Two More Blogs To Consider

Among all of the craziness, I've sprung up two more blogs of a more professional nature. One for my photography and the other for my design projects. I'll post new pieces as they come. Check them out at:

Photography: thisisbruce.com>>>photography
Design: thisisbruce>>>design

What Stays and What Goes...

In our ramshackle apartment, most of anything that resembled our lives removed, comforts of home reduced to "indoor camping," we still managed a huddle of friends in our living room last night. Tamara and Tony and John came over for a visit, the very people that if we could, we would certainly take with us wherever we end up.

It was a short gathering, and filled with the kind of talk that is charged with anticipation for our journey. We laughed at the things we tried, joked about Tia's "Going Away" party last September before she shipped her out to New Zealand and my restless nature for wanting to get out of Sarasota so badly. John quipped that if we decided to return to Sarasota after finding out that everywhere else dulls by comparison, he would welcome us with open arms. (A point he has been trying to make almost every time we have been together). I'm sure all of our friends would welcome us back here.

The laughing and the reminiscing pulled at me last night in a way I hadn't expected though. I love these people. This is my family. All along Tia has been trying to illustrate the depth of those connections to me. I have been listening, but I didn't hear the message until last night. A wave of fear enveloped me. Fear about what we're doing, fear about change, fear about losing these friendships. Rational fear, the same fear I had skydiving and leaving the airplane on my own for the first time.

Like all emotions, I held that fear, felt it, acknowledged it and embraced it.

And I keep telling myself the lesson I need to learn from all of this, things will never be this way again. All things are in motion, change is the only constant. ...and it is all delicious.

New Blog...

So, for those of you have been following along from time to time. I want to announce a new blog that Tia and I are keeping. The new blog is called "Newlynomads" - the link can be found to the right. We're going to keep fairly regular updates on it - unlike me, on this blog, at least there will be two of us updating that one.

So it's been crazy times for me these days. Giving up steady work I would have thought I would actually have time for more blogging, I actually thought I would have time for all kinds of things and I'm finding myself busier than ever. My body has finally given up on me and demanded rest by giving me a head cold. So we're behind mucho in leaving. Not that we had a strict timeline, but we would have liked to have been on the road by now. So we'll see, looks more like Wednesday now.

Mountains, Transformations and Moving On.

The intrepid travelers, Tony (left), Bruce (right). Photo credit - anonymous old guy who was handy to snap one off for us...

Been a crazy time lately. Two almost back-to-back trips, wrapping up freelance work, preparing for the trips and just have not had much time to dedicate to writing, but I think I'm making up for lost time in this one... it's a lengthy read, but it's worth it... go on now... really...

It's difficult to even begin to talk about where I've been the past several weeks. I realized lately that I haven't really been myself and I feel I'm just coming out of the shell I kept myself in the past year or more. It's been a long year as you all know. I think I passed through a sign-post on this trip, I saw a brief glimpse of what is and what could be and got a taste of who I am becoming. It was transformational, inspirational and enlightening.

Chattooga River. Separates North Carolina from South Carolina. ©2007 Bruce Anttila van Hoover

Tia and I just returned from a trip to the Carolinas. She had a conference to go to and I went up to see mountains, via motorcycle. This trip was an opportunity do a little guy bonding besides being an opportunity to ride almost endlessly. I rode with my friend Tony, who is Tia's best-friend's husband. We found common ground through motorcycling. I taught Tony the basics of riding several months ago and got him hooked on biking. He was a natural. He practiced, got his license and took the local motorcycle safety course to cover the techniques I didn't cover. He rode up his Honda Nighthawk and me on my BMW.

Waterfall outside of Marion, NC. ©Bruce Anttila van Hoover

The seven-year dream came true the second day we rode as we passed through low hills, and then mountains. The roads were winding, incredibly winding, mind-bending and mesmerizing. The hills were breathtaking. We made an observation that if the posted speed limit is 45 and you can't reach it, you KNOW you're on a winding road! Every time we came to a point we thought it couldn't get any better, it did. Truly a spiritual and ancient energy in the hills, a land unlike any other. Each overpass offered a panorama, each turn, another valley and another mountain river emptying into a lake miles below. Water so crisp and so clean, bright blue skies, clean mountain air. I cannot describe the land and give it justice. All I know is that in our next living situation, I will want to be within an easy commute to places like this. As beautiful as the beaches are where we live, one day in the hills and mountains equals one year of beaches for me. I know Tia feels different, but I am a man of solid earth, soil and rock, not shapeless, drifting sands.

I took my camera along, however the things I wanted photos of, I just couldn't capture, like weaving and winding along the mountain roads. The amazing vistas and panoramas are far too beautiful to successfully illustrate with a camera, however, I am posting the shots I did manage to snap off, but the rest you will have to only imagine.

Part of the Mecklenburg County Park System, NC - a future blog in the works. ©2007 Bruce Anttila van Hoover

For as beautiful as the area is, I'm a tad put off by the overly religious nature of the people there. It is certainly the "Bible-belt" and it lives up to that reputation. Church steeples outnumber mountain tops! Stores cannot advertise alcohol, ABC liquor stores are as unmarked as the paper bags they wrap your "packaged goods" in and to me, that's hypocritical. There was also an alarming population of homeless in downtown Asheville. You couldn't walk down a street without being hustled for money. It's strange to me that there aren't more resources available for them. I know Sarasota has a huge homeless population, but there are large facilities available to them and apart from a few panhandlers, it's a nice city to walk in. In Asheville, I don't think I would trust being on the streets after dark. Anyway, I already know the type of mentality an aggressively religious environment has about it and I think Tia and myself would be in a world of our own there. Nothing against those who follow a more religious path and nothing personally against the people up there, their southern hospitality lives up to it's reputation, but living in the Bible-belt just isn't going to be for us.

I feel like I've been in a shell for so long, working, coping with not being able to sell our house, coping with being in Sarasota and not knowing where we're going, coping with Tia being so far away. I'm coming out of that shell finally, beginning to see things OTHER than this move. Having conversations with my wife that aren't about where we move next. I also finally feel that this past month has brought us to a point of equilibrium from the whole New Zealand experience. I think we passed some turning points in our relationship, vacations have a habit of doing that and I'm not sure if it's just us or if everyone is like that. At one point on our way back to Florida, both Tia and I secretly felt like we could have stayed in our campsite another week, and if it hadn't been for prior commitments in Sarasota, we may have stayed a while longer. But, alas, I wouldn't be here to tell you our latest news then.

There's a RUSH song lyric in the song "Freewill" that goes, "If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice." That about sums up my latest announcement.

Tia and I have finally made a decision about our future. Brace yourself...

We have decided not to make a choice for now. Actually, we've decided to pack up our things into storage and head West and be nomads for a while. Play in the mountains, frolic in hidden valleys and spend some time really searching out viable options in the West. I haven't seen much of this country and Tia hasn't been any further West that Paris, Texas. We both want to see the majestic parks and the deep forests of the north, coastal routes of the Pacific coast and the magical desert southwest. We are preparing to leave Sarasota June 16th.

For now the plan is to limit our trip to 2 months, but we're allowing some flexibility there depending on what we find along the way. We may get tired of living like nomads in a few weeks! So far, there is no concrete plan on where we're going other than to see some national parks, visit friends along the way and check out a few of the cities we have considered moving to. We have no expectations except to have fun along the way and spend some time finding ourselves and searching out our futures as we live from park to park.

So we purchased a customized A.R.E topper for our pickup, I plan on building a platform in the bed of our pickup that will allow for storage underneath and sleeping quarters on top. We bought backpacks and a great backpacking tent which will be our living quarters most of the time, we'll sleep in the truck occasionally if circumstances dictate (like rain or getting in to a site too late). We're putting a rack on top of our truck to hold our kayak and we plan to buy a few used mountain bikes to entertain ourselves with. We're also taking our skydiving equipment for some fun in the air. Knowing that most skydiving clubs will allow patrons to stay for free at their airport, we should be able to make our way across the country fairly inexpensively. I wouldn't mind picking a day a week to volunteer at some state and national parks along the way as well.

So, I'm closing up shop for a little while, unplugging from the beloved grid and setting off to have some fun! The cats will have a temporary home in Wisconsin with my brother.

If this trip doesn't produce a strong desire to settle somewhere in this country, then we have resided ourselves to move to Finland.

Although, Vermont is looking pretty promising these days from what I've seen in the news.

Cheers for now, please keep in touch, if I haven't been in touch, sorry, now's your chance to get caught up!

I've launched a new blog to document our endeavors along our trip. I posted the link in the column to the left called "Newly Nomads." Click it and follow along! We'll be "plugging in" occasionally from the road to give you updates.