JOHN DAY DAM, WA–Yesterday, on the phone with Jim, I was telling him how I wasn’t sure if the truck is for me. He said I should just find a cabin on a lake and rent it for a few months. That resonated with me.

This morning, as I was looking at the stats of this website, I saw that someone had found my site by searching for the words, “for i have found the teacher of truth.” Curious, I plugged it into google (click the link above) and my website came up as the only hit. I clicked the link, since I was pretty sure I never wrote those words, and it turned out to be a comment from our own Ms. Q from South Africa, a long-time reader of this blog.

More surprising was the date, exactly one year ago today (September 1). More surprising still, was the content of the post where I was announcing for the first time what was happening to me after my personal self had dropped.

It’s taken awhile, but I’ve learned to listen to Her. I closed my laptop and drove down to my “cabin on a lake.” Seems like the perfect time and place to help dig out this little pebble of mine.

NEWPORT NEWS, VA–As I was sitting at a light yesterday, a guy jumps out of his car, runs over to me and says, “Hey, you’re truck’s spraying diesel from your engine!” (Bad Luck).

Sure enough, there was this huge hole in my engine shooting diesel fuel all over the place.

Actually, it was just a little hole where a bolt fell out, but in the middle of traffic with a heat index of 120, your mind pictures all these worst case scenarios and holes where they shouldn’t be just look bigger.

More below the break. (What does “below the break” mean?)

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NEWPORT NEWS, VA–Consistently, when faced with a problem, I am finding that if I just do my research and then put off fixing/deciding/acting, within a couple of days I will see something that will trigger a powerful, right-feeling, answer.

Nothing magical about it. You’ve probably heard of this before. But what I am finding interesting is how reliable it is. Before, Wayne Wirs used to feel proud when he would figure out a problem with his brain. It made him feel smart and special.

Now I find it much more rewarding (and a powerful reinforcement of our “connectedness) when I just let go and let Her show me the way.

It has happened so often over the last year that I no longer consider it mystical–just a simple, natural (though not easily explainable), aspect of life.

I love it.

NEWPORT NEWS, VA–(PARENTAL WARNING: If you are the parent of a stupid and/or accident-prone child, you are advised NOT to read the following article.)

As I’ve often said on this blog, I am a very lucky man. Being very lucky makes up for most of my stupidity and casual attitude toward danger. For an example of this Stupid/Luckiness Yin/Yang-type dualism, see my “Diabolical A/C Removal Project” below the break. (What does “below the break” mean?)

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NEWPORT NEWS, VA–For the last week or so, I have been running from place to place, trying to find hard-to-find parts, assemble them, realize my mistakes, return them, and repeat.

Every day I’ve said to myself (because I need the income), “Tonight, I’m going to write code.” Every night I’ve been too beat to sit at the computer and crunch out software. Instead I veg out, sleep, and repeat.

My mind just works better in the morning.

So as much as possible, I’m trying to write code in the mornings and save the grunt work for the afternoons and evenings. I may not get the truck as camper-ready as quickly as I’d like, but the balance is definitely much more healthy.

I even get bonus material: Though I shouldn’t be surprised by this (I am still amazed it happens so regularly), every time I drop the “trying to make it happen” attitude – ideas, hard-to-find-parts, and resources seem to naturally (even effortlessly) appear on their own.

POWELL, AL–On the drive north to my friend Doug’s place the other day, I decided that yes, I was going to sell the RV and get a step-van or box truck and outfit it as a stealthy RV. I have been wrestling with this idea for months. I like the idea of being able to go anywhere, stay anywhere, and not have to make plans on where I will camp or for how long. The freedom to go to where I am drawn without restrictions. Sort of like the Peace Pilgrim but with a computer, bed and wheels.

Anyway, not five minutes after I made this decision, while stopped at a light in Oxford, AL, a guy in a pickup truck pulls up next to me and shouts over, “Hey, you want to sell your camper?” This has happened a grand total of zero other times in my life, so I took it as a sign that I had made the right decision.

I pulled over, let him look at my rig, gave him my number (his father is looking for a used RV), and continued on my way.

COE EAST BANK CAMPGROUND, CHATTAHOOCHEE, FL–Since I had taken the RV out of storage and been on the road again (only a little over two weeks now), the RV has been running very rough. At first I thought it was just old gas or maybe condensation in the tank, but, as I found out yesterday after taking her into the Ford dealer in Live Oak (FL), it’s a bad ECU (engine control unit)–a little computer that monitors and maintains various functions in most vehicles on the road today.

The bad news is that they did a national search for this little bugger and there just aren’t any to be found (my RV is a 1994). More bad news is that in order to fix her, they need to pull the ECU, ship it off for repair and maybe have it back in two weeks (maybe a month). Two weeks (a month!) with no place to live since the RV can’t be driven without the ECU. Miserable.

So I looked online and within a couple minutes found the exact part I needed. I could either drive down to Davie, FL and pick it up (a day and a half there and back), or they could ship it to me for Monday delivery. I decided I’d find a place to camp the RV, drive down to Davie in the jeep and be up and running the next day.

More bad news–bizarre news even–was that I couldn’t find a single place in town (or even near town) that had a site for two nights. There was a big concert going on and I guess big concerts in little towns are a big thing. I tried at Stephen Foster (where I had stayed the last few nights), but no luck. I tried another place that said they had only one site open for two nights, but they couldn’t hold it. When I got there a half hour later, it was taken. I even tried this little campground with lots of empty sites on the far outskirts of town, and when I said I’d be running down to S. FL overnight, she looked at me as if I had just shot her dog and said you can’t store your RV here. I said, “But I’ll be back tomorrow!” She crumpled up the paperwork she had started to fill out on me and gave me that I’ve-got-a-shotgun-right-here-behind-the-counter look.

Everything was going against me.

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DEERFIELD BEACH, FL–Heading north to the middle of the state tomorrow morning. Going to stay in a state park for a couple days and then maybe onto some private land. Two different people in the area have offered to let me “camp” on their land up there. It’s wonderful how things fall together when you get out of the way.

On that note, the condo I was staying in at Deerfield sold. Mary, whom I was house-sitting for, said she loved the fact that I was care-taking the place. It gave her lots of peace-of-mind knowing that it was being kept clean, dusted, maintained and watched over.

The main reason it sold though, was because one time I was accidently around when a realtor came by and I was able to answer most of the prospective buyer’s questions. Turned out that realtors just don’t have all the answers that buyers ask at a showing, and–having stayed there–I did. Being a “disinterested but knowledgeable” party turned out to be a big plus for the buyer (I was even invited to their place whenever I’m in Chicago).

Being there to answer their questions was probably what sold the condo after it sat stagnant on the market for over a year.

With such a down real estate market, there’s probably quite a demand for honest caretakers.

A couple of days ago, while exploring the Olympic Peninsula and while reflecting on my brother’s unusual (for him) and spontaneous decision to fly out here, the thought popped into my mind, “Jeff’s here for a reason.”…

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Jung defined synchronicity as meaningful coincidences. He also found that the more whole a patient became – “whole” as in psychologically accepting of their own nature – the more often synchronistic events would occur in their lives. Many spiritual seekers also find synchronicity prevalent in their lives, probably due to the relaxing of the ego. I have long suspected that, to quote myself, “the less there is of me, the more there is of Her.” “Her” being God/Spirit/Source…

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I drove to the local BLM (Bureau of Land Management) to pick up some maps of the area. I’ve decided to do some boondocking and wanted to know where I could stay. They are closed Saturdays, but as luck would have it, a ranger pulled into the lot just as I was about to leave…

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Kayaked 10 miles down the Androscoggin River yesterday. As fate would have it, I had the river practically to myself.

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I’ll be staying in Shelburne, VT (just south of Burlington) through next weekend. This will give me time to get some work done, write, take pictures, and explore the area. I was going to blog something about the Soul, Belief Systems, or something spiritual and longwinded, but just as I got back from shooting the above picture (on Lake Champlain), I received this email…

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Even though I haven’t dated for three years, irony would have it that I would meet a wonderful woman three weeks before I was to leave S. Florida.

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On Saturday all went well. My brother gave me a ride to pick up the RV, we stopped in to see the folks, and I arrived back in Deerfield just in time for one more synchronistic occurrence…

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After driving all around South Florida on Tuesday, I found three RV’s that I really liked: The first, a Coachmen, was newest and looked the nicest, but I didn’t trust the salesman. The second (a Four Winds) and third (a Tioga) were about even in quality, but the Four Winds had more extras thrown in. The Tioga, was the very first RV I came across when I started my search online over two months ago. Ironically, it is also the same model as the RV used by the guy who got me thinking about going mobile in the first place: The Adventures of Tioga and George.

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