Roaming About

A Life Less Ordinary

Tag: Tucson

Fun in Southeastern Arizona & California

People who have been following my blog the last six months (and longer) know that I have been extremely busy with a personal project that finally came to fruition the end of November. This doesn’t mean the work is finished, as December and January still had me glued to the computer to promote my travel memoir, Plunge. The question is: did we have any fun throughout the focus and dedication towards my book?

(As always, hover over photos or click on them to read captions. My photos are heavily resized, so I can easily upload them and so this page loads with weaker internet connections.)

I have offered glimpses of that in previous posts, expense reports, and writing updates, but I have left a lot out as well. It is my intention to fill in the gaps today. Since my memory is nothing to boast about, I will let the photos do most of the talking. 😊 My last sightseeing update documented how we arrived in Arizona, the end of November. You can read about that here.

On the drive to Tucson from Wilcox Lagoons, we briefly stopped in Benson to meet a fellow Westy owner.

Mark and I met up with two befriended couples and fellow overlanding nomads, Duwan and Greg (and their van Ballena Blanca) of Make Like An Ape Man and Ellen and Scott (with their tiny Scamper) of Ellen Jacobson Author, for Thanksgiving, my 45th birthday, and my book launch. I wrote a post about that milestone event here and Duwan did a better job with that here. For the next few weeks, we would see our friends on and off.

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The Desperate House Sitter

July 2018, Newburyport, Massachusetts

“When I come back in six months, it will be winter again,” Mark says, as we pack up in order to take the Amtrak train back from Boston to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“I’m not coming with you next time,” I reply, “I hate being here in the cold.”

“I don’t blame you,“ Mark responds. “We will make sure to get a house sit by then, so you can stay out west.”

November 2018, Ojai, California

“We really need to find a house sit for January soon. You have to book your plane tickets before they get too pricey,” I say to Mark. We’ve been keeping an eye on sits in Southern California and Arizona on Mind My House and House Sitters America, the two websites we are members of. Nothing decent showed up.

“As long as we don’t know where you and I will be the second week of January, I can’t book any flights,” he says. I know. We need to do something soon, or risk a decision about his departure city. For days I research alternatives. I could boondock in Zesty, but Mark doesn’t like the idea of me being alone in the middle of nowhere without services. Not having unlimited electricity and internet would make it impossible to accept translation projects and work on my book.

We consider a pay campground for twelve days or so. Incredible how expensive those are. I might as well fly back with Mark. It’s cheaper and I’m guaranteed hot showers, WiFi, and electricity. How about staying with friends? Not really an option for that long; we wouldn’t feel good about it. House sitting makes most sense. We reach out everywhere: bulletin boards in Ojai, Facebook groups and personal pages, friends… We even post an ad on Craig’s List. The two reactions we receive from that are “You guys are freeloaders, not wanting to pay for utilities,” and “You won’t find anything in Arizona, it’s the high season.” Continue reading

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