Home is Where we Hook-up

We met in Santa Barbara California in 2000. Here are our stories.

Paula’s story.

I was walking the boardwalk in Santa Barbara looking for a place to read my book. I could have never predicted within the next few hours that my entire future would take a total 180. But, that’s what happens when the stars align and people are paying attention Keith Gill I know, now, what it took for you to skate up to me that morning and ask “what’re we reading?” And later, when you stood next to me and a full-blown electric shock ran through my body, well, there wasn’t much either of us could do but trust and fall in love. And so we did. In the first week of knowing you, you asked if I had a passport, and when I said no, you suggested I should get one. I did. It’s full now and we’re working on the second. Together we have adventured, explored, and followed our dreams of just what’s possible. We bring out the best in each other (and ok – we have learned a bit about the worst too – we are human!!!) Your support of me in every single thing I’ve ever wanted to do is almost like a miracle to me! YOU have always seen the greatness within me, we make a terrific team and our future is as bright as the stars that brought us together so long ago! My heart soars that we are now back living where we met, come on, let’s get down to that beach and take a stroll. Loved you the day I met you, and for forever after.

How did we meet? Here is my side of the story, .

Keith’s story

I knew from 20 feet away that I was going to have to meet Paula. Just back from Australia, I had decided to burn away some Sunday morning jet lag with a skate down the shoreline bike path near my Santa Barbara home.

The bike path crosses a creek that trickles its last life into the sand by the beach. I accelerated a little to crest the bridge but stopped short on the top of the bridge. A woman stood at the top of the bridge looking out to the Pacific. I never just stop and talk to women, and this one looked like she was just as likely to speak German or some Scandinavian dialect. She was even far more likely to walk on before I thought of something to say as I stood by the bridge railing. Standing there, a panting mouth breathing, slightly sweating stranger, I figured I had maybe startled her. When noticing her book, I said,

“So, what are you reading?”

She looked at me, flashed a dimpled, blue sparkly-eyed smile, and then dropped the bomb.

“The Testament,” she said.

OH NO! I thought. But, managed to stumble out some remarks about the right day of the week for that book.

“Enjoy your day, ” I said as I rolled down the bridge.

Now I have no aversion to religion, but any conversation that begins with a Bible reference is about as inviting to me as a visit from the IRS during the Super Bowl. About the time I was asking myself how something that felt right could be this wrong it clicked. Skating back alongside the now-walking lady, I said,

“Uh, that would be John Grisham,” The Testament”, correct?”

She laughed and said, “Yesss, I knew, what you had thought.”

Well OK! I was thinking, she realizes that I appear to be not so smart, and yet she seems to like me being here. I know I like her. The more we walked and talked along the bike path the more I knew that I was just exactly where I was supposed to be, and I couldn’t have been happier.

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First of four travel,family and friends album

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I don’t need a plan for 2009. I could plan to live through 2009 in good health but maybe I should make that a wish and a prayer?
Planning is good, up to the point that your life changes everything.I make “To Do Lists” and set goals both near and distant. Paula has her planner and her Franklin Covey organizer and other tricks to remaining sane when Plan “A” ends up as Plan “F” and we aren’t even on the same continent that we had set out for.
Its all good.
So 2008 is almost one for the books and as I look back I see that one and usually both of us traveled to Canada,(three provinces),The U.S.A. (27 states), Mexico (down the East and up the West Coast), Belize, Guatemala, France, Germany, Monaco, Italy and Australia
It will sound strange to say that we spent ,(for us) ,quite a bit of time settled in one place. Our Marina side home in Belize, was a stay of almost 4 months . If you ever want to test your compatibility and tolerance for close living ,try a 20′ Motorhome, with a dog inside and four more sleeping just out your door.
It was great fun and I hope to do it again. But not for 4 months straight. Not ever.
We parked the more spacious 5th wheel at an ecological reserve/rv park on the St.Lawrence River,Thousand Island area for almost 6 months and stayed there about half of the time.My Mom and siblings all live in that corner of Canada and it was nice to get together and see some nieces and nephews that I had previous only met on family sad times. No sad events this year. No funerals and although the older ones gave us a scare they all pulled through and are back living their lives. Old age may not be for wimps but with the characteristic, “what can you do” shrug, the old folks walk out of the hospitals and get back to living. A good example for us all.
We were again fortunate to travel to both foreign and domestic lands. Amazing to me sometimes, is the realization that I often have more in common with a person in, say, Italy, than I do a neighbor from Nevada.The more we travel the more I treasure the gift that people give of themselves by just being who they are. So many different nationalities,cultures,beliefs and views of life. About the time I start thinking that maybe I have life figured out,a stranger or family member says something that just rocks me back on my heels and gets me looking at the world in a new way. Thank You.
When Paula and I think back to memorable trips our stories and thoughts go back not just to places but more often its the people we met that made the trip stand out.
I wish, as I did last year at this time,that we had got around to see many of more you than we did. You are in our thoughts as the New Year approaches. One of the luckiest advantages of having so many friends and acquaintances is that our six degrees of separation has shrunk by a degree or two. Its such a laugh to meet another traveler in a foreign land where we may be the only four English speakers in a restaurant of one hundred people and after a few minutes find that we know some of the same people. You.
I have to write a blog soon about these encounters. Many of you will be surprised. You can never know all the people who know of or about you or when and where your name comes up in conversation.
You are in more thoughts than you can know and as 2009 approaches I wish you all, a healthy as can be, 2009. What else do you really need?

This is official – since I have “launched” the new site, I am shutting down the borderlinegyspsies blog, and building a new site at Vagablonde Traveling . Please visit me over there! 🙂

Now is the time when most people are talking about plans for the new year. Resolutions, goals, organizing, planning for the year ahead. I tried to answer the question about where we would be in 2009. One thing is for sure, we will be in Kissimmee, Florida until February 22nd, 2009. Our RV space is rented until then, and it’s still too cold to be heading north. Keith returns from a 3.5 week tour in Adelaide, Australia this week. That is the only other thing I know for sure.

We’d like to spend more time in Savannah, GA timing it to be able to partake in their annual Tour of Homes and Gardens at the end of March. We spent two nights in the Savannah area on our way down to Florida, did a walking tour and ate at Paula Deen’s restaurant, it’s just one of those places that warrants more time. It’s on the list.

Washington D.C. lived up to every notion I ever had of the Capitol city, and then some. The original idea was to visit in the spring and see the cherry trees in bloom. Our first trip was in late May, our second visit was late October – so if the third times a charm, we will get back up that way this April.

Newfoundland is definitely on the list. Keith tells such fantastic stories of working up there, says you wake in the morning with sore stomach muscles from laughing so hard. Sounds like a good time to me! This requires a major ferry crossing in the RV, and is a trip only to be planned for in the mid-summer otherwise it likely still be too cold.

Loosely planned is another summer in the 1000 Islands area of Ontario, as a base. Most likely Keith will be going back and forth to Italy throughout.

Fall 2009 we will try to be in the right place in the right time for the New England fall colors (last year’s plan) and by the winter maybe we can get a trip to Belize in. We’d like to get a trip to Belize in this winter, but, if we don’t make it, it goes back on the list.

All speculation, but it’s a start. What about you, where will you be in 2009?

Tropical Palms Resort, our home for the next three months, is a 60 acre RV park with 575 full hook-up sites. That’s a lot of asphalt and concrete to support so many rigs. There are buildings for laundry rooms, restrooms and showers, a cafe near the heated pool, picnic shelters and cabins to rent in case you don’t have an RV. We are less than 3 miles from Disney World. Yep, the Magic Kingdom is just a short drive away. The road to get there is a major one, lined with souvenir shopping mecca’s, super buffet’s, mini-golf, all variety of hotel (offering unbeatable rates right now $25/night!), and neon, neon, neon. We can bike ride to a half dozen supermarkets, super Target, super Walmart, Home Depot, post office, banks, movie theaters, we don’t have to drive at all around here.

Amidst all this city life, this seemed quite the contradiction to stumble upon as we scouted the park:

And, it’s no joke. there was a small gator hanging in this pond. Where there is a small gator there must be a bigger one, I figure. I learned quickly that here in Florida, where there is water, there are alligators. Urban vs. rural has absolutely nothing to do with it. Turns out, from Nov-March these creatures do not eat. Lacking the heat & sun to digest food, it would just rot and kill them. My better judgment tells me this does not mean they won’t attack to kill. Hmph, puts a damper on Zoe’s swimming, but we’re trying to learn about living safely with our alligator neighbors.

So, it’s not the presence of gators that surprises me around here. I have to admit I was a caught off guard last week to watch a wild turkey strut down our lane way, in no particular hurry at all. Where he came from or where he went I don’t know. The morning I found a raccoon lounging in the trash dumpster was a bit of a shocker as well. More so, the fact that it didn’t even flinch, just stared at me as if wondering what goodies I might be bringing for breakfast. Raccoons in the city, not where I’m from, but I guess it happens. And, I have finally seen my first alive armadillo snuffing around the grass along the bike path…dangerously close to the road, of course. I herded him back into the brush, and look for him each day when I ride by.

This morning I woke to the who-whoooing of an owl, quickly identified as the Barred Owl, the same species we had serenading us in the Living Forest in B.C. (blogged about in April and May 07) There is little chance for a sighting. Our space, #371 is on the last row before the park acreage returns to it’s wild roots, overgrown Cypress, Pine, Palm and countless shrub for I don’t know how far. I don’t know, because I have only gone 20 or so feet in, and that was while looking for a neighbors lost Siamese cat. Unfortunate story, the one of Herman the 13 yr. old house cat. I don’t think he stands a chance with all the wild animals, including  the osprey and the short-tailed hawk that live here. Every time I see that hawk he’s either got a meal in his talons or he’s too full to fly. Yesterday a neighbor excitedly reported seeing a small herd of deer in this brush near our RV. After all the things we’ve seen so far, this didn’t seem like news.

Because we are so near to Disney, it is difficult for me to see or hear any of these animals, right down to the pesky squirrels that come right up on our steps begging Keith for almonds, without imagining they have cartoonesque  voices, and dramatic stories, and that I am somehow part of their scene for the winter. Seems impossible to be any other way.