Author: Annie

I scribble words onto the screen, I capture the images I see, I look for beauty in everyday life. I’ve been a sailor, a project manager, a tech writer, a programmer, and since May 2016, I have been a vagabond traveling in a 17-foot travel trailer.

Route Planning, Round 2

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More thinking, more discussion, more googling of places and things, and so today was time for round 2 of planning routes. I got some great feedback from people on the first round and also lost my outbound co-driver, so I made some adjustments in the plan. Overall, still same general picture: The purple pins are the eastbound route, while the teal pins mark the westbound route. Eastbound: 3164 miles, give or take a few side trips along the way.Westbound: 3411 miles, with the little Alto behind me all the way. Let’s dive into the details, where the devil hides… The…

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Staying Connected

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Being a vagabond in the 21st century doesn’t mean cutting ALL the ties that bind, especially the online and computing ones. I’ve been researching and working on downsizing myself to be mobile and yet connected (and backed up, too). My current setup: Internet: $60/month for all the data I can eat, via rented wifi router and ISP. I will miss this. A lot. Phone: AT&T Mobile Share plan with 15GB/month, unlimited talk and text.  Mac mini: 1TB hard disk with a 3TB backup disk running Time Machine auto-magically so I never have to think about backups. Both of these devices…

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49 Days to Go

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49 days till I pull out of the parking garage in Seattle and head east to Quebec and the first meeting with the Breeze. I’ve kind of known there is a pile of work to do before I go but I’ve been in a bit of a fog since my dad died last month. But something about seeing “49 days” on my countdown clock woke my Project Manager brain up. The upside of having a Project Manager brain is that I can create very detailed and highly organized task lists. The downside of having a Project Manager brain is that…

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My Traveling Buddy

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Since I was 10 and my Dad took me on a trip to Yosemite, just the two of us, we’ve been the traveling buddies in the family. We’ve seen a lot in the 50 years since that first road trip, from the stone bridges of Maine to the rain forests of Vancouver Island, BC. We did a roadside geology tour of Arizona, taking the most meandering route from Phoenix to Prescott. We rode the funicular in Quebec City, drove the length of the Jersey Shore, and visited the concrete ship just south of Santa Cruz. Almost every year lately, I’d…

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Driving from Seattle to Quebec

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Before I can return from Quebec with Breeze, I actually have to get there. It would be so much easier to fly with Bella shrunk down to the size of a suitcase and then add water, and voila, full size tow vehicle when I leave the airport. Unfortunately, this technology does not exist (get on that, Elon Musk, OK?) So I must drive Bella all the way across the USA and parts of Canada to get to Quebec by May 1. I am lucky to have a friend who will fly to Seattle and then do the drive with me….

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