Simply, Lesa

Hi all - I got home fine.  Late.  Very late.  The plane in FFL (florida) had mechanical problems that took over 5 hours to repair.  We finally took off and I slept most of the trip to SJO (Costa Rica).  I was woken by the bumpy weather as we neared SJO.  Then the bumpy landing.  When I got off the plane the pilot was walking with me down the ramp and told me that we nearly didn't make it!  Weather and more mechanical problems.  He was hoping they would not make them fly back that night.  I later found out that they did not have to go. So I had to spend one nite in my favorite hostel in SJO -- Casa Ridgeway -- because I missed the buses to San Isidro de General (Perez Zeledon) for that day.  Wednesday morning I made my way to Musoc Bus for the ride to San Isidro, arrived just in time to catch the Bus for Angastora/San Agustin/Ciebo.  Unfortunately after the bus left I learned that the road from Angastora to Rivera (a town b...

So I woke up thinking about a television program I had seen, maybe last week.  The woman, was crying over having 'lost' - momentarily - a $75,000 earing!  She 'lost' this when her boyfriend playfully tossed her off a dock into beautiful blue green tropical Bali (I think it was) ocean water ---- say what! Geez.  Do people really have earings that cost more than most people have ever made in a year of hard work?  How many people actually have this kind of life? I also got turned down for Food Stamps - now my only income is Social Security Disability or SSDI.... ? again go figure!  The form letter basically said that I am not a migrant worker and that I have over $150 in monthly income?  Incredible.  Well - after a phone call, I was actually only turned down for Emergency Food Stamps and that would be correct, because I am not in Emergency Crisis status today. I also, yesterday saw news online and the stories about people protesting Wall Street and th...

Labor Day - I totally forgot there was another holiday this weekend!  I wondered why the neighbors were headed out of town on the back of motorcycles and all. I just found out that a family member was having a cookout today.  I guess I wasn't on any invite list.  I also learned just in the past 45 minutes that I have been the subject of yet another family drama --- surprise surprise.  All my life, all I have to do is breathe and I have somehow done something wrong and purposefully hurt someone and I didn't even know anything about any of it..... (sigh) I so am looking forward to getting the Explorer fixed or sold or whatever...because I want to get on with my own life.  I so need distance from these blood relatives - I have so many more friends and collected 'family' that actually respect me.  Heck some people actually like me. I read another blogger's tales of reverse culture shock and difference of priorities with the average American.  I so ca...

The east coast of the US seems to have made through this major storm of the century! (did anyone see that movie - one of the only scarey movies I actually liked.)  Sometimes I think that the media blitz during these events is just annoying chatter that stirs up the average persons emotions and keeps everything stirring.  I feel it is good to be informed.  And then we could move on for a while and come back to be informed again.  Just spending days and nights huddled around the giant TV sets of the world seems somehow a bizzare event in and of itself.  and perhaps I am becoming one of the old people of the world.... My 'friend' Steve "Love Life" Frugate is in southern Maine, I hope to meet up with him when he gets closer.  I got the brakes fixed on my Explorer although I still need a few things done to feel comfortable driving it a long distance.  I have decided to sell this vehicle and use the money to buy a mini-van which I can live more comf...

So my new-to-me Explorer needs a total brake job! It just started that tell-tale scraping sound so I took it to a relative of a relative's Auto repair shop only to be told its a $1200 job with much more work to be done before the next inspection sticker can be had in Feburary.... bummer - I made a good decision - didn't I?  I slept in the local WallyWorld parking lot a couple nights as I debated what to do and how to tackle this new set of issues.  Then remembered I have a handy nephew near by.  I contacted him and have been staying with them the past few days.  I sold my hammock camping set up in order to buy the pads and 2 rear roters, my nephew and his neighbor are going to help me out with the job and they will look it all over and see if I have any other major stuff to repair.  Anyway my life is still an adventure! I heard from my Great Aunt, who had been a missionary in Japan.  She is wanting to visit with me this week while th...

Incredible, take a look at this! --  http://thetuckerbag.blogspot.com/ So I've been couch hopping (different from Couch Surfing which is related to the website....couch hopping is w/ppl I already know and didn't use the CS site to contact)... ever since I got the Explorer.  I'm staying w/family off and on and geez...I'm so done with that.  I clean, wash dishes, paint walls and generally clean up other ppl's messes or cook for them so I can have the 'honor' of sleeping on their pet infested couches or to have the other 'honor' of hanging my hammock in their junk room.... I'm sooooooooo done!  So this morning I'm thinking why I haven't already just moved into the Explorer and gone to sleep in the local Wally World parking lot?  Good q (short for question) isn't it!  So after my niece returns from work tonight, I will discuss what she wants from dear Auntie Lesa before I actually do that and leave... OMGosh I just learned that one of t...

I think I need to organize my  blog time - I can hardly believe it is the begining of August already!  Time just flies sometimes. It's my older sister Linda's birthday today and no I'm not telling how old she is :D!  Love you Linda, Happy Birthday I hope you have a GREAT day today! Linda is to become a grandma again tomorrow.  Amos, my nephew, and his wife Alice are having their second child - Congrats! Steve is having some back pain - what a reminder of my days of herniated disks.  The memory of John Z., my ex-S.O., seeing me off at the back of an ambulance on the 5th of July a few years ago.  My back was achey and I felt a twinge and pinch in one hip while we were enjoying the 4th of July in a historic section of Brooklyn.  I stood up all day because sitting was just painful.  I didn't tell John how painful it really was, because I wanted to enjoy the day hanging out together again.  We did this 'on-again-off-again' relationship thing...

I'm anxious to get moving again.  I've been visiting in one location for quite some time now and I am sure my hosts as well would like a break, I know I get that way myself.  I have been struggling with the idea of getting a loan (omgosh after 7ish years of debt free living!) to buy a vehicle so I can travel a little easier.  I learned from 170 miles of hiking that carrying everything on my back is a kewl idea and it can get old - quickly.  I can live out of a backpack and I would like a few more things than that style of life is giving me at this stage of my life.  So it's probably a good idea, since it might look a little kooky to see a middle aged woman walking on the side of a road dragging a wagon or something, to just buy a car, a mini-van, a van, a small suv --- something.  And big enough to be comfortable and to sleep a night or two in while traveling.  So I've been looking and a found something interesting and I have contacted my credit union ...

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Vincent (my Van that Goghs) and I...: Food For Thought : "My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants. J. Brotherton"

I admit it I am a Foodie!  Okay I just love food.  It's so creative.  It makes people happy and I can make pretty dishes with it that help people smile or remember good stories to share.  I just love touching it and molding it and putting flavors together.... and honestly I like eating some of it, I don't like eating as much as one might think.  I have eaten - more than my share sometimes,  yup that's how I got fat - maybe not the Why I got fat - that is another story. Food is fun!  We need it everyday, more or less.  I think it's a wonderful thing that God gave us a way to survive, to fuel our physical bodies, to affect our emotions (think relationship break ups & chocolate cake, or PMS and pints of wickedly flavored icecream!), to play creatively mixing colors and textures and show love and we can do this every day - or share the experience with others and do it a couple times a week.  Food is great! My family's physical heritage af...

Today is the first day of ... well - the rest of my life as someone says, so I figure it's time to catch up with all the blogging I haven't done.  While I have been pondering ideas of how to tackle this major project, I thought it a good idea to just post some history stuff by subject.  I do have personal journals that I have written most days for the past 30 years and it is possible that some of those entries will become part of this blog as well.  Many people have asked me to write a book or books - we will see where this leads.  I am open to many things and creative ideas generally spark an interest with me.  So hang on and enjoy the ride, if you dare!

So I came back to the USA to hike the Appalacian Trail for the summer --- check here for journals www.trailjournals.com/simplylesa (or try here if that doesn't work   http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=352060   ) I have been visiting with family in Pennsylvania for most of this month after getting sick again...geez!  Soon I will make my way to New England - I am hoping to catch up with old friends and family and make that all important class reunion in October. (Fall - wow, thinking cold!)  I keep a journal with me all the time and will take time off and on to create some blog posts along the way.

A couple months ago I made the decision to 'Walk in the Woods' this summer.  I was between things, having just closed the chapter on rustic construction in Costa Rica.  While processing that ending as well as new begining, I realized that I had completed 3 'Bucket Lists' (Lists of things that I wanted to do before I move on to the next life).  The only remaining items were really just more traveling and seeing the world.  Then the Appalacian Trail popped into my mind and I thought well, why not - I'm fairly healthy and I have friends and family all up the east coast.  So I started doing some serious research.  Now I had the 'crazy idea' that hiking was just a different word for walking a long distance and carrying your home turtle style on your back... how hard could that be?  (yes, smile) Well, it sure is challenging and the AT is like a really really loooooong walk in a park with some (...

May 24, 2011 at 9:03am A couple months ago I made the decision to 'Walk in the Woods' this summer.  I was between things, having just closed the chapter on rustic construction in Costa Rica.  While processing that ending as well as new begining, I realized that I had completed 3 'Bucket Lists' (Lists of things that I wanted to do before I move on to the next life).  The only remaining items were really just more traveling and seeing the world.  Then the Appalacian Trail popped into my mind and I thought well, why not - I'm fairly healthy and I have friends and family all up the east coast.  So I started doing some serious research.  Now I had the 'crazy idea' that hiking was just a different word for walking a long distance and carrying your home turtle style on your back... how hard could that be?  (yes, smile) Well, it sure is challenging and the AT is like a really really looo...

Visiting Rio Claro is like stopping somewhere in South Carolina or Georgia on Route 1!  It's kind of a no where town with a big highway running right through the middle.  It has the WalMart of grocery stores, Pali.  A bank, a bunch of restaraunts that remind me more of Panama than Costa Rica and a few rundown looking hotels, that aren't that inexpensive really.  My travel partner Orlando and I have been tent camping for the better part of 3 weeks along the Pacific coast.  We spent the first week or so in Dominical rubbing elbows with some fishermen from a local association, which was interesting.  I learned to make yet another version of fish soup from a wife of a member.  We then traveled down the cost to visit Curre for a couple nights and to drop off some homegrown rice and beans to Orlando's family.  After that we were headed to Corcovado, a national park that starts near Drake Bay and runs almost to Panama.  Drake Bay was interesting a...

I have had quite an interesting couple weeks recently with the 'visit' of my land-owner friend, a US Social Security glitch and a border hop.  I survived it all and am begining to process the reality as opposed to the survival mode I've been living in while getting through all this. I find it totally amazing that I have so many good friends!  I have had wonderful support, a place to stay with privacy and freedom which also included the sharing of meals when I wanted.  I've had 2 offers of marriage to solve the border hop issues! (okay that is truely flattering).  Another friend invited me to join him at his rather fancy restaraunt for a brownie yesterday - which by the way was a killer chocolate love fix - the friendship, conversation and chocolate with raspberries definately changed my mood from the low grade sad - 'I can't think what to think'.  I have been able to breathe more deeply and am begining to process 'next step' ideas throughout the ni...

Hi all, This morning I decided that it's time for me to start a blog....so here goes. I've been journaling for years, a rather private event, at some times it has been a daily event and at other times less seldom.  My profile information is a short description of the basic life goals I've been living since 2002 or 2003.  These life goals have helped to create quite an adventure of a life. Today, I am enjoying a cup of black coffee as I sit at a glass topped table in front of the Bamboo Hostel in David, Panama.  The morning is progressing well, I did some email catch up because I've been traveling and off line quite a bit the past few days.  I also made one phone call to my ex-partner John Zachary, who has been going through a lot of life changes recently. It feels so good to be traveling alone right now.  I enjoy company and travel mates and I need a lot of space, mental and physical in order to stay grounded and healthy.  I wonder why some of us hu...