The longest running travel notebook I’ve ever had

Colorado (War, 9,200 ft.) by the numbers # of days spent - 30 # of days snowboarded (in July) - 3 # of hitchhikers picked up along peak to peak Hwy - 4 # of times picked up while hitchiking - 2 # of feet of elevation - 9,200 # of miles you have to hike from there to go snowboarding - 4 # of times bear got into people's cooler's, trucks, food - 6 # of times bear ripped lock of trailer door - 1 # of times bear ripped entire door and frame off trailer - 1 # of lag screws used to fix / reinforce -4

Notes taken in Marietta, Georgia on 8/5/09 [with Layla's crayon scribble at bottom]: "When he was a kid his daddy and preacher just sat him down and explained things to him, and he swallowed the worm and just pulled the whole bobber underwater." --Will on a kid's Christianity

"Flow Chart of Distracted [originally "Divergent" but struck through] Thinking. A chart with three columns designed to represent textually how my mom and I communicate sometimes: [(a) dialogue, (b) internal thought, (c) internal reaction to internal thought] and the text: "We're going to a 50th wedding anniversary tonight. This couple's kids live all over ¹ but they're all in town this weekend...1. they probably couldn't stand their parents → 2. no, don't think like that.

Map of "La Confluencia," drawn by Omar the day before I paddled the Rio Azul for the first time.

Notes written on 10/26/09 in Florida in a moment of total depression. A deadness now. In the words mainly. Waiting for them to come back. Flipping back through this journal and realizing how much travel makes the words flow. Something about movement, leaving and arriving. None of this sounds right though. None of it expresses exactly where 'we're at' right now. Someone just commented on my last blog if i'd read the "summer of black widows." What summer has this been? Summer of bears. Summer of Japhy's 13th birthday. Summer of the old crews getting back together in Colorado. Now it's fall. It's all flowed together like always. It's been the worst fall of my life so far. The worst fall of Lau's life. Fall of ultrasounds with no heartbeat. Fall of miscarriages. Fall of swollen knuckles. Fall of Vodka and Cranberry. Fall of getting Mom's Infiniti up to 50 miles an hour around a curve in the neighborhood while wife and child are screaming in the car. Fall. Fall. Fall. Fall. Fall. Fall. The other night it was bad but then we had nothing left and so just walked around Siesta Key all empty. The sun had gone down and for a while we lay on the beach looking at clouds in the moonlight. When you see what speed they're moving across the sky and feel like maybe you're moving that speed too, it brings back that travel feeling like everything is alright again for a little while.

Sketch of cabin idea when it occurred to me to have two different lofts interconnected by a bridge. Drawn in Jan 2010.