Roaming About

A Life Less Ordinary

Category: Special Events (page 1 of 4)

Summer in Belgium – A Special Time

September 25, 2024 / / 30 Comments

Where do I begin? This was the first time in 21 years that I returned to my home country for more than two weeks. It’s very different to “live” in Belgium instead of frantically seeing all my friends and relatives in a span of fourteen days every year or two. That method always felt like it was a dream; a whirlwind of activity that seemingly didn’t happen because it flew by so fast. I skipped last year.

Leaving for Belgium from Massachusetts after three and a half weeks with Mark’s family
Belgium, here we come!

Mark, Maya, and I made the decision to visit Belgium for two months straddling July, August, and September, to take an extensive break from our life on the road in South America and to enjoy quality time with my family and friends.

(As always, click on or hover over photos in galleries to read their captions.)

Our living room
Our patio and view of the narrow, rectangular house
Our dining area and work station
Our kitchen
Our bedroom
Our borrowed car
Our bathroom

My parents let us use their small vacation house nearby, so we had the privacy and comfort of a real home, while being in driving, biking, or walking distance of everything we needed and everyone we wanted to see, including them. I also had first dibs on their only car. Life was easy!

Posing with my brother, Robin, and his family in the little house.
Time for gifts!
Nephew Lenn is happy with his soccer shirt, straight from Argentina.
Visit to my friend Hilde in St. Niklaas
Incredible homemade quiche lunch at my friend Hilde’s place
A vending machine for fresh strawberries!
Meeting an aunt and uncle at my parents’ place
Posing with Kim, Eli, and their youngest son, Giel.
Snack time at my friend Kim’s place in Lokeren

The first two weeks, we got settled in “the little house” as we came to call it and worked a lot, while sprinkling in visits to family members and going for daily walks with Maya in the natural areas around us.

Which of the fifty rums shall we try tonight?
My cousin and her husband prepared a Belgian staple: mussels and fries.
The brewery in my cousin’s yard
Mark helped Wim brew a batch of beer, while the girls planned our upcoming 10-day trip to Germany.
Going for a walk in the neighborhood
My cousin, Griet, and her husband, Wim, live in Boom, famous for Tomorrowland. We had a look “behind the scenes” on our walk.
Tasting some special and funny rum in Boom

Being able to just walk outside and follow trails around the lake (Donk) any time we wanted was a big plus of this location!

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Three Years after Publishing “Plunge” – Where Am I with My Book?

March 2, 2024 / / 46 Comments

It’s been a while since I posted an update about the life and sales of my first – and so far, only – travel memoir, Plunge. That post appeared in June 2023; you can read it here.

The idea was to share a bit more news three years in, but I have been extremely busy with our traveling lifestyle and other blog posts, so this one is a few months late. I published Plunge on November 28th, 2020 (on my 45th birthday and in the midst of the Covid pandemic), which is now three years and three months ago.

As you can imagine, not much exciting is happening this far into the shelf life of my (or any) book. Sales are close to non-existent, reviews have pretty much come to a halt, and I am not putting any effort in promotion and marketing anymore. Not because I’m not motivated, but because I have limited time to work and that time is better spent making “real” money.

In July of 2023, the wonderfully supportive and encouraging author Sally Cronin published an excerpt of Plunge on her website Smorgasbord, which gained some traction. I answered the comments and sold a few books as a result.

The leading story on CNN was about us!
Front page article on another news outlet
Our story on CNN
Still on the front page of CNN
Small mention on the home page of CNN

The biggest and most powerful event in 2023 also took place in July of that year. A CNN article about us, written by Francesca Street for the Chance Encounters series, became very popular and successful. Some of you might have read it – or stumbled upon it – before. You can read that “love story” here. As it was big news at the time, I mentioned the article and reactions previously on my blog here.

We have become world news, haha
Many friends unexpectedly saw us pop up on the news channel of their device
Apparently, we showed up in many forms

Upon my request, Francesca included a link to our blog and – more importantly – my memoir, which jumped off the charts as a result.

My book sales kept rising…
… and rising
July 2023 was an awesome month for book sales!
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Yours Truly – Mark & Liesbet – on the Front Page of CNN

July 25, 2023 / / 55 Comments

People who frequently read CNN or who follow me on social media most likely saw the faces of Mark and me pop up in their feed, this past weekend. It made me happy, imagining the smiles, surprise, and recognition during those moments. Some of you subscribed to my blog because of it. Thank you – and welcome!

Lead article on CNN’s home page, this past Saturday

For Roaming About readers who have no idea what I’m talking about, this is the link to our CNN appearance; a story that you might recognize after reading my travel memoir Plunge: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/broke-up-with-boyfriend-three-week-romance/index.html

Here’s what happened…

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Our Colombian Christmas Story – From Horror to Hospitality

March 5, 2023 / / 33 Comments

DISCLAIMER: This is a real-life story, nothing more, nothing less. Just like when sharing a previous, relatively scary experience about a car burning out next to us in a remote area of the Baja Peninsula, Mexico, a year ago, I’m not looking for sympathy, concerns, warnings, or criticism. Also, like the previous story, this one has a good ending. Bad things happen everywhere. We are aware of that and realistic about it. In the twenty years of being nomads, this was the very first time we felt unsafe. And we do not blame it on Colombia or its people.

(As always, hover over or click on photos in galleries to read their captions.)

Our route in Colombia thus far
Location of the Gramalotes

The Setting: Gramalote Viejo, Norte de Santander

After spending about a week in Playa de Belen in the department of Norte de Santander, Mark, Maya, and I drove many hours into the mountains, up and over terrible roads consisting of rocks, gravel, bumps, and potholes to reach Gramalote Viejo in time for Christmas. Our friends Sheri and Jeff had already arrived in their truck camper. They drive faster and had less errands to run. 

Drive to our Christmas destination
Reflected – and Jeff and Sheri’s camper as well
Potholed road
Rocky approach

We parked by the spooky remains of a church, on cracked pavement with weeds poking through. Next to us sat the ruins of a town square and a dilapidated gazebo we repurposed as our happy hour patio.

Parked in a quiet spot for Christmas and New Year – or so we thought
Church and gazebo in Gramalote Viejo

A peek behind the slanted, still existing church façade revealed old crypts with human bones, most of the cubby holes plundered. Vegetation had taken over the church property and an eerie atmosphere lingered. 

Stable enough?
Church interior
Crypts
An eerie scene
Human bones
We had hoped to climb the steps one day, but this never happened.
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Two Years after Publishing “Plunge” – Am I Still Selling Books?

December 2, 2022 / / 47 Comments

November 28th, 2022 marked the second book anniversary of my travel memoir Plunge – One Woman’s Pursuit of a Life Less Ordinary. You can read about its one-year anniversary here. It’s been a while since I posted an update about this first book of mine, because not much is going on with it and I don’t want to bore the non-authors amongst you.

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that the less I focus on book promotion, the less I sell. My goal for this past year was to maintain one sale a day. I failed. Because, how do you achieve this result by ignoring the book’s existence for weeks at the time? To this day, I still haven’t spent a dime on ads and it’s no secret that “to make money, you have to spend money.” So, paid promos and ads might be a thing to consider in 2023. Then again, I am the most frugal person I know. 🙂

Social media posts

Once in a while, I join a free Draft2Digital promo with Plunge, post some news, a new five-star review, or an enticing blurb on Facebook, or lower the book’s purchase price. Usually, this amounts to maybe one or two sales. Occasionally, I get it right (no idea how to predict this) by posting in an attentive, interested social media group or by creating an enticing blurb. In those cases, the correlation between effort and sales is obvious.

And, when that happens, my heart skips a beat, my lips curl upward, and an adrenaline rush improves my wellbeing. Like that time one of my posts on the Sailing Women on Yachts Facebook group took off.

Successful post on the Sailing Women on Yachts Facebook group three months ago
Best sales month since releasing Plunge

If enough sales occur in a day, my status on Amazon goes to #1 bestseller in one or more categories, which, I have to imagine, encourages more sales. And that’s the upshot every author dreams of. Until the spiral spins downward again and sales dry up.

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Best Wishes for the New Year!

December 27, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Cheers to 2022!

From Mark, Liesbet, and Maya xxx

Maya relaxes with a new Christmas gift – Thank you, auntie Denise!

Goodbye, Westy! – Changing Gears

May 13, 2021 / / 84 Comments

Mark and I owned Zesty the Westy, our home on wheels, for almost four years. This 19ft converted Sprinter Westfalia van was imported from Germany into the US by Airstream in 2005. Only a few remain. They are very sought after, because of their unique design, plethora of amenities in a tiny space, facilitating layout, and quality components. They keep their value and, at an average of 22mpg, have decent fuel economy for an RV (recreational vehicle). We loved our set-up and couldn’t have asked for a more versatile, manageable, all-in-one camper to live and travel North America in. You can find an introduction to our Zesty in my post “Welcome, Westy!” here.

Us with our Zesty in California (before Maya)

Summer 2020, New England, USA

“Now that the camper is empty and clean, we might as well take photos in case we want sell it at some point,” I suggest to Mark.

“Good idea,” he responds. “Whenever that might be. But let’s do it up in Maine, where the view is better.”

Front and back seats
Front seats with arm rests down
The cockpit
The spacious dinette area
Lots of storage
The engine

He and I – and Maya – are committed to spending the summer in our “room above the garage” at my in-laws in Massachusetts, because of the pandemic, Mark’s parents needing help, and my goal to finish my travel memoir in 2020. 

For a couple of weeks, we move to Maine to help out family with home renovations. There, we remove (and wash) all the covers and spend a couple of hours turning Zesty inside out, opening cabinets, converting the dinette into a second bed, pulling our main bed out, swiveling chairs, and taking 300 photos of any set-up and conversion possible. I’m sure nobody here has seen the original interior of our van, since we kept every piece of cloth – even the arm rests – hidden and protected since the beginning!

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A Special Baja Birthday – My Husband’s 50th

March 28, 2021 / / 64 Comments

Mark has a fantastic group of tight-knit college friends. Most of them turn 50 this year. The plan was for the men to gather somewhere fun in the spring of 2021 and have a mighty good time. But, because of Covid, no such plans were made. It was up to me to throw a two-person and one-dog special birthday party! How? By renting a small casita along Bahia Concepcion, via AirBnB.

The blue casita is where we stayed for Mark’s birthday weekend

A jaunt to Mexico seems to be my go-to when it comes to quick Mexican-themed birthdays for my husband. Three years ago, we ended up in Puerto Penasco, because I couldn’t find a restaurant in the middle of the desert of Southern Arizona to treat him (he loves Mexican food). In March 2006, we found ourselves on the mainland of Mexico for Mark’s birthday celebrations.

(As always, hover over or click on photos in galleries to read the captions. My images are heavily resized for easier downloading and uploading; I apologize for their inferior quality.)

View from our small balcony
View from our bedroom
Our private beach came with a plethora of kayaks and paddleboards in varying states of disrepair.
View to the right
View to the left
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Bye, Bye 2020 – Welcome 2021!

December 24, 2020 / / 64 Comments

A lot has been written and discussed about this past year. Jokes were made at the start of it. 2020. It looked interesting; sounded promising. New in so many ways. Now, it’s almost over. And it still went fast, despite the dreadful circumstances.

Santa in the cauldron, Tubac, Arizona

The pandemic messed things up for all of us. Nobody was immune to it. Yet, some people struggled more than others. Financially, mentally, physically, socially. In our circles, the lack of hugs, social interaction with friends and family, gatherings for special events (from celebrations to a funeral), and being able to go out for a meal or a chat seemed to be the extent of the “suffering.”

Christmas tree in the American old west

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The Summer of Covid – Pandemic Update from Newburyport, MA

August 27, 2020 / / 79 Comments

Lately, Massachusetts has not been one of the “bad” Coronavirus states in this tumultuous country. The guidelines have been pretty strict since the beginning of the pandemic (according to US-norms), the Governor (Charlie Baker) has handled the situation well, and most residents have been compliant.

(Hover over the photos for captions and click to enlarge.)

Boardwalk to the dog park
View over one of Newburyport’s marinas
A little oasis – and multi-use, off-leash area – along one of the rail trails

In my home country, Belgium, the reactions to this virus – real “lockdown”, strict rules, and fines instead of self-imposed quarantine, “guidelines”, and raised eyebrows – have had a drastically better impact. As a result, their Summer of Covid was more “benign” than ours. Restaurants, bars, theaters, pools, hairdressers, zoos, … have been reopened for many weeks. Kids went on summer camps and most schools (especially kindergarten and the lower grades) will start “as usual” on September 1st.

Historic buildings in downtown
Plaza and pedestrian-only area

How is the situation in Newburyport, where Mark, Maya, and I have been “hunkered down” since mid-April of this year (apart from a multiple-week trip to Maine and Vermont in June and one week in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in July)?

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