Ahhhh...TorC....and your hot, healing waters....

So, the journey transforms now to a more grounded routine with friends and chores and my favorite little backwater town in the world.

My drive-around was a total of 13,000 miles and about three or four months of vandwelling.

I was able to see my step-mom in the care-home and say my goodbye as she is 93 and slowly slipping away. I spent time with my sons and their families, I saw a number of old friends and stayed for a while in their camps and homes. Spent a couple of days with one of my brothers and his family. Met face to face and camped with some VanDweller internet friends. I also saw some very beautiful parts of this huge country and spent some time in mourning what we have done to it in the name of progress.

I do not have anything profound to say about what I learned. I do think that as usual, I find that when I travel and talk to folks , anywhere in the world that I have been, most people are pretty amazing and kind. It always gives me hope.

Mostly what I learned was about me and my walking on this earth. Isn't that what it is always about, no matter what we say about others? I feel like I am enormously gifted with blessings. I am so grateful to have begun to awaken, to learn that what I give is returned ten-fold, that love is never exhausted and that I have enough senses left to enjoy this amazing spaceship we live on. The awesomeness of being here, now sometimes overwhelms me.


Blessings,
ManyWheels

Along the Natchez Trace...

So now after a very nice week visit with some of my old friends from my Oregon time who have returned to their roots in the North Carolina "mountains" (?) I am officially back on the road...
They have a pretty place to do their lives in and they treat it well. Both artists in their own right and it is always a pleasure to see what they have wrought from natural and salvaged materials...
This time they played a couple of songs and harmonized a bit and it was sweet....

The Trace is an old track 444 miles long, stretching from Natches, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee that is more than 200 years old...mostly a sunken mossy ditch now it is an excuse for a beautiful parkway maintained and cared for by the National Park Service. There is ever so much history all along the trace and I don't have the time to do it justice at all....I am starting to itch to be with my friends at home in NM and my garage is calling me....

Unfortunately there have been some bruised and battered egos on my favorite forum online and it has resulted in a few of my favorite personalities leaving the group...I am stepping back for a while as I don't want to add fuel to the fire and will miss those folks...I will catch back up when I arrive in TorC and have a better connection and more time for that...if there is anyone from there reading this...take it easy and know that you are loved and missed...maybe not take it too seriously...

That's about it...I am in a free NPS campground tonight along the Trace....and camping early....
Peace,
ManyWheels

well along the way...

Gosh, it has been ages since I have had good enough internet access to do a catch up post to my blog. I have been slowly moving down the Shenandoah Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway from Virginia to North Carolina and am currently in Asheville, NC

I had a great but short visit with one of my Vandweller sisters, TwoKnivesKate at a campground near the huge Primitive Campout she was going to attend in Lancaster County, the land of the Amish people. Other than my visit with Kate, the high point for me was to go to the big supermarket nearby and see the Amish buggies parked in a row with the horses tethered to hitching posts outside. I think they are so cool. The religion may be a bit harsh on women...but who's converting...I say....Whatever you can say about them, they hold fast to their beliefs.

I am just amazed at how beautiful the Blue Ridge is...maybe some of the best scenery in Virginia and North Carolina...just awesome and I can see the huge attraction to motorcyclists. The speed limit is 35 on the Skyline Drive and 45 on the Parkway so you are forced to just look and enjoy. If you do as I do and listen to some favorite spiritual music....it is very easy to be in the present and see the work of the Creator.

Be well,
ManyWheels