The Wandering Widow- Day 4

Yesterday, I found myself crying over a lost cooler.

It wasn't just any cooler, it was Ralph's vintage Oscar Cooler by Coleman, circa 1981. I left it in Moab in the hotel parking lot and someone took it. I know this because I called the front desk four hours after leaving, but it was apparently gone.

I remember trying to get all my crap in the car in the same way I had fit it all in like a puzzle when I left San Diego. I fancy myself a good packer, but that was Ralph's thing-organizing- he even made a living at it. I usually end up tossing everything in at the end and calling it a day if the car doors will close.

I even went out in the night air of 5 degrees and emptied my car out again, thinking maybe I misplaced it- as if it was a shoe or a hairbrush.

 The last time Ralph used the cooler was on his 70th birthday at his beach party in August. In October, a month after he died, I needed to use the cooler and I opened it up to find it full of beers. COLD BEERS!

 I knew that I could get rid of all our other coolers because this one would now be mine.

And straight out of the chute, I lost it.

 I could blame the medications I am on for severe bronchitis and altitude sickness, or widow brain, but in the end, it doesn't matter. I drove off and left it and someone took it.

I sat in the car and cried, and then I remembered it held a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream, an expensive bottle of Rombauer Chardonnay my friend gave me for Christmas and my freaking cough syrup- talk about insult to injury.

That just pissed me off.

 I woke up this morning and thought about the cooler and realized that it was just a thing. I've thrown plenty of his belongings away already and the cooler, while it was a sweet memory, won't bring him back, it will just keep beers cold for a month.

 I'm learning to let go of things on this trip and I guess that was the first thing to go.

 Meanwhile, I'm sure his spirit followed the cooler culprit and gave him a flat tire, or at the very least, turned my fancy wine to vinegar.



 

The Wandering Widow- Day 1

Teddy Rosevelt told me to leave San Diego.

 Well, not really, but his story of losing his wife and mother only hours apart inspired me to travel. Burdened by grief, Teddy abandoned politics, left his infant daughter Alice with his sister Bamie, and, at the end of 1884, struck out for the Dakota territories, where he lived as a rancher and worked as a sheriff for two years. 

I am, however, not going to be a rancher or a sheriff, although I still think I could pull off the sheriff costume. 




I am going to travel and blog for the next 30 days to try and get my head back into writing mode so I can write for a living again.

Writing is difficult. Writing after your husband dies suddenly is almost impossible.

But it's what I do and it's what I will continue to do.

Today I am writing from a hotel in St. George, Utah, a town that used to give me the creeps, but I now enjoy. Things change.

I am off to Moab in a few hours to hike and see the sandstone arches for the first time and possibly get snowed in.

My darling husband loved a good adventure, but he always made sure we had a bag with wine, chocolate, matches and a blanket in the car in case we were snowed in. I have my whole life in the car, including the wine and chocolate, so I'm good to go. 

See, I just wrote a blog post. Teddy knew what he was doing and so do I.


 

Writing while Broken

It's been four months since I blogged, but I have a great excuse- I fell down.

Backwards. Really far. In Colorado, a week after my last post.

I'll spare you the details except to say my right wrist- my writing hand- broke in 12 pieces. It was quite dramatic.

Anyway, I am still healing, but while I was broken I continued to write- albeit painfully

slower and with only one finger.

A writer writes!

And we continued to travel and we will in 2018. On this last day of 2017- a horrible, very good year- the Los Angeles Times published my essay about living on the road.

http://beta.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-reed-rv-life-is-not-so-bad-20171231-story.html

Enjoy and happy New Year!

Writing on the Road

I tried so hard to work/write in Sedona, AZ, but the RV park Internet went down, so I drove to the Starbucks by the Hyatt downtown.

The only Starbucks I think in the world without WiFi.

So I drove to another Starbucks, but a very nice homeless man sat next to me. And he smelled. And then he started playing guitar. Sigh. I left and found the Wifi in the RV park had come back to life.

 I actually have to work on the road to make a living. I write every damn day. I make a good living- contrary to what some people think. How else could we afford gas and booze?


Not on The Husband's social security check, that's for sure!

Earlier this month we stayed in Julian, CA and I wrote articles about tents and food reviews at the Julian Library. The old folks drove me nuts muttering while putting puzzles together and the small children were running amok, but then I found the ' quiet room.' Bliss!

When we stayed at our good friends fancy house in Scottsdale my office was a little fancier and very quiet.

Now I am in a tiny town in Apache Junction, AZ writing about a survivalist and traveling to caves in Kentucky while in the local grocery store.

 The average age here is 75, so not a lot of competition over the tables near the plugs. I did however witness two old dudes almost throw blows over who got to the electric grocery carts, but their caregivers stepped in to stop the fight.


Maybe I should write about that!