Postcards from Hare Krishna Land

There are many doors into the Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra Temple at New Vrindaban. When you enter the building, no matter which door you use, you take off your shoes. There are shoes in the entryway to the ashram, shoes in the hallway with the administrative offices, shoes in the main entrance.

Time Flies, Lindsey Drives

SINCE my two months at Jesus People USA in Chicago, I've been more conscious of how little of my two years of travel I have remaining. I mean, I'll be at the two-year mark in four months. Four months! I may push it out a month or two longer, but my savings account suggests I won't be traveling much more than that.

So I've been picking up the pace, stopping places for a week or three instead of a month or three, and that has meant time for writing has been harder to come by. I've kept up on the journaling, which is the most important part from my perspective, but when I sit down to write a blog post, it quickly blooms into something more the shape and length of a book chapter. I'm excited about that tendency, but it does leave you out in the cold, gentle blogreaders. I apologize. Let me give you a quick rundown of what I've been up to.

JPUSA's historic Chelsea Hotel, Chicago

New Old Year, Old New Year

IT'S still January for a few hours yet. I can still write a cliche stock-taking New Year post, right? Right. I'm glad you agree.

2012 held some triumphs and some sucker-punches, some joyous discoveries and some hard lessons. It was a year of buckling down and taking it easy, of taking risks and clinging to comforts. It was a year I felt was not wasted in the spending: a year fully lived.

Long Haul

I like driving the stretch of Interstate 5 just south of Salem, Oregon. There's so much to look at: vineyards, thickly forested hills, amusement parks (including my childhood happiest place on earth). But I bet the one thing that gets the most double takes is the Transformer Truck.

Too Many Stories

So, I'm in Nashville. What I'm doing in Nashville is a story for another blog post; right now I just want to tell you how I got here.

Where did we leave off?  Oh yeah, July. I spent most of July at the Grünewald Guild, which is also a story for another blog post. And then in August I was in Portland and Eugene and Tillamook and the Seattle area.

In Portland I went to a wedding reception I'd promised to attend, where I had a swing-dancing lesson from a very tall man, and found out that some of my friends had more kids than I thought they did.

Things I Learned During Two Months of Farm Work in the Okanogan

• It's pronounced "oak-a-noggin".

• The number of hours of labor that go into bringing you a bag of organic salad greens, an heirloom tomato, or a pint of pesticide-free strawberries is staggering. No matter how high the prices at your local farmer's market, your farmer is likely earning nowhere near minimum wage for his work. Small-scale organic farming is a labor of love.

• If you sleep in an old camper in a sheep pasture, you may occasionally get friendly calls from the neighbors.

Stehekin!

"I have so many fun things planned for you this weekend!" Hannah declares as we walk briskly up the steep incline from the dock to her brother's house.

"That is exactly what I need right now," I reply fervently. It's May 4th, and I'm fresh off the boat: I've just waved goodbye to a village worth of friends, including my newly-ex-sweetheart. I knew today was going to hurt. That doesn't make it hurt any less.

Now I've landed in Stehekin, a teeny town at the north end of Lake Chelan, where I'll be spending the weekend. I first heard about it over a year ago from a sailor friend:

Roscoe: You should come visit Steheekan.

me: Steheekan?

Roscoe: It is an odd little mountain community. You either hike in for 2 days, or you drive 4 hours from [Bellingham], take a boat 4 hours up the river. And you have this pretty much self-contained little mountain community of probably less than 1000 people, spread around a place that looks astonishingly like Rivendell.
No phones, no newspapers less than 2 weeks old. Maybe 6 cars.

me: oh my gosh. this is definitely going on the list.