the ultimate road trip - Part I
When in Utah, you find winding roads and trails to meander along. Stunning scenery that mesmerizes you into getting lost with gusto. Summers are irresistible with the Mighty Five easily accessible and willing to lure you into their realm. In between each you’ll also discover state parks, national monuments, geological features, ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) cliff dwellings and ruins, museums, and more. Today, as we wrap up road trip season and possibly finalize a final trek for Labor Day weekend, I share with you the most incredible itinerary I’ve ever created. So impressive that I deemed it a “Grandiose Tour” and still consider it the most epic road trip I have EVER experienced.
You’ll find my basic outline of the month long itinerary and a few specifics of our grand tour. If it inspires you, please reach out with any questions or let me help you plan your next venture. It’s one of my favorite pastimes!
the ultimate road trip - Part II
Last week I ran out of time and my hasty post lacked the detail I imagined offering you. Oh, how this mighty mouse has fallen. Or slid backwards into a life without work life balance and am a mere mortal like most. No sleep. Very little pay. Lots of work. I don’t even have kids or pets. So HOW. DO. Y’ALL. DO. IT?!?
But don’t you worry your pretty little head about any of that or pity me because my hubby knows how to properly bribe me so I don’t quit and continue to pay our bills. As you read this we are traveling the backcountry and happy little chappies.
Back to the lengthy story at hand, I would have overwhelmed you anyway! And am even beginning to feel like breaking this adventure on the open road into thirds now that I’m delving into all the roadside attractions we stopped to enjoy. Well, as Anne LaMotte wisely informs us, “bird by bird.” I suppose I left out the pertinent info that this road trip occurred during the 2018 summer season between my two grad school years at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The timing is what afforded me an entire month of playtime dancing across the desert with TAJ and access to the Mighty Five couldn’t be ignored. I consider it a Honeymoon of sorts since we eloped the winter just beforehand.
ode to summer
This week I held Grand & Glorious ideas of sharing one of my epic road trips with you as a parting gift along with summer farewells. Yet, here I am emotionally unprepared for Fall and feeling it acutely. Every year the onset of crisp mornings cool evenings shocks me into a stupor. It’s not that I don’t adore Autumn. Of course, I do! The colors, the festivities, that slight sensation in the breeze…it’s sigh. It’s just that summer sliding out from under me feels like a heavy loss, the death of a best friend.
Instead of leaning into the excitement of what Fall brings, I grip tightly to summer vibes like a cat with claws out dragged into a bath. I mourn the loss of comfort (heat), the easy existence (life outdoors), the adventure (I know there are winter sports but they are secondary to me. Don’t you recall my Southern upbringing? Snow is a newish thing and we’ll cover that later.) Let’s drop this sad turn of events and find an updraft that isn’t quite so chilly.
As I sit at my laptop with wine loosening my brain and pretty damn proud of myself for the all local veggie and flank steak stir fry I cooked for dinner, I’m pivoting with jazz hands high to the sky and lighthearted humor at my throat. Hold on tight! Since I need a deep belly laugh to help me recover from the cool blow of Fall swooshing through my mountain town life, we are going to cover a topic I have been itching to share and discuss. You’re welcome…
MY FAVORITE WAYS TO ANNOY MY PARTNER IN ALL THINGS LIFE
Tenacious Tanya
Tanya teaches me so much about life and how to relish the small moments that matter while shaking off the ones that don’t. As a way of thanking her and hopefully paying tribute, I want to share her wonderfulness with you! Below I share Tanya’s bio from my Inspirations page where you can find a plethora of humans that offer the world their amazing talents and knowledge. A newsletter per month will spotlight one of these incredible souls that I’m lucky to call friend.
Coffee as a travel destination
Does life begin with coffee for you? Yup. Me too. And not due to a decade of PacNorthwest livin’ either. Also, not necessarily as an artist, although there does seem to be a gravitational pull to comfy coffee-induced spaces for creative types. Coffeeshops are life-affirming communal alcoves for you, your friends, your family, and your chosen family. A place to be wrapped in love and warmth, filled with caffeine and confection, to share love, joy, hope, dreams, and the rich undercurrents of life, which connect us to each other.
What is functional mobility?
LK’s terms:
Functional mobility training is movement that encourages the ability to perform your daily tasks at optimal levels. Easily and without pain or threat of soreness. Also, the ability to enjoy life to the fullest no matter your age or circumstance.
Purpose:
To become confident and sturdy as you age; aging gracefully.
Benefits:
Better posture
Improves strength, endurance, and energy
Enhances balance, improves stability
Enhances range of motion, improves flexibility
Improves joint health
My year of healing in the tetons
According to Garth Brooks’ lyrics, “heartache is healed by the sea.” What if it’s caused by the sea though? Well, by the people of the Sea…ttle. After three harrowing post grad years spent doom scrolling, errr doom applying?, for a “career position” while my industry imploded and the world shut down, I finally achieved a dream—to live in Teton Valley, Idaho.
I rolled into Idaho December 2021 with a battered, bruised, and skeptical soul. Unsure of possessing a loving heart any longer. The night I arrived in Driggs, I hastily began unloading belongings from the back of my RAV4. Nerves are probably responsible for my sleeve catching the corner of an open box and spilling its contents. A sky-blue hand spun pottery mug shattered on the pavement. My favorite mug. A relic acquired from a local artist on Cape Cod during my performance life dancing on stages with my dance partner across the United States. Thoughts of “good luck, a mazel tov moment,” swirled through my road weary brain.
In practice over the following year, the jagged edges of those pottery pieces scattered at my feet revealed themselves back to me each day as the people of the valley generously applied a salve of love and appreciation along the rough edges of my soul. At the time, I did not foresee how the shattering of the mug moment would unfurl as an allegory, an awakening, for my year of healing in the Tetons.
adventure buddies
Everywhere I go, each new state I live in, I hunt for an adventure buddy and not once have I regretted the attempts to do so or the relationships I discovered. In fact, other than good ole Bennie, I keep up with all my various adventure buddies and hope to create this as an ode to each of them.
my journey to you
Here I am. Beginning a terrifying new adventure/journey/way of being. Why? Simply because it’s time. That’s not the whole truth since my writing practice is like an overdue library book awaiting its entire purpose–to be shared. The reason lies somewhere between liminal spaces. I think. As a way of accountability both to myself and the promises I’ve made. And here I am, finally, making good on those promises to you and to the Universe.