A...Acadia and Arches

This year, I am planning to publish my travel memoir, Our Life on the Road, which follows our 14-month journey through the U.S. national parks. 

In 2006, my husband and I quit our jobs (he was an engineer and I was a teacher), sold our house, and bought an RV to go on the road with our then two-year-old son. On day five of the trip, I found out I was pregnant. We considered ending our journey, but didn't. 

Between April of 2006 and July of 2007, A LOT happened. Not only did we visit all the national parks in the lower 48, but we had a baby--a son with a life-limiting, chromosomal disorder called Trisomy 18--while on the road. 

In fourteen months, we traveled over 37,000 miles, visited 46 national parks (45 for me), and took over 18, 000 photos. 

My A to Z Challenge this year focuses on the parks themselves. You can click here to read a more detailed synopsis about our life on the road. My husband also maintained a website, outlining our trip during our travels. It can be found here. 

Each and every park we visited (although I had to miss out on Dry Tortuga National Park due to being 8-months pregnant and told by the captain of the boat I shouldn't go) is beautiful in its own way. I hope you enjoy my one-photo-a-park (an occasionally two) journey. It definitely does not capture the essence of each parks. 

Acadia National Park

Established on February 26, 1919

Visited on September 15, 2006

Arches National Park

Established on April 12, 1929

Visited on March 21, 2007

Memoir Monday

Source

As some of you may know, I’ve written a memoir.

In 2006, my husband and I quit our jobs, sold our house and SUV, bought an RV, and embarked on a year-long road trip to visit all the national parks in the lower 48 with our then two-year-old son. On day five of the trip—despite reassurances to my husband that we didn’t need maternity insurance—I discovered I was pregnant. Despite the challenges of finding prenatal care and the strain the pregnancy put on our marriage and the trip, we continued our journey.

There was no forewarning of impending trouble. Yet in December 2006, doctors sliced me open in an emergency C-section. Our son was born in distress and immediately whisked off to the NICU. Five days after his birth, we learned of his diagnosis: Trisomy 18, an often-fatal condition. The neonatologist told us to prepare for him to die.

The memoir demonstrates the challenges of living on the road and facing down adversity and grim statistics. It parallels human challenge with geological change. It shows how, with perseverance, anyone can live a dream if they choose.

We did a lot of hiking during our trip. And, during the first half, I was quite the bookworm. After my younger son was born, my reading slowed considerably. I read 36 books over the course of the trip. Like music, some of them take me back to the time and place where I read them. For example, I read Velocity (a most freaky book) by Dean Koontz in Oregon while my husband took some time alone to ski at Mt. Bachelor.

Do you have any books that remind you of a certain time or place in your life? Have you been to all the national parks in the lower 48?

On the Writing Front

I must thrive on chaos. Or be productive in spite of it. There is a world of change happening in my life right now, yet I’ve managed to write. Here’s where I am:

I completed revisions on HAUNTED, my YA contemporary novel. It has been critiqued by two, revised, and edited. I wrote a query and submitted it to two publishers. I’ve decided that I want to take a break from self-publishing. I could really use a team to help with edits, graphic design, and marketing. Maybe my opening statement has something to do with this.

I completed revisions on my memoir, OUR LIFE ON THE ROAD. I need to get it to crit. partners for feedback. I didn’t incorporate the extensive changes recommended by the publisher/editor who read it for me. Mainly because the story she suggested is not the one I truly want to write.

I started writing Book I of the trilogy after extensive development. But two pages in, I had a major brainstorm (in the middle of the night) on the backstory of two of my characters. It will deepen the story tremendously. Plus in the week between penning the first two pages, I decided to switch from first person to third person narrative. I hope to finish the first draft of Book I by July 3^rd, which equates to roughly 2000 words a day. I’m going into NaNo mode in May/June.

My other ideas, which are briefly sketched out in notebooks or still residing in my head, will have to wait a bit before I breathe life into them.

What are you up to these days?

Travel Tuesday

One of my favorite National Parks ever.

Sometimes pictures say more than words.

(All photos taken from our 2006-07 road trip. www.ourlifeontheroad.com)

Hydrothermal features and geysers. 

Wildlife.

Landscape.

Us before Zane.

Local beer. But certainly not a commentary on my mood while I was pregnant during the trip.



Travel

In 2006 we had a dream. It was simple enough: Sell our house and fund a yearlong trip around the country to visit the national parks. Reality supplanted the dream in April of 2006, as a turn of the ignition key ended an over decade-long stay in Phoenix and opened up the unknown. Traveling with our two-year-old son, Justin, we looked ahead to our clockwise journey around the U.S. as our old lives faded in the mirror.

But five days into the trip, something happened. Something I was certain would not happen: I found out I was pregnant. With no jobs, no home, and no maternity coverage, I convinced my husband we should continue our road trip anyway. During our time on the road, we survived battles with the elements, with animals, and with each other. We agonized over prenatal care and how to find it. We sustained rejection. We hiked. We climbed. We potty-trained Justin. And we endured marital disunity. Yet none of us killed the others. We still lived the dream.

In December of that year, we stopped in Florida to have the baby. Nothing had prepared us for the nightmare to follow. In early labor and already in trouble, the doctors sliced me open in an emergency C-section that pitted doctor against baby in a tug-of-war for freedom. Zane, despite being born full-term and exactly on his due date, weighed only 3 pounds, 14 ounces. He wasn’t doing well. The nurse held him up briefly for us to see, then hurried away with a team of specialists to intensive care.

Fighting for his life and with an array of physical defects, his first few days were frightening. On the fifth day of his new life, we found out the devastating news that would alter our lives forever. Zane was born with Trisomy 18, the chromosomal condition that kills most babies in the first week. The doctor told us he would die. We watched as Zane tenuously clung to life, plugged in to oxygen and monitors. We signed a Do Not Resuscitate order, visited the hospital chaplain, and held Zane as much as we could. We waited for him to die.

The odds were against Zane living for more than a week, but since he didn’t know any better, he just kept on living. After 17 days in intensive care, he no longer needed to be there. He was breathing on his own, he was no longer hooked to alarms and monitors; and even though he had to eat through a feeding tube, he was slowly gaining weight, so we took him back on the road with us, planning to end the trip if he didn’t do well or failed to survive.

This is the story of my travel memoir, Our Life on the Road, which is still looking for the right publishing home. We also have a website at www.ourlifeontheroad.com.

Six Things I Did Today Instead of Writing

1. Played Sonic wii. It is Spring Break. It’s cold outside. Gas prices are running high. So we’re hanging out at the house. Why not play some wii with my six-year-old?

2. Physical Therapy. While the older one played, the younger one had PT. After his bout with walking pneumonia, he rallied quite well. He did some nice standing and walking today.

3. Reading. It is right up there with writing. I am well into The Liar Society and am liking it!

4. Cleaned the bathrooms. Enough said.

5. Attempted to make an origami crane. Earlier this month, Agent Mandy Hubbard blogged about celebrating writing accomplishments by placing corks (from celebratory champagne) into a vase. This serves as a reminder of her accomplishments. I have decided to use a glass pickle jar (minus the pickles and pickle juice) and origami cranes. I used to be quite good at the art of paper folding. Now, even with directions, I seem to be challenged a bit by the task. I’ll get there. Right now, I only have to make one. Hopefully there will be a need for more in the future.

6. Researched agents.  Our Life on the Road is complete. The book proposal is complete. The query letter is complete. I have a list of agents who represent memoirs, as well as YA. Absolute Write Water Cooler, here I come.