oh, hello blog! its been awhile hasn't it? i've become even more electronically deprived, as i have lost my phone. again. i know, its terrible, i just can't keep any of this stuff going! but no, i have not died, or fallen off the face of the earth. although, i do feel as though i have been through a sort of symbolic death, or transformation of sorts, simply by becoming so isolated from everything i know. people, technology, all things i know of my previous life. i guess i have reached the goal i was trying to achieve when i initially started traveling, to become totally wild and free.
so, where have i been...i guess we last left off in oregon. i enjoyed some wonderful time exploring all the major cities of oregon, spending time in hot springs decompressing from the stress of my fabulous life, meeting lisa's wonderful cousin Rebecca and her adorable baby, Sophia, and making lots and lots of new friends! its so easy to meet and connect with people in oregon, it seems to me. everywhere i went people were so friendly and open and giving. people i just met would invite us to come stay at their house, or make us dinner, or invite us to come stay with them in Sri Lanka!
while i was fire dancing i met another traveler from Switzerland, Kevin, who asked if he could play guitar while i danced. we decided that we collaborated quite well and were connected in our desire to inspire the world by sharing our music and dance, and to be free and explore everything. so we brought him and another new friend to Thanksgiving at Lisa's mom's house in Lebanon. (insert typical holiday feasting here) next thing you know, we are continuing to travel south, since we both wanted to head in the direction of warmer weather. (sorry oregon, but i can't get down with snow) so far we have been traveling south on the coast, from Gold Beach to San Francisco currently. among the highlights we've camped by enormous redwoods, stayed with a guy named Matt in Fort Bragg who took us mushroom hunting and cooked us to most delicious pasta with fresh chanterelle mushroom and dungeness crab, camped in a closed camp ground on the beach, and so many other things i can't even remember. yesterday i rode a ferry from Sausolito across the bay to San Francisco at night, getting a great view of the Golden Gate and Oakland Bay Bridges. we've made some money street performing, and hope to do some more while we are here, although there seems to be alot of competition! we are couch surfing at a guy's house here from the couch surfing website. today i've learned that you must jump out and wave at the bus, or its not going to stop, and several different busses come to the same stop, so you must know which one you need to get on. i do not. i've had to ask alot of people for help...
so, i don't know what's going to happen next, but i'm doing what i've wanted to do. i'm exploring the world and sharing my creativity, and being pushed to grow in so many ways, from getting rid of everything i own, to learning how to survive in the wilderness, to navigating new cities on my own. i'm one with the flow, letting the wind take me wherever it is i need to go next. trusting my intuition and gut always works, always leading me to the right places, the right people, at the right time. a man i met a few days ago told me he recognized me as an angel in this world, and that he was here to remind me that i am on my mission, and that i'm doing a great job and i am supported and loved. it was so special, just another affirmation that i am right on schedule with whatever it is that is happening that is so much bigger than me.

Come On Baby Light My Fire

ok...so i'm sure some of you are getting very annoyed with my lack of blogging and pictures...and i have encountered a new problem, along with little cell phone service and my internet not working on my computer...my camera won't work now too! what a pain! it may have somehow erased my photos too! yargggg

so hopefully this video will appease your anger somewhat...i have pursued a new career interest of fire dancing! i was getting kind of bored with my regular hula hoop, so i had to take it to the next level. fire! (100% safe and danger free...) so far so good. no burns or disasters, plus a lovely assistant (Lisa) to sport the fire extinguisher (she likes safety). people here have been very supportive! everywhere i have asked to do it, the people in charge are very excited to have me, and my audiences have been very encouraging as well! lots of love. its been really exciting, i can cross off another thing on the list of things i want to do. it seems the things on this list have been getting crazier and crazier. i am discovering about myself that i definitely like a little bit of adrenaline. it makes me feel so alive! i am discovering more and more of the endless possibilities of life, and dreaming bigger and bigger, and watching my dreams become my reality and being amazed each time. maybe all this lack of technology and communication has really driven me off the deep end. or maybe living in a way that is more connected to nature and people has awakened a deeper part of my explosive true nature. its intense. in fact, it scares me a little. whats next? hunting? sky diving? rock climbing? scuba diving in Australia? i want to do everything!

for halloween we went to Ashland, where we heard they are REALLY into halloween and have an awesome parade. well, its true, Ashland has the best halloween i've seen! i would describe it as a family friendly mardi gras. Streets closed down and crowded with people in outrageous costumes (the "parade") beating drums and dancing around like insane tribal people. pretty epic. then we went to stay the night in a teepee village in the hills outside of town, and drank homemade mead and apple cider, and did another fire dancing performance. slept in a huge teepee set up for guests, where other travelers and a family slept. i woke up to drinking cowboy coffee over a fire and bow and arrow hunting. i don't think i could live like that full time, but it was a great experience, and i totally recommend it if you are interested in living somewhere beautiful for $1 a day.

hmm what else....there's lots of deer here. like in the city, walking around in the middle of the day. everywhere. its kind of weird.

so yes. the conclusion is: Oregon is definitely making me wilder, or at least realize that i'm wild at heart. i have a burning desire to be completely wild and free, travel the world, fire dance, and do more and more extreme things. things that scare me a little bit. things that wake me up. things i've denied myself the ability, the permission, the strength, to do. i don't really know what all these things are. yet. but its happening, i can feel it. this is why i exist!

my ultimate goal is to inspire you to do whatever it is that lights your fire too!

Free

you are probably wondering what has happened to me. well, lots of great things are happening to me! but unfortunately, mu computer has not been working, so there are no pictures, and i haven't been able to update until now...since san diego i've worked on an alpaca farm in Lebanon, explored the rainforest and soaked in hot springs, ate some delicious rosemary potato pizza and went on a high desert run in Bend, hung out with Lisa's cousin an her beautiful baby in Williams, assisted slightly in the moving of a teepee village in the mountains of Ashland, and met some wonderful, genuine people all throughout Oregon. the stars and moon here are brighter than i've ever seen them, the trees are taller, forests greener and more alive, and i myself feel more alive because of it all. so far its been pretty amazing, like a dreamy fairy tale land. i haven't had much cell phone service or internet access, but i have to admit while i'm sure thats a little frustrating for everyone else, i have been secretly enjoying it. i feel disconnected from my former life, and immersed in a new adventure all my own. i have been living so presently, not worrying, moment to moment, finding exactly what i need when i need it, effortlessly, just flowing through this new experience. its quite wonderful! i have no idea where i'm going to go tomorrow or what i'm going to do or who i'm going to meet, but i know and trust that it is right on track and in alignment with exactly what i need. i really love it here, but am also open to whatever opportunities i encounter. i will work on making some pictures happen...i haven't even been taking very many, its kind of impossible to capture the beauty here. so i'm just going to keep on keeping on! wish you were here!

bree and i with our musician friend Todd Day Wait that we all went to see last night. excellent music! check him out at www.tdwpigpen.com

Inspiration

dead tree turned sculpture
a wonderful painting by Lisa in Bree's room! the middle has the tag from a Yogi tea bag that says "you are infinite"
"Ecstasy Singing"
a painting by Bree's friend
art in Luke's friend's room
the lovely but painfully cold Pacific ocean
kelp
more palm trees
workin at Haggo's Organic Tacos
Haggo himself
my friend Chef April and I
yummy organic tacos!
and a little somethin I made too!

this post turned out to be categorized as things that are inspirational that i have encountered here. art, landscape, and food and people. today my friend April asked me to come fill in at Haggo's Organic Tacos in Leucadia. its like a food truck permanently parked in a pretty little spot. it was fun and inspiring meeting and hanging out with Haggo and his new restaurant of all organic yumminess, and watching him and April cook while i cashiered. i will be there tomorrow as well come see me!
i've gone through so many emotions in the past 2 weeks, just waiting to go to Oregon. sometimes i was unsure and nervous, but now i am feeling totally inspired and excited. i am so grateful to have had so many opportunities here! i've worked at the farmers market, at Lotus Cafe, and Haggos, and reached the monetary goal i projected for amazingly. its been so fun doing a little of this and a little of that, and i feel more confident that i can make it happen in new places just as well. i can't wait to be in a new place and start a new life as a new person! yesterday a storm came in, and i watched the wind blow to the north, all the trees and flags pointing that direction, and i could feel it blowing me too. i don't know what it is, but the fact that i am being drawn towards the north is something in which i am absolutely certain. for someone so wishy washy and indecisive, it feels very good to feel certain about something...
so, here i go again. i probably won't have cell phone access for a few days while at Lisa's mom's alpaca farm in Lebanon, but hopefully internet! then i think we are going to check out Ashland, Oregon in the first week. honestly, i don't really have much of an idea about what i'm going to be doing or seeing or anything at all. i guess that's the fun in it. blank canvas, ya know?

Pesto Brown Rice Spaghetti with Lima Beans
1 cup fresh lima beans (we got some from the farmers market!)
1 red onion, chopped
5 cloves diced garlic
1 yellow and one red tomato, chopped
2-3 servings brown rice spaghetti
1 jar-ish pesto
2 tbsp olive oil
cilantro garnish

boil water and cook pasta, adding lima beans to cook the last 5 minutes. meanwhile, saute garlic in oil with onion. Once pasta is done, drain and add noodles and lima beans to the onion and garlic. Add tomatoes and pesto and cook on low until heated, about 5 minutes. serve and garnish with cilantro, and any cheese you might like. (we used some sort of spicy fire roasted mozarella from the farmers market)

Where in the World is Kristen San Diego?

sunset time!




palm trees!

Brooks and I with our new looks
Brooks (weird face), Bree, me, and Kate. girls reunited!
bonfire beach party!
Kelsey and I with organic yerba mate beer...so californian
nectarines and peaches!
Bree and I workin the farmers market

today i had to take my camera on my run, because its just so pretty! so that's what most of these pictures are....i forgot how beautiful it is here and how awesome it is to exercise on the beach! sunset time is my favorite, the lighting is just so pretty! yep, there's nothing like going for a run on the beach and living a block away. I have to admit i'm totally falling in love again with California. definitely better than Indiana.
I'm having so much fun working at the farmer's markets with Bree! playing with fruits all day and eating them, trading them for lots of delicious vegetables and hummus and stuff, and getting paid daily in CASH. so great! plus its fun to go to new towns instead of being stuck working in the same place everyday, and its also pretty funny to ride around in a big white van. its definitely hard work though, but it feels good to do work that's like extremely hard exercise. and i sure do love not having to pay for all my food...
its also really nice to be here but be out of the little bubble i was in before. i feel like i didn't even fully get to appreciate all the greatness here because my job sucked alot of the life out of me. now i feel like i'm seeing things for the first time, and noticing so many things i never saw before.
i'm still very excited about Oregon, but instead of feeling more clear and sure about things like i hoped, i continue to feel more confused by all the opportunities that are popping up here. i don't really know what to think. but if its too cold in Oregon for me to make it and things don't start working out before i run out of money, i sure am happy to know that i have a place by the beach to come back to! i feel like such a crazy person with a ridiculous life. i also feel like i probably drive people around me crazy with my indecisiveness and rash decisions. but it seems i am loved and accepted for it anyways...what more could i ask for?
so, i still mostly have no idea what i'm doing, but i do know that i'm excited about it, whatever it is. and from the pictures, my life looks pretty darn good to me!

Guess Who's Back, Back Again

st louis arch
texas sunrise
new mexico rocks
terrifying dinosaur attack
arizona can be surprisingly pretty!
after 3 days of desert, finally back in the forest in Flagstaff, Arizona
red rocks of Sedona, Arizona





7,000 foot high tree pose




draw!



in the vortex
then suddenly back to desert....
i really get a kick out of saguaro cacti!

and back to California! not so pretty right on the border....just a big pile of sand

its been a busy week! we drove from Indiana to California in 3 days, through Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico (the land of enchantment), and Arizona. we camped a night in Oklahoma, where we were the only campers in RV park, and the designated camping area was a patch of grass by the bathrooms....but we came out on top because we got there late and got up so early that no one was there to pay, so free camping woo! saw a nice texas sunrise and drove for so long in such flat places that i even missed the corn fields to look at. i really loved Sedona, it just seems to pop up out of nowhere. everything is deserty and brown and then you drive up a mountain and there's a beautiful forest and red rocks and it just feels so good there! supposedly there are a few spots there that are some sort of spiritual energy vortexes. so we went to those (they were depicted as a little swirly tornado looking doodle on the map), and saw stunning views, and perhaps got zapped by the vortex or something. i felt a little different i guess. definitely a little crazy and shook up, but in a good way. maybe that's just from the sudden complete flip in my life. i went from having a daily routine that i went through every day in Indiana, and now I'm all over the place! But its fun, I love change. It seems like things change so much each day, and i have no idea what is going to happen the next day. Like I was expecting to work at my old job, but when i got here they didn't put me on the schedule. But then my friend Bree who i'm staying with asked me to help her work at farmer's markets, so I've been doing that. So lots of things like that, where I feel like i can't even make plans for the next day, much less week, because things are changing all the time! It's a little overwhelming. Plus I am so tired from and unsettled feeling from traveling and then working the first 3 days i got here, getting up at 4 and 5am. Today is the first day i've been able to stop and sit still. I've definitely been having tons of fun seeing all my friends here, and I love working at the farmers markets and making good money with a friend. So things are good. I am stuffed with all the things we sell at work, nectarines, peaches, grapes, almonds and apples. I am happy to be in the sunshine at the beach. And I am so ready for a nap right now.