W...Wind Cave

Wind Cave National Park

State: South Dakota

Established: January 9, 1903

Visited on July 16, 2006

R...Redwood

Redwood National Park

State: California

Established: October 2, 1968

Visited on May 20, 2006

***

Rocky Mountain National Park

State: Colorado

Established: January 26, 1915

Visited on June 27, 2007

Q...Quotes

There is no national park that begins with the letter Q. However, there are quotes that relate to the outdoors. At the start of each of my chapters in Our Life on the Road, I include a quote to set the tone. Some of my favorites come from John Muir.

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike."

"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in."

"Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter."

E...Everglades

Everglades National Park

State: Florida

Established: May 30, 1934

Visited on November 19, 2006

D...Death Valley and Dry Tortugas

Death Valley National Park

State: California

Established: October 31, 1994

Visited on May 13, 2007

***

Dry Tortugas National Park

State: Florida

Established: October 26, 1992

Visited on November 17, 2006

C...Canyonlands et al

In 2006, my husband and I quit our jobs, 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. 

Canyonlands National Park

State: Utah

Established: September 12, 1964

Visited on March 23, 2007

***

Capitol Reef National Park

State: Utah

Established: December 18, 1971

Visited on March 26, 2007

***

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

State: New Mexico

Established: May 14, 1930

Visited on March 13, 2007

***

Channel Islands National Park

State: California

Established: March 5, 1980

Visited on April 30, 2006

***

Congaree National Park

State: South Carolina

Established: November 10, 2003

Visited on October 31, 2006

***

Crater Lake National Park

State: Oregon

Established: May 22, 1902

Visited on May 22, 2006

***

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

State: Ohio

Established: October 11, 2000

Visited on August 30, 2006

B...Badlands, Biscayne, Big Bend, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and Bryce

In 2006, my husband and I quit our jobs, 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. 

Badlands National Park
State: South Dakota
Established: November 10, 1978
Visited on July 19, 2006

***

 Big Bend National Park

State: Texas

Established: June 12, 1944

Visited on March 9, 2007

***

Biscayne National Park 

State: Florida

Established on June 28, 1980

Visited on November 11, 2006 

***

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Established: October 21, 1999

Visited on May 28, 2007

State: Colorado 

***

Bryce Canyon National Park

State: Utah

Established: February 25, 1928

Visited on March 28, 2007

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?

Riding a Permament Wave

An excerpt from Riding a Permanent Wave, one of the essays in MY LIFE AS A MISFIT.

For my mother, my hair was a real hassle. To take care of the problem, she hired her friend, Carol, to take a pair of scissors and her lack of knowledge to chop it all off. With my dark-rimmed glasses, I looked like Buddy Holly. Only my hair was shorter. Even my mother recognized her mistake, so she let it grow out.         

            In time, my straight mane proved problematic again. This time, she brought home a set of pink foam rollers like it was a new puppy.

            “Aren’t they nice?” she coaxed while lubing my hair with Dippity-do until every inch of it was wound like spools of thread. For full effectiveness, I wore the pink helmet to bed. Otherwise, the curl might not hold. It was a fitful night of sleep as the rollers attempted to lodge themselves in my scalp. Their foam bodies provided little cushion against their hard, plastic skeletons.

            The next morning, my mother unwound the remaining rollers. A few littered the bed like dead bugs. Most of my hair clung tightly to my scalp. The rest drooped in stringy strands. It was a nightmare to make me look presentable. I knew this because she uttered this is a nightmare just beneath her breath as she teased and tamed it. Somewhat content with what she had done, she sent me off to school. I was her Cubist masterpiece: sagging curls, dark-rimmed glasses, and a Catholic jumper. But as soon as the Wisconsin humidity spritzed my scalp, all the hard work she had done disappeared. Those locks were as straight as a ruler’s edge.

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