Back In The Saddle Again For A Few Weeks
November 16, 2008 by rtwsenior
A few days ago, I returned from my visit to Denver, Colorado, and my daughter’s home after a good visit. Fall was definitely in the air with lower temperatures and a very gusty wind, but still a few of the gorgeous yellow and red leaves were on the trees and I loved being back in my favorite State in this country. Life moved rapidly there with my two grandchildren to keep me busy and I thought nothing at all about blogging. I did, however, get a little closer to my South American takeoff when we went, as a family, to the flagship REI store there. As an early Christmas present, they bought me a personally-fitted, 65-litre women’s REI backpack which should be much easier to manage than the huge 85-litre pack I traveled with on my last RTW trip, snatched off a shelf in a Prague sporting goods store.
I then shopped for things to fill it, and came away with classy black silk long underwear; a sun and bug-repellent white, long-sleeved shirt; Rain jacket and rain pants that fit into their own small stuff sack; socks; Amazon jungle hat; fleece overshirt; gloves and a knit cap. I’m now well outfitted as I only plan to take the essentials. Though January is summer time in the Southern Hemisphere, it will still be cold in parts of the Andes, so I have to plan for two seasons.
If you are ever in Denver, the headquarter REI store makes a surprisingly interesting spot to visit. Right downtown, it’s surrounded by river trails and parks. Inside of the rustic, open, three-story building is a climbing wall, a Starbucks, and mezzanines with departments selling every sort of outdoor equipment. They always have lots of things on sale. One gadget that I might wish I’d fallen for is an ultra-violet water purifier that you just stick into your cup for a moment and all the bacteria obligingly dies. It was $99 and my daughter talked me out of it, but it was small and portable and made sense to me. I’m still considering it.
So, now I’m back home. The house is restocked with groceries, the laundry is done, some yardwork has been initiated to plant the patio hanging ferns in the ground so they’ll survive four months of no one to water them, and I finally address the urgent matters of book and blog. After six weeks of watching Amazon.com for the arrival of my book and seeing nothing, I finally inquired of my printers, Lightning Source. It seems that the proper forms had not been filled out and submitted. Woops! After signing contracts for the US and UK and faxing them in, I’m hoping that my book is, at last, in the lineup for online sales over Amazon.com. Unfortunately, this means another four to six week delay and it’s not likely to appear until the end of the year.
Sigh! If I’d been a real hotshot about publicity, as I’d originally hoped to be, it would have been somewhat wasted as this blog remains the only national source for the book, so far. Ah well, when I return from this next junket, I’ll try again and have even more to talk about, so that’s okay. I’m easy! From now until about January 7th, when I hope to fly to Lima, Peru, this blog will detail my preparations for my four-month exploration of the South American continent, since I have decided that four months is not a long enough period to attempt another around-the-world circle of the globe. It’s going to be a slower and more thorough examination of those lands down there, working my way around those large continents, piecemeal, as I find that I can leave my home responsibilities behind for awhile. Eventually, I will have it sewn up in the same way as the easier northern half. Like I say, I’m easy!
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