About this journal

I have tried, off and on over the years that we've been traveling together and keeping a journal, to write the entries myself. But I've found it a little too much. After working hard all day carrying MnJ and all their junk from here to there, it's about all I can manage to keep my life support systems functioning when they finally decide to call it a day. They, on the other hand, have just been sitting, watching the scenery go by. Besides it's more their adventure than mine and they know best what they want to share about it. So I figure they may as well write it up themselves.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the traveling, that's what I was born to do, and I enjoy being the primary (only?) means of transportation. It's just that I'm not a writer and I'm not very good at discerning what might be interesting to humans or expressing human feelings. (I'm not at all sure they are either for that matter.) Those few times when I did do the writing I had to spend a lot of time interviewing MnJ and then there was a lot of editing for them to do before the entry was published.

In the beginning my travel journal was a few pages on MnJ's website pieced together mostly from memory after we got home. Memory being what it is we began to make notes as we went along. Then when we started traveling with a computer, they would sent email to their family. At the same time Mark would compose the web page to be published when we got home. This, of course, was double effort so was soon abandoned in lieu of email alone - with small adjustments for the web site when we got home. Eventually he stopped publishing the web pages all together.

Over the years the email distribution list grew and grew and became hard to maintain. There was always the question about who was or would be interested and who was not (and too polite to say so). The relatively new form of communication, blogging, seemed like it might be a good way to share our adventures but how do we do it while on the road? Mark's experience with publishing web pages told him it would probably use way too much cell phone air time to even consider.

Recently he learned that this is not true. In fact it is no more time consuming or cumbersome than sending email. So we're cutting our distribution way back with the idea that anyone else interested can come to the blog. If anyone reading this would rather get email directly, that's fine, just send me a note at my email address and you will be added to the distribution.

MnJ have told me that that their main intent with this blog is to document and share our adventures. We will also include pictures of Joy's quilts (I couldn't deny a fellow Q!) It is being published for those who care about us and are interested in our travels. They may, from time to time, throw in some random thoughts but there will be no stream of consciousness ramblings. And I'd like to track some of my maintenance issues but not in detail. We hope you enjoy.