It’s been a year since my last blog post, and the first question may be, what happened? I think there were several factors that contributed to my lack of posting. I went through a number of life adjustments in 2021, partly due to covid-19, and partly a result of a major shift in my lifestyle by retiring as a theatre lighting designer. When I retired from my university assignment, I also decided to close the photography business (at least as I had been practicing it at the time). With no income from photography, I had no resource to keep an account with Squarespace. I made a commitment to Virginia many years ago that I wouldn’t use the family budget to subsidize an expensive habit involving cameras. For the most part, I’ve kept to that promise. It’s only recently that I found a stash of savings I had put away that should float me along for the foreseeable future. Traveling in the Scamp was a lot to manage at first. We would leave home for a month at a time starting in January and traveled through difficult and challenging situations. I simply didn’t take the time to blog about it. My plate was full just keeping up with living in 75 square feet of space, trying to keep warm, learning to cook on two burners and no oven, managing personal hygiene with little or no water, and many other simple life routines. I often felt lazy in the evening. While I read a lot of books on the road and streamed quite a few movies and shows when we had signal, I didn’t have the energy to write creatively. I kept up with my personal journal, but I didn’t put the additional effort into a weekly blogpost to share with family and friends.

So, with no funds and little energy, I allowed my account with Squarespace to lapse and instead I occasionally tossed a photo up onto Facebook or Instagram, believing that I had fulfilled my responsibility. To be honest, I get little satisfaction from most of social media. Even worse than a lack of satisfaction is the subconscious anxiety social media generates. I realized I was constantly comparing myself with others. If I saw a photograph I liked, I had to go there and capture it myself. Every cool hack of a Scamp trailer was added to my to-do list. Likewise, with gardening ideas, etc. I was never as good as the cumulative wisdom of the entirety of the internet. It’s only recently that I feel confident in the necessary life skills that speed me along my journey of discovery. I know what I want to photograph, we can articulate our own necessities in the Scamp, I can research from more credible online sites when I need help problem solving. And so, here I am, once again yearning to write about my travels and sharing my photographs along the way.

We spent almost six months of 2021 on the road living out of the Scamp. We would go out for a month and then return home for a few weeks or so. While home I would work feverishly retooling, tweaking, and fine tuning our life in a small trailer. And then, back out onto the road we would go. We spent a month in Arizona because that’s where people go in winter, only to be slammed with a bitter winter snowstorm at the south rim of the Grand Canyon. We then traveled to California for a month, a month in Oregon, a month in Montana and Washington, various trips across Idaho, a month in Colorado and New Mexico, and finally another trip to Arizona to spend the Christmas holiday. We put a lot of miles on the 4-Runner and the Scamp, keeping mostly to US highways and avoiding Interstates. I only drive 60mph max because the Scamp has little wheels. We’re not in a hurry anyway.

We read a lot of books while we are out. I discovered Jack Kerouac this year and wish I had read his works as a younger man. I read classics from Greek and Roman philosophy, great murder mysteries of Raymond Chandler from the 1950’s, I’m working my way through a list of 100 books “every man should read”. As we travel, we often visit thrift stores where we find piles of books to add to our library. One of my favorite finds this year is a book titled The Art of Pilgrimage (maybe I’ll write more on that later). It was gifted to me by my daughter in law, who found it at a thrift store. Perhaps the greatest advantage to retiring is finding time to read. Actually, I’ve discovered two benefits of retirement, reading and sleeping. Our days on the road easily synchronize with the rhythms of the sun and I regularly get 8-9 hours of sleep each night when I only got 4-5 hours while working in the theatre. The Scamp is a restful setting for two aging road warriors.

I’m including a few of my favorite photos from our travels in 2021. I’ve already begun a collection for 2022, and I hope to keep up with the writing as the weeks and months pass. I hope you enjoy the content and leave a comment if you feel inspired. I don’t want to succumb to the pressure of feeding a beast called “Blog”. My job is not to entertain you. I only want to share. Each of these posts and the accompanying photographs are pasted into my personal journal. So, more than anything, the blog is a tool I use to record our travels, the journey, the discovery, and the growth. I’m happy to share the experiences with our family, friends, and occasional stranger we pick up along the way. Happy travels to all of you. Set your sights on retirement and plan your journey.