About

I bought a Eurovan in April 2010. I put all my stuff in storage. I loaded the van. I gave up my apartment. I drove out of Seattle on the last day of May.

I’m still driving, working my way down the coast and then heading east. How far or how long, still to be determined.

While on the road, I’m trying to keep up with my blog (posted on my home page). It’s not really a travel blog, but I do use travel to inspire me. Feel free to comment, make suggestions, leave greetings, laugh, cry.

More Stuff

I used to write for a small-town newspaper in Colorado, a gig that landed me two journalism awards and a chance to write an advice column: “Moments with Mother Martha.” I made up Mother Martha. I made up most of the questions too. But the editor killed the column because it confused too many readers. They thought Martha was a real mother.

After that, I wrote all sorts of stuff – feature stories, restaurant reviews, legal summaries, marketing copy. Lots of technical material too, everything from articles to books to well-crafted emails full of emoticons. I still write articles. They let me use the right side of my brain. Maybe it’s my left. Either way, it helps pay the bills.

I’ve also got a novel out there, Dancing the River Lightly. It’s pretty cool getting a book published, even if I had to sell my soul to make it happen. Really. I have the papers to prove it. But that’s how publishing works. The whole thing – the agents, publishers, distributors – is a system long broken. And everyone knows it. But no one knows how to fix it.

I didn’t make that up. That’s what a publisher told me.

Maybe with my novel I should have done what I did for my first book, Pacific Passion. I wrote it when I was recovering from a helicopter fall. Long story, short book.

Nearly a year after the fall, I gathered with friends in my cabin. It was early April in the Colorado Rockies. That meant snow.

I still walked on crutches.

We decided to create a multi-tasking paperback book. After several beers, we came up with a theme: ToileTales: Read ‘em and Wipe. I flew down to Mexico, drank more beer, and wrote much of the book. I had to wrap my cast in plastic so I could get into the water, even though the cast was made of fiberglass.

We published the book ourselves. You can still find copies in outhouses across America.