Traveling & Hiatus

Pausing paid subscriptions for the moment

My Epic Road Trip

Late last night, I got back from my most epic trip ever. It was a 6-week drive going to so many place!

It was just me with my dogs. 💛 I guess people think it’s tough for women to travel alone. (Do they assume the same is true of men? I wonder.) I do have to tell you that it was extra tough to travel with my dogs. For one thing, I can’t leave the dogs in my tent to use the bathroom at campsites. And I have to figure out what to do at every rest stop along the road, when I need to go to the bathroom, because dogs aren’t allowed in most buildings.

We drove from Kansas thru Kentucky to meet a new friend I had met on SubStack*

Then we went on to Virginia / DC area. To see my son graduate. 💚

After Virginia, I drove up East Coast of the USA and Canada to get to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where I spent 2 weeks there in 3 different locations.

Sunset at Sydney, Nova Scotia’s port.

This was the destination I was most wanting to see on this trip. My biological-Mum and her family are from there. I haven’t been in touch with her for I think 10 years now, and I have never met her family. I would just like to meet them, but it looks like it won’t be working out.

Because I miss an entire half of my family (I know that adopted people must feel this way too), I needed to see it. Many things from early in my life before I lost all contact with them make sense now. I love lobster, seafood, fiddle music, Canadian kindness, how much I love the ocean and water in general …

The Mira River at Marion Bridge, Nova Scotia

I enjoyed several lobster rolls over the 2 weeks, and watching boats while I enjoyed them. I saw local folks doing this, so I did it, too. It’s very calm and soothing.

I also enjoyed connecting with the local fiddlers of Sydney, Nova Scotia! I got to listen to a good band one night, and play with a bunch of fiddlers another day.

Playing fiddle with a group of fiddlers.

Then visited Prince Edward Island, where someone asked me if I was there because I am an “Anne of Green Gables” fan. I replied, “I read those years ago, I didn’t remember she is from here.” I got to eat PEI raw oysters on the half shell, in PEI.

Oysters on the half-shell in Prince Edward Island

Then I drove through New Brunswick, Quebec**, Ontario, then over to Philadelphia. For the National Yo-Yo Hall of Fame award ceremony honoring my late-dad that I mentioned in my previous newsletter. In Philadelphia, I saw one of my brothers and his mom / my step-mom. You can see all kinds of amazing yoyo videos at this link -

https://www.youtube.com/@NationalYoYoLeague

You can see the routine that won Justin Dauer first place at the 1A Final here:

After that, I headed back down to Shenandoah, Virginia, to see a friend and repack my whole car at the base of my previous home’s driveway.

I had driven to my previous home to pick up some yard-things that I had left there when I moved so quickly 3 years ago. (I had landlord and current tenant’s permission to do this.)

Then I drove to the St. Louis area for my 30th college reunion at Principia College, in Elsah, Illinois. Whew! Another brother of mine teaches at the college so we had several visits while I was there, staying on campus.

It was so nice to see my youngest brother several times while I was there. He and I spent some time playing some music together, too!

I also want to mention that Principia College has an amazing Solar Car & solar car team. I got to see the latest model of the car and chat with the current team members. I worked on the 2nd model of the car; this is the 7th model. The name of the car is RA.

Then I finally made it home, back to Kansas, late on July 1.

I was gone from the last days of May, thru all of June, and got home on Canada Day of all things 🤣

Now it is time to rest.

It was an epic trip for me and answered a lot of family things for me (having seen no family the whole time I was in Canada - we are all estranged from each other), and helped me realize I can do big things all alone.

Thank you for reading.

*I inspired her to buy a plane ticket to a country in Europe she has been thinking about visiting. I am sure her newsletter will share more of those details.

**HUGE lifelong fear of mine to go thru Quebec. But I did it !!!!! I conquered this fear !!!

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Pausing Paid Subscriptions

I will be putting the paid subscription part of my SubStack on pause for several reasons:

• I haven’t sent out newsletters for the last 2 weeks due to the travel starting to wear me down and/or keep me incredibly busy

• I arrived home, very sick, and now I need to just hibernate. So I don’t know when I will be writing my next newsletters yet

• I am traveling again in 2 weeks

• It is the summer, after all, and my dad used to pause his Yo-Yo Times newsletter in the summer, too

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I am sure if I were feeling better, that I would have many more clever things to write, but this is the best I can do for today. I will write more when I am able to, again.

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Next Trip: Alaska!

I will be heading to Alaska next! Tune in for details on another episode of “A Jot From Jodi” !