Look At The Time . . .

Home Sweet Home - odd perspective taking a panoramic shot of a room.

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​Between Alaska’s long summer days luring me to playful adventures and labors of love as well as an attempt to drive my motorhome down the Alcan Highway this Fall to spend part of the winter visiting family and friends and hiking trails in Arizona and, too, a transition in my professional life - I’ve neglected my creative pursuits. But, life is slowly settling into a winter rhythm, a routine where time is, once again, a commodity. So, I pick up pen and paper this morning, turn my velvet tufted, blue Augusta chair toward my wall of windows that look out over the lake, prop my feet up on the window sill and sip my mocha as I write on life’s ever evolving events. 

I spent much of my summer preparing for a 3650 mile road trip from Alaska to my destination in Arizona. I pulled things out of storage, put things back in storage, made repairs, poured over the Milepost and the Rand McNalley and day dreamed of the possibilities. 

After fueling all the tanks, topping off the water and stocking both the refrigerator and the cabinets with supplies, I bid all an Au revior (goodbye) and happily steered toward a vision of sun kissed skin and hiking boots. But as visions tend to do at times, this one blurred when a $15 part and less than an hours worth of work halted my journey for 3 days in Tok, Alaska.

Lisa Hammond encourages that, “Sometimes on the way to your dream, you get lost and find a better one.” 

I stationed my “home” in an RV park and . . . waited. When I woke Sunday morning, I readied for the day and made my way to a little church where I received a warm welcome and an invitation to share lunch. A group of women gathered and we learned one another as I helped with their sewing project for Samaritans Purse. I was extended a dinner invitation, an offer of help and, too, a welcome to park my motorhome at my new friend’s home.  

I am not unaccustomed to traveling alone, I actually enjoy solitary travel. But as I sat in my motorhome . . . awaiting a $15 resolution, I felt grateful to be stranded, not only among such kindly folk, but too, where resources were easily accessible and where I still had phone reception. With the forecast of snow looming and the concern as to whether or not I’d be able to stay ahead of the storm, I decided the more prudent decision was to - turn around. I consoled myself with - “I’ll try this again next year.”

​The motorhome is now parked in the shop for the season. And I am spending the winter nestled in the woods atop a knoll overlooking a lake I’ve paddle boarded and jet skied on with friends. I now work from my home office where I look out my wall of windows onto each glorious new day. My schedule is still rotational which provides me half of the year off to create and adventure. Friends stop in on a regular basis gracing my abode with their fine company which makes my life sweet. My granddaughter, now licensed, is planning her own road trip and my home will soon be filled with laughter and play. 

Though my dream did not materialize as planned, I am certainly living the dream. Life is so very good. 

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