The Edge [of all] Journeys

Episode 9 of Journeys – Mar 2010: In this episode we explore the Georgia Guidestones and what they represent.

Episode 8 of Journeys – Feb 2010: In this episode we travel from the beaches of Key West, Florida up through Northern Georgia and catch lizards, shave beards, read stories, take baths, ride bikes and scooters, and more along the way.

So, let the movie parties begin! I have finally come out of the video editing, rendering, and uploading mire bruised and scarred but victorious. After no less than 3 attempts on each, uploads and deletes, codec woes, and other sundry technology battles – Episodes 1-3 of Journeys (the quasi-documentary) are LIVE!

The best way to watch them is on the new page I created just for this purpose. I’m playing with a very sweet new tool by Apture, and I think you will find the viewing experience quite fun! – Go to The Movie (up in the top menu) to watch all the Journeys episodes. I will also update that page as I add episodes in the future.

Or, you can also watch them on my YouTube channel.

I’ve also updated The Map with the last legs of our travels.

We are getting ready to leave Georgia in a few short days and work our way back up to Pennsylvania for spring. We’re hoping to swing through Hampton Roads (VA) and Washington, DC along the way and drop in on some friends in our old stompin’ grounds.

I’m writing this after a pretty tough week – not like, dramatic tough, just self-inflicted tough. I stressed myself out over a couple projects that really didn’t have any stress attached too them. And stress is not the right word either, but it’s the closest I can get to communicate the point. I don’t actually really ever get stressed out about much of anything if you can believe it. But I do have this condition where, once I sink my teeth into a project, it takes more than , a band of wild horses, an international crisis, and a New Kids on the Block song to pull me off of it. Unless of course I actually finish it. This week was not so perfect on finishing things. But in all the mundane chaos I did make  progress… with a few priority casualties along the way.

Traveling is so much better for writing-inspiration, actually. There’s not all that much to write about. This week and the week before it were pretty much the same pasty flavor: Work. Don’t get the wrong idea – I love my work. I love what I’m good at. I love solving, fixing, and fusing technologies. I’m just a little grumpy because I didn’t get much sleep this week or spend enough time with my family and that’s my own fault.

So, it all comes to a nice, relieving end with Sabbath and some time for reflecting. Next week will be different and that feels really good. I need some work on that incredibly elusive thing called Balance. I mean, that’s one of the major reasons we’re doing what we’re doing and what’s the point if I’m going to squander that and put myself in my own private rat race? Arg but it’s so comfortable there as bizarre as it sounds. I can imagine that most people (including me) – if asked – would say that they’d prefer to have a life that resembled a perpetual vacation. Seems like the ideal right? But I’ve had glimpses of what that is like at times along the way and it is not ultimately rewarding or peaceful. I’ve also experienced the opposite: moments where it feels like I have no choice but to work 25 hours a day, because otherwise where is the food-money going to come from?

And maybe this is just an Ecclesiastes moment, but really, that’s all quite meaningless. Especially because there is no joy or peace in either extreme. Especially because there is no success or reward or rest without Balance. And these things cannot be measured.

So. That basically sums up the past two weeks. My incredible wife has been amazing – patiently carrying way more than her share of the family side of things through it all. She’s supportive and knows the work I’ve been doing is really important. But I tend to set these unrealistic demands on myself and dare myself to meet them anyway. And I’ve got to learn how to let go more easily than a pit bull that has chomped down and fallen into a vat of wet cement that then immediately flash-hardens.

So, in the spirit of reflection, I am finally wrapping up one of those projects that I have had my mind on for a while without ever really sinking my teeth in. I am here, officially, kicking off our serial documentary (using the term more loosely than a weasel dipped in baby shampoo) “Journeys.” There will be more soon – I just have to combine all the clips, but here are the first few episodes (I am also playing with a new web toy I found this week):

…nevermind…

As destiny would have it my resolve to find Balance would be tested even before I published this post. I had 4 episodes of “Journeys” ready to post with this entry today (which I wrote last night while kicking off the uploads to YouTube before going to bed). To my horror, I awoke to discover that the audio tracks did not make it… should have remembered to AAC (mp4) encode them rather than mp3… grrrr… A second attempt was also thwarted when I re-encoded the audio tracks and re-uploaded only to discover that they were insufferably out of sync with the video now. Back to the editing table. But the show must go on! So I am publishing this sans videos… so much for having anything related to the title in this post.

But the Journeys episodes are coming! Some time! Whenever it is balanced to post them. And then you will see my new web toy too. Stay tuned. And have a fantastic day!

I have to tell you about the last place we stayed at. I booked it for a couple nights because it was near Orlando and it had great rates (two things I thought might be mutually exclusive when I first started looking around). I booked it over the phone, site unseen, from a little picnic area where we had stopped for a break on Key Largo as we worked our way back to the mainland. When we pulled into this place the next day I was reminded that, well, you never really know what you’re going to get I guess.

It was the kind of place that makes you want to grab your video camera and start shooting a documentary because there are a million insane stories among the inhabitants along with dramatically mundane and rundown visuals, and it’s all ripe for the picking… while at the same time your brain is screaming “you shouldn’t be here, you shouldn’t be here at all, you especially shouldn’t be here with your five children and pregnant wife.”

It wasn’t really anything obvious or overt. And it wasn’t the poverty factor alone. We found ourselves landing behind a tiny 8-room motel in a little campground run by the same folks where most of the sites had turned in to the permanent residences of people getting by in 20-30 year old campers. And it wasn’t really the people either… sort of… they were extremely nice actually. But they were almost too nice. Something was off, but I was resisting that gut impulse, because I kept feeling compassion for their condition and couldn’t help but wonder how I and my family must appear to them. I was also too aware of my own subconscious prejudices and unintentional elitism. And after all, maybe we were there for a purpose. The last thing I wanted to think was that we were too good to stay there… but…

At the beginning I sincerely did not feel like it was even a safe place for our children to play, but Renee was totally comfortable with everything. By the end of our stay those impressions had reversed between the two of us somewhat, but there was never any fear or worry – just an internal struggle between prudence and empathy; wisdom and charity.

It didn’t help that our sewer connection was a horizontal length of 3″ pvc running along the surface of the ground, connecting all the sites in our row – each site with its own tap in – and most of those quasi-permanent. I knew exactly what was going to happen when I opened the cover on the tap at our site to tie my own hose in, but I had no choice – one of the reasons we were there was to dump our tanks and get in a shower or two and I wasn’t going to leave with 500 lbs of waste water in my tanks. I gritted my teeth, unscrewed the cap, and watched helplessly as a couple quarts of liquefied (and quite fresh) sewage backed up and spilled on the ground under our trailer. I won’t enhance your nightmares with additional details of the procedure, but I am convinced that I was experiencing something that was quite illegal.

There was an inventor living there who had made some crazy things from old junk that would never get him anywhere, but were naturally fascinating to children – like a wagon that had been rigged with 2 sizes of bicycle wheels dragster-style with a large office chair bolted on for a seat. There was a guy working on a van next to us with an air compressor and an armada of good tools. There was a lady growing cantaloupe beside her trailer, and – even though it just looked like a bunch of weeds – she was very touchy about kids getting near it. She said she was also growing pineapple. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen pineapple grow before, but it looked like she had just buried one in the ground so that the cluster of leaves were just sticking up out of the dirt. Across the way, there was a camper that looked like it would fall down if you shut the door a little too hard, but it had a direct tv dish bolted to the side. Our other neighbor had 5-6 cats that he fed by pouring a long line of dry cat food out along the cracked concrete pad of the site between us that had some sort of burned out, crumbling brick and re-bar chimney behind it. Oh, and he showed the kids his giant python that he brought out from his completely camo-painted trailer.

I could not make this stuff up. See what I mean? Instant documentary. Camp for a week and get more stories and footage than you could ever cram into a 3 hour feature.

Unfortunately, that is not why we were there. We were really on our way to Georgia and normally would have just Wal-Mart hopped until our final destination. But we had stopped near Orlando to accomplish three major things, the first of which required electricity, running water, and sewer (to buy some time).

1. Knock out a major milestone in one of my work projects
2. Get some laundry done
3. Make an important business connection

#1 turned out to be impossible, but #2 and #3 were smashing successes.

I can’t explain why we were so eager and relieved to leave in any tangible, physical, evidence-based manner. The people were extremely friendly. The inventor gave Reayah a bike (which we had to end up leaving because… well, we were extremely appreciative, but it needed  way more fixing than riding). The pineapple lady gave Reayah a bunch of bracelets and necklaces (we didn’t end up keeping those either because they felt extremely weird spiritually… hard to explain unless you already know what I mean). And they all gave free advice: use duct tape on the sewer tap, keep trying the different washers / dryers until you find ones that work, check out the wildlife refuge down the road.

Despite the weirdness that I was writing off as merely a challenge to my own environmental conditioning, I was seriously considering checking on what their monthly rate would have been like. My logic at the time was that it would be warmer there overall than trying to go further north (even Georgia is still colder than it’s supposed to be right now), basic utilities were covered, it would cost more to keep travelling and then stopping for a month, the campground we had in mind in Georgia was turning out to be a bit more expensive than we initially thought or planned, I had a new business buddy in the area (Orlando) and some stuff could happen there, etc. As I hacked away on some code into the wee hours of the morning I had hopes and prayers in my head that we’d get some clear direction.

At 2am Renee woke up and started talking about the vivid dream she was just having. In her dream she was having a conversation with YHWH – asking Him whether we should stay or go, and He was telling her that we had to get out of their right away because He was going to wipe that place out with a tornado. We got up early and never had a more efficient and orderly time of breaking camp and getting the trailer ready to travel again. We weren’t taking Renee’s dream literally, but we were taking it as our answer, and there was already enough motivation once we had a clear plan.

I never asked about the monthly rates. I didn’t even ever open the valve on our black (sewer) tank, because I knew what would happen. As badly as I wanted to get on the road without that extra weight, it wasn’t worth the consequences under the likelihood that there wasn’t anywhere for the tank’s contents to go. Sure enough, there was a lot of gray (dish and sink) water backed up and stuck in our hose as it was, and that ended up having to go somewhere.

As we were pulling out, the truck started making a bad sound. Here we were, checking out an hour early (which never happens – we’re usually out just in time) and then I had to start wondering if the truck is going to fail me and strand us there. Got the trailer out of the site and started slowly down the road, but the truck was still protesting. It wasn’t the extra weight – we’ve pulled extra before – something sounded wrong. Pulled over behind an industrial building and started hitting diesel forums and trying to figure out what and how bad it might be. I was looking at all the info and starting to make a plan in my head about how to go about checking some things, but I got the distinct impression in my heart that we should just leave and trust. Renee reminded me that we should pray about it and so we did. Putting my analytical side on the shelf, we drove away and it was completely fine – the sound was totally gone!

Several hours later we pulled into paradise. Not by appearance. Not by amenities. Not by a stretch of the imagination – but by the standards of weary travelers who have been on the road for a month and a half, through 8 states, over 3200 miles, a dozen Wal-Marts, a handful of campgrounds, not longer than a few nights in any one place (except for the 2 weeks with our friends), trying to move major work projects forward through all of that, and more than ready to have a fraction of stability.

We are parked. We have a lake view. Actually, we’re only 50 feet from the lake and can fish for free without a license since it’s private. I even set up the slide-out jacks and our out-door carpet. We have electric, water, AND sewer (with a proper pipe and everything). We have free WiFi (which is a big deal because with all the work we have we were otherwise going to bust the 5GB limit on our mobile provider this month). There is laundry 50 feet away. Bennah was catching lizards again today. There is a rec house with puzzles and games for bad weather. Jaiden and Zach made a volcano with some water and a giant climbable dirt pile. The “neighbors” are mostly older, but very sweet. Reayah has a new best friend – the campground owner’s daughter. Necessity shopping is 30 minutes away. It is beautiful (though still a little chilly) here. Joy is taking it all in stride. Business is really looking up. Spring is close. And we have dropped anchor for at least a month.

Two months or so ago I was out driving around near Denver with my 4 year old boy Zach. He was having a rare turn up in the front seat, and looking out through the windshield towards the mountains he suddenly piped up with an epiphany: “Dad!!! I know how to get to the end of nowhere!” he exclaimed rather passionately.

How else can a father reply? “Oh yeah?” I said – not at all sardonically. “How’s that?”

To which Zach confidently replied, “You just keep driving that way and don’t stop!” while pointing straight ahead out the window.

Well, today I made good on my promise to take him to the end of nowhere some time. We spent the afternoon on the furthest SE point of the United States to which one can drive – the southern end of Hwy 1 – the edge of Key West, FL. We have literally driven the entire length of Florida now, entering about a month ago on the far western tip of the panhandle and driving first east and then south along the coast, and then cutting over through alligator alley along the Everglades, and then down Hwy 1 across all the keys. WOW.

What a beautiful place. 75 degrees F today and we played in the ocean in February. Crazy. I’d love to stay longer but it is Expensive with a capital E. Here are some shots from the day (keep reading below the gallery to get caught up on the rest of everything).

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Our next plan is to head up for Georgia where it’s still not all that cold, but away from the majority of migratory retirees which improves the campground rates; hunker down for maybe a month and knock out a ton of work that is looming. Which reminds me I still need to hit some of the highlights from the last month in my typical, inadequate bullet fashion. Here are the primary memories:

• Gabe and Heather’s wonderful southern hospitality and opening their home and land and lives to us for a couple weeks
• The kids playing endlessly together with nary an issue that needed adult mediation; from building robots out of a busted, rusted out 8-track player they found in the woods, to planning their treehouse, to whacking golf balls all over the yard, to jumping on the trampoline and playing in the dirt… it was country bliss like I grew up in
• Early morning hunting adventures
• Bennah’s first lesson on a real rifle
• Tinkering in the studio, recording the band’s first recording, writing a song on Gabe’s old guitar over the course of 2 weeks in the short 2-3 minute segments of time that I was in there each night to monitor my children during their pre-bedtime potty rituals
• Getting overloaded on baby girl cuteness in one place
• Shifting gears in the work arena when our project with La Vie Labs and Clairte did not work out like we had planned and hoped; and focusing all my energies on a new, exciting project
• Golfing in a cow pasture with Gabe and our two oldest boys (the “hole” was an old rusted out washing machine in the corner of the field)
• (And for those who have not noticed my not-so subtle title change on the blog yet) FINDING OUT WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A BABY #6 probably some time in October. Blessings upon blessings (and a bit freaked out at first) but children are a gift from YHWH and He has filled our quiver to be sure.

And that was just northern FL. Then we headed south and landed in Bradenton for a couple days and were extremely well cared for by dear (new) friends – parents of friends that we had grown very close to in Colorado. In fact, if you love garlic, they grow a whole bunch up in Ohio every year and it is absolutely incomparable to what you can buy in the store: Charlie’s Gourmet Garlic! You can watch the video that I edited a while back to get an idea of what Charlie and his farm are like – it’s the 2nd one down on this page: http://doctorbeautiful.com/blog/?page_id=48 So, while we were with them, they gave us and helped us pickle about 2.5 quarts of garlic! In about 3 more weeks the heat will be gone, but all the yummy healthy goodness will be intact. Thanks again Charlie!!!

They also hang out in FL for a few months in the winter so we were parked in Bradenton near their home down there. The tricky thing was that it was just a parking lot designed for RV visitors, and fine for sleeping, but with no electric, water, or sewer not well suited for working or living very long. With some critical work that came up we had to relocate. Ironically, one of the absolute nicest campgrounds in the overall area was also the cheapest (although it wasn’t all that cheap). So, we headed back up north about 30 miles and ended up managing to stretch it out for a week at the Fort De Soto Park Campground. That’s where the last five photos from the previous post were taken. 5 of those days we had a beach-front site. Fabulous. During that time:

• I worked my tail off and got a lot accomplished on a new work project
• The kids got sandy and wet pretty much every day
• We had to fend off the raccoons
• We met two other amazing families who live in that area and are close friends of close friends. They also opened their home and lives to us and we had a wonderful time getting to know them and their children, hitting the hot tub, feasting and fellowshipping together. It never felt like we had only just met.
• We explored Fort De Soto and the beaches there; and I managed to get a few pictures in… still way under quota right now.

And I’m probably forgetting something else important, but then we headed down here on a mission to get to the End of Nowhere. And so here we are. Tomorrow we head north once again.

Episode 7 of Journeys – a serial, rough-cut documentary composed of Motion Snapshots from our life on the road. Jan 2010: In this episode we have all kinds of adventures around Mayo, FL accented by moments of pure baby girl cuteness: playing in the country, swimming at the water hole, riding horses, etc.

We have been having so many adventures in Florida – both with work and with play and with meeting some amazing new friends. One of these days here soon I am going to write about some of it (in theory). I should have gone to bed long ago as it is, and I’m going to try to wake up the kids in about an hour and a half to catch the space shuttle launch at 4:30am…

But, for now, here are some visuals. I know they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I could write at least a few thousand words about the stories weaving in and out of each of these pictures.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]