Where To Next?

About Me

Lisa Hugging Tree

I grew up in the country with forty acres as my playground, which is probably why I prefer wide-open spaces to cities. I drink copious amounts of black coffee, top my pancakes with peanut butter, and tortilla chips with guacamole is my kryptonite. I stride forward into the unknown with unflinching optimism and sometimes leap without looking. I’m easily amused and awed by nature, I believe there is magic in the mundane, and once got pecked in the eye by a great blue heron.

I bought my van in July 2018 and moved into it full time in February 2020. I sold my house, all belongings, quit my job, and stepped away from the comfortable life I’d created. It’s no surprise then, that this is one of my favorite quotes: “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” – Rumi

Want to know more? You can learn a lot about me by listening to the podcast I recorded with Steve Harper of The Ripple Effect: The Vanventure of a Lifetime

 

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Where I've been

I can't get over how perfectly blue the sky is here. It's as if the landscape is one giant collage of vividly colored shapes pasted onto a pristine cerulean blue canvas. Pretty spectacular. #nofilter
The curtain rose and burned in the morning sun And the mountains bowed down In the morning sun Like a ballet of the heart And the mountains bowed down like a ballet In the morning sun #thissongplaysinmyheadnearlyeverymorning #onefinemorning
Tumbleweed don't discriminate when it comes to tumbling. They'll tumble across highways, campsites, mountainsides, or rivers.
A beautiful day in the neighborhood. A bald eagle photo bombed this shot. If you squint real hard and look toward the center, you'll spot it. Yesterday I watched it attempt to pluck a duck from the river. 😬🦆🦅🏞
Smokey sunset. Everything looks like a giant encaustic painting. 😕
Some areas are hard to leave. I've been boomeranging back to Eureka, MT for the past month and have explored many of the wonderful areas surrounding it. Now, though, it is time to move on, and I admit, my heart is a little heavy. With the west coast ablaze, I've had to rethink my plans, so it looks like I'll be moving south through Idaho now. Have some great campsites to share? I'm all ears!
Traveling alone, I tend to converse with rocks, trees, and other things when Paco is off busy with squirrels or fishing. I called this one Ghostie. He's super excited about Halloween. 👻
This poem keeps slipping into my thoughts lately. Normally I'd share the video of Tom Waits reading it (which is superb - you should google it), but since being in nature triggered the thought, I'll share it here with some scenes from the forest. ⁣ ⁣ - - - ⁣ ⁣ “Your life is your life. Don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. Be on the watch. There are ways out. There is light somewhere. It may not be much light but it beats the darkness. Be on the watch. The gods will offer you chances. Know them. Take them. You can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. And the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. Your life is your life. Know it while you have it. You are marvelous. The gods wait to delight in you.”⁣ — Charles Bukowski  ⁣
I stopped in Whitefish, MT last Monday to get a haircut. It was the first haircut I'd gotten by someone other than @alishavalen since 2012, but thankfully I landed in good hands. I talked about living in a van while the stylist chopped away at my hair, and when she asked where I was headed next, I said north toward Eureka. She then told me about property her family has in the State Forest on a secluded lake between Whitefish and Eureka, and kindly offered I could camp there a few days. I accepted, and pulled in to discover it truly was a little slice of heaven. I stayed six days, and even then, it was hard to leave.  It felt great to slow down and be still in one place. I mostly just sat staring at the water, watching @punkypaco fish in the shallows, reading, and exploring the area. It was the exact respite I needed, on all levels.  I'm not one for selfies, but while trying to get a good angle to show off my freshly chopped locks, I accidentally snapped this one. It may not be the most flattering angle, but the dramatic light of the sun flare cracked me up, so hopefully it makes you chuckle too.  Now, onward toward Eureka!