The Journey: The Calm Before the Storm and Introducing Spirit Walker

NOT MUCH NEW HAPPENING, BUT STILL . . .

Status quo right now as I await discovering my next vehicle.  I am rooted in Olympia until that discovery occurs.  My days consist of working for clients, walking Maggie, and spending time with Bev while we run errands needing running.

Today is Thanksgiving, by the way, and I want to wish you all a very belated Happy Thanksgiving.  There is no way for you all to fully grasp how much you mean to me, but it’s true, you do.

Thanksgiving growing up, big dinner with a dwindling family until Dad died; then the traditional slowly shifted to fake it till you make it.  A constant, though, which probably lasted fifteen years, was a touch football game with whatever friends could make it.  The game was always held at Jefferson Park, rain or shine, and let me tell ya, it rained something serious a few years of those fifteen.  It was tradition, though, so we soldiered on, no matter what the weather, coming home, more often than not, absolutely drenched with teeth clattering, bruised and scraped with mud caked to every crevice.

God that was fun!

I was thinking about those games while I ate dinner with Bev and four friends here on the farm.  The old traditions died with the relatives and the old friends, new traditions sprout, or change yearly, and being a nomad by heart I’m fine with the change and uncertainty. We could have had cheeseburgers today and I would have been fine with it, but traditional turkey was on the menu and I was fine with that as well.

Walking Maggie yesterday afternoon, a moment transpired which perfectly captures the new, observant, I love life me.  Slowly looking around me as we walked, I glanced down and noticed raindrops clinging to the blades of grass, a full eight hours after it had rained.

Stop and let that sink in for a moment because I think it’s absolutely amazing. I even took a photo of it, so struck I was by it.  Defying the laws of gravity, and flaunting some natural laws I am not aware of, those eight-hour old raindrops clung fiercely to the slivers of grass, and I swear I don’t know how that’s possible . . . but it was.

I see the wildest things on my walks these days, the wonder of it all, I suspect it was always there to see, but today I am receptive to beauty, and me thinks that makes all the difference.

But, again, I’m just a bear of very little brain, so I don’t suppose I’m right.

Oh bother!

A NEW VEHICLE

Just in case you were living under a rock, and you don’t follow Facebook, and you did not see the latest announcement from me, I have purchased a new vehicle and no, it is not a van.

Well, truthfully, it is not new, either, but it is new for me, so there you have it, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth . . . kind of.

The vehicle in question, aforementioned and all that, is a 2013 Nissan Pathfinder, a mid-sized SUV, and believe me when I tell you this was quite a process.  As many of you know, I was looking for a small van, something I could sleep in on the road, well, not on the road, per se, but while traveling the roads . . . sleeping, literally, on the road might be a very short road trip, if you get my meaning.

Color me excited.

Three rows of seats, flatten down the back two rows and there is room for a mattress, a cooler, a power station, and a box of essentials, everything Maggie and I need for a few days on the road, car-camping, living the high life. Only 98,000 miles and I say only because, if taken care of, it should make 200,000 easily, and that might be enough to satisfy my whims as a Road Warrior.

I call her Spirit Walker, in honor of Puddle Walker, which is now undergoing a massive alteration, from road steed to permanent abode.

Color me exhausted.

So, all of this will take me, most likely, until the first of the new year, 2024, at which time Maggie and I will hit the open road, in our Nissan, and see how this new stallion does unleashed.