(written just after midnight of the 11th, early morning of the 12th from notes taken previously)
Gratefully, I was undisturbed last night.
I’m grateful that the rest area allows for up to 8 hours of stopping. There were a pretty good number of us taking advantage of the 8-hour rest time.
I don’t know if I was there the full 8 hours, not wanting to overstay my welcome, but definitely close to 8 hours if not the full time.
I’m grateful to have my little marshmallow headphones and my little rain White noise app that allows me to choose the different kinds of rain storms I can listen to.
After getting up, I began the Drive North up the Pacific Coast Highway toward Oregon, but it wasn’t long before I saw a sign in forming me of beach access, and it was a small Road that looks like maybe it might afford a less crowded Beach experience, so I did a u-turn, came back to the road, and headed on down to the beach.
So beautiful. 😊
I guess the place is called Ocean by the Road, and I think it’s maybe on native American land that they allow to be made into a public park area?
I think it’s something like that.
Because of my new aversion to the Sun, I didn’t really get out of Rover much. 😅
I spent a little bit of time working online to make a couple of nickels. I’ve spent a pretty significant amount of money on the trip so far, having driven over 4,500 mi already in just barely over a month. 🙃
And western states gas ain’t cheap. 😅
Anyway, so I spent a little time working.
I also crashed and burned again… already… in all of my vices. 😕
Well, accept food. 🙃 I only had relatively healthy stuff with me, so not much to binge on in that category. But sports, entertainment, Youtube, and also the… yucky stuff. 😕
I was on my phone pretty much all day.
Hard slide. 😞
In the midst of the wasted day, I did have a fun conversation with my sister heather, sharing with her the capabilities of the Gemini AI app, which gave her the opportunity to speak Hungarian and to hold a conversation in Hungarian.
🥳
Fun!!! Exciting!!!
Just like with Spanish for me, Japanese and German for my nephews, and German and Portuguese for my dad, everyone, including my sister speaking hungarian, has found the AI accent to be fabulous in their language.
So cool. 🥳
I also called my mom and shared the app with her, so she could practice her Spanish like I’ve been practicing mine.
Such a wonderful tool. Of course, you’re signing away a fair bit of privacy, but these days, I put my life online anyway, so… I don’t really care anymore.
And even if I didn’t put my life online via this blog, they pretty much know everything anyway. 😆
I realized today, and I mentioned this to my mom while I was talking to her, that I started this trip as a trip, but in reality, this is my new life. I go where I want to go, and I live my life everywhere I go. I’ve been thinking of this whole trip as a trip, like I need to go here, and then there, and then there, and I need to get there at a certain time for a day or something, but that’s… not what my life is right now.
I don’t need to think about where I’m going today and what I’m going to be seeing, I need to be thinking about what I’m doing in my life today.
And I just happened to be doing life wherever it is that I am at the time. 🙃
So, I have stuff to sell. I have taxes to do. I have work to do online to pay the bills, I have pondering to do, etc etc etc.
It’s interesting trying to weave that life perspective into my brain, trying to transition away from the feeling of being on a trip that will involve going here, here, and here, and shifting that into the perspective of just living my life that happens to take me through here, and here, and here, as I go wherever I go, whenever I get there.
I eventually did get out of the van and walk over to the water, putting my feet in the freezing cold waves as they roll into shore.
I do love the ocean. 😊
Though I wish it weren’t so sticky. 🙃
As grew on toward desk, I started walking the beach collecting beautiful rocks and shells and wave tossed pieces of wood that had been polished smooth.
I have myself now quite the little collection of beautiful rocks and things that could all go together display tray full of sand.
Beautiful.
Of course, I was wearing long pants, long sleeve shirt, and my absolutely massive sun hat. 🙃
I stayed in Rover far after the sun went down. There were other people here and there throughout the day, but it was never crowded. I was the first one there, I think, and the last person to leave.
Instead of heading north, I actually headed back down south because the rest area I had stayed at was only a handful of miles back down the road, and it was going to be easier to go to a known place then to try and find a new place to stay late at night, so I again headed to the rest area, this time the the rest area on the southbound side of the highway.
When I got there, I pulled into the parking lot near the restrooms, and the car next to me had a suitcase sitting in the middle of the parking spot next to it, with a whole bunch of clothing and other stuff just piled on the ground.
I thought that was odd, but eventually, a couple of people came out of the restrooms back to that car and started moving things around.
They were acting super strangely. 🤔
Actually to the point that I was a little uncomfortable being around them. Fortunately, I was only in that particular parking spot temporarily. I had hoped fill up my water bottles, as I had finished all my fresh water supplies, and I’d also hoped to find a place to plug in my power station, as despite the fact that I was only using it during short spurts when more necessary, it was getting very low and I didn’t want to be without power of any kind in a situation where I needed power.
I was able to fill up my water bottles, and there was an outlet to plug in my power station, but I would have had to have removed my power station from Rover and carried it toward the bathroom building, as my extension cord wasn’t long enough, I having left my longer one in Arkansas accidentally.
Anyway, so I wasn’t able to charge up my power station, but I was able to get water, so I had something to drink, which was good, as there weren’t any stores nearby to buy more water, and I didn’t think about using my super expensive water filter that I bought years and years and years ago that’s good for like 10,000 gallons of filtering. I’ve probably only filtered maybe 5 gallons worth of water through it and all that time, so it should be good to go. It’s one of those filters that’s capable of filtering raw sewage into drinkable water, I believe, not that I would ever want to test that capacity. 😅
I do want to remember, next time I run out of water, that all I need to do is find a fresh water stream somewhere, and I’m good to go.
Anyway, after getting my water topped off at the drinking fountain, I backed Rover up and entered the RV portion of the parking lot, as I’m sort of an RV and generally Park myself with the RVs and not the cars when there’s a separation.
Gratitude:
- I’m grateful for the beautiful ocean and waves and the sounds that they make.
- I’m grateful for cool breezes when the sun heats up Rover’s insides.
- I’m grateful that I had reception in that little Beach cove thingamabobber place. I’m surprised that there was reception, let alone reception enough to do some online work for JustAnswer.
- I’m grateful for artificial intelligence models that are revolutionizing the way we gather information and use information. Such a blessing in so many ways.
- I’m grateful for the little ocean treasures that wash up on the beach–the beautifully polished, smooth, flat stones; the twigs that have been sculpted and sanded… the shells with their blues and purples and whatnot.
- I’m grateful that though I’m still coughing up crap, that my head isn’t bloated and congested, and my coughing doesn’t hurt. I’m at that stage where it’s just a mild annoyance, and I’m grateful.
Success:
- I think working today was a bit of a success? It’s hard to want to work right now–having been demoted in pay scale and still not really having any idea how to get bumped back up. But I worked a little, and that’s good because there’s lots of financial outflow right now without anything coming in.
Improvement:
- Total crash and burn today in my addictions, so… Hopefully I can quickly let go of personal discouragement and just turn and walk in the direction I want to go and let that be enough like it should be.
Loves. 😊
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 