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We are a family of Vagabonds bound to this land, a band of explorers in our native culture. The road is our ocean, the ocean our border, as we sail along in our little blue boat. We look for, and find everywhere, the America where nature is the guiding ethic, where people work to envision a better world, and where community and respect for life comes first. As we cruise around from state to state we will do our best to share our stories and observations with old and new friends alike. If you care to, we invite you to join us as we live life in motion.

Friday, September 5

The Heartland




Hello All! We are past the mountains of the West, the desert, plains, Mississippi river, and endless miles of corn and soy fields. Seriously, five states worth of mono-cropping the hell out of the earth. New wind mill farms popping up all over Nebraska and southern South Dakota, though, really interesting to see and a breath of fresh air (no pun intended).
The Mississippi river was just like Mark Twain describes it, even the northern Iowa part, and we loved it (minus the mosquitoes and the flash rain storm) and can't wait to see the southern side. Onto the heartland (Indiana) where The Adang family fed and sheltered us for a week and Leah's sweet mama flew out to celebrate her birthday. (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!) Daniel says: I have never felt so welcome and comfortable with someone else's family. Grandma's house was opened to us fully, including the refrigerator. She is an amazing Lady and the best family narrator I've ever met. (THANKS GRANDMA!) It was great to see everyone and we headed out with full hearts and bellies towards Ohio.
So with the 100 degree days and the nine thousand foot passes behind us, we roll through the first hundred miles of flat lands of Ohio. We pull off for gas and squeakety-squeak-clunkety-clunk-clunk goes the engine and then it sounds like Thor is bashing around in there with his hammer. Knowing that something horrible has just occurred, we kept our cool and assessed the situation. The diagnoses is grim. It turned out to be a thrown rod bearing, broken rod, and most likely a trashed case (laymens terms: we need a new engine). Not a good feeling as we are a state and a half from our destination. Went in the gas station and talked to the owner, who told us about a guy who works on VW beetles just a mile away. So we called him and he towed us to his shop, for free, and he called everyone he knew in Ohio that was associated at all with VWs (Thanks Bill!). An all day ordeal of trying to find an engine that was close enough for us to replace ours, ended with a call in to U-Haul for a truck and trailer to haul the damn thing to Jersey (Juniper carried us to Ohio, so we figured we could carry her to NY). Not exactly how we planned on making our entrance, but no worries, we got here and life is still grand... Juniper needs some work now, but we have all the time in the world and the east coast at our finger tips!

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