A quick update…

As some of you may know, I hit the road back into the full-time camping/nomad life back in September 27th of this year. As I write this it’s been nearly two months of it and I’m still finding a way to get settled into it.

I figure once I hit the deserts out west soon I’ll hit my stride because that’s where the magic usually begins. Deserts may seem like barren, lifeless places (as I’ve thought) but they’re not and they have a special kind of soul to ’em.

Which is why I — a lover of green, lush landscapes — fell in love with it. I see now why so many stories wax poetic about desert life. Sure, it’s not without its warts but as with all things you take the good with the bad.

I thought I’d be writing quite a bit more here and in my fountain pen notebooks but I’ve barely touched it. I know part of it is finding that routine I speak of — once I settle back into an old way of living, things fall into place and holes open up to sit down and just write.

Right now I’m in an endlessly wandering mode where I surprisingly haven’t found the time (more like wherewithal) to sit and pour out on paper. The desire is there to do it and will come. Just not now.

One thing I have been doing differently compared to the last time I wandered is to at least leave a trail of markers of where I’ve been. I’ve set up an easy way to “check-in” via an iOS shortcut where I snap a photo of where I’m at and it records the location (city, GPS coords, etc.) along with a snapshot of the weather and whatever comments I might have.

It’s not just campgrounds I’ll record — I love to visit local coffee shops and bookstores so I’ll “check-in” there as well as any other cool or interesting places that ought to be memoralized.

The iOS shortcut automatically crafts it all into a blog post that will show up here so you can see where I’m at (with a bit of a time delay for security).

Because I’ve embedded GPS codes in each check-in post, I can load up a map here and see where I’ve been in linear fashion, each waypoint pointing the way to the next. I’m still working on the map so when I’ve finished tweaking it I’ll link to it on the blog fer yer viewing pleasure.

Until now I’ve been saving every check-in as a draft post thinking I’d add additional comments/thoughts and photos, etc. but they’re piling up so I figured I may as well make ’em all live without delay. I can always add comments/thoughts later as they strike me.

(So if you read this blog via RSS it’s why you saw a sudden influx of new posts — it’s all these check-in posts being moved from drafts to live.)

If you want more pretty photos from these check-ins to look at, you can view ’em via the check-ins tag.

One final note is I’ve been terrible at replying to comments or emails — those have all piled up for the same reasons I haven’t started writing yet. No excuses — I am lazy where I prefer to reply/write emails on a laptop rather than the piddly keyboard on my phone and I am rarely pulling out the laptop so it’s a catch-22.

I must confess, however, that it is such a relief to hardly touch the laptop (and phone by proxy) ever since hitting the road. I’d daresay that’s the whole point of living the wandering life in nature away from the reaches of civilization.

It is so refreshing to be so disconnected from the electronic world — I find life far more breathable and real. In fact, by electronically disconnecting, I find myself more connected to myself and life!

As always, thank you for following me Along the Ray! ; )

Happy trails, my friends.

Stray bench near Bear Lake campground in Florida