travel – Page 3 – The Hermits' Rest

Not a City Girl

What cities do you want to visit?

Today’s question made me pause. Yes, there are cities I’d like to see, especially old cities and ones with beautiful settings. But I’ve become more comfortable in the past few years admitting that urban life doesn’t fascinate me. I don’t like crowds, filth, and blatantly obvious dichotomies between wealth and poverty.

Yes, cities can be beautiful and have many cultural riches. But seeing all the homeless people, hungry children, violence, and addiction right next to the beauty is hard on me. Of course, hiding on my property doesn’t make that stuff go away, but it’s not right in front of me. Here I can find ways to help others as much as I can and not cry all the time or rant powerlessly about injustice.

Most people I know do what they can to help others. I wish some of the people who actually have the means to make a dent in inequality and the policies that encourage it would do so.

Where was I? Anyway, I’d like to visit cities where it’s safe to do so as a woman, but then I’d like to visit the countryside, forests, deserts, lakes, and wilderness around those cities. I want to see the ways people live, learn their crafts, observe the wildlife, and experience the planet. I want to return to where my ancestors walked in Europe and Scandinavia, then just keep heading east until I’m stopped. Then I’d go to Canada and stay there.

Or I can stay here and look for what blooms in the bleak midwinter. Henbit (*Lamium* *amplexicaule*).

I don’t have enough time left to see most of what I’d like to see, and my partner won’t fly. But I’ll figure out something.

If this was a garbled mess, forgive me. My head is all mushy and my neck is sore from what I don’t know.

Daily Bird

I’m voting for the red-tailed hawk today. I finally captured one in Merlin Bird ID today, which is weird, since normally they’re the most common hawk around here. They’re easy to ID by sight and sound (once you compare their call to the red-shouldered hawk).

All this year I’ve been seeing and hearing red-shouldered hawks, which are similar looking. I saw one high in a tree yesterday, then very close in our willows today. Too bad picking up the phone to take a picture made it fly off. Still, I got to watch it a long time, and it finally screeched for me.

Often there’s a hawk on practically every telephone pole this time of year, but not so much here this year. I haven’t been to Austin to check, but I’ll look in Dallas tomorrow.

Pivoting…Again

I don’t have a lot of perky photos for this post, but I have to say I am proud of me and Lee. We had to pivot again, because we are still worried about finding enough gas to get back to Texas. That pipeline is only going five miles per hour, and the situation where we are and between here and home is still getting worse.

Early morning beach view with footprints.

So, here we will be, looking at the ocean, but not getting to do much, since I’m working this week. I’m glad, in a way, that we delayed, because I was not looking forward to three days of trying to get stuff done from a moving vehicle, no matter how nice that vehicle is. And this way we will miss the flash flooding at home (yay for rain, though).

Lee is restocking the food for me while I try to figure out how to do the work I’m supposed to be doing. At least I have a challenge to put my mind to! That will keep me from missing the dogs, Apache, Fiona, and the chickens so much. Oh, and the humans at home, too. I’m sure glad we have them to help out!

Even the sky is appearing to pivot today. Will it rain or will it be sunny?

My meager update is that yesterday we went for a walk on the street behind the beach. We won’t do that again. It’s pretty darned scummy, dirty, and a bit like one long, bad, carnival midway. Every other shop offered henna tattoos, which seem to be very popular with black teens. The other shops alternated between CBD stores, regular t-shirt stores, air-brushed t-shirt stores, and unappetizing foods. I don’t think they designed this stretch of entertainment venues for me, but lots of people seemed to be enjoying it.

Lee points out one advantage of being here. You can put a bag of chips on the floor and NOTHING happens to them!

Most of yesterday I hung around the pool in the shade, with hot tub visits when it emptied out. It was all quite fine and quiet. That let Lee concentrate on business, finances, selling properties, and such. He’s always working, just like Kathleen, at least when she’s not injuring herself, the poor dear!

Looking forward to more walking around after work, until then, it’s a Monday, all right?

To Travel or Not to Travel

I’ve been thinking about traveling lately. Getting out and seeing different parts of the world is really good for my soul. It reminds me, at the same time, of how much similarity there is in all these places, as well as how different places can be. For example, on my field trip last weekend, I saw many of the same kinds of trees I do here (post oaks, live oaks, cedar elms, eastern red cedar), but I also saw many kinds of plants that were very different, like the rattleboxes (repeated from yesterday, but they are so cool!

These make all sorts of sound when it’s windy out by Edwards Lake!

Now that we are mostly working from home, it seems to me that I could travel and work at the same time. As long as I have the laptop and Wi-Fi, I’m set! Zoom is only a click away!

So, I have booked some travel that’s not vacation, just living in a different place. I’ll just have to be really careful getting where I’m going, but that’s not impossible. Once I’m there, I can get all cozy in my rental accommodations, look out the windows at different scenery, and pretend I’m someone else, in a less awful time. At least I’ll be somewhere else!

London, January 26, 2020. People wearing a face masks to protecting themself because of epidemic in China. Selective Focus. Concept of coronavirus quarantine. MERS-Cov, middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV.

I don’t want to get sick, which means, boo hoo, my shopping habit won’t be indulged in. But I can certainly take walks on paths and trails that are not crowded, enjoy parks, and order fun food delivered to my room, right? I’m hoping that this “middle way” of not acting foolish, but not sacrificing the few years of being able to travel that I have left, will get me through the rest of this year and next year.

So many people I know think the risk of getting COVID isn’t real. They aren’t taking precautions, and that’s their right, I guess.

Knowing people who’ve had it, I can’t say that nothing will happen to travelers. But I also think the reasonable solution to the problem is avoiding crowds and keeping clean. That, I can do. And I won’t go anywhere that doesn’t have a lot of safety measures in place. (I’ll tell you where I’m going when I get there!)

I’m not going here, though I’d like to. Image by *@omom via Twenty20*.

Feedback? Am I being foolish? Do you have any fun ideas for out-of-town activities one can do?

Confessions of an Over-confessor

Dudes. The UU Lent word for this first day of a new month is confession. There’s one thing I do enough of already in this blog is confess to my past mistakes, errors, and goof-ups. I don’t share everything, but I hope people can learn from my mistakes and it will be helpful. Confession is good for the blog. Or something like that.

Today I’m going to go the more light-hearted route and do a variation of a meme I’ve been seeing going around on Facebook, where people confess to things they just don’t like, but everybody else seems to love. I think we could all use a break right now, right?

That’s the Master Naturalists’ big Folgers. The other two are what Lee and I drink in the office. I need Folgers bods.

Gourmet coffee. I have tried to be a coffee snob, many, many times. I have owned some darned fancy coffee. But, I really like Folgers. The Black Silk kind is just great. But, any medium roast is fine with me. And I like milk or half and half in it. I fail as an elite in this respect.