Camino de Santiago

Recently, I embarked on an adventure.  I hiked 200 miles of the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage that has been journeyed since ancient times.  If you want to research it a bit, American Pilgrims on the Camino is a good place to start.  It starts in France and continues throughout Spain, and ends at Santiago de Compostela, where the Cathedral de Compostela is [the supposed resting place of St. James].

It was incredible.

Wyoming

Here are a few pictures of where I'm working this summer!

Travel, Gypsy Soul, and Wishing...

Sometimes, do you ever wish you could just leave the life you're in right now and go someplace else?  Anywhere in the world?  I do.  So many times a day, I wish I could go somewhere, anywhere, and just live an adventure.  

And even more so today, when the central Texas heat is shimmering outside and the air conditioner has gone MIA without leave and my mom has decided to steal my fan and use it as her own.

Right now, what I wish, is to be someplace cool––even cold, maybe.  Perhaps swimming crystal waters, tan and skinny and effortlessly pretty.

Or walking a highland moor.  Or enjoying a cup of chilled coffee in a café far from America.

Or perhaps sitting on a cliff, high above the world, looking down on everything spread below me.

I don't know.  They're fancies.  Fancies that become dreams that I will hopefully turn into reality someday.  

Where would you go?

What I'm Doing this Summer!

So.  It's official.  I'm the world's worst blogger.  I haven't posted anything since March!

Sorry about that.  [Oh, yeah, you say...  An apology will make everything better.]  Ha-ha.  Who am I kidding?  I don't have that big of an audience.

So, updates––AKA, what I am doing this summer: Six weeks during the months of June/July/August, I will be staying up in Wyoming [for those of you who don't know, I'm a Texan] and working on a dude ranch up there as a wrangler.

Go on.  Be jealous.


I am really excited!  The ranch itself sits almost in the shadow of the Grand Teton, so the scenery is gorgeous and absolutely breathtaking!  I will have lots of pictures to post here.

[That's a picture of the mountains surrounding the ranch.]



Things I Have Done Since Last Post:

1.  Finished the first part of The Lightcatcher [ecstatic about that!]

2.  Graduated highschool [I like to think I'm ecstatic about that as well, but then I realize that maybe I don't want to be an adult and go back to drawing unicorns in my coloring book and drinking chocolate milk through a straw.]

3.  Finished with all 4-H activities [i.e., State Contests, Fair Week, and NO record book!]

4.  Um....I have an uninteresting life.

So yeah, that's about it.  Oh, and I'm kind of freaking out about packing/what to pack for WY.  If any of y'all have gone on trips and forgot something that you desperately needed, or found something that was useful, LET ME KNOW!  Any advice is much appreciated.  

[Considering that I know almost every person who follows this blog...that question might be counterproductive.  Oh well.]

So long, people!

-Newsie

I'm ALIVE!

Just letting y'all know that I'm alive.  I haven't been blogging lately, so I figured I'd explain why.

First of all, I'm not dead.  So that's a good thing.  I've come back!  (From the future, believe it or not.  But that's a different story for a different time...better to be told in different places.)

I've also decided that NaNoWriMo can go die down a hole.  There is no way I can finish 50K words by December.  I have about 21K.  I have decided that those other people who already have their count limit don't have school to do, or any social lives, or any more school, or other things to take care of like getting out of the house once in a while.  And I'm pretty convinced they don't stop to eat, either.

Secondly, I have just come back from a weekend with the family for Thanksgiving––so, go figure, not much writing done.  My calves have bruises and scrapes up and down the insides from not wearing any gaiters or chaps when riding.  I really needed some polo wraps that last day, but didn't get them.  Stupid me.

And I'm tired.  Very tired.  I didn't get very much sleep to say the least.

Ping Pong was especially competitive, and when you're not sure which side of the family you should root for, it can get nasty.  Jumps were built, horses ridden, turkey eaten...  My mother got out the Amish carriage and hooked her draft horse up to it and took everyone for a ride.  My cousin's colt spooked and ran all over the place because of that incident, and my other cousin's horse shied and started bucking a bit.

I helped finish painting the side of the barn with my cousin, Jake.  I have grey paint in my hair now because he was up on a ladder and I was down below.

Went out shooting.  More riding.  Ate some pie.  Rode again.

Discovered that when both the four-wheeler and the bike don't have any brakes, it's probably not the best idea in the world to let your little sister take your cousin for a joy ride: her riding the four-wheeler with him being dragged along behind on the bicycle, holding a rope––through all the cactus and rocks.

Played my guitar, sang until my voice was hoarse, and watched my grandma cajole her grandsons into dancing.  My guitar also has a hole in the side, but that's beside the point.  I don't really want to think about it.

So that's about it for November.  I'm surviving, y'all.

Cheers.

-Newsie

...If I could just get out of this place

So, because this editor has nothing better to do than dream of faraway places, I am going to bombard you with pictures of Scotland.  I will travel there, one day...someday...sometime in the future.  And write a novel about my very long trip around the world visiting foreign countries and soaking up culture.  I can call it Around the World in More Than Eighty Days.  

On second thought, I think that would be a bit too original for some publishers.  

Anyway, hiking along the green braes and glens of Scotland, I swear I could churn out a story worth of Tolkien--given all the inspiration I need and some time.  And what better place to get inspiration than sitting on a heather-covered brae with a slightly overcast sky and a stiff breeze coming off the ocean?

Ah, sigh...

-Newsie

Travel: Paris...

Paris.  

Who doesn't want to travel to Paris someday?  Think of how much inspiration you could find sipping tea in a quant cafe, strolling down the Seine, or climbing to the top of the Eiffel tower?  Ah, I can only dream and sigh.  

I want to visit Paris so badly, and really soak up local culture.  I know, I know, you say that I have a tourist's view of Paris and that it actually isn't all the glamourous...  But I don't care.  I'm dreaming, and when I'm dreaming, I'd thank you not to interrupt.  

                   

Ah, one of the things on my list of stuff to do before I die [well, the list in my head] is to dance in the rain on a Parisian street...

-Editor

It's Official

I'm going to France...someday.  Yes, I know what you're thinking.  "It's all a dream, and that's all it ever will be."  But I tell you it won't be only a dream!  I'm going to go to college, and then study abroad!  I'm telling you, I will!  And I'm going to live in a lovely little apartment flat like this one and visit the Riding School in Versailles.  Hopefully...

And I'm going to take trips into the countryside and go down to the beaches of Omaha in Normandy and witness the lowering of the U.S. flag to taps near the american cemetery.  And I will just be totally awed and start crying.  

And then I'm going to travel into England and visit all the castles and in classic American style, will probably crash while driving on the right side of the road, literally.  And then I'll have to go through all the security measures and hospital procedures...  And then maybe they'll send me home because I don't have the right ID.

No.  No, that's not going to happen.  I will explore the rolling fields of the lovely English countryside, walk along the moors of Yorkshire, and ride the London Underground.  Then I'll see Stonehenge and visit the Eagle and Child pub and sit at the table where the Inklings met twice a week! And I WILL see a West End musical!  There is no way I'm going to London without seeing something on the West End! Preferably Billy Elliot, Les Miserables, Wicked, Oliver!, or any of the above if they happen to be playing. Actually, I'd settle for seeing anything on the West End.

And then I'm going to go back to France and finish studying, and with the rest of the time before my visa expires, I will go to Italy, and Germany, then Austria and see the Spanish Riding School, because who in their right mind would go to Vienna and not see the Spanish Riding School?  Then the Netherlands, and Wales.  Then I'm going to bike Ireland, Scotland, and go back through England, hitting all the castles that I missed before.

And then I'm going to sadly get on a plane[which will probably be delayed], and come back to America and wonderful fast-food and driving on the right side of the road and our horrible way of pronouncing letter "leddER" instead of that musical sounding British way of pronouncing it "lettuh".

Yes.  That's how it's going to play out.  And then I'm going to go back to Europe and visit all the places I didn't see, and then go to Australia and New Zealand.

So...anyone care to join me?  Because whether or not I go study abroad, I will be biking New Zealand, Ireland, or Scotland, no matter what anyone tells me.  Or whether or not I actually do travel Europe.  I'm serious--it might be when I'm 35, but it will happen...hopefully.  I will need a partner in this endeavor of biking across a European country of our choice!  It would be the experience of a lifetime!  And I want to make it happen.  
So, until then, farewell!  

Sincerely, 
Professional Dreamer and Accomplisher Amateur