Not really The End...
Thanks for all the comments here and via email about this blog and our trip.
And then there are those of you who are just coming to visit...
probably because you read about the blog either in BookWomen or Woodstock Revisited
(if so, you may want to browse backwards through some of the photos and entries).
Whether you are a long-time or a new reader of The Dream Year, I'll let you all know soon about the next blog, the next year, Being Home and future Dream Years.
So as they used to say...
Stay Tuned.
Contact me at
BHpurple(at) aol (dot) com
Friday, June 12, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
THE END
as the dream year drifts to its conclusion
is there anyone here reading?
what do other dream years offer?
should I write another blog?
photo of the reminder card that was taped to our Roadtrek dashboard
of the items preparing for "take-off"
and .... home again
photo of our small, cozy, wonderful homes for the year
The Roadtrek --- 22 foot Class B RV, Conversion-Van
and Dream On, the 26-foot MacGregor Sailboat with 50 hp motor
so for now,
As Garrison K says:
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
The Merry Month of May
A lovely month home..getting reacquainted and resettled. With friends and family. House projects. Etc.
Photos are of some of our activities...a hike/stroll that Alan and I took with Eve and Stan at a state park. Lots of bugs but also great spring wildflowers; Rebecca when she and I went to the first Bainbridge Open Air Market of the season (an annual ritual/favorite); at our Memorial Day weekend potluck with our neighbors; and books for sale at the Bibliobarn, outside of Hobart, a town trying to model itself on a british booktown.
Our sabbatical officially ends this week. It's been a year... a wonderful one. Difficult to summarize. I hope to create a digital photo and word chronicle this winter -- using some of the blog photos and some of the other thousands of snapshots we took and have on our computers!
Alan and I will both be working out of the Afton office. I will also be seeing clients in Binghamton. Because we sold our building when we left (after being there approx 25 years!), I will be working out of an office at another established psychotherapy practice.
Looking forward to it all, appreciating it all, the times we had, the present transition, the times to come.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Home Again and Still the Dream Year
Arrived in Afton on Saturday morning, a glorious one at that. (You can thank us for bringing the good weather with us!)
Lovely to be here...perfect time...the hope of spring.
Alan already jumped into doing projects like mending the garden fence and tilling.
I am slower in that area. Unpacking and organizing will take me awhile.
We are spending time with family and friends.
You know, this Dream Year doesn't officially end till the end of May.
The transition home and new choices and plans are part of it...
so stick around. I'll be writing more.
Lovely to be here...perfect time...the hope of spring.
Alan already jumped into doing projects like mending the garden fence and tilling.
I am slower in that area. Unpacking and organizing will take me awhile.
We are spending time with family and friends.
You know, this Dream Year doesn't officially end till the end of May.
The transition home and new choices and plans are part of it...
so stick around. I'll be writing more.
Friday, April 24, 2009
More Caves
Had to stop at Luray Caverns in Virginia while we had the chance. Although tame caving -- a self-guided tour via audio headsets on a paved trail - this was another natural wonder. A mirror lake, "fried eggs" made of broken stalagmite, soda straws, totem poles, small villages, creatures and mythological formations, a wishing well -- who needs Disney indeed. Alan said it was the stuff of -- dreams and nightmares!
The End of the Line - Almost
from SC
First photo of us with our friends Char and Steve in Beaufort; they are traveling the ICW on their 36 foot sailboat, Namaste.
Second photo of our Roadtrek van with the boat trailer.
We had driven a rental car to FL to pick it up and we were on our way back to SC.
Last two in Charleston at the Mega-Dock at the City Marina. We were pretty far down the 3000 foot dock and our boat could barely be a mascot (or dinghy) for those BFBs -- uhhh, big boats.
This is where we pulled out just yesterday morning. And our timing was good..we had been thinking about boating further north. Our friends and others are delayed -- many bridges are closed in the NC area due to the wildfires.
Monday, April 20, 2009
History Lesson in Charleston
We took another walking tour, this one in Charleston, SC, a larger city than Beaufort
with another character. We really enjoy touring with one-person companies.
Marianne, a British transplant, came to Charleston in the 1960s and has been leading walking tours for 25 years. She is older than us, recently celebrated a birthday, and will not divulge her age. Can you guess from the photos? She's oh-so-proper with just-so make-up, a straw hat, her slim body in neat top and skirt, adorned with a double strand of pearls and matching earrings.
She too had a shipwreck story (so did Jon Smart,our tour guide in Beaufort and he milks it for all he can) but gave us only the briefest of detail -- it was off the coast of spain when she was 19.
Alan and I were her only strollers today and she lamented that April is usually very busy. Maybe it is the end of an era...this walking and talking. We saw a number of full horse-drawn buggy tours go by but they don't stop and go into gardens, churches, museums, etc.
Of course, the city history is full of rich white men, the slave trade, the churches (which are beautiful) and the natural disasters (hurricanes and earthquake).
Marianne is interestingly opinionated with first-hand knowledge from her experience with historical preservation projects and serving on local boards.
She, and we, were appalled that in the recent renovation of City Hall rather than restore it with Georgia marble, the city had it imported from Italy.
As part of the changing of the town she also related how she used to be invited into certain neighbors yards, whose inheritors are not so welcoming.
There's a hint of school marm when Marianne seems slightly disappointed that we can't correctly answer her southern history quiz-type questions and
she doesn't warm up to me, I don't charm her, probably less so the more I try.
Alan reassures me later it is her, she is very British
And an unplanned but serendipitous meeting along the way...
a woman in her side yard as we go by asks if we'd like to see her enclosed garden. Which we do and chat and then I ask her a few questions and from her answers can tell that she's probably an academic, maybe a writer which she is and then I figure out that many decades ago I was in a class with her sister-in-law at the
New School (taught by Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a founding editor of MS magazine).
The tour ends with tea in her small courtyard garden. It has seen better days just like she has. Overgrown weeds and former hopes, shabby elegant.A real delight.
with another character. We really enjoy touring with one-person companies.
Marianne, a British transplant, came to Charleston in the 1960s and has been leading walking tours for 25 years. She is older than us, recently celebrated a birthday, and will not divulge her age. Can you guess from the photos? She's oh-so-proper with just-so make-up, a straw hat, her slim body in neat top and skirt, adorned with a double strand of pearls and matching earrings.
She too had a shipwreck story (so did Jon Smart,our tour guide in Beaufort and he milks it for all he can) but gave us only the briefest of detail -- it was off the coast of spain when she was 19.
Alan and I were her only strollers today and she lamented that April is usually very busy. Maybe it is the end of an era...this walking and talking. We saw a number of full horse-drawn buggy tours go by but they don't stop and go into gardens, churches, museums, etc.
Of course, the city history is full of rich white men, the slave trade, the churches (which are beautiful) and the natural disasters (hurricanes and earthquake).
Marianne is interestingly opinionated with first-hand knowledge from her experience with historical preservation projects and serving on local boards.
She, and we, were appalled that in the recent renovation of City Hall rather than restore it with Georgia marble, the city had it imported from Italy.
As part of the changing of the town she also related how she used to be invited into certain neighbors yards, whose inheritors are not so welcoming.
There's a hint of school marm when Marianne seems slightly disappointed that we can't correctly answer her southern history quiz-type questions and
she doesn't warm up to me, I don't charm her, probably less so the more I try.
Alan reassures me later it is her, she is very British
And an unplanned but serendipitous meeting along the way...
a woman in her side yard as we go by asks if we'd like to see her enclosed garden. Which we do and chat and then I ask her a few questions and from her answers can tell that she's probably an academic, maybe a writer which she is and then I figure out that many decades ago I was in a class with her sister-in-law at the
New School (taught by Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a founding editor of MS magazine).
The tour ends with tea in her small courtyard garden. It has seen better days just like she has. Overgrown weeds and former hopes, shabby elegant.A real delight.
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