Thanks for the tip about NM state parks showers. I didn't know that. It's really cold here at night. There's snow on the mountain top. I can't stretch out fully in my car and have to sleep in the driver's seat, which was ok in the southeast because I had to turn on the AC periodically to get some relief. Two days out of the humidity - thank God. My hair finally dried out. I slept through rainstorms one night in my car in OK, and I swear it was nowhere near as humid as Georgia. I'm drying up and getting minor nosebleeds from the dryness. I heated up a tube of gold bond and my skin soaked it in. That's ok. I'll adapt. The trade off is totally worth it. I drink a lot of water in any case, almost a gallon a day. I can't imagine drinking more. I feel ok at truck stops, but you can't really live like that. Going off some unknown dirt road and pitching a tent alone is unnerving to me. I've watched so many videos of women doing it and really feeling safe and loving it. Those videos really give me something to lean on when overwhelming feelings of fear and doubt come up. The upcoming caravans will be so good. It would be cool to have something like that always ongoing. You know, how the Green Angels patrol the toll highways in Mexico for stranded motorists, it would be so amazing if we could have a thing like that where one could get their bearings while doing it. A roving RTR. The RTR and periodic buildouts are really great. It seems that a lot of people get pushed out of their comfy life and into this unknown. If I hadn't been curious and intrigued, and horrified too at times, and hadn't continued to watch Bob's and others' videos from the comfort of home, I'd be in a mental ward for sure. It's such a radical shift for the mind to make because it challenges beliefs and assumptions about oneself and life, some you knew you had, and lots of others that you never knew about. It doesn't matter how smart you are. Has nothing to do with that. It unravels you. And that's not a bad thing at all, just an intense thing. Good to have a guide through it. If I had a larger vehicle and a reliable income, however small, that would make a big difference. I've decided to stick around a bit and see if I can make that happen. I still want the freedom to move about at will, and I can always leave now knowing that I can handle these fears and come here to get practical answers and sympathetic ears. I'm mastering myself by mastering my fear, and I've really come so far with miles to go. I don't know if it ever ends or not, but I'm sure willing to extend my hand to others coming along behind me. I don't want things at all anymore except what would be very useful in this regard. I do want connection and community, and while I doubt that's really possible in the traditional sense because I've never really found it, it is possible in other ways, and this forum is a really great facet of it. Home is interior, and community has it's roots there too inside each of us. It's that place you live from that has no room for anything less than an uncompromised love for life greater than I could ever imagine and caring for others. It's where creativity/generativity/life vitality flourishes. Well Carla618 and LivGolden, looks like you are both ready in more ways than you think. I dug in my heels until conditions pushed me out. There is no true ready, except that in that feeling unready state and you have that calling, then you're probably at your most ready. It's getting really present with the moment you are in, sitting and staying and breathing with all the emotions that come up, allowing them to be and then to pass, and there's no going back to that old way of thinking that you are breaking out from. I think it's good and necessary to be able to find periodic places to sleep deeply, even if only for a few hours, but to sleep soundly. It's restorative. When I'm stressed, I isolate myself. It's important to extend oneself because you never know what new opportunities might arise and the journey takes on a new, unexpected turn.
K.
