In Case You Were Wondering...

we are still in tennessee. i've felt there hadn't been too much excitement to post about. i'm noticing that it is very hard for me to not do anything and be ok with it, and Amy says maybe that's why we are here. i need to relax! its ok to do nothing sometimes. and i guess we are still doing lots of things! its just at a tennessee pace. lots of dog walking/running, dinner cookin, couch sittin, True Blood watchin, and just plan hangin out. i feel much more adjusted to southern life vs. california extreme fast pace life already. i've realized i got sucked into the "you must be doing something at all times, and really fast" lifestyle of southern california. so its nice to unwind and remember where i came from! i'd lost my southern accent and started to think i was actually californian!
well ya'll, im not. i am southern! and it feels good. rednecks sure are nicer than you think too. sure, they look at us funny for looking different, but they are just interested to see something new most of the time. its nice living places you feel accepted, but i feel that it is just as important and more challenging and strengthening to be in places where its harder to connect with people because they seem different.
luke's got some work painting already! so we will be here atleast another week. thanks amy and paul for being so hospitable!
amy says she's going to pay me to sing in the choir at church. i am finally beginning my singing career!
its also kind of fun that we don't know anyone here and i don't really have responsibility, so i feel like i'm hiding from the world. plenty of time for me to deepen my relationship with myself, something fast pace life often inhibits. maybe that's why its hard for me to do nothing, i don't want to get to know myself more. which is why it must need to happen and is.
to come: the city of chattanooga experience, white water rafting, cute animal pictures!

Farther/Closer to Home

we've come pretty far since the last post! we drove 3 days all the way to Cleveland, Tennessee to stay with my stepsister Amy and her husband Paul. yay family time!

I was sad to leave San Diego and my friends behind. we had a wonderful stay at Lisa's house, where we had wonderful dinner parties every night! there's some pictures of Lisa making pizza crust for our butternut squash pizza, and Danielle making a salad. but soon the fun ended to continue our journey into the unknown.

on the first day we drove from Ocean Beach to Flagstaff, Arizona. we went from driving in the hot desert with saguaro cacti to mountain tops with pine trees and snow. the second day we drove through new mexico, texas, and stopped in oklahoma city. we were both feeling pretty lost and confused at that point. being away from California made me really realize and appreciate how great it is. but we felt stuck, like neither direction was entirely right. we felt that we really needed to get awat from California, but going east didn't really feel good either. i figure there's something bigger driving us, and i just have to accept it. I am just grateful that we have each other and loved ones all over to support and encourage us.

so then we decided to come to Amy's house, and drove through arkansas and tennessee on the next day. it was good to get out of the desert and absurd traffic laws of texas. we started to see trees again and green rolling hills and lakes. we drove across the Mississippi river to Memphis, which is where the picture of the pyramid is. next we made it through Nashville, and finally made it though Chatanooga into Cleveland.

being here is such a different world to us. small town, some funny looks, non vegan biscuits and gravy, and beautiful mountains and rivers. today we checked out the river where the olympic white water rafting was. perhaps we will get to do some rafting this week! saw some awesome mountain views, and we are hoping to get a good view of the super moon today. apparently this is the closest the moon has ever been to earth!

I'm thoroughly enjoying spending quality time with family and lots of animals! (3 cats and 1 dog) plenty of time for furry snuggling. we are probably going to be here atleast a week. not sure what's next, I guess Virginia and Indiana. or who knows! i'm trying to embrace that the fun of adventures is not knowing where we are going to be or what we could be doing. its harder than you would think! the biggest thing i'm learning about it is to just think positively. instead of worrying about where we are going to be or how we are going to make money or anything I'm trying to focus on how lucky we are to be doing what we are doing and how much fun we can have and all the great things we can do if we open up to it!

biggest self discovery this week: I thought I was a wildernessy backwoods sort of dweller, but I've definitely decided I'm a big city girl. I guess a healthy balance of both would be ideal!

Suntans and Snowmen

giant toe?

windblown look, tony and i on top of mount ryan

a joshua tree

uh oh! nuclear reactor explosion! sounds to me like its time to go inland before i become radioactive. do not like.

sorry i haven't posted for awhile, been pretty busy.

vegas pictures aren't that great, its a hard place to take pictures of, everything is larger than life. just know that it does in fact look like what you see on tv, and gambling is addictive.

joshua tree was fun, with an excpetion to night 1 in which there were no camping spot in the whole park! yarg! i was just happy to be in hot weather and wearing shorts. its pretty amazing how much open space there is out there. we drove through Idylwyld in the same day and saw a bunch of snow! luke made a snowman.

now we are back in san diego for a few days, staying at lisa's house. it doesn't really feel safe here anymore, so we are probably getting out of town tomorrow and heading east. its sad to leave the best state. but atleast there's plenty of people i love out there! i'm coming to see you! (and stay at your house)

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

so instinct served us right! we left the coast and i told my mom that i felt like there could be a tsunami or something crazy and that's why we had to go inland to vegas. this morning Luke's mom called and told us there had been a tsunami! it hit north of santa cruz, right where we would have been, and now the whole west coast is on tsunami alert. crazy!
also, we won $20! last night we played black jack for 4 hours with tina turner (impersonator) and tony orlando! bingo bango! we couldn't stop winning! we got up $180, but it was too fun to stop and we came back down to 2o.
pics to come, have to make this post quick due to time limit, now we are heading to joshua tree to camp with lisa!! not sure what to do after that, i still feel we shouldn't be on the coast, but who knows what will happen next. i mean, we have to play a little more black jack before we leave in a few hours! if we win big we're staying another night!

The Winds Have Changed!

drastic change of plans (or i guess there wasn't a plan anyways)
we're going to Vegas!
the weather isn't to hot northward, and we don't feel its time to give up and go home, and vegas popped up and we both felt that it was right! it feels right to do something that we hadn't thought of before. all the options in california just weren't feeling perfect to me, so i thought "why limit ourselves to just one state?" i mean, wouldn't that be pretty silly when the "plan" is to have no plan and go where the wind takes us? there's no reason we should do things we don't feel we need or want to do. so there ya go. we're going where its sunny and the hotels are cheaper than camping.
and hopefully we will be abundant and prosperous!
wish us luck!

Not All Phish Are in the Ocean

several days later, still in santa cruz. ever since we got here i've felt like i'm in a daze. it's kind of driving me crazy, and our departure keeps getting postponed. 2 days ago we had a weird day. I accidently spilled coffee on Luke's phone, someone hit his taillight and we had to order a new part, and none of our couch surfing arrangements worked out. The past few days we have just been hanging around waiting for the new car part and a new phone to be shipped to him, both of which got here today, but late enough that we probably will stay another night. It feels like we are just wasting money camping and eating in a place I don't feel we really need to be. But I guess everything happens for a reason and its ok if we don't know why we are still here.

We did just see Mike Gordon from the band Phish on the street though! he's playing in town tonight. Maybe that's the reason we are still here?

yesterday we went to a free didgerido making class, you can see it in the picture where Luke is playing it. It's made from ABS pipe, beeswax for the mouth piece, and then some decorative paint! Pretty cool to have a homemade aboriginal insturment for 5 dollars. On another music related note, Luke just bought a mandolin at a pawn shop. He's very excited.

last night we camped at Sunset Beach in Watsonville. Note to all readers, don't live in Watsonville! And probably don't camp there either. There was an excess of racoons taunting us, peeking out with their shining eyes looking at us around trees. Also, a siren that went off for atleast an hour around 8 o'clock. We were afraid it might be a weather alert, like tsunami or flash floods or something. We called Luke's dad and he googled it; apparently it an alert for the fieldworkers or something? In the morning the camp ranger said it should only go off for a second. Malfunction perhaps? Nonetheless, we opted to sleep in the truck. Warmer, quieter, less racoon accessible. How annoying! The beach really was nice though. Giant sand dunes and endless untouched beach with lots of sand dollars!

So what's next? Should we keep going North? everyone else says yes (meaning our war veteran friend George we met). Maybe i just feel discouraged by this particular town. It makes me feel like nothing is happening and I'm just wasting my time. I think I'm realizing that my unsatisfaction is coming from within though. I felt lost before and instinct said I needed to go somewhere to figure it out. Turns out I'm just feeling more lost. I'm happiest when we are in nature somewhere beautiful just enjoying it. But then the night always creeps in and the uncertainty of the darkness brings up all the fears. Who are we when we can't see and we don't know?

Hopefully only one more night here. Then up through San Francisco to the Lost Coast, back into the forest.

Where Are We, Again?

Its raining again :( but last night's sleep with the sound of the rain sure was nice. all this travelling sure is tiring. im afraid i'm becoming a caffeine junky again...

Yesterday we went to UCSC campus. it's pretty nice! I would have loved going to school there when I was 18! once again, i cannot say too many times how nice everyone is. We went to see a brass band play on campus and they were so good! plus it was like a free carnival! they had a moonbounce, cotton candy (Luke's favorite), face painting, and very creative balloon animals unlike i've ever seen.
Luke went sperlunking (cave sexploring) at the campus cave. kind of wet and scary, and apparently goes really deep into atleast 6 rooms and further. that headlamp sure came in handy!also saw some very cute deer and a black squirrel!

we wandered the downtown area at night and went to a restaurant called Saturn's that had delicious vegan burgers.

I guess it doesn't really sound that exciting. We are trying to figure out what to do next. maybe stay here a few more days with people and then go back to the woods out in Yosemite and keep heading north. we aren't really sure what's going to happen. are we going to find any jobs or places we want to stay? or should we just go back to San Diego? I still feel there is more out there for us than where we started, but what exactly are we looking for? Why are we out here? What's the difference between any of these places? It seems like we would just be doing the same thing no matter where we are, but its more exciting to be doing the same thing in new places. Having a home to go hang out in is nice when you don't know what to do, but at the same time not having one is forcing us to be outside, talk to people we otherwise would never encounter, keep our bodies moving, and our brains thinking and being creative about what to do next. Its an entirely different way of living. It hasn't even been a week yet, but it feels like we have been gone so long and so far from home! But which place is even home? There are places and people I love everywhere. One of the lessons we are learning now is home is where the heart is.

Santa Cruz Day 1

got to santa cruz yesterday. after the beauty of Big Sur, it seems dissapointing to be in a city. Lots of college kids and winding streets that don't make any sense. We are staying at a friend of Luke's named Alex (and a longtime friend of Bree!). He's very friendly and positive and hospitable. We went with him to see his roommate's band play, and they were awesome! Everyone there was really friendly, as seems to be the way of Santa Cruz. All the people are smiling and helpful to us and open and nonjudgemental.
Today we are going to check out the beaches and the college campus and see another band play that is all brass instruments. Just need to take some time to get to know this place a little more and see if its worth staying a little while. Being around college kids makes me feel old and remember why i didn't like being in college. It is good to just be around some friendly open people though!

Big Sur Day 3: A Bump in the Night

yesterday was sunny! today its even warmer. yesterday we went to see the waterfall onto the beach but it was too foggy as you can see in the pictures. The fog was beautiful enough though. Spent the rest of the day being lazy and had a campfire to cook dinner on. We had roased asparagus and carrots with honey, cinnamon, and fresh rosemary Lucas found, and some yummy baked beans and leftover mashed sweet potatoes and beets from our last supper with Lisa! So good! Then Lucas showed off his talent of playing the flute and the drum at the SAME TIME! Quite amazing I'd say.

Then suddenly in the pitch black of the night, i was awoken by Luke calling my name. He was still and silent for a minute, perched up listening. I held my breath in fear and anger of being awoken. He felt something poking his arm from underneath the tent! I didn't believe him and thought he was crazy. Soon it happened again. He placed my arm where he felt it, and surely something was under there! It kept popping up for the next hour in different spots. We shined a light on the spot and saw it move! He proceeded to stomp the area in hopes to scare the creature. Satisfied we tried to sleep again. Soon enough it happened again. We never figured out what it was. He hopes it was a gopher, while I had a dream that we looked under the tent and found a snake. Whatever it was, we couldn't find any evidence in the morning, other then some holes and loose dirt where it must have burrowed. Luckily we checked out of our campsite at noon today, and don't have to face it again!

So now, we continue north, up to Monterey and Santa Cruz.