Halfway solitude

Loneliness, solitude, isolation, seclusion, ...

All these words crossed my mind as we were and are in the middle of our long journey today, and far away from home, wherever we call home.
Whether it is West Orange NJ, Napa CA, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Antwerp Belgium, we are very far away from all these places.

When an animal leaves the nest, a certain amount of stress or nervousness settles in, along with awareness of potential dangers and fear of unknowns. As humans, we cannot differentiate ourselves from this, and we also carry some discomfort from leaping into the unknown or from leaving the comfort of the everyday home.

I think another post touched on this subject too. Are we afraid? Or are we confident and secure? From instinct point-of-view, we are certainly afraid. It causes stress and other (normal or) abnormal attitudes.

Anyway, when I overcome my instinct, and rely on logic or on emotion, I conclude that I have many things I love with me.
My wife is with me, and wherever I go, as long as she is with me, I can easily call it my home. I sometimes wish more people I love would be with me to join the trip, and to share this wonderful (but somehow frightening) experience.

The greyhounds seem to think similar, and consider Alexandra and I part of their secure environment. As long as we are near, they seem to feel fine and relaxed, whether it is in the car or in the hotel. But as soon as one of us steps away, they get nervous and stressed. What do they consider their home?????

Wide open space, big endless sky and beautiful land

Today was a day of wide open spaces, huge sky (it looks bigger which is something I always heard people say about this part of the country) and land that is just breathtakingly beautiful. We saw real cowboys on horseback, riding through the fields and we even stopped at a Cowboy Historic Town, which made me think a lot of my dear brother-in-law, Flavio. No pics of the cowboys girls, sorry. (I was driving...)


We drove 350 miles through North Dakota and another hundred and something through Montana. ND is beautiful, the road is wide and you can see miles ahead.


The cargo trains are amazingly long and move very very slowly, I have a video of one of them because it would be impossible to show it through still picture.

There are sunflower fields, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen and it reminded me of a colleague from work back in NJ, who planted sunflowers in her garden with her son.



Here is another funny picture to show how things are from a different dimension here. See our car and trailer compared to our neighbor in the parking lot, hehehe.



We came across Theodore Roosevelt National Park in ND and saw a very beautiful Canyon formation named "Painted Canyon". It was a very nice surprise. We stopped at the Scenic View rest stop and took a few pictures. The Greys enjoyed the break and, as usual, they cause a commotion wherever we stop. :-)



Are we there yet? No, baby, two more nights and three more days.