Home is where you lay your head

Whether or not you agree with this statement it certainly is cause for thought. We are entering our third month of life on the road and we feel like we haven't even begun; how can this be? Two and a half months away from our fluffy bed, our little flock (both feathered and not) and the delights of a home where you have dug in your roots, is a long time, but it doesn't feel like it…to either of us. Maybe Gypsy blood does run through our veins, as my Nana likes to say, or maybe it is because home is something bigger than a place. Perhaps, home is something you carry with you: the origin of nostalgia, culture and comparison. Home certainly links me to a small town in Oregon, but I also feel at home here with Glenn, out on the road. Maybe I carry it with; home just may be where I lay my head.


Two and a half months in and we haven't even begun to scratch the surface. We have explored nearly every inch of South Africa's coastline, and broad swaths of the interior, but when you're talking Africa as a continent, this is a tiny little slice of pie. Yet we have eased into Africa with most of the modern conveniences of home. Our bed here is also fluffy, despite camping, my kitchen is dialed (a sharp knife, a julienne slicer and a larder full of South Africa's finest) and we have all of our fancy electronic gadgets to keep us sufficiently distracted. We are ready. It is time to hit the open road. When we run out of Rusks there might be some problems, but until then we feel like we have made the best of our time here in the Republic of South Africa. Life here, as a tourist, is easy. We have fallen in love, made friends and sucked it all in like a greedy little pigs, but it is time to get some dirt under our nails and hit the open road.


As I type this I am listening to hippos 'talking', that certainly doesn't happen in Hood River, but everything here feel vaguely familiar: store sell relatively the same stuff, convenience foods have taken over and 'real' food is best sourced at the market stalls. Oh, the hippo talk has just been drowned out by the clattering of Glenn hacking away at some fire wood with his new machete, which isn't a typical activity, but despite the nuances, he is my constant…my little slice of home. If it is true that home is where the heart is, then my home is both here and there.


Missing those of you who make our lives so incredibly vibrant,

CP