Surprise! I’m behind on posting a couple of beautiful backpacking trips in California, but here I am in Amsterdam alone in my tiny airbnb room at 9pm (I don’t stay out at night when I’m by myself), and thought I would write an update. It feels like old times when I would post every couple days while out on my big trip. I’m amazed how well I can still type on this little ipod!
Okay, setting the stage: I’m in Europe for a week to attend the wedding of my friends Rick and Marjorie. They live …
You may have heard of Highway 1, aka the Pacific Coast Highway, that runs the length of California right on the coast. That is, it runs along the coast the whole way except for a section in northern California that is way too rugged for roads. It cuts in to the east side of the King Range of mountains there, leaving one of the very last stretches of undeveloped coastline in the country. This is called the Lost Coast.
The Lost Coast Trail runs along a 25-mile section of beach and cliffs between the black sand …
Sorry folks, I’m not in Nepal or Cambodia, but I did just get back from a beautiful trip to northern California and thought you might enjoy a few lush pictures!
Also, potential news flash, Benjamin (one of the men I met in Nepal during the earthquakes and who I visited in Colorado multiple times last year) and I are a pretty serious thing now, however you want to say that. He’s been living in California for a few months and just got a new job 2 blocks away from my apartment in Napa. So you’ll be seeing …
I did not expect Nepal to affect me as it has. The last threads of prayer string, tied on my wrist by a monk sitting exactly here, under this tree at the Birthplace of Buddha, are coming unwound as I write this. It will be the last to come off of the many bracelets I left Nepal wearing. But it happens on the night that I finish a proposal for our organization to construct 100 new homes there, for victims of the 2015 earthquake. The whispers of feeling that reach me every day from half …
My original hope for this trip was to continue with the shelter project but with the blockade by India, materials and fuel are too expensive. We’ve been talking about helping villagers gain access to low interest building loans but everything is at a standstill until the government stabilizes and decides how to administer aid. Instead I raised money (thank you!) for the two new libraries being set up in Ghusel by other CASD Ambassadors and carried books that had been donated to me for this cause.
But surprise! I’ve heard that the government has not allocated a …