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A Life Less Ordinary

Category: Lifestyle (page 33 of 45)

Two-week RV Trip, Part 2 – Indian Pueblos and Culture

June 21, 2018 / / 57 Comments

After less than one week on the road in Zesty, Mark and I returned to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in case an urgent health matter had us drive back to the East Coast in our van. Juan, the “window guy” at Extreme Twist, added an extra layer of silicone to the inside of our windshield, in the hopes it would finally be fixed. We couldn’t water test it until later. Mark’s health scare proved less urgent than we thought, but it kept weighing on us the rest of our time in the van. Today, I’m happy to report that it was false alarm.

Instead of retracing our steps yet again, back to Arizona, Zesty took us north, to Chaco Canyon. The idea was to spend the afternoon in Chaco Culture National Historical Park and see some of the most spectacular ruins of the Chaco Indians. But, by the time we reached the area after a 4-hour drive, and conquered the 14-mile long washboard gravel road to get to the park (which took another 2 hours instead of ½ hour because we are heavy and extremely careful), it was too late and hot in the day to stick to plan. We decided to camp for the night at the only (pay) campground in the park and split the excursion over two days.

Bonito Pueblo

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Two-week RV Trip, Part 1 – Rocks and Petrified Wood

June 13, 2018 / / 69 Comments

After Mark and I finished our two-month house sit in Santa Fe, the end of May, we had no other assignments lined up. Partly because the 2.5-week gap before our train journey east was tight to find a “perfect” house sit; partly because we wanted to give full-time RV living a chance. We planned to make a loop from Santa Fe west into Arizona, north to the Four Corners region, east through Southern Colorado, and then back south into New Mexico. Memorial Day weekend would offer us a little break away from the computer, and since our business partner was on holiday for ten days early June, Mark’s job would be more relaxed then as well.  During those once-a-year periods, he only deals with customers over email, and postpones phone calls until “vacation time” is over.

The southern part of Petrified Forest National Park

Our trip was off to a rocky start, since our windshield was still leaking. We’d come back earlier, after two weeks, and deal with it then. First stop: El Malpais National Monument, where we’d briefly stopped for a free night of camping after picking Zesty up in Arkansas, almost a year ago.

El Malpais National Monument

Already on day one, our bikes came in handy. We explored the eastern part of the park at our own pace, and photographed rocky outcrops, peddled through Indian Reservations, and discovered a natural arch.

Zesty and the bikes in the Joe Skeen campground of El Malpais
The black patches are lava rock
Sandstone Bluffs
La Ventana natural arch

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IWSG Writing Update June 2018 – Finished Draft Three

June 6, 2018 / / 63 Comments

Every first Wednesday of the month, the IWSG (Insecure Writer’s Support Group) engages writers to share their fears, thoughts, progress, struggles, excitement, encouragement, or anything really, about their writing. A different question is posed each month, as a writing prompt for IWSG members. Answering it is optional. For June, the question is: “What’s harder for you to come up with, book titles or character names?”

This amazing, supportive group of writers was founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Today, the co-hosts are Beverly Stowe McClure,Tyrean Martinson,Tonja Drecker, and Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor. Feel free to swing by their sites and see what they’re up to.

My answer to the question (“What’s harder for you to come up with, book titles or character names?”)

This month’s question is easy to answer. Since I’ve only written non-fiction stories and I’m working on my first memoir, the names of my characters are their real-life names. I do plan to contact these people, and if they want pseudonyms, they can send me suggestions as replacements. So, book titles are the hardest thing to come up with for me. And, to be honest, after years of working on my memoir, I still haven’t decided on its title. So many possibilities…

My book progress

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Monthly Expenses – May 2018

June 5, 2018 / / 38 Comments

Expenses - image

Every month, I post a report of our expenses to show that it is possible to live a comfortable, exciting and relatively adventurous life without breaking the bank. The less money you spend, the less you need to make. 🙂 That being said, Mark and I seem to manage one big expense a month for some reason, whether it is camper, plane, travel or computer-related. Luckily, we live totally rent-free, wherever we end up.

This report includes ALL of our expenses, in US$, for the two of us. Under groceries we incorporate all the food, produce and non-alcoholic drinks predominantly bought in supermarkets. Toiletries belong in that category as well. Dining out means eating at a restaurant/event or purchasing take-out food. The health category covers non-prescription medicines and Mark's vitamins and supplements; medical contains prescription drugs and doctor's visits. Health insurance and costs are related to my health care as a permanent resident in the US. Mark is still eligible for free health care in the state of Massachusetts as of today. If a non-emergency were to happen outside of that state, it will be expensive! For check-ups, we both return to the East Coast. I still pay a small quarterly fee in Belgium for health care (required to retain citizenship), which I mention in my year report.

May was an extremely expensive month for Mark and I. We expected the big, annual camper insurance bill of almost $1000, and attempted to keep other expenses low by doing what we always do: keep eating out and drinking out to a minimum, and only buy the things needed to eat healthy and get our camper ready for the road.

We bought bikes, then, we needed to get a rack, and a swing out hitch. Next, a bag for protection. With this contraption, our lights and license plate weren't visible anymore for traffic behind us, so Mark fabricated an extension, we moved the license plate (still waiting on an extra one), and purchased extra lights.

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Completed House Sits – Santa Fe, New Mexico (March 28th to May 26th, 2018)

May 30, 2018 / / 43 Comments

This is the second time that Mark and I did a “repeat sit”, the only other time being in Sebastopol, CA with one of our favorite dogs, Lola. We are often asked back by owners to take care of their homes and pets again, but it rarely fits in our plans or weather tolerance, or we’d rather explore new areas of the country.

Visit from Karmen and Tom, boating friends from back in the day.
Visit to Pecos National Historical Park with our friends
Down into a restored kiva
Inside a kiva
Restored kiva
Mission church
Part of the church and the pueblo ruins

Since we house sat (no pets) at this location in Eldorado, Santa Fe from mid-August to mid-September 2017, it felt like coming home. Continue reading

Twisted

May 23, 2018 / / 67 Comments

Every week, The Daily Post, which is a part of WordPress, suggests a new photo challenge theme. This week, the topic is “twisted”. Since these weeks are extremely busy, I planned to find a few photos in my extensive archive that would fit the theme, and be “done” with it. Then, today, ironically, turned extremely twisted, so I wanted to share this most recent experience with you. Maybe you agree.

Since Mark and I are wrapping up our last two-month house sit this week and need to get the camper prepared for an extensive camping trip, on top of our usual jobs, we scheduled a major van repair last week. Before we owned Zesty, somebody once replaced the windshield, scraped off some of the paint around it, and never fixed that properly. The result: since we’ve owned the van, rust has been building up around the windshield, getting worse by the day. It needed a proper fix. The windshield had to be taken out (and most likely replaced, as these things are big and crack easily when removed), the rust sanded down, and matching grey paint applied. The body shop we selected to do the work is called Extreme Twist. That’s right.

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Wordless Wednesday – Liquid

May 16, 2018 / / 53 Comments

It’s been a while since I combined a Wordless Wednesday blog with the weekly prompt of the Daily Post. Since my week has been incredibly busy and I don’t have time for a regular post, I decided to share some photos with you. This week’s Daily Post photography theme is “liquid“. As many of you know, Mark and I lived, sailed, and worked on our 35’ catamaran Irie for eight years, so it will be no surprise that my liquid of choice is water.

As I’m working daily on my memoir, the memories of our experiences aboard Irie are fresh. Welcome to a visual of that period of my life!

The Galapagos Islands

My favorite activity is interacting with and observing wildlife in their natural surroundings. The Galapagos delivered!

All we had to do was look over the side of our boat…

Penguin swimming around our boat
Sea lion swimming by our boat

… or jump in the water.

Snorkeling with eagle rays
Snorkeling with sea lions
Snorkeling with turtles

French Polynesia

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Highlights in Southern New Mexico – A Long Weekend Away

May 9, 2018 / / 64 Comments

Mark and I finally did it! After months of frustration, stress, and dealing with atrocities out of our control – from having both our websites hacked, to rude Wirie customers, to issues with Blue Host, to incapable Mass Health employees messing up our health plans six times – we pulled ourselves away for a long weekend. Our destination: White Sands National Monument and Carlsbad Caverns National Park into warm weather. Both New Mexican highlights had been on the mental list since last summer, when we first house sat in Santa Fe for four weeks, but remained in the area.

So, we packed up Zesty, filled the water and diesel tanks, and drove south for about four hours. Lake Holloman became our free campsite for two nights, merely 3 miles away from the National Monument.

Free camping at Lake Holloman Military Base

White Sands National Monument

The scenic drive brought us smack in the middle of dunes, created by the brightest, whitest of sand. Where is the ocean? Continue reading

Monthly Expenses – April 2018

May 5, 2018 / / 22 Comments

Expenses - image

Every month, I post a report of our expenses to show that it is possible to live a comfortable, exciting and relatively adventurous life without breaking the bank. The less money you spend, the less you need to make. 🙂 That being said, Mark and I seem to manage one big expense a month for some reason, whether it is camper, plane, travel or computer-related. Luckily, we live totally rent-free, wherever we end up.

This report includes ALL of our expenses, in US$, for the two of us. Under groceries we incorporate all the food, produce and non-alcoholic drinks predominantly bought in supermarkets. Toiletries belong in that category as well. Dining out means eating at a restaurant/event or purchasing take-out food. The health category covers non-prescription medicines and Mark's vitamins and supplements; medical contains prescription drugs and doctor's visits. Health insurance and costs are related to my health care as a permanent resident in the US. Mark is still eligible for free health care in the state of Massachusetts as of today. If a non-emergency were to happen outside of that state, it will be expensive! For check-ups, we both return to the East Coast. I still pay a small quarterly fee in Belgium for health care (required to retain citizenship), which I mention in my year report.

Mark and I recently bought bikes, which, as an exception, I haven't included in my expense overviews.

April was quite the month. Not only was it extremely busy for us, but also extremely expensive. The culprits this time? Zesty, and planning our trip East for this summer. In light of that, we tried to keep the other categories low. Our camper needed two new batteries, which we installed ourselves. The two rear shocks Mark bought months ago, had to be installed by a mechanic.

Our new toys, with rack, swivel, and bag, installed on Zesty
New batteries for Zesty. They fit! 🙂

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IWSG Writing Update May 2018 – Finished Draft Two

May 2, 2018 / / 74 Comments

Every first Wednesday of the month, the IWSG (Insecure Writer’s Support Group) engages writers to share their fears, thoughts, progress, struggles, excitement, encouragement, or anything really, about their writing. A different question is posed each month, as a writing prompt for IWSG members. Answering it is optional. For May, the question is: “It’s spring! Does this season inspire you to write more than others, or not?”

This amazing, supportive group of writers was founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Today, the co-hosts are  E.M.A. Timar, J. Q. Rose, C.Lee McKenzie, and Raimey Gallant. Feel free to swing by their sites and see what they’re up to.

My answer to the question (“It’s spring! Does this season inspire you to write more than others, or not?”)

No, unless the weather is rainy, cold, or windy (like now). If any season inspires me to write more, it’s winter. Not because I like that time of the year, on the contrary. I prefer a sunny, warm climate, making summer my favorite. But, winter weather is the perfect excuse to sit behind the computer and be productive. So, as you might expect, summer and its outdoor activities are a major distraction from getting any writing done.

Cutie!
Visiting an alpaca farm by bike
Close and personal

My book progress

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