I’ve been thinking about resiliency: how as a skill, a character trait, a practice, it helps you lead a satisfying life no matter what changes come your way. You plan for one thing, something else happens, and you change your plan to accommodate. You roll with the punches. This sounds so sensible, right? And I’ve “rolled with […]
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The Girl Who Does Not Sleep
Once upon a time, a certain child was born (and you know who I mean. Me!). This was a much-awaited child, a beloved child, but she was born very small. To keep her alive, she was put in an incubator, basically a plexiglass box where only nurses could touch her to change her tiny diaper […]
2025: Summer at Four Corners
Each year I’ve been on the road I’ve written a recap of our travels, and I’m not letting this one slide by without the proper Come Look at My Vacation Photos! post. We spent this spring and early summer at so many national parks, national monuments, and national forests in three of the Four Corners […]
An Unlikely Landing Location
You may find this hard to believe, but of every location in this country we could live, I’ve chosen Madison, Wisconsin. (See my previous post on planning to stop traveling.) I swear, I’ve been thinking about a landing place for about three years. Everywhere on this map, we’ve stayed at least one night and we’ve looked around […]
Choosing a Normal Life after Living an Extraordinary One
We’ve had a handful of big changes here in the Tracy and Shelly (and Banjo) world, and they’re happening in a mixed-up, muddled-up order. I’ll tackle them one topic per post. Topic #1: I decided I’m done with life on the road. I wrestled with this decision for ages, thinking I wanted to settle down, […]
When Housekeeping Is the Barrier-Breaker
There’s a beautifully written book entitled, Housekeeping, in which author Marilynne Robinson’s radical hero, a vagrant, estranged aunt, moves into a rural house to be the guardian of two teen girls. What could be seen as her neglect of housekeeping allows nature to slowly take over the old house. What’s really happening is a breakdown of the […]
Lifestyles of the Rebellious and Unattached
I think about this a lot. What traits do we full-timers share? I think I’ve finally nailed it: we share a lack of strong ties. Call it non-attachment, if you’d like. Either willingly or unwillingly, we no longer have connections to nearby family, to a special home, to long-standing family traditions, strong friendship circles, a […]
Exactly Five Years on the Road!
I’m working hard here to figure out how to say something about myself in the midst of the crisis our country and our world is in. I’ve written two complete posts this week and then deleted them for being petty compared to what I’m reading in the news and hearing from friends and family. So, […]
My Tea Set Regrets
This is a superfluous post. If you’re here for an update on our breakdown status, we made it safely back to the RV park our friends are in by using the interim hitch, and we’ll stay here while Tracy rebuilds our good hitch. Meanwhile, I think of tea. It’s not my fault that I have […]
On the Road Again, But in a Hotel
Oh man, I had what I thought was a funny title for this post—and that’s what it got published with—but now I’m thinking it’s a lot less funny and a lot more weird. It’s hard to joke about plumbing, either in the trailer or in the person, and I was aiming at both! Whatever, it’s […]
