Flashback image gallery: Peru, Bolivia, Chile

Bolivian Altiplano.

Winter is one of my favorite seasons in New Mexico. The days here are dry and mild, and the crisp desert air carries the scent of wood smoke and roasting pecans. A winter hush has fallen over the region, providing a brief respite from the sweltering heat, flash floods, ravaging winds, and abrasive dust which frequent the Chihuahua desert at other times of year. The calm, dry weather and mellow atmosphere allow us ample time for working on our RV, catching up on domestic duties, taking long hikes with the dogs, and enjoying quiet movie nights by the fire. Not so bad.

However, since this is primarily a travel blog, I feel obligated to fuel it with some travel-related content. Time to mine my photo library for another flashback gallery!

Many people ask us why we chose South America for our upcoming trip. It has been nearly ten years since Ben or I spent much time there, but we both have fond memories of our journeys. While every country has something different to offer, the continent as a whole shares a certain ethos: vibrant, tumultuous, wild, and scenic. Almost a decade later, our memories linger, beckoning for us to return. There is something intoxicating there (and no, not the coca).

A slow shift toward the Long Road

Our house full of stuff.

Any goal worth pursuing requires preparation. And so it is with our impending PanAm adventure.

We are slowly shifting the very structure of our lives. This is easier said than done. We often don’t realize in this country how entrenched we really are.

We have a house full of stuff: unused golf clubs languishing in the garage, boxes of art supplies, box fans, piles of books, seven years of tax records, extra dog collars, a bin of orphaned cables and cords, a veritable jungle of houseplants… you get the idea. It just piles up in the course of everyday living. We hardly even notice its accumulation until we attempt to downsize. In America, having so much stuff is normal. In fact, we probably have less stuff than most. We will get a storage unit for the few sentimental items we don’t want to part with, and the rest will be redistributed via moving sale next summer.

There are the other trappings of modern American life that weigh us down, too, like the complex web of financial obligations we all create for ourselves: bill pays, bank accounts, credit lines, contracts, mortgages, student loans, and retirement accounts. Much of this is already sorted out, and it will be quite nice indeed to simplify our financial landscape.

Good things come in threes

Here she is – our new home starting in 2014!

Sometimes things just fall into place without much effort. Not always, but sometimes.

It might sound cheesy or a little too new-age hippie, but I do believe we can manifest good things in our lives. My brief 30 years of experience on this planet has demonstrated that when we approach the world with kindness, positivity and gratitude, we are blessed with abundance. Granted, our definition of abundance and our expectations play a large role in that. If I expected to be a millionaire by now, I would be sorely disappointed and would not feel at all abundant. Fortunately, millionaire status is not my goal.

I’m not saying that bad things don’t happen to good people. I’ve had my share of bad luck for sure, and I know some very good people who have had some very bad things happen to them. But for myself, I find the negative events to be less memorable and less impactful than the good ones. And when I look at those good people around me who have had some serious bad luck, they come away from those things stronger, and good things inevitably come back around to them. They do not wallow in their misfortune, and their kindness, positivity and gratitude remain intact. That is the strength of the human spirit. 

All of this is to say that good fortune has come our way again. While I’m not surprised, I am very grateful.

Now is the time: overland plans for 2014

The monastery in Arequipa, Peru.

It’s amazing sometimes how quickly plans can change. A month ago I was planning to attend graduate school next fall after taking 7-8 months to drive around North America with our trailer. I was excited to graduate this December, and thankful to have a period of flexibility before starting my MFA program.

But, thanks to university bureaucracy, I found out recently that I will not be graduating in December, and will instead be tethered to New Mexico until May. Needless to say, this discovery was more than a little irritating. In fact, it gave rise to a full-blown Hate Train, which then gave rise again to The Conundrum (see previous post). This, in turn, inspired our new and more awesome plan.

And we couldn’t be more excited about this unexpected change.