Reflections on travel

It has been a few weeks since we've stopped driving driving driving, visiting, driving, visiting, driving. We drove from our home in Todos Santos, pacific coast of southern Baja, and went as far north as Rye, New Hampshire, and back. There were many marathon days of driving, many days of visiting family, friends, and exploring familiar and unfamiliar places. We slid up the garage door of our storage unit and emptied it out, slid it closed one last time and took the lock with us. We drove our "things" with us in a trailer that we towed from Manchester, Connecticut, all the way back to our home in Todos Santos. There wasn't any pleasurable stopping along the way from Manchester, CT to the pacific, unless for diesel or coffee, or sleep (yeah, that's a nice thing to do), until we reached Capitola, California on September 11. It was my goal to reach the pacific again by that date as I began a 2 day gathering with amazing powerful women on September 12.

Let me begin with our early journey. We left TS August 1. After a night stuck in salt flats just outside of Lapaz (gotta begin the adventure somewhere), we managed to find the most beautiful, serene camping on Bahia Conception just south of Mulege. This is the last place where the transpeninsular highway kisses the majestic Gulf of California (a.k.a. Sea of Cortez, named after the persistent Spanish conquerer). The air temp read 100 degreees F outside and 98 inside, with really only a 1 degree change between night and day. There wasn't much sleeping going on in our van that night. We so graciously picked up a colony of ants from the beach here, probably some sort of endemic species.....(oops), and carried them to San Diego, Las Vegas, and then Denver where we poisoned them (thanks for the hospitality friends!) Hope we don't offset some balance somewhere, although humans are doing a pretty good job of screwing things up in the U.S., very systematically, so what are a few ants from down south gonna do?

sunrise. bahia conception. my family admiring the wafting heat in the stillness. must. get. up and out. before the sun!

We spent some much needed time out of the van while catching up and visiting with friends we haven't seen since their wedding 4 years previous. Good times. We drove our final day from Toledo, OH to Glastonbury, CT and we were able to catch James's grandma's family birthday dinner. We discovered that there are indeed some pretty kick ass insects in Connecticut, too. Oh, and while i'm on insects, there are certainly more species of ticks here in the arroyo on the Tropic of Cancer in Baja, then any place i've ever been. These bugs are sucking my poor dogs' blood, biting them, engorging themselves, nesting in cracks right next to the places where they lie. They are some real crazy insects, that is for sure. Did you know ticks have 6 legs in their nymph stage and 8 in adult stage? I've really been loving nerding out on bugs recently.....

beautiful. resting in the damp gravel driveway at French Creek Sheep and Wool in rural pennsylvania. 

So my goal to reflect on traveling is not really turning into what I thought it would. Distractions, unpacking treasures that have been locked up in storage for up to 2 years. I am happy to be home, this place, with amazing prehistoric birds soaring in the sky, Mexicans revving up their engines for many minutes at a time, church bells ringing and happy familiar faces of friends. I saw "Bruce Almighty" recently and would say the word "good" like Bruce does. My favorite thing about traveling is not all of the adventures, mishaps, almosts, and panic that ensues while on the move, but coming home at the end and absolutely loving where you live!

home. playing the sax in the afternoon light on the patio.