...chugga chugga chugga...: Quincy & Photo Catch Up

I’m sitting here, snuggled into the adorable room I’m staying at now and eating the worst tortilla chips I’ve ever had in my life. We got them super cheap yesterday and now I know why. They’re way stale and greasy and have a gross aftertaste. But I keep eating them… Ok, no. I’ll put them away. They even smell bad. Ew.

Ok. Done. Anyways.

Dove and I landed in Quincy, IL on Thursday night, welcomed joyfully by a spunky little Australian sheepdog and one of our hosts, who I’ll call Rooster. We were escorted to the “guest house”, where we have been staying. It’s amazing. Having our own space for a couple days while in the midst of being visitors in every place we stay is quite a relief. And out here, being surrounded by the woods and snow-covered gardens, it is like a little retreat. I am so grateful.

Rooster and Clare have lived out here for 9 years and that’s about how long its been since I’ve seen them. I grew up with Clare… basically. We lived a couple states away, but our families were extremely close and she’s known me since before I was born. She was my sister’s best friend when we were kids and because of that, Clare and I became very close for a while. So it is great to see what she’s up to, how she’s raising her 3 giggly children, and what her life is like now.

On Friday, we took a trip out to a little town called Hannibal, which is Mark Twain’s home town. And boy, is it ever grasping onto that as its one tourist attraction. Every building and park in the main part of the town is named “Becky Thatcher” or “Huck Finn” or “Tom Sawyer” or “Mark Twain”. I found it really endearing but I’m sure it’s a bit of an eye-roll for the locals. Walking down the main street, we popped into a couple local art galleries that seemed like they were doing well cultivating energy around creativity in the town. Always a good thing, I believe.

I find it interesting that on this trip, I’ve done very little drawing or creative work myself. I am guessing that what’s going on is that I am just soaking in a shit ton of inspiration every single day and since I’ve had very little down time, where I can hunker down and get into the “creative mindset”, I just have allowed myself to not have creative output during this time. It is kind of weird though. I’m sure it will come out over the next few months and years, but it hasn’t yet. And it is very true that I’ve done more site-seeing and visiting and mind-expanding over these few months than I normally do. When I create, I need to get into that creative mood, and that is often after I’ve had a little time to process things, make a little plan in my head, and then take time to create. I was able to do that a bit for the Institute at Ched’s, but not really other than that. I look forward to seeing how this will all come out at some point.

So but yeah, I’m on the last leg of this trip. This is really the last week of “adventuring” I have left, and its full of old friends and family. I’ve been getting the question about “how do you feel about going back to Philly?” a lot recently and my answer keeps changing. Last night, Dove pointed out that homesteading, housing, farming, and having a connection with the land have all had a pretty significant part of this trip. I think this wound up happening partially because I feel like those things are largely missing in my life in Philly and I want to explore them, experiment with those ideas, and try to figure out how that will intertwine with my life in Philly. I have a lot of thoughts about how that might work out that I’m excited to share with friends when I get home.

I got some pictures from Dove & Squirrel Ninja yesterday. Here they are.

This is a photo from when Dove & I stopped while driving between Portland and Whitefish. We hiked up the side of this mountain to a look out.

This is the top of the mountain.

This is me at the top.

This is a view from the top. It ran along the Hood River seen here.

This is on our way to Polebridge with AH and Bobcat. I almost smuggled that dog home with us. Didn’t know I like wiener dogs, but hey. Learn something knew every day.

We stopped at that Polebridge Market.

This is a way better pic of the snow-covered mountains on Polebridge than I got.
I almost smuggled the mountains home with us too, but my car’s getting full.

This is a hook.

Oh this is when Dove & I walked around Glacier Nt’l Park. This is Lake McDonald.

This is a mountain. In Montana.

This is me being super pumped that I have snow pants on.

When we stopped to take pictures of that colored ice, we climbed up behind that place a bit and found ice climbers climbing up these frozen waterfalls. Pretty badass.

And this is while we were driving from Montana down into Yellowstone.

And then these are from January, when Squirrel Ninja was with me.

SWAMPTOURSWAMPTOURSWAMPTOUR. In New Orleans.

there's an alligator hibernating in there.

More New Orleans.

a mask shop we drooled through

that graveyard in the French Quarter

MESA VERDE MESA VERDE MESA VERDE MESA VERDE

Squirrel & I both decided that Cathleen, our park ranger, would be the most likely person we met on the trip who we'd want to bro down with over a beer.