Hey there! Long time, no see! Three and a half years since I last posted here. How the hell y’all been doing??

I’m getting ready to blow the dust off this blog and get it active again, though the theme is going to change a bit (expand, really) just as my life has changed and expanded.

This blog got its start in early 2017 to document my weird-ass lifestyle of travel and so on and so forth, yada yada, etc. I guess a quick update is in order regarding the travels and endeavors I’ve undertaken since my previous post before I continue with new posts of different themes, so here we go…

There was a flood response project in Tulsa, Oklahoma in June and July of 2019 where I met some truly amazing people. Hey there JeriAnna, Shannon, Roger, Becky, Dave, Diego, HR, Billy (RIP, good sir!) and Malea, and many others whose named I can’t immediately recall because I’m a middle aged f*ck with a CRS issue (can’t remember sh*t).

There were other disaster response projects that took me to Pamlico County, North Carolina (Aug-Sept 2019), Beaumont, Texas (Nov-Dec 2019), a tiny community near the central Pacific coast of Peru (Jan-Feb 2020), Nashville, Tennessee (March 2020), Abaco Islands, The Bahamas (Oct-Nov 2020), Lake Charles, Louisiana (intermittently Jun-Oct 2021), St. John Parish, Louisiana (intermittently Sept 2021-Aug 2022).

There was also a Habitat for Humanity Global Village build in Malawi in October of 2019.

There were also some trips made purely for pleasure, including another incredible kayaking excursion in Thailand’s Phang Nga Bay in December 2019. As with my previous three kayak experiences there, I used Paddle Asia, a kayaking outfitter based in Phuket whose tours I cannot recommend enough. If you’re planning a trip to Thailand, you need to get with Mr. Run (the new owner) and plan a multi-day trip. You’ll not be sorry, I promise (unless you’re a certain shriveled up old hag retiree with a bad attitude and no manners from the U.K. ;-).

Additional pure-tourism travel was made within Peru for a couple of weeks following my month-long volunteer stint including an amazing climb of Huayna Picchu at Machu Picchu in February 2020.

Then there was a post-vaccination road trip up to Maine in April 2021 to see good friends that featured (1) a five-day visit to stunning Acadia National Park where I unintentionally arrived at the end of winter shutdown when many local businesses had just reopened but before the throngs of tourists arrived plus a (2) a week long stay in NYC followed by (3) a long weekend visit with an old friend on beautiful Chincoteague Island, Virginia.

In August 2022, I returned to Cambodia for the first time since February 2019. The main focus there was to reunite with many of my friends I’d met working with Habitat for Humanity of Cambodia over the years, people with whom I’ve kept in close touch and whose lives had been severely upended by the collapse of the tourism economy in Siem Reap due to Covid-19. I met with some of them multiple times during my week-long stay in Siem Reap, but the highlight was the evening five of us gathered at a Khmer restaurant for a long overdue session of talking, laughing, eating, and drinking. Beyond that, I made a point of visiting places I’d never been in my seven previous trips, most notably Kampong Cham and Saen Monourom (Bousra Waterfall and Elephant Valley Project).

Following the Cambodia trip, I jumped over to Phuket, Thailand. Can anybody guess what I did there for four days?? Kayaking in Phang Nga Bay, you dummy! What the hell else would I do there? 😉

Okay, with that quick (??) update out of the way, it’s time to get started with the retool of That Dude Over There. Stay tuned. Fresh blogagge coming at your really, really soon, I promise. (And this time, I actually mean that!)