I love red barns. I especially love the rusty red roof on this barely red barn, and the red vines creeping around the window frame.
De-clutter? Not Even the Question!
Why do we save the things we save?
When I moved to Chicago 33 years ago to attend school, I arrived with a suitcase of clothes and an army trunk full of bedding, towels, and everything else I owned. I bought a hot plate and rented a tiny refrigerator. After I got settled and met a few people, I somehow managed to collect other peoples’ cast-offs – and was mighty happy to get them. A folding bed, unfolded, doubled as a couch by day and a bed at night. I found a perfectly acceptable chair on the curbside waiting for the garbage pickup. Some hot water and soap revealed a wood chair made out of oak that gave me the option of offering a guest a seat on a chair or on the floor. Their choice.
Eventually I graduated, married, and started working…and accumulating. Accumulating stuff. Important stuff. Good stuff. But after 32 years of marriage and three kids, I have way too much stuff. Not all of it mine, mind you, but all of it is, well, stuffed into my house.
I recently read about a person who had survived both a flood that destroyed one home and a catastrophic fire that destroyed a second. She bemoaned the loss of work in her studio and her writing samples, her photographs and personal letters, but never once did I read any mention of any stuff. Makes me think I could do more de-cluttering than I already have.
A move into smaller quarters is on the horizon, though a rather far horizon – considering how not-so-quickly I accomplish huge projects. But now that our family of five has dwindled to two, we do not need to inhabit a 9 room house. The two of us have been examining architecture and dwelling spaces, and we are thinking it would be interesting and challenging to try to create a home that is truly designed for the way we live. Smallish, but full of interesting details and open spaces, both inside and out. I’ve been looking at a lot of Frank Lloyd Wright designs and adaptations, and I’m beginning to amass a notebook full of scrawls and sketches and resources and photographs.
But first – I have to get rid of some of this stuff. Think my kids want any of their stuff I’m storing? I’m sure Good Will will be happy to accept some of the extra, too. Maybe I should just pretend I’m moving cross-country and go on a stuff-reduction diet. Gulp!
Red Spires in Utah
Driving from central Colorado to Arches National Park near Moab, Utah, we detoured off the Interstate. Went through a great ghost town – photos of that later – and then followed the Colorado River into the National Park.
When driving through the Rockies, an amazing transformation happens. Cross the Continental Divide heading west, and soon the pine/aspen forested mountains change into pinon/juniper ranges. Sage brush starts crowding the sides of the road, and suddenly red rock formations loom out of the distance.
Sure isn’t Wisconsin, Dorothy!
Nebraska – From East to West
The skies are wide, the grasslands rolling a bit, lots of rural buildings in Eastern Nebraska, and we keep heading west. Always west.
Not only are we heading across Nebraska. The trains are traveling too. Every half hour or so, one comes hurtling down the tracks, mostly heading east with full cars of coal, or occasionally heading west with empty grain cars, soon to be filled with this year’s harvests.
And how many of you are as surprised as I am that part of Nebraska looks like this! Yesterday afternoon we drifted off the Interstate so we could see more of the back country – and we found this. As we drove near Broken Bow in western Nebraska, the land turned into sandhills covered with grasses and we saw a herd of grazing goats. We also saw plenty of beef cattle on the grasslands, and on the sides of the road there were a few sandhill cranes, pheasants, hawks. Even five white-tailed deer that ran right in front of our car. Seems no matter where we go, the deer consider our car a moving target worthy of aim.
Another hundred miles of Nebraska today (Sunday) and then we head west across Colorado where snow is expected in the upper passes of the Rocky Mountains. Hopefully we will just run into rain.
Double Decked Out – and Celebratin’
Like this plant, I’m double decked out and just ready to set bloom on a new adventure. I have all my gear packed and the camping stuff assembled, and I’ve turned over the care of my house and cat to two of my kids. In a few short hours my husband and I will be on the open road in search of adventure. Sixteen days away from the daily routines (and not so routines) and off to explore.
We’re leaving the Midwest and making a 4000 mile trek from Wisconsin to Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico – and visiting some great National Parks along the way – Arches, Canyonlands, Great Sand Dunes, plus quite a few others. (We’ve had this trip planned a long time, and decided to go even with the price of gas. Thank goodness it has dropped by 60 cents a gallon in the last few months).
We have plans to visit a cousin of mine I haven’t seen in ages, meet my writing coach – a woman I have worked with for over a year by phone, but this will be our first face to face encounter – and have lunch with a blogging buddy, too.
I will be light on visiting blogs, though I’ll have my computer with me to download my photographs so I’ll probably check out how pervasive Wifi really is. Especially if we run into any rain. I’m sure there are coffee shops most anywhere with internet – even near the red rock canyons or on the outskirts of the Sonoran desert. But then again, maybe not.
I’ve used the magic of WordPress and my daily photo and rambling words will keep popping up. I mark a special anniversary tomorrow, and I have that post ready to go, as I wanted to think about what I was going to write. Not write it on the run.
So, while I’ll be hanging around, I won’t be hanging around as usual. I’m hoping for good driving, decent weather, (I’ve packed everything from long underwear and winter outerwear to swimming suit and tank tops), my maps are marked. And so we are off.
Yippee! Vacation is finally here. Bye.






