that 6 am cup of java. I have no motivation and no energy left. Thank God my sister came to help me or I would just sit and stare at the massive amount of boxes there were to be packed. Packing is such a boring thankless job. I have [View Full Entry]

---

---

Japanese New Year’s Mochi Celebration Have you ever celebrated the New Year with a Mochi Festival? Today was my first time. No, I am not in Japan, but on Bainbridge Island just across Puget Sound from of Seattle Washington. It’s a bright, cold winter’s day at Island Wood, an environmental education center, and the community is celebrating the coming New Year with the Japanese custom of making and eating mochi. . So what is mochi and how do you make it? After washing sweet rice, you soak it overnight. You then steam the rice in wooden boxes over an open [View Full Entry]

---

---

Hunger is a necessary experience of travel (and life, I suppose), and when on a budget, there is very little fear of hunger. It is commonplace in a strange land, on a strange form of transportation that might last for days, and often it is satisfied only sparingly when on that well-known budget. But, the local markets do provide wonderfully, as with the vendors along the streets and the friendly strangers who invite you in to quench your thirst, and hopefully (cross your fingers), feed you. Yet there is never a guarantee, and to eat is a necessity. So whip out [View Full Entry]

---

---

...continued Cahors would be the last time I would ever see The Way. As I sat, as I wandered through the small picturesque town situated on a bend upon the Lot River—as I felt my body and listened deeper to a purpose gone unknown—I came to understand much about Le Chemin de Saint Jacques de Compostelle. The Way presented itself with all I had dreamt of: it was rough, it was a challenge, and it was isolation and segregation from the external world beyond me. The Way of Saint James was immense, and its’ scope of power and realization fulfilled my [View Full Entry]

---

---

Bainbridge Island was Mom’s, John’s, and my first stop, before we went to the family reunion in British Columbia. We were there for two nights (7/26-7/28.) Uncle David, Aunt Susan, and Kaia went all out for us… it was an amazing weekend. On Friday, we flew from Minneapolis to Seattle (as we flew in, we saw the Space Needle, so that was fun), and John got to take his first ferry ride ever. When we got to Bainbridge Island, we met up with Uncle David and Kaia and had a really great lunch at a restaurant. Then we walked around a [View Full Entry]

---

---

Due to Travelblog's system failure, ten articles were lost and will be re-published. Sorry for the filling of your mailbox... but... drink your urine: Praise be to the body and its' glory! A chilly winter day called us out: two friends coming together on another adventure. Yes, we laughed. We laughed wondering what the hell we were doing at five in the morning driving for the coast. With surfboards packed and wetsuits folded, we picked up our Nalgene bottles of hot tea and drank; warming our bloodstreams, busying our kidneys, filling our bladders. Soon we would need to empty the [View Full Entry]

---

---