✔Attend graduation.
✔Post final grades
✔Pack bags
✔Re-pack bags.
✔Check bags again.
✔Get on the plane.
The calendar tells me we have been on this voyage for little over a week; the increasing length of the baby blanket I am knitting confirms the calendar's claim. But time seems to be suspended this summer, and my sister, my dad, and I seem to exist our own timeless bubble -- no meetings to attend, no phone calls to answer. Although my sister continues, amazingly and quite successfully, to run her business by phone, text, and email, and although we do have a general itinerary that we try to follow, for the most part, our time is entirely ours, and we structure it as we wish. Even on vacation, my body clock is awake at 5:00 am (that was a little hairy for my house mates with the time change from Central to Mountain time), So I enjoy my morning tea either sitting in the motor home or at the picnic table outside (depending on my willingness to battle mosquitos, generally). If the mosquitos keep me inside, morning yoga fits between the kitchen counter and table. Since my sister and I sleep in the "lounge" adjacent to the kitchen, my admiration and apologies go out to my sister who manages to wake and doze through my ineffectual efforts to complete these morning routines in silence. She hasn't gotten irritated with me yet. Dad is usually up around 6:30 and starts the coffee. By this point, the noise and the smell of coffee pull Melanie out of bed as well.
We are operating, loosely, on what Dad calls the "Rule of Twos" -- Drive 200 miles; Get to the new site by 2:00 pm; Stay 2 nights. "Alaska or Bust" means that we have to stretch the mileage and the arrival times on some days, and unforeseen circumstances, like leaking hydraulic fluid on the RV jacks (see what I did there, eh?) may mean that we extend our stay in one place or another. But otherwise, we are blissfully timeless. Melanie and I have been on fabulous walks -- on the ridge above Bothell, Washington, along Fitzsimmons creek in Whistler, down the Williams Lake River Trail and on Scout Island in Lake Williams, and on the Forests for the World trail in St. George. The scenery is truly amazing, and as much as I love the bustle of Chicago and the friends and colleagues back home, I bask in the silence and solitude. Living in the Midwest, I have almost stopped looking for the mountains on the horizon, but here, the mountains are back, and each unpaved trail and soaring viewpoint refreshes my mountain girl's soul.
