The World That We Live In: 2013. Whales. Numbers. Roadtrips.

2013 was a whale of a year. As in, at times we felt like we were inside the belly of one, perhaps stuck to its giant fleshy tongue, being shuttled from one place to another in the pitch black.

OK, so almost all of those places were our choosing and we’d planned for months before each one, but still.

I like what numbers can say (and what they inevitably leave out) about time spent so here we go for 2013:

Miles Driven on Three Month Home Leave: 6385

Hotel Rooms: 22

Nashville Fried Pickle Plates Eaten: 1

Letters to the IRS about “Overseas Automatic Extension”: 4

Deserts Explored: 2

New Cars Purchased: 1 Letters Written To Congress: 12

Number of Sea Turtles Observed in the Wild: 10

Food Poisoning Incidents: 1

Number of Jobs Between Us: 5

Friends Caught Up With: Many

National & Parks Visited: 14

Writing accepted for 2014 Publication: 1 and counting

Dollars Worth of Pork Products Purchased in one trip to Dubai: 100

Cities Visited: 61 *

Giant Foam Replicas of Stonehenge Visited: 1

Journals Filled: 3

Number of Times I Was Given a Small Treat At the Register Instead of Change: 1

Miles Flown With Dog Under Seat In Front of Me: 21,656

Gardens Grown: 2

Countries Visited: 5

Nights you had to stay alone in a murderer’s hotel when flight got delayed: 1

*We have to have eaten a meal there for it to count.

Last summer Max and I took a 1500 mile road trip to see parts of the American Southwest we'd grown up hours away from but never seen. We camped, we hiked, we read oodles and learned a lot about history, geology, and the Native Americans who first lived there. When I recall what that trip sounded like my memory is filled with complete silence. Maybe I hear the currents of the Colorado from time to time or a turkey vulture circling above, but my memories are almost completely silent. We relearned how to be still and find happiness in the most basic things -shelter, water, food, nature, discovery. I filled pages and pages in my journal about it and took hundreds of pictures but couldn't bring myself to blog a word of it. Along with visitors to Morocco it was definitely the highlight of my year.

This year I'm looking forward to 365 days of not moving.