What you missed...

Yes, it has been EIGHT months since we last posted anything on our blog. Once we moved back to Tucson and started up "normal" life again, we just weren't inspired to write about it. Now, however, we're about to start another big road trip and the urge to share our notes and photos from the field has been rekindled.

The bags are packed and it won't be long until the Red Dragon hits the open road, so we thought it would probably be best to do a post or two with some highlights from the last few months.

* * *


Our bountiful summer in Snowflake with a wonderful harvest: corn, beans, squash, peppers, sunflowers, and enough tomatoes and basil to keep us stocked with pasta fixings until Christmas.

Not bad for a little seed!

***
After living the good life in the garden all summer (and the entire previous year in NZ), you can imagine that it was with some reluctance that we made the decision to move back to Tucson last fall. In the end the prospect of spending more time with friends and family, and finding interesting jobs, won us over. We also couldn't pass up the opportunity of taking over Caitlin's house once she moved to Chicago.

So the bags were packed again (not that they had really been unpacked...in fact, it had been well over a year since our bathroom bags were last emptied) and we headed south.

We all helped Cait pack and then gave her a proper send-off, complete with a fancy dinner and all the usual suspects.

Goodbye for now!

The new pad on moving day...

I look so happy... little did I know there was a large black widow living under the wooden table at my right, to be discovered later that day.

While a bit daunting at first, arranging all of our things to fit in 400 sq feet turned out to be a wonderful exercise in nesting. We got rid of any superfluous items and played a life-size game of tetris until everything else found a place. It felt great to finally have our own home again after a year and a half of living either in the van or in spare bedrooms. It was like Christmas, maybe even better, to unpack all those long lost clothes, kitchen items, books, and furniture.