What's with this blog, anyway?

You know, I have asked myself more than a few times why Diane and I are keeping this blog. It's kind of a lot of work to keep a travelogue from the road, and in the past few years, Diane has tended to want to pull back from sharing compulsively to social media, so why in the world are we doing this?

And I finally think I figured it out. Diane isn't blogging with me because she thinks we're doing something so unusual or interesting, or because she thinks I deserve to be an Internet sensation, but rather because having an assignment helps her to feel brave.

It's like this. Diane often says that when she's at school and a wasp flies in her classroom, all the boys squeal and squirm and she either totally ignores it or walks up to the wasp and smashes it with a book like she's the bravest person in town. But I know for a fact that Diane is afraid of wasps. She doesn't act afraid at school because she had a job to do, but at home, she squeals and squirms over wasps, too.

So the blog is sort of like that. If Diane and I are documenting our travels and recording them for all to read, she's now studying the experience from a slight remove and finding it interesting instead of giving into the panic that could easily take over if she let it.

Here is a short list of things Diane is afraid of:

*Crashing the Big Rolling Crate

*The Big Rolling Crate breaking down in an unfortunate location

*Wildlife, including but not limited to bears, rattlesnakes, wolves, coyotes, and mountain lions.

*Poisonous bugs and plants

*Thunderstorms

*Forest Fires

*Flash floods

So when you see these fun posts and smiling pictures like the one on this blog, just remember: It ain't all fun and games out here. But it is interesting, at least to us--and we hope you're enjoying, too! Also, we apologize for the numerous typos and we hope you understand that blogs are, by their nature, first drafts, and it's hard to proofread when you're swatting flies and on the lookout for bears.