Austin Archives - Nancy Wesson Consulting

On the Road Again! Outrunning THOR

Nancy — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 14:42:00 +0000

Hello everyone – me again…. rambling on about what is turning into an epic road trip with my shoebox-size Honda FIT, named Hissy (as in – “she threw a hissy fit”) named because my friend Karla-of-the-U-Haul-trip challenged me to name it and that seemed to fit, no pun intended. The day before I left, this achingly beautiful sunset reminded me to get back home before I’d even left.

But I have two homes and one of them is Austin, where I sit now in the family room of a good friend with Cyrus, The Wonder Dog lounging in front of the fire. During Spring Break – I will be the surrogate mom to Cyrus, aka Pig, and his cat, a big, orange tabby named Travis. Cyrus is a sweetie – but he plays with food – any food – any place – any time. It will be an interesting week.

The idea for this 6000+ mile trip started with the idea to come back to Texas to teach my 9-hour “Arrange Your Listing for Success,” course as well as a half day class on Elder moves based on my book, Moving Your Aging Parents. Both are being offered by Austin Board of Realtors and since I’ve missed teaching, I’m really looking forward to it after a three-year hiatus.

However, I have realized upon my return that much of what had been an extensive vocabulary has been left somewhere on the African plains, since it was unusable for the two-and-a-half years in Africa. Perfectly respectable words were lost, having been shoved out by not-so-respectable epithets essential for emotional survival there, but unfortunately inappropriate for pedagogy. Other returned PC volunteers have lamented this condition, reduced as we were to speaking Uganglish. (The Ugandans were no-doubt equally frustrated in trying to communicate with Muzungus.) Am hoping my mental thesaurus will be resurrected when I start teaching and that it will again supply something interesting and at least moderately appropriate.

Anyway, back to the road trip. The reasonable thing would be to fly – right? As I remembered the spectacular scenery I would miss by flying across Oregon, Utah and New Mexico, a different idea began to bloom. It was that idea that caused me to load Hissy-Fit with boxes of memorabilia and the huge-metal-Texas-star-that-has-no-room-in-the-cottage, to take to Travis some 3000 miles away. Hard to do that even on Southwest Airlines, my favorite. Yes, the trip kept growing. I figured: once I’m in Texas it’s only two days to Florida and then only two more days back to Arkansas and then.. and then…. and then….. twelve states and fifteen sets of friends (not counting those in Austin) along the way and I’ll be back in Cannon beach. Well – I’m not in a U-Haul.

That being the plan meant I first had to outrun the winter storm known as Thor, whose ill-mannered trounce across the US coincided with my departure. Instead of a leisurely drive through the canyon lands of Utah I drove like a bat-out-of-hell just in front of the snow-line (not adequately captured in the picture to the right). It caught up with me soon after Arches National Park and I drove through blizzard conditions until New Mexico, where I stopped to visit with a Peace Corps friend. A nostalgic trip to Santa Fe with its pinon-scented air took me back to road trips with the kids and a trek with friends when a mysteriously thwarted vision quest in Ghost Canyon/Taos had us scrambling for the car at midnight. Lots of good memories there. No vision quest this time, but wish there had been time and good weather to make it to Taos! Another road trip?

Driving 13 hours from Albuquerque through the flat lands of west Texas erased any traces of the romance of a road trip until a huge orange full-moon graced a clear, cold sky and led me through the hill-country the rest of the way into Austin.

So here I am getting my fill of Mexican food and Texas BBQ until March 31st at which point I’ll re-load the Hissie-Fit and drive through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and north Florida. I can’t wait to see Travis in his domain. There will be no cave-diving… though a canoe ride along some of those rivers or a swim swim with the manatees would be fabulous!

After Florida – a trek up Eureka, Arkansas to attend a UFO conference! Yes… a UFO conference. The kids and I have shared a sequence of conscious experiences and mine continue. As was their habit, the kids recorded their experiences in artwork and it is also making the trip with me. From Arkansas, I’ll drop down to see “my mother’s people” as they say in Louisiana and head back through Austin on the way west again taking the southern route through Arizona and all the way up the California coast until I find my way back to Cannon Beach. I have friends to visit every 8 – 10 hours along the way so it’ll be great fun – if you don’t count driving in Los Angeles.

Who was it who said: “Go West old woman ….”? No? Oooooh yeah – that was “Go West young man..” Oh well – one wouldn’t let gender or age get in the way.

Updates to follow for anyone still reading

The post On the Road Again! Outrunning THOR appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.

Oregon Bound

Nancy — Mon, 25 Aug 2014 11:50:00 +0000

Wow – for those of you still interested – yes – I’ve been “gone too long” in more ways than one. I’ve been writing in my mind and was surprised to see the last entry was July 4th. Since I have been traveling and through the extreme generosity of friends, have been sleeping at their homes – the Ugandan’s would say, “You’ve been sleeping around!” So in the Ugandan context – yes, I’ve “been sleeping around,” but not much luck there in the American sense…

I spent about a month with Brett at his place at the foot of Mt. Hood and began the process of re-entry – again. Mexico was fabulous in so many ways because it gave me time to process, feel and think without having to define what I plan to do next. It gave me time to become aware of what I miss, what I want to add back into life when I settle-in somewhere and time to climb back into my own skin. Friends who saw me in the first few days and weeks after I got back from Africa have told me I looked “shell shocked,” and I admit I felt like that. Going from Post-conflict Northern Uganda to the affluence and pace of the States was so much harder than going in the reverse direction. Another friend was surprised at that, asking where I’d been in the States that was so difficult. But the fact is, even the most “laid-back” town in the US is light-years faster and more complex in every regard compared to life in rural Uganda. So, Mexico was the perfect middle-ground: slower pace, lots of color and life, communities that take time to share a conversation and communal time, fewer gadgets in general and less to confront all at once.

The first week I arrived in Oregon, Brett had mountains to climb – real ones, not figurative ones. Climbing season is short and if you climb too late it’s really unsafe – so I used that time to walk wonderful, bucolic trails that are so magical you can practically see the fairies playing. It was regenerative, especially after the intense heat of the Yucatan! Vine ripened fruit was everywhere: berries along the path, fruit stands overflowing with cherries, blueberries, apricots, blackberries!

A drive along the coast north of Newport Beach (no not the one of California fame) gave me a glimpse of the diversity of communities there – some are heavy-duty ports with no actual beach, others are covered with river rock and dramatic boat eating boulders, while others are soft and sandy. Bathed in sunshine walking along one beach you can see the next one down shrouded in fog. I’m aiming for the Cannon Beach area, but where I’ll actually land will depend on what I can find to rent. Yes – I’m one of those crazy people who show up with a U-Haul full of furniture and assume something will show up.

Then to Austin, where I have been so incredible fortunate. Goods friends have embraced me and provided gorgeous places to stay, good food, cars to drive and caught me up on their lives. My goodness there’s been a lot happening: twins were born, divorces were had, houses burned, kids were married, left for college, businesses were started, and Austin grew into an almost unrecognizable city. But that’s the sort of thing that happens when 150 per day move to town. Congress Avenue and downtown have been transformed from a lazy place to spend a weekend into the hip-and-high-priced-happening-place-to-be.

I got the opportunity to spend a week in a really posh high-rise condo overlooking the LadyBird Lake and the expanding city of Austin all lit up at night and I finally – after almost 40 cumulative years in Austin got to see the bats fly out at dusk from the Congress Avenue Bridge. 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats call the bridge home in the summer and every night about 8:30 they take flight to rid Austin of mosquitoes and of course entertain the tourists. They winter-over in a cave in the hill-country outside of town.

Today is D-Day minus two: tomorrow I pick up a 20 foot truck, which started as a commitment to a 10-foot truck and grew. Too much stuff for the baby truck, then they said a 14″ would work, but if not loaded right, might not work, so safer with a 17foot. Just about the time I’d resigned myself to that one, I got a call saying my reservation for a TWENTY foot truck was confirmed! “No 17-footer available ma’am, the 20 footer is only a foot longer (whaaaat? 20 minus 17 still 3 isn’t it??? ) and drives better because it’s newer and gets better gas mileage ma’am.” Hmmmm. So here we go. My Peace Corps friend Karla has arrived from Tennessee via Nawlins to make the trip with me and we’ll stop in Albuquerque to visit another Peace Corps friend. We are going to make this an adventure no matter what! Stayed tuned!

The post Oregon Bound appeared first on Nancy Wesson Consulting.