2008 ring in the new year

here's to 08.

i dont have an income or a job, i dont have a lifeplan, i dont have a lovelife.

i do have a great family, great friends, and great hopes that one day i will be able to finally sort myself out.

double o seven has been an interesting year for me. if i knew on january first 2007 what i know now january first 2008, i might not have believed it. i have spent more than half the year on the road. i have visited twenty-five states and four countries. i have slept on more couches, spare beds, hotel, motel, and hostel beds, spare patches of ground, and airports than i can count (but i still love my sleeping bag). has it been a good year? hell yes. there have been some bad parts (death, destruction, heartbreak, and homesickness for the first time ever), but it doesnt do well to dwell on those when i think of all the positive experiences too (look at where i have been and what i have done!). it has been an amazing year for me.

i dont always make new year's resolutions, but when i do, i usually stick to my guns all year and really do accomplish my goals. i stuck to my new year's exercise program months and months later when i was finally able to relinquish the roboboot. i successfully learned to look people in the eye when speaking to them, instead of the forehead. i was only marginally successful with brushing my teeth twice a day - but i will blame that on my eccentric lifestyle. so what to work on this year? i am not really sure - bc if i am going to do it, i am going to pick something good. and i have weeks on the road to contemplate that.

so what plan i do have for the new year is winding my back towards virginia along the southern part of the US, seeing national parks, giant things on the side of the road, places i have never been, and fully taking advantage of the fact that though i may not really have the money for an adventure like this, i do have the time. and time is often a more precious commodity than cash.

so if you have ideas and suggestions of places to see and visit, floorspace waiting for me, relatives i can crash with, or a desire to fly and meet me somewhere and i will drop you off somewhere else, then let me know bc right now my life is an open road.

i can tell you that traveling by myself is often exhilarating and satisfying knowing i can do whatever it is i want to do and that i answer to no one but myself and the life of my camera battery. it can be lonely, but it is less lonely knowing that there are folks out there interested in what i am doing and checking this blog just to see what i have been up to. i truly appreciate your interest and your comments - sometimes more than you could ever know. thank you.

here's to 2008.