{"id":8,"date":"2017-03-20T18:54:02","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T18:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/?p=8"},"modified":"2018-05-09T00:05:22","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T00:05:22","slug":"put-your-mini-where-your-mouth-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/2017\/03\/20\/put-your-mini-where-your-mouth-is\/","title":{"rendered":"PUTTING MY MINI WHERE MY MOUTH IS"},"content":{"rendered":"

This time last year…<\/span>
\n I was\u00a0in a\u00a0job I loved for over 17 years, I lived in an apartment I adored for 15 years, and was on the same great\u00a0career trajectory that I had been on since college.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, one\u00a0year later…<\/span>
\n I resigned from\u00a0my job, got evicted from my apartment (in the nicest possible way) and decided I needed to take some time for God and me\u00a0to figure out what the next chapter in my life\u00a0will look like.<\/span><\/p>\n

To\u00a0be clear,\u00a0 I\u00a0am not homeless \u00a0(stand down, Mom) I\u00a0left\u00a0a few books and some clothing in the guest room at\u00a0my folks, with whom I also left my beloved Toby dog. But\u00a0the rest was\u00a0packed into\u00a0climate controlled storage by professionals clearly skilled in the game\u00a0of furniture tetris.\u00a0\u00a0With the exception of a few things\u00a0I\u00a0sold, all of my possessions, all that represented my\u00a040-something life, fit\u00a0into a single\u00a010’x10′ room. I am still\u00a0not sure what\u00a0I\u00a0feel about that.<\/p>\n

So\u00a0I’m hitting the road…<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Packing up Bluebell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I love history and I love to travel,<\/span> \u00a0however I am a hack\u00a0at both. To be honest I’ve only been on\u00a0three bonafide road trips in my life. \u00a0The first\u00a0when I was 9 and my\u00a0parents rented an RV dragging\u00a0us up and down the east coast on\u00a0a Great American History Tour\u00a0– which\u00a0my sister and I quickly\u00a0renamed as the\u00a0Please-Not-Another-Colonial-Village Tour. \u00a0The second\u00a0was when a friend from church and I\u00a0drove\u00a0from San Francisco to Chicago in my old hand-me-down-down-down 1977 Jeep Wagoneer for my senior year of college. We\u00a0ate apples and peanut butter to stay on budget, prayed fervently every time the Jeep (the Heap as we called it) took any kind of hill, and were\u00a0subject to stares and a few racial slurs\u00a0at a Burger King in South Dakota (did I mention my friend was African-American?) Yeah, that\u00a0was disappointing, America.<\/p>\n

The last road trip was my\u00a0favorite. After graduation, my sister flew out to join me in limping the Heap back home\u00a0to San Francisco. It was hot, and peak tourist season, and our budget allowed for little more than my first trip. But we had the best time.\u00a0We cried for\u00a0love of country\u00a0at the lighting of Mount Rushmore, gasped as cowboys were thrown at the\u00a0Cody Night Rodeo, and bet\u00a0how many Winnebagos we could get to pull over in Yellowstone Park if we stood on the side of the road\u00a0pointing into the woods (the answer was eight) \u00a0We celebrated the 4th of July in a small town in Idaho, performed several complete musicals driving through the wasteland that is eastern Nevada\u00a0and pulled into San Francisco filled with memories\u00a0(and relief) and vowing to do another road trip\u00a0as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

Then came Real Life Responsibilities.<\/p>\n

\"\"
My new plates. Story\u00a0Girl or Stray Girl? Or both?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Which brings us to now.\u00a0\u00a0For over a year the creative work at\u00a0my job had become\u00a0less and less compelling and combined\u00a0with losing my rent controlled apartment in San Francisco,\u00a0the thought of getting back out on the road seemed like a great\u00a0idea.<\/p>\n

I never took a gap year\u00a0– that\u00a0year European kids\u00a0take to travel the world before they enter university\u00a0– so I guess\u00a0I’m\u00a0taking mine now.<\/p>\n

Because really, taking\u00a0a gap year sounds much\u00a0more wistful\u00a0than a mid-life crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This time last year… I was\u00a0in a\u00a0job I loved for over 17 years, I lived in an apartment I adored for 15 years, and was on the same great\u00a0career trajectory that I had been on since college. Now, one\u00a0year later… I resigned from\u00a0my job, got evicted from my apartment (in the nicest possible way) and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-golden-state","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/storygirlontheroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/IMG_3745-e1492717752656.jpg?fit=3264%2C1958&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8xsVh-8","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1119,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/1119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storygirlontheroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}