As promised....

it's a few days since my last post, and I'm getting into the packing. I'm starting to get excited! Nikki and I are meeting later to make a bunch of nori rolls for the road, and pack her car. I'm spending today cleaning my house in preparation for my son's being here, and packing my gear.

There's a cardboard box on the kitchen floor slowly being filled with food: Larabars (awesome raw food yummies), a jar of almond butter, and a few cans each of pineapple chunks and tuna and chicken. Boxes of 'easy food' from the cupboard--risotto, hot & sour soup, sesame teriyaki noodles & sauce--are coming along as well. We're told there's a community kitchen on the campgrounds, so I'm bringing food for the stay as well as for the drive.

And I just found out that my dear new angel friend has 5 days off in a row next week, and could have come for a visit--but didn't mention it because I already had plans!!! It's hard to say what I would have done, given this information a week or so ago. Would I have willingly ditched my girlfriend and our road trip in exchange for the company of one so dear, so special, and so titillatingly distant?

(I fear that I would have done just that. And I hate admitting it--even to my own self, not to mention outting me to all of you. Sigh. Honesty really is the best policy, but sometime it just sux anyway!)

Meanwhile I'm starting to look at this trip as an essential step in the cleansing and healing of my soul and spirit and body and mind, preparatory to meeting said sweet angel friend in mid-September!

Have I mentioned that I'm in love? And that driving 16 hours in the direction opposite to the one I yearn to travel is counter-intuitive, to say the least?

However, I know that all things happen for a reason, and this is no exception. Sorry, Taza, you don't get to change the rules for any reason, no matter how personally convenient it might be. I'll love Harbin Hot Springs. I'll appreciate being in a different climate for awhile. I'll enjoy having this time with my friends Nikki and Mindy, plus the unknown adventures that await!

Can't help but look forward to September, but am trying so hard to stay in the present moment. It's hard to do....but necessary practice.!

Thunder booms in the near distance so it must be time to post this! I'll have the use of a laptop, so look for blog entries from the road!

ciao for now....