Parting is such sweet sorrow

"Parting is such sweet sorrow" has been the major theme for this trip. After my visit with my Kansas family/friends (from here on out I'm going to say frams) I headed into . . .

Baby, it's cold outside

The temperature outside is a chilly, cold 32 (that's 0 centigrade for my European friends) so I'm not anxious to . . .

Beautiful tailwinds and dogs!

It's interesting the role that winds have played in my life, in all our lives for that matter. I've had several careers over the years, I tend to call them lives. In one life, . . .

Know each other's job

Well, I left the house, as the doctor had ordered, although I don't believe I left the way she intended. With my loss fresh and wound cut deep, I gathered things and packed the Casita and truck, and called friends. I hitched the Casita and was ready to go the night before leaving. The morning of departure, I found my hands shaking. Dogs jumped in the truck with enthusiasm which helped my mood. Gathering all the strength I had, with trembling hands, I grasped the steering wheel and headed out on my first lone journey. Charley set me up well. While we had our departmentalized jobs in our relationship, I was keen to learn his and he mine. Knowing each other's job allowed me to do this, to take our Casita, Tara, out by myself.

The trip did add a distraction from my current state of mind. It also showed me I could do it, even though I knew I could. Doing it made it just made it a reality.

So my advice for all you in joint-travel mode adventures, whether pulling a Casita or something else, is to know each other's jobs. Know how to pack, to hitch, to drive, unhitch. Know what needs to be done on the inside: closed, turned off, buckled down. That way, you can continue because if your partner in life is like mine was, s/he would want you to continue.

Dawn in Dixon, NM (Odin and Cassie at the ready)

Ah, the Casita Cult!

We're always excited to see another Casita on the road! We flash lights at each other, honk, wave. 'Why?', you may ask. Well, it's because we share such great taste.

On our trip along the Alaska Highway up to Fairbanks, we did not see very many Casitas. In fact, we 

Just one more night!

We find ourselves in our familiar southwestern desert, greener than I expected, rain--good. This rich, beautiful landscape of mesquite bushes imitating short trees, sage brush, and creosote bushes with a backdrop of rugged rocky mountains is my home. I love it! Our trip is coming to an end. We decided

Another love of mine

What I like most about my Casita are those with whom I share it.
Okay, I stole the lead-in quote. It should be home, and not Casita.  And to make it worse, I  don't know who to give credit to, only that it fits. Our Casita crew (two of the 2-legged type and  two of the 4-legged variety, a big one and small one) is top notch. We've been on the road now for over 60 days. All of us have honed that Casita Dance down to pretty smooth set of transactions of avoidance, space and tasks. All in all, it's a great crew that brings laughter and smiles to the team.

But this note is about another Love of mine, Tara, our Casita. Oh come, I bet a lot of you out there

Sometimes Sweethearts can be Heroes

A hero is someone who, through skill, intelligence, fortitude or some other neat attribute saves the the day. Now if you're one of the Avengers and have those superduper type skills like throwing big hammers across football fields, or turning into an angry, very angry big green man, well then they make movies about your deeds.  But even us mere mortals can be heroes by excelling in tough situations.  Ok, so, I'd like to nominate my wife for getting us out of a tough situation.

Today we're driving in the high country above Boulder Colorado, looking for a

Casita on the Casa for the Casita

 We had the guys from  Chaparral Steel Supply put up this little metal roof awning (we call it a techo here in the border area) 20' X 12' to protect the Casita.  Great! So what now? Top's protected, but the sides look naked.  We decide that we can put up a side and a back ourselves. So it's off to the local salvage lot (Yes, it's a junk yard, because we're responsible, green, and, of course cheap), Used 3/4 inch plywood sheets at 5 bucks a piece with a whole lot of nails to pull. But, hey, did I say we were cheap?

So now, we're cleaning, cutting and painting a base coat and I'm thinking maybe we'll paint stars, or symbols, or how about a fire breathing dragon, (Dragons are cool). But Kamala says it's a Casa for

Sweet anticipation

Ah, the sweet feeling of anticipatory planning for a trip--well, actually two trips (there be more on the second trip later). Right now, we're in between trips. I'm in limbo. With launch date set at the beginning of May and lots of to-dos to check off, I find that while I 'gotta' live in my house to prepare for the trip, I 'gotta' pack also. 

Usually we leave the house with a general idea, general direction, and general timeline. We adopted this overall idea while riding our recumbent tandem on our first long 2,800 mile bicycle tour from El

Perception, Such a Narrow View of Life

See the Elk?There's actually more than one. It's all about perception.

Sunshine streaming in the window, jump out of bed, fling open the window and I'm treated to colors of a beautiful sunrise, so full, so magnificent and to complete the perception, a cool breeze and a cacophony of birds, dogs, and morning sounds. So big, so filling, so complete...well not quite, but, damn, it sure seems like it from a perceptual point of view. And, for the most part, we walk around

10 Reasons why I don't like my Casita Travel Trailer

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How did we get to our Tara, our Casita travel trailer?

Our travel journey has been long. Our first trip together was back in 1975 to Telluride, Colorado, when it was a still a little sleepy mining town that hippies were rejuvenating. While it was just a trip back then, it has since been referred to as our 'honeymoon.' We took it in a VW converted bug known as a Baja. Charley made it so we could actually sleep in it. We took pride that the little trip only cost $100.

Then we have the 'antique' years. Years we traveled to Mexico to buy rustic, handmade, primitive furniture from the homes of the inhabitants, brought them back, stripped the paint from the tables, benches, trunks, wardrobes, kitchen cabinets, etc., then traveled Stateside to sell these jewels to antique stores. We have never been the travelers who travel

Ontological Research

On the side of our little fiberglass bubble we light heartedly placed this little tag to guide is in our travels. It has some noticeable side effects. First, like all little meditations, it brings our attention back to why we are roaming around in this reality. Second, it gets a lot of questions at gas stations and parking lots about "Just what the hell does that mean?" Apparently, 'Ontology' is not in a lot of people's vocabulary and I can find no fault in that.  But it makes

Coffee for light travel and packable

When packing for a bicycle trip, weight and size matters. When packing for a tandem, two people on one bicycle, weight and size becomes even more important. One of the main questions people would ask us is, "How much gear weight do you pack?" We weighed everything one year and our gear turned out to be 100 pounds. That's really not bad considering that single cyclists (people traveling on a regular bicycle (not tandem)) carry 50 - 75 pounds of gear. 

Now we travel in, what some people would call, a tiny travel trailer. We call it a luxurious mansion on wheels, our 17-foot Casita Spirit Deluxe travel trailer (all things are relative). While we can pack a lot more, space still plays an important part. I've seen all sorts of inside trailer modifications just to accommodate a conventional coffee brewer. One of the items we've taken from those bicycle

Wagon Spokes

Can you believe that our last bicycle tour was the fall of 2011? Wow! Over 12 years of bicycle touring. The pain, the joy, the conquest of miles over landscapes forever etched into my soul. During our current motorized trips (more on that in just a minute) we constantly drive along or crisscross places we previously cycled. Did I say etched? We remember the moment clearly, as if it were yesterday. We remember the weather, the shade (or lack of), the road surface, the thrill of the downhill, the work of the uphill, and oh, don't forget that nasty headwind or the joy of the tailwind, plus the sighting of something that would have been lost traveling at a greater speed. Yes, it is etched.

We saw a lot. But then there were times we lost out on moments. We missed a play in a town, a carnival, a festival, or a boat ride, to

Enchanted bicycle tour

Kamala: Guilt trip or the road calling? Call it what you will, but one of those finally got to us. Yes, we know, we haven't taken a bicycle tour this year, until tomorrow. We take off north on our two-seated, two-wheeled chomoly steed heavily laden with cold gear. It's late fall and on top of that we're headed north into the Land of Enchantment. Are we nuts? A distinct possibility. But hey, it's a guilt trip or the call of the road and we are enchanted either way. Stay tuned for updates. Hey and now, you or your friends can sign up for an email notifications of new entries. Just look on the left-hand column of the blog--Kamala

Green Lake "Mystery Loves Company"

This is turning out to be a year that is a bit out of step with our usual. Usually, by this time, June, we are either spinning the pedals around, making our way across the country on a bike journey or have already gotten our yearly cycling tour under our belts. But this June finds us in Wisconsin attending a 'sit-down" Road Scholar program on the writing of mysteries and then a week in Eagle River canoeing.

By "sit-down" I mean that there were no outside activities like paddling, cycling, or hiking. While we brought the bicycle and we did get some rides in, it was outside the program. So during our first week in Wisconsin we found ourselves deeply involved with murder.

First I've got to tell you that while Kamala and I watch a few mystery programs on TV and have read a couple of Grisham novels, listened on Audible as Kinsey Millhone kicked some ass, and a few others over the years, we are definitely not experts on the subject and, God forbid, I cannot even tell you the name of Charlie Chan's number one son (oh the shame, because many of the other participants could).

Now Green Lake, is first of all a beautiful lake, the deepest in Wisconsin. And secondly, it is a conference center on the shores of.....you guessed it--Green Lake. The Conference Center at which we stayed is run by the Baptists, but open to all faiths (although I didn't see a lot of Muslims or Hare Krishna devotees hanging around). Actually, it was mainly aimed, if I'm reading this right, at fundamentalist Christians, especially ministers, who kind of needed to "rejuice" the joy in their spiritual life. At any rate it was a spiritual retreat of sorts and all the people I ran into were just as pleased as punch that we were there and treated us really nice. I couldn't get over the sense of irony that while everyone in the whole setting was there to find a "closer walk with God", there were thirty of us in a conference room spending our

time exploring all the myriad of ways to kill someone.

While there were some good points about the program there was way too much sitting and I think that, as much as we like the Road Scholar programs, that this will be our last "sit-down" type of program. Although there were a few times I felt I was sitting at an in-service meeting back at ol' Irvin High School (insert high pitched scream here), I'm still going to rate it a C+ because, the people were friendly, the presenters were really trying, the area was beautiful, the food was good and best of all I got to experience it with Kamala.

The art of travel

As our master canoe instructor deftly explained the art of canoeing with the use of a small canoe that he had borrowed from a local garden gnome, I was suddenly struck with a realization that was, at once enlightening and joyous, and yet stirred up an extreme sense of sadness of opportunities lost. As he held the little paddles in his fingers, moving them around in tiny circles as if stirring coffee, I flashed back to my days as a football coach and realized that I had really missed the boat by not using Barbie dolls to demonstrate blocking techniques to those freshmen.

Mastering the Canoe 101

Here we learn how to paddle a wooden dock. OMG, it was soooooo realistic! I mean after a few minutes we were expert canoeists, capable of paddling any canoe that sat 2 and 1/2 feet out of the water and anchored deep in the lake bottom. Bring on the whitewater! And on top of the wonderful life changing instruction I was nostaligically transported back to Miss Higbothom's 5th grade dance class with footprints on the floor and everything.

Okay, okay, so the start was a little slow. Maybe he hadn't quite realized that we were all old enough to be his parents and that he could have actually tried to pass on information in a bit more sophisticated manner (8th or even 9th grade level would have sufficed). Anyway the program was all uphill from there and in the end I give the week an A.

Eagle River turned out to be as beautiful an area as Green Lake was and the week was filled with paddling pristine lakes and rivers, sloshing across floating jelly-like bogs, calling owls, watching bald eagles soar, and meeting interesting people. Our guides were knowledgeable and friendly. Troy and Jill injected humor into the outings. The weather cooperated with pleasant cool days (I'm not really sure yet if they have summer up here).

The original plan was to find a place to leave the truck and trailer for a couple of weeks and cycle-tour Michigan's Upper Peninsula. After a long and serious discussion and reading the entrails of sheep (for clarity of mind), we have decided upon deviation.

"The art of travel is to be able to deviate from one’s plans."

This quote comes from a class B movie (plot quite forgettable) but the message has stayed with us. The Northwoods of Wisconsin have wonderful roads to cycle and plenty, I mean plenty, of water to paddle. Plus, someone has to feed these darn mosquitoes.

What? No Posts?

There's something magical that happens when we ride a bike all day. The turning of the pedals mile after mile; the reward of simple pleasures of becoming one with the landscape, butt breaks, food, downhills, scenery, being able to stop to take that breath-taking, awe-inspiring snapshots which all add to philosophical introspection which lead to magical notes. It's amazing that no matter how many years have past and the thousands (literally) pictures we've taken we can always remember the moment the photo was captured. The true ontological observations.

Floor art

Tiled counter

We've been busy. We've done home projects and we have traveled. Pics have a blur as the landscape rushes beside the car. We've used our little camper as a base camp and discovered areas. We went back to Palm Springs this past January to cycle the beauty and watch movies at night at their annual Palm Springs International Film Festival. Movies of note this year: Life of a Fish and the Japanese Wife.

Bosque de Apache Wildlife Refuge

New single kayak

We've hosted close to a dozen cross-country cyclists this spring via Warmshowers.org.  They arrive tired and grateful to have a safe place to bed down for the night as we surprise them with a good meal. We recently hosted a young man who flew to El Paso to start his journey to Canada via the Continental Divide. We recognized the anticipatory energy as he readied for his wheeled trek and we were infected with desire for our own bicycle adventure. While we have been preparing for an upcoming adventure, he just prodded us on.

So we are off Wisconsin with our little Ontological research base to do a little canoeing and then we plan to cycle-tour Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

New paint job

Enjoying a warm winter day in Palm Springs

Death Valley

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--Kamala