Just some of my writing friends, NCTE, Anaheim, CA November 2023
Today’s host at the Open Write is Jessica from Arkansas, who inspires us to write about our friends using borrowed lines from friendship songs. You can read her full prompt here.
I can’t think of a better way to kick off any month than celebrating friendship. Jessica’s invitation to search songs was just what my heart needed this morning, and for me, no one touches my heart like The Divine Miss M. Here’s to all of my friends who are writers – all of you, using a line or two from Wind Beneath My Wings
A Haiku for YOU
you, fellow writer, are the wind beneath my wings cheers to friends with pens!
did I ever tell (forgive me if I haven’t) you, you’re my hero?
Steinbeck coined the term “The Mother Road” in his novel The Grapes of Wrath.
Last summer, I’d spent weeks researching and planning a trip to Yellowstone National Park when we shifted gears at the last minute and cancelled the whole trip. I’d booked 3 hotels, purchased refundable airfare, and mapped out a route. I’d talked to friends who had made recommendations and offered all the best tips. We were all but packed.
But the rental car was the issue. The major airport into Yellowstone was closed for runway upgrades, so we’d purchased tickets to Bozeman, Montana and planned to drive down to the western entrance and work our way around the park. The only rental car I could find was one town over and cost $7 less than a week-long Alaskan cruise. The rental car alone, without gas or fees, without the airfare and the hotels and the food and the Uber ride – seven dollars less. So we backed out of the trip and opted for a trip that was within our budget.
Little did we know at that time that Yellowstone National Park would be shut down due to flooding and road washouts at the time we had planned to go. It turned out that despite our hopes and dreams to visit the park, the circumstances and costs didn’t seem feasible. As travelers, we have learned to follow our instincts and be flexible – and it often pays off in ways we’d have never dreamed. Where we missed driving through Yellowstone and seeing the bison, we stood on a hovercraft in Ketchikan watching bald eagles swoop down to catch fish.
This year, as we sat planning a trip to Glacier National Park in the local coffee shop with my husband’s brother and his wife, we discovered that one of the main attractions had no tickets available. We could not get tickets to Going to the Sun Road, and according to one friend, we should book a year in advance and make sure that we are able to do that if we make the trip to Glacier. We could not arrange to see one of the things we most wanted to see, so we returned to the destination drawing board.
That’s how we decided to travel part of Route 66 this summer. Driving The Mother Road, as John Steinbeck coined it, has been on my list of vacation hopes for years. It spans from Chicago, Illinois to the Santa Monica Pier in California and would take us a couple of weeks to enjoy from start to finish in full completion if we drove it all at once. We knew that time would prevent the entire trip this summer, but when we started talking about the possibility of driving half this summer and the other half later, we grew more and more excited about the adventure – knowing that we could make the trip at our own pace. And while rental cars are still expensive, we’d share the cost and the driving.
We’d decided on the basics – destination, budget, and main attractions, so we began mapping out our itinerary on the Roadtrippers app by entering our starting point and adding waypoints. We added an iconic motel – The Blue Swallow Inn in Arizona, and other motels – along with landmarks like The Gemini Giant and the Blue Whale of Catoosa, and also added a few restaurants recommended along the route.
This weekend and over the coming weeks, we’ll watch YouTube videos of the places we plan to visit all along Route 66, we may watch the movie CARS, and we’ll listen to the Route 66 Pandora station. I’ll probably revisit sections of John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), in which he named Route 66 “The Mother Road.” We’ll begin to immerse ourselves in learning more about the places we will see on the way – a strategy to engage in deeper learning about our culture and cultivating an appreciation of its rich history.
These are some of the ways we enhance the enjoyment of our trip as we anticipate the adventure!
Here is one of the You Tube videos we’ll watch this weekend on one of the iconic landmarks on the route, explaining some of its historical significance:
One of my favorite things to do in all the world is to plan a trip or a vacation – and there is a difference! Since it’s vacation time for families and teachers as the school year ends and summer break begins, I’m devoting my month of blog posts to the planning and the journey down half of Route 66, from Chicago to Aubuquerque. I kicked off the month introducing the Roadtrippers app as a great trip planning tool for trips that involve driving.
So if the first thing to do when planning any trip is downloading the Roadtrippers Plus app, the second thing is purchasing the Roadtrippers book featuring the chosen travel destination. I’ve purchased plenty of travel guides over the years, and my gold medal guides for international and large city travel are the Eyewitness Travel series of books published by Dorling-Kindersley because of the photography and organization of the layout. The Roadtrippers books, published by Roadtrippers LLC, have become my gold medal guides for driving destinations in the United States. For our trip, I like that the book and the app work together to provide a more technologically-enhanced global glimpse of the journey.
The Route 66 edition that I purchased came with a scratch-off code in the front cover of the book, activating a free month of the Roadtrippers Plus app. The organization of the book gives a simplified view of a long road trip, organized into six legs of the overall trip. One thing I particularly love is the playlists for each leg, featuring songs of those national regions. I have discovered, too, that there is a Pandora station entitled Route 66, which will make it fun to enjoy ahead of time and along the route.
And what song would be more fitting to begin a trip down Route 66 than Chuck Berry’s Route 66?
Any good goal system has to be periodically updated, which is why I revisit my goals at the end of each month. Sometimes I feel myself slipping, and sometimes I reach goals and then move away from them and have to re-establish them and strive to reach them again. Keeping them in my sight throughout the year is a dance – – whether two steps forward and one step back or one step forward and two steps back, I keep the momentum when I devote some time each month to thinking about making things happen. Because a goal without a plan, as they say, is just a dream.
Here’s what is happening this month:
Category
Goals
My Progress
Literature
Shift from Read Around the USA to reading with Sarah Donovan’s Ethicalela book group, which begins in August – My goal is to co-host April with Fran Haley and host next July alone, unless someone wants to join in and be a partner.
Continue to Blog Daily – I’m considering moving to a weekly blog, but I’m undecided as yet.
Signed up to host the book groups – Ada Limon’s The Hurting Kind poetry for April 2024and The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart for July 2024.
Ordered the first two books in the yearly reading series.
I have blogged daily this month.
Creativity
Improve blog photos
Indulge in photo excursions
I’ve been reading tips on improving photography from websites like Audubon, and using the tips to apply to my photos.
I’ve been taking my camera on my outings, and I always keep it handy on the way up or down the driveway, since so much wildlife lives right there.
Spirituality
Tune in to church Pray! Keep OLW priority
We have tuned in to the First Baptist Church of YouTube through the month and listened to Dad as he has preached in different locations as pulpit supply.
I’ve prayed my way to work most days, and I’m keeping prayer as my priority – we have so many blessings that can never be thanked for enough.
Reflection
Write family stories Spend time tracking goals each month
I haven’t been writing as many family stories as I should be writing. I have been tracking my goals, though.
Self-Improvement
Reach top of weight range
Maintain Weight
I reached the top of my goal weight range and tried maintaining, but I failed to maintain. Now I’m back to needing to lose 10 pounds, and I’m going to try it with Weight Watchers instead of Optavia this time, since I find it more sustainable. Plus, I need a banana every day of my life for potassium – – not allowed on Optavia. Thankfully, a lot of weight has not been gained. I just need to reel it in. Maintenance is the harder goal of losing and keeping it off.
Gratitude
Devote blog days to counting blessings
I still devote blog days to counting my blessings. It helps to look ahead on the calendar and anticipate days like birthdays and other celebrations, like Marshall and Selena’s anniversary at the end of May and Beckham’s birthday at the beginning.
Experience
Embrace Slow Travel
Focus on the Outdoors
Add birding in at least three new counties for June – I currently have official counts for four Georgia counties.
We are indeed embracing slow travel as we take more camper trips. Instead of planning a cruise or a trip overseas this summer, we are opting to drive Route 66 (half of it) at an enjoyable pace, stopping to see the sights. We leave at the end of June for this with Briar’s brother and his wife, so we can share the driving and go at our own pace.
We’ve been spending more time outdoors at home and away – spiffing up the yard, savoring campsites. Spring is the ultimate time to get outdoors! I’m even trying a few new plants to see if I can keep them alive.
I have officially posted birding counts for Pike, Harris, Washington, and Cherokee counties in Georgia. My goal is to stop along the way home when we are at campsites and get at least three new counties by the end of June.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my reading choices these past few weeks. I started the year with the goal of reading around the USA with The Book Girls, and I made it three and a half months before rethinking my commitment to reading books that I thought might be more about particular places. I’ve never had trouble abandoning a book, and I’ve never had trouble rereading one again and again and again.
Reading Around the USA seemed fun – like it was going to be an adventure – but in many cases, I found that the recommended books hardly mentioned place, and when I read to learn about a place, I thrive on rich descriptions that take me to settings that appeal to all five senses like I felt when I was walking the streets of Mitford Village with Jan Karon. What others find to be amazing bestsellers not to be missed, I often find blah at best, reading the obscure books on the shelf and finding that they outshine the popular books where my taste is concerned.
I’m looking forward to a book club coming this summer through Ethicalela.com, which will feature a variety of professional books, poetry, and fiction. My reading goal will shift toward reading books with the people I connect with and write with each month. We’ll gather by Zoom and discuss our reading. The hosts and monthly books will be announced in June.
I thought back this week over the books I enjoyed as a young child, and these were the top ten as I remember them, in no particular order beyond 1-4, but 1-4 are solidly in order of preference. These are the books that shaped me as I became a reader, the ones that had me wanting to write so much that I began writing the names of the color crayons in the covers of my books by looking at the letters on the crayon wrapper. Perhaps you also loved some of these.
10. Clifford the Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell
9. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
8. A Taste of Blackberries by Doris Buchanan Smith
7. Queenie Peavy by Robert Burch
6. The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
5. Happiness Is by Charles M. Schultz
4. Childcraft Volume 2: Stories and Fables
3. Tibor Gergely’s Great Big Book of Bedtime Stories
2. A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
Childcraft Volume 1: Poems and Rhymes
Please share your favorite childhood books and a book you’d recommend that you’ve read recently in the comments. Currently, I’m reading The Midnight Library by Matt Haig and The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart.
I came across a fascinating Facebook post this week on one of my camping groups. A Girl Camper member stated she needed a rainy day hobby and invited others to share what they enjoyed doing. There are currently 687 responses, but for a rainy day wish, the feedback was phenomenal. I wanted to share the ideas that were posted as a list post today. I won’t name people, since the group is private, but these ideas are completely credited to the girl campers of the world, who are a creative and adventurous bunch!
read
crochet
knit
sew
plan the next camping trip
macro photography
watercolours
embroidery
draw
journal
listen to the wind
listen to music
listen to audiobooks
diamond painting
nap
make leather items
play video games
adult coloring books
play the ukelele
color with gel pens
paint rocks to leave for the next camper
scrapbooking
sudoku
crossword
dot painting on rocks
color by number
paint by number
quilting
canning
people watching
jigsaw puzzles
cross stitch
make jewelry
watch old movies
plastic canvas stitching
make knit hats to sell
write your life story
loom knit
make wind/sun catchers
sew towel golf cart seat covers
Play Yahtzee, Uno, Scrabble Go
Play guitar
paint notecards
needlepoint
board games
card games
fish
drink and collect wine corks
word finds
Chuzzle on my phone
bedazzle my clothes
paint scenes where we are camped
Bead Christmas ornaments
make car air fresheners
make cups, tshirts, wooden signs
singing
study bird identification books
study flower identification books
study foreign language on Duolingo
play solitaire
plan menus
reorganize the camper, clean cabinets
make mosaics with old costume jewelry
listen to podcasts
work on Lego sets
play cribbage
watch a Netflix series
make a camper or log cabin from wine corks
shop at local thrift stores
try new makeupn techniques
plein air painting
cook something new
meditate
yoga
latch hook
dance
walk in the rain
fire writing (pyrography)
go out to eat
make knee blankets to donate to the nursing home
zentangling
neurographic art to destress from andrea.nelson.art on TikTok
play indoor bowling
write letters to friends
whittle/woodcarve
organize digital photos
spinning wheels (wool) with travel spinner
train the dog
macrame
paper crafts (origami)
make gel prints from leaves and flowers
go to a local winery
make cotton loop pot holders to give away to fellow campers
catch up on work
geocaching in the drizzle
wire wrap stones
make tinctures with essential oils
Bible Study
daydream
pray
song writing
poetry writing
surf the web
work on Geneaolgy
look for a dog to rescue
English Paper Piecing
Pedicure
Manicure
Facial
stained glass
make doll clothes
make buntings
bullet journaling
rug matting
clean a cupboard
brush the cat or dog
Tjhoko painting
make tags with rubber stamps
mandala painting on garden bricks
update your blog
visit a museum
listen to the rain
look at magazines
crochet a temperature blanket
make paper beads
punch needle rugs
put a wood model together
brew a big pot of coffee and drink it
weaving loom
art abandonment – something for the next camper left behind
make decals on the Silhouette machine
press flowers
make bookmarks
call someone to talk
text people to say you’re thinking of them
There’s simply no way to be bored when you’re camping in the rain!
Today, the baby of the family, our grandson Beckham, turns 2. It’s the last birthday he’ll celebrate as “the baby of the family” before his newest sibling arrives in July. We celebrate our Beckham today, and all the joy he brings to us!
Beckham sharing his ice cream with his dad
Beckham Cash Meyer
Baby Beckham,
Everyone's joy!
Carefree days
Kayaking with Dad
Huddling up with Poppy
Appreciating these fleeting
Moments, savoring all the love
Careening on bare feet
Always listening for a blender:
Smoothies! (His favorite)
Here he comes to claim his own (or yours)!
Making his footprint on the world
Ever the sweet little boy, another
Year older and still,
Every day,
Reminding us how blessed we are to be family.
In a tender moment at Christmas, Beckham chose Poppy as his person to snuggle up to in peace and warmth. The magic of his eyes and twinkle-cheeked smiles before he settles in to get sleepy were moments etched in time!
We were camping at Dames Ferry in Georgia this weekend when our 3 Schnoodles became captivated with the ducks flitting about in the waters of Lake Juliette. The stargazer window over the bed of our Little Guy Max never fails to hold wonder - whether stars or ducks, whether night or morning. There is always an exciting world to behold outside that window!
Move Over, Stargazers!
duckgazer window
curious schnoodles camping
flop-eared wonderment
Johnson Funny Farm bee haven, April 2023 – baby bees at top right corner and entering bottom left tube
Forget Lonesome Dove. This one’s all about the lonesome bees – and putting food on Earth’s tables. One of my 2023 goals is spending more time outdoors, taking more notes in nature observations, and learning more about the ecosystem and the creatures that do jobs I’ve taken for granted. A couple of summers ago, we bought a bee house to provide safe spots for solitary bees like mason bees and leaf cutter bees to nest. These pollinators help plants like fruits and vegetables thrive. We have enjoyed watching the little bees come and go – they’re so cute – and so helpful! In rural areas like ours where agriculture is the name of the game, bees matter! Help with pollination – NOT PESTICIDES! We are doing one small part to make a difference – and watching it happen thrills our souls!
Lonesome Bee Haven
lonesome bee haven
apiculture hideaway
pollinator post
baby bees buzzing
busy building businesses~
hungry world feeders
Aidan enjoys helping us outdoors when he comes to visit the farm!
One of my 2023 goals is spending more time outdoor, taking more notes in nature observations, and learning more about the ecosystem and the creatures that do jobs I never fully appreciated. Both my mother and grandmother, avid gardeners, died of Parkinson’s Disease, a neurological disease that has been linked to pesticides. If my fish are not wild caught, I don’t buy them (my takeaway from Silent Spring). I’m doing all I can – one small part in a big world – to make a difference where I can.
I was driving along our rural highway last week and felt tears well up when I saw a sign advertising 52 acres for sale. I drove back around the loop, looking at all the trees – all the homes where right now, there are baby birds and deer and foxes and squirrels whose homes will be felled with the blade of an ax when the money changes hands. It hurts my heart for them.
We have been considering ways to control our mosquito population (quite possibly the only critter in the entire universe I would vote to eradicate), and one of our ideas is installing a bat village. So this past Saturday, I raised my husband and grandson up in the tractor bucket to install our first bat house. We’ve seen bats out by our driveway for the past several years, and we hope we can attract them to the bat houses from wherever they are living (we checked the barn and see no signs). We’ll add to the village over the next couple of weeks, even though the boxes should have been up by now since they are more likely to be inhabited over the summer when the bats emerge from hibernation in the spring, according to Google. I read somewhere that the occupancy likelihood is only 35%, but we’re going to give it a go since we know we have them nearby.
Plus, Halloween. It will just feel a little spookier and more seasonally festive when the pumpkins frost over and moon shines through the trees. We’ll enjoy batwatching almost as much as birdwatching!
~~Bat Hollow ~~
house installation
erecting a bat hollow
mosquito control
spooky October
Loblolly pine neighborhood
for night flight critters
vampirish creatures
welcome wagons circled up
upside-down hangout!
My husband takes direction on the exact placement of the box, which should be at least 12 feet off the ground. Bat Box #1 being installed
Common Threads 