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.

52 Frames: Rule of Thirds

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For some reason (hmm….), I’m a bit behind on blog posts so I’ll be catching up for a while. This one covers a recent 52 Frames challenge for the Rule of Thirds. If you don’t know what that is, here’s a really basic description: when you look at a scene, try to divide it into thirds horizontally and vertically. Then put the most interesting stuff where the lines intersect and that makes a more pleasing photograph. Like this: A lot of cameras offer the “rule of thirds” setting so that when you look through the viewfinder, you see the grid…

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Going Off the Road

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tl;dr: I’m fine. Trailer is mostly fine. Subaru is driveable. And the whiskey bottle didn’t break either 🙂 In the beginning While driving from Alamogordo, New Mexico to Fort Davis, Texas last week, I ran into with gusty winds with no warning, had a sway situation, and went off the road about 10 miles away from Fort Davis. Before I left that morning, I had read the weather forecast closely, as I always do. The winds around Ford Davis were predicted to be 15-20 miles an hour. I’d driven many times in wind like that, so I wasn’t worried. As…

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Traveling Back In Time

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I still miss my Dad the most when I’m driving down the road and see something I think he’d like or that he could tell me about. He was great about explaining power plants, substations, roadside geology, and all kinds of things. As I was wandering around the southwest this past month, I realized I was retracing his steps, mostly on trips we had taken together “back in the day” as they say. So on this, the fourth anniversary of the day he left me to travel on without him, here’s a post for the old man. Every August when…

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Desert Days: Wildlife Refuge

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I wasn’t much for venturing away from my little BLM paradise last week, but my friend Stacy, an avid birder, convinced me to join her for a walk at the Arlington Wildlife Refuge, about a half hour’s drive from where we were both camping. I’m not much of a birder, since I usually can’t spot the bird fast enough and I never remember their names (I have trouble with people names, let alone bird names!). But the prospect of a walk in a new place was enticing enough to get me going. As wildlife refuges go, this one isn’t going…

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Saddle Mountain BLM, AZ

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After my desert tour of Southern California, combined with a quick one-nighter in the LA Basin, I headed east, back to Arizona for a few weeks. First stop was Saddle Mountain, a spot of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) property near Tonopah, and about 10 minutes off Interstate 10. It’s also far from the craziness that is the Quartzsite area this time of year, when snowbirds, full-timers, and lots of RVing groups converge on that area. More than a few of us showing up at Saddle Mountain had either completely bypassed Quartzsite or were seeking refuge after a few days…

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