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Baja/Covid/Home

Covid X-Country Blog, On the Road Again 2022
4/28 I have the window seat in a half-full JFK-bound JetBlue flight from Kansas City.  It’s quiet.. the seats next to me are empty, and I’m watching the Midwestern landscape below.  The large patterns of agricultural America seem to be moving slowly, but I know they are not.  James is on the ground driving the van…
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Baja

On the Road Again 2022
  We have finally made it to La Ventana, BCS, (Baja California Sur) Mexico, our destination. It was a long trip. The border crossing at Mexicali went well, though confusingly James was invited into the border office to pay an “overlooked” $80 fee. It may or may not have been a bribe. That was followed…
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Joshua Tree/ 29 Palms

On the Road Again 2022
Van-Go @ Joshua Tree   3/10/22 I’m waiting for the dryer to finish drying, hanging out in our van in the parking lot of Joshua Tree Laundromat, and I am not alone.. the parking lot is filled with other vans, many like ours. I know I am in California because gas is really expensive and…
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California Desert Party

On the Road Again 2022
Looking down at our camper at Texas Springs Campground 3/5/22 Texas Springs Campground at Death Valley is familiar; we were here last year during Covid.  That was the first time it dawned on me that the van might actually have been a GOOD idea.   “Van Life” is best experienced in warm, dry weather.  Death Valley  is the…
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California Cabin

On the Road Again 2022
You might think that by driving 3000 miles we would have made an effort to get out of the bad weather, but today we are in the Sierra mountains surrounded by five feet of snow, as more snow silently sifts through the pine trees and down on our Van.  But, good news, we are not…
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Across the West

On the Road Again 2022
2/9/22 Hello California.  Today our van flew across the huge empty state of Nevada in the brilliant sunshine with unlimited views in every direction. This is where the driving gets pleasurable.  It would be great to start the trip here, rather than icy Massachusetts, but then we would miss seeing our granddaughter in Kansas. Life…
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Getting Started

On the Road Again 2022
1/21/22 Heading West again: we are escaping another Covid Winter in Massachusetts. James could not wait to get going.  His work is remote now, and with a secure Wi-Fi hook-up he is in business. He made sure our new “Revel” ™ Van was cocked and loaded, ready to take to the interstate. Since returning from…
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Learn about Color this Winter

Color Class
Learn about Color this Winter on Zoom! February 2, 2022- April 6, 2022, 1pm Wednesdays Did you miss color theory in school? Are you interested in upping your understanding and appreciation of color in your work?  This ten part class has lots of homework to help you physically understand how to mix the colors you…
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#13 Home Again

Covid X-Country Blog
We are back from our cross-country van-life travels (most recently at Ramsey, Erin and Fiona’s place in Lawrence, Kansas), and are enjoying the comforts of home. It is nice to have a house, turns out. It is nice to have a kitchen we can both be in at the same time, and a real bed…
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#12 Back to Lawrence, Kansas

Covid X-Country Blog
Greetings from the mid-West. My blog has stalled out in Lawrence, Kansas, captive to 5-month-old Fiona Meigs; incontestably the most adorable child ever. We are living with my son Ramsey and his family. The van sits silent on the street, except for odd trips to the local food co-op and wildlife refuge for walks. Otherwise…
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#11 New Mexico

Covid X-Country Blog
   Heading East We are racing across the prairie to the strains of the “Orange Blossom Special” hoping to make dinner at my son’s house in Lawrence, Kansas and I suddenly think: “I am going to miss this”. Objectively, I am not sure why. The night before we slept in the van in the brightly…
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#10 Bisbee, Arizona to New Mexico

Covid X-Country Blog
   If you have not seen the movie Nomadland, I recommend it. I signed up for Hulu so I could watch it at our Air B&B in Bisbee Arizona. We are not RV Nomads, but we have seen them everywhere. We can check into Air B&B’s, and that is a big difference. Southern Arizona is…
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#9 Nevada into Arizona

Covid X-Country Blog
  Our road trip wasn’t supposed to go on this long; I can’t believe we haven’t gone home yet. However, sitting in the sunset eight miles from Trump’s border wall to Mexico I am happy to still be on the road. Progress East has been slow. Every bivouac offers better birding and new revelations about…
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#8 Death Valley to Las Vegas

Covid X-Country Blog
  Death Valley: Summer temperatures reach over 130 degrees, average rainfall 2 inches annually: an endless expanse of rocks and gravel and as far as you can see. Death Valley is all that is left of Lake Manley, the body of water that once covered it thousands of years ago. Much of the Valley exists…
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#7 Mammoth and the Sierras

Covid X-Country Blog
  It’s a beautiful day in the Owens valley of California near Mammoth Lakes and the Nevada Border. We are hanging out with our son Stoddard and his girlfriend Kira who are fly-fishing on the Owens river with gear they got for Christmas. We are enjoying a craft Kombucha. It is warm in the sun…
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#6 Oregon to California

Covid X-Country Blog
Sketching while watching the inauguration. Parked in the front garden   Hello from sunny California. Watching this historic inauguration so far from home but still in this country is a good experience. We finally have two adults in office.. and one is a woman. Hooray! We left Portland, Oregon six days ago, after four weeks…
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#5 Portland for the holidays

Covid X-Country Blog
    Holi-daze 2020 with Pat, Felicity, Helen, Norris and Maisy❤️ Happy New Year! Hope you had a good holiday, what ever that means in these times. May your resolutions be easy: we all deserve that. James and I have been living in our spiffy new camper van in my brother-in-law Patrick’s very flat driveway…
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#4 Crossing the West

Covid X-Country Blog
We are rolling down the wide plains of Eastern Oregon on Interstate 84, headed towards Portland, our destination for the next few weeks. The wide and glorious Columbia river is on our right as we descend into the hippest city of them all.  A week ago we were in Kansas with Ramsey, Erin and our…
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#3 Across Kansas

Covid X-Country Blog
Hello from the road. We have cut loose from the Kansas mothership, aka Ramsey and Erin’s house in Lawrence. Tonight we are camping in the parking lot of a forlorn wildlife preserve near the border of Kansas and Colorado. As we pulled in we saw a hand-crafted cross decorated with plastic flowers in the headlights.…
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#2 Lawrence, Kansas

Covid X-Country Blog
    Ramsey and dogs along the Kansas River…     the house Time has flown by since we made it to Lawrence, Kansas November 22nd.  Thanksgiving was our new pod: myself, James, our son Ramsey, his wife Erin, their gorgeous one-month-old daughter Fiona, Erin’s mother Nancy, our daughter Isabel and three excellent dogs. We…
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#1 Boston to Kansas

Covid X-Country Blog
Julia and James’ (plus Isabel)’s excellent adventure began Saturday morning 11/21.. We are in a camper van heading west into red states and hoping for the best in the pandemic and widespread post-election social unrest. 🙃 Destination: Grandchild in Kansas, Family in Oregon and California and assorted friends between. Will we make it? Stay tuned.…
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