Time to Move On

For 19 years, I've written this blog.  

I started it after my father died. My early entries were about aging, mortality--and still feeling his presence. 

Sisters (I'm the middle child, the brunette) with Dad

My third entry was about giving my mother a bath because the month after Dad died, she fell and broke her shoulder. 

As she descended into dementia, I wrote about her life, about caregiving, about grief and love.

Scanning through my years of writing Living the Journey has made my life swim before my eyes. It's been bittersweet to see the evolution of what I wrote about. 

The first few years I focused on:

* Ailing parents (both mine and my partner's)

* Marriage equality and LGBTQ rights

In California, 2008, protesting Prop 8, which would ban same-sex marriage

* My work as a university writing professor (I hated grading papers, loved connecting to students, and appreciated the creativity and flexibility of my work)

* Meeting great visiting writers in my role as as co-director of the Center for Literary Arts

* Book reviews

* Interviews with writers and poets.

And then, one day I disappeared. My wife of 15 years had been having an affair and left me. My world was shattered.

When I returned, I wrote about heartbreak and figuring how who I was now. I wrote about being single in my 40s as a bisexual woman. I explored dating men again and, when the phoenix began rising, my renewed love for travel. 

During this time, my friends became everything. They propped me up, helped me move, became my cheerleaders. I vowed to never again take my friends for granted, and I hope I've lived up to that promise.

Then I met Dave. We both were working more than full time, but we were thrilled about creating a life together that included live music, the outdoors, friends, travel.

snowshoeing in 2010...we've now been together 16 years

We married in Hawaii, and the next year I retired from the university so I could write and work as a coach and book editor. His job ended. When the sweet house we were renting in our beloved seaside Santa Cruz went up for sale, we faced a dilemma: 

Should we reverse the retirement decision and put all of our resources into buying a house in one of the most expensive places in the world? 

We floated that idea and others--another rental, joining friends in a communal living endeavor, moving elsewhere--but it was when we hit on this that our energy surged:

How about living house-free?

This was 2012. We'd never heard of nomads--digital, retired, or otherwise. 

We'd already embraced a kind of minimalism, by living in small spaces, owning one car, and not collecting a lot of stuff. And now we decided to get rid of almost everything we owned and hit the road.

leopard encounter in Sri Lanka

We traveled in the States, Australia, India and Sri Lanka--and were sidelined for a few months when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor after having a seizure. It was a scary, soul-expanding time. (A friend said, "Honey, your life is like Knott's Landing these days!") 

staples out! (2013)

Once I was healed and we'd traveled for a year, two things happened:

* we bought a casita sight-unseen in Mexico and

* we discovered housesitting.

My sister had talked for years about how she loved Baja California Sur. She'd bought a little place and one was being built next to hers. The price was affordable for us--a fraction of what we'd have to pay to be near the beach in California--so we went for it. We liked the idea of having a home base while we continued to travel. And we figured if we didn't like it there, we could rent it or sell it. (Spoiler: 12 years later, Mexico has become home.)

Playa Los Cerritos 

Housesitting made our dream of continuing to travel sustainable. As I wrote about in this blog and in Wanderland: Living the Traveling Life, we have stayed in homes all over the world for free, taking care of people's pets. We also lived in China for a year (where I stepped out of retirement to teach university creative writing). 

The last portion of this blog, then, focused mostly on traveling as slow-mads and living in Mexico, with the heart of my quest being , "What is home?"

Now that I'm ending this blog, I'm moving my writing over to Maybe I'm Amazed, my  Substack. I'd love for you to join me there. It will always be free, and I'll be continuing to write about my obsessions:

* housesitting

* living in Mexico

* travel and staycations

* social justice

* being a woman in her 60s 

* books

* dogs 

Regarding that last topic, I haven't had my own dog since Dave and I left California 14 years ago. I've adored caring for so many pups while housesitting. Has the time come to get my own again? Stay tuned at Maybe I'm Amazed. 

It doesn't get better than dogs and books
(housesitting in coastal England, 2024)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Check out my new novel, Amazing!, which is getting great reviews.

Our 2025

Ballet leg in Buenos Aires

Happy Holidays, everyone! I've neglected my blog this year in favor of writing a novel. I'm almost done with a first draft!

In January, we finished up 7 months of travel, in which we visited 4 continents and 14 countries. My last entry was about our cruise from Europe to South America--and I promised to write about South America, so I'm finally getting to that. 

We rented an apartment for a month in Buenos Aires, near traveling friends who'd also been on the cruise. 

Buenos Aires is a beautiful, green city that is dog friendly (and needs some work on poop cleanup). I loved the cafes, bookstores, huge parks, public art, and bike accessibility. I took Spanish lessons, and after two hours of trying to converse, I was sweaty and exhausted. Fortunately, our apartment had a rooftop pool so I could refresh.

B.A. bike ride

murals everywhere

We next flew to Lima, Peru, and enjoyed the beautiful Miraflores area with its parks and walkways showcasing a stunning sea view. We visited the oldest library in the Americas that has more than 25,000 books and manuscripts, many from the 15th century.

Miraflores

Biblioteca at Convento Santo Domingo

We also went to the Presidential palace for the changing of the guard...which never happened due to governmental problems. We learned that the President had a 90% disapproval rating because in 2022, 50 citizens and a police officer were killed during anti-government protests and 1500 were injured. Peru has had 7 presidents in 6 years, rife with corruption and oppressive tactics. It's pretty depressing to think of how many populations over time have suffered from such governments--and I couldn't help but think about what's happening in the States.

Next stop was Medellin, Colombia for a few days with our friend Mar, whose stunning house has an incredible view of the city that lights up at night. We both felt both the awe and humor in Botero's work in the square outside the wonderful Botero museum. 

a celebration of abundance!

We also spent the day soaking in a variety of plants and creatures in the peaceful Jardin Botanico.

one of Dave's great shots

After 7 months of moving our bodies through space and time on planes, ships, ferries, cars, tuk tuks, taxis, Ubers, and buses, we we ready to plant ourselves back home...

Cerritos Beach sunset

home sweet home

Dan about to dive bomb the ladies at our friends' pool

...which we did until May, when we went on a staycation housesit for a week about an hour away on the Sea of Cortez in Los Barriles. The house was stunning, and the hosts let us use their fun side-by-side to get around.

housesitting has been good to us

Also on that side of Baja, Dave went on a dive trip in Cabo Pulmo, taking advantage of this amazing peninsula we live on.

moray eel on his dive

We've been enjoying our community, friends, and family--and a number of visitors. Dave is still doing yoga and tai chi 2-3 times a week, and I'm loving my twice-a-week Zumba and every Friday aqua aerobics. I launched a women's book group, where we're discussing books by and/or about Latinas, and when possible, we're reading local writers.

In the summer, Dave embarked on a remodeling project on the casita. In order to avoid the dust, noise, and chaos, I took off on a two-month solo trip--that I'm going to write about in my next entry. I promise not to take nearly a year to do it. But first I want to finish the last two chapters of my novel, which is unlike anything I've ever written. I can't wait to get it in your hands.

Happy new year--and love from us both.

Ending with another ballet leg, this one in the Sea of Cortez

PS: My books make great holiday gifts! Check them out here: Books | Kate Evans

Adventures in Portugal

This is the 7th installment on our 8-month trip, following:

1. Colorado 

2. London/Salisbury 

3. Coastal England

4. Marple/Liverpool/Sandbach

5. Wales

6. Paris

Iconic Lisbon trolly

Our easy flight from Paris to Lisbon took about two hours. As our young cab driver navigated the car-clogged streets, he taught us a few Portuguese words. They were similar to Spanish, except with a strong "sh" sound. But when he told us he wasn't a fan of of Spain, hinting at an ancient rivalry, I figured I'd have to avoid speaking Spanish in an attempt to communicate in this country.

We lugged our carry-ons down precarious stone steps to an old apartment building. Cooking scents permeated the dark and narrow staircase. Dragging our stuff up to the third floor, we discovered that  a wide-angle lens had done its magic in online pictures. The place was Lilliputian, with a shower that I'd soon discover felt like a stand-up coffin. But we figured we could deal with it for three nights.

Our apartment was down this street.

I yanked open the slider over the sliver of a balcony to the squall of brakes, pound of footfalls, and coughs of neighbors as their smoke drifted in. Throughout our time there we'd be serenaded by enthusiastic conversations, laughter, arguments, and singing, that echoed along the alleyways all night into the early morning. 

We spent our time wandering the hamstring-exploding streets, exploring Lisbon's gritty wedding cake beauty, happy for stable shoes on the uneven cobblestones. Pausing on the steps to catch my breath, I'd take in signature Portuguese glazed tiles and a deep blue balustrade tagged with graffiti.

I adored the Museu da Marioneta, a magnificently curated collection of puppets from all over the world. Housed in a grand old convent, its throng of semi-animate faces created the aesthetic of a haunted house.

Another highlight was spending an evening with our friend Simone, her husband, and another couple. Months earlier, Simone had asked if we'd be interested in housesitting for them at their Pacific Northwest island home. That's when we discovered we'd be in Lisbon at the same time! After drinks at their bright and cavernous rental, we went to a dinner and Fado show. 

fado

At the intimate restaurant a woman and a man sang traditional, mournful folk music. The feeling of fado is infused with saudade, the Portuguese word for longing and a feeling of permanent loss. In other words, it would be a total bummer if it wasn't so beautiful.

Californians meeting up for the first time in Lisbon!

Serendipitously, Staci Greason and her husband Larry were also in Lisbon, and we met for a chatty breakfast. We'd been social media friends for years, and seeing them in person was lovely. Staci is the author of All the Girls in Town, a novel I describe as a #metoo love letter to women's friendships. I hope we meet again soon in another part of the world.

The last day as I was walking down the street, I looked up right into the face of Anne Parker, whom we'd met a decade ago in Baja! We'd been to her home-state of Colorado a few times but had failed to convene, and now the hand of fate threw us together in a European city of half-a-million people. We enjoyed dinner together that evening, grinning the whole time at the kismet of it all.

with Anne!

A car service arranged by the homeowner of our upcoming housesit picked us up and drove us twenty miles to Sintra, which took almost two hours due to traffic and holdups. The driver, however, was undisturbed and instead enjoyed phone calls that kept coming in to wish him a happy 77th birthday. He mentioned that his parents lived into their 90s. I asked him why, and he said that's just what his family does--adding that his parents didn't smoke or drink.

We'd landed this month-long sit through a connection and had never met the homeowners. They'd already left for India when we arrived and so we were shown around the vast property by the housekeeper. Our apartment was on the lowest level of this sprawling home on a property that included a pool, an additional two-bedroom cottage, a yoga shala, a vast vegetable garden, along with fruit and nut trees. There was a team of gardeners, so our only duty was to occasionally water some plants, feed Black Kitty (the feral beauty who lived outside), and care for Puzzles, the boney old feline who, when he wasn't sleeping, marched around protesting in a gravely meow.

Black Kitty

We soon learned that this gorgeous house decorated with colorful art and velvet and oaken furniture--and packed with books and games-- had glitchy sinks and toilets and wifi and light switches and faucets. Everything seemed abundant and on the verge of breaking. The profusion of apples and chestnuts in the orchard rotted on the ground. I googled how to bake chestnuts and we enjoyed their nutty flavor but couldn't make a dent in the excess.

I was seized by a longing for our simple life in Baja. There's a lightness to having a house you can clean in an hour. Not that we had to clean this Sintra mansion, fortunately. I also missed walking out the door to the beach or the desert hills. In Sintra, I soon found, I struggled to climb the mountainous cobblestone streets replete with lines of cars and towering buses squeezing through narrow lanes. One time as I hiked steep steps through a park, I fell and had an impressive ass-bruise that changed color over the days like a sunset.

We never used the pool because it was often cool and drizzly.

Walking the mossy property to pick kale and lettuce was akin to picking your way across ice, as everywhere was slippery. I preferred snuggling up with my journal, crossword puzzles, and Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders, which I plucked from their shelf. 

slippery!

One day Cheryl Beck Esch happened to be in town. She'd once interviewed me about housesitting on her podcast...and once again travel synchronicity hit. We were able to spend a day talking about life and adventures in person, rather than online.

with Cheryl

There's a magical, misty ancientness to Sintra, which is best known for being populated with castles. We went to the five major attractions:

1) Palacio National, a medieval royal residence whose white kitchen chimneys jut up in many views of the city. I loved how instead of religious iconography, it was beautifully embellished with swans and other creatures of nature.

Palacio National

2) The Moorish Castle, a hilltop medieval fortress we trudged to uphill from our house, is a stunning array of stone buildings rooted in the mountains that requires strong legs and no fear of heights to navigate.

Moorish Castle

3) Monserrate Palace, a palatial villa that served as the court's summer resort but in the 17th century became privately owned. Its yellowish-pink stones and golden hallways seemed to glow from the inside out.

Monserrate

4) Quinta da Regaleira, a four-story palace with extensive gardens. While I explored the grounds including lakes, fountains, and a chapel, Dave walked down into the so-called Initiation Well, a circular staircase that descends into the earth, meant to be a mystical journey. While he woo-woo'd out, I couldn't find our meeting spot and thought I might be lost forever in wonderland.

5) Pena Palace, a striking yellow and red building that stands atop the Sintra Mountains, was no fun inside due to the press of crowds. But we enjoyed strolling the grounds, more like a nature park with the towering moss-covered trees, stone bridges, and water features.

Pena gardens

Speaking of crowds, there were signs posted everywhere that declared SINTRA IS NOT DISNEYLAND. Locals were fed up with tourists, and it showed in some of their side-looks and impatience. As another massive tourist bus almost flattened me on a walk, I understood. I was finding Sintra enchanting, dreary, beautiful, and frustrating.

misty Sintra

I was happy when we spent time at the sea. One day we took the local bus to Estoril and walked along the malecon to Cascais. Another time we took a vintage 1930s trolly to Praia das Macas, where we had lunch overlooking the beach. The trolly had to stop at one point because someone had parked on the tracks! It took a while to find the car's owner.

tram

We generally ate Indian and Asian food, since Portuguese offerings weren't to our taste: salted cod, octopus, sardines, ham-and-cheese sandwiches. I craved fewer french fries and more salads and veg. As a nondairy guy, Dave sought out vegan pastel de nata, the famous custard tart. We did enjoy the ubiquitous piri piri chicken.

Carvoeiro

After nearly a month in Sintra, we rented a car to drive to Spain. Along the way we stopped in the Algarve, a coastal region in southern Portugal. It was heavenly to be near the sea in charming Carvoeiro, a cliff-side village overlooking turquoise waters. 

As we strolled, I got a message on my phone from our friend Stephanie, whose house we were renting in the Cadiz region of Spain. Record-breaking rainfall in the area had flooded many buildings. I clicked on a video she shared of water cascading down her house's stairs from the top to bottom floor. She had cleaners on the job and believed that in a few days the house would be dried and and ready for us. 

So we extended our stay in the Algarve a few more days, hoping that we'd have dry pillows to lay our heads on in Spain.

If you're interested in our life of housesitting, budget travel and living in Mexico, check out my books Wanderland: Living the Traveling Life and Call It Wonder: An Odyssey of Love, Sex, Spirit & Travel. 

Connecting in England

This is the fourth installment on our 8-month trip, following:

Colorado 

London/Salisbury &

Coastal England.

With Brendan & Cathy in front of their house
in Marple, England (photos by Dave Rhine).

Leaving our housesit in Sidmouth, I experienced familiar mixed feelings: excited to be moving on, sad to say goodbye to the dogs and area I loved.

Boarding the train, though, I felt that "I'm traveling" high, boosted by knowing I would soon be seeing my former colleague and dear friend, Cathy Miller. In 2018, Cathy was awarded a Fulbright as Distinguished Chair of the Humanities at the University of Manchester. While in England, she met Brendan, and they eventually married.

During the pandemic, when loneliness profoundly stung, Cathy and I started Zooming every-other-week with two other friends--and we've continued to do so to this day. Also, for a year, Cathy and I exchanged writing pages, which resulted in her historical novel and my memoir, Wanderland. 

Cathy and Brendan picked us up at the train station around the corner from their house. Built in 1908, it's an exquisite Edwardian that they've been remodeling. We benefitted from the new guest en suite. The house has so many stairs and rooms and twists and turns that once I couldn't find our room--which gave Brendan a hardy laugh.

Breakfast in Cathy & Brendan's garden.

We lucked out with sunny days and enjoyed walks in their sweet village with its pretty gardens, gingerbread houses, and Britain's highest stone aqueduct and impressive Victorian arched bridge. Narrowboats floated down the canals and through the locks. Now used for recreation and habitation, narrowboats were originally built in the 18th-20th centuries for carrying goods on the narrow canals of British inland waterways.

A narrowboat squeezing through the locks.

Our friends were fantastic hosts, plying us with food and offering the perfect balance of relaxation and activity. One day we drove for miles down narrow lanes (that sometimes required us to pull over or back up for someone to pass) to Biddulph Grange Garden. A National Trust property, Biddulph is a magnum opus of international flora, pagodas, and statues. It felt like floating through a storybook.

Brendan, Cathy & me on a Chinese bridge in Biddulph.

This was not the first time we'd hung out with Cathy and Brendan. A few years back, they were traveling in California and stayed with us at our housesit in San Diego. Over the years, we've met up with Cathy other times in the SF Bay Area, Palm Springs, and once in Mexico City. 

Walking in Marple.

I'm happy that we've shared these times and places together. This has been an unexpected part of being nomads and Mexico expats: how many of our friendships have been enriched by meeting up at places all over the world. 

Sometimes these gatherings are with longtime friends--such as recently in Colorado and London. Other times they are the hosts we've befriended as housesitters or other travelers we've gotten to know in online nomad groups. Given that we also have a community back in Baja, I feel embraced by a global network of beloveds. This is a far cry from worries about feeling lonely or isolated as traveling retirees.

with Paul and John

On our next stop we had another friend to see: Paul Robert Mullen. Paul and I both taught at Guangxi University in Nanning, China and convened regularly to share our writing. He's also a musician, and you can blame or praise him for getting me into the ukulele. We did some traveling together in S.E. Asia, including seeing orangutans in Borneo and Komodo dragons in Flores, Indonesia.  (I write about all of this in Wanderland.)

It had been seven years, but when he walked through the cafe door in Liverpool, it felt like we'd been hanging out together last week. He was glad to hear we'd already been on a Beatles Magical Mystery (bus) Tour. (We'd arrived the previous day to spend two nights in a teensy, inexpensive, convenient hotel room overlooking a square boasting a statue of Queen Victoria.) I was thrilled to hear he has a new book coming out titled it's all come down to this: a retrospective, poems & writings (1999-2024).

The Beatles tour was a wonderful bus excursion. We saw the childhood houses of Paul and John, and their schools and the places they met Ringo and George. Hearing clips of their music through the speakers--especially Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields as we headed to those iconic spots--made me a little weepy. We even ID'd the barbershop mentioned in Penny Lane. I loved knowing that these seminal places of their childhood influenced their great songs. It made me wonder in what other neighborhoods in the world a merging of friends was sparking creative brilliance.

...is in my ears and in my eyes...

I was struck by the contrast between John's difficult upbringing--an absent father and distracted mother--versus Paul's happy childhood surrounded by parents who loved music, and extended family and neighbors who often popped in. The upbeat, nostalgic Penny Lane and the skewed wistfulness of Strawberry Fields reflect that contrast in their lives.

Liverpool has an expansive waterfront area downhill from the city center, which is an eclectic mix of crusty characters and hip, young people. Amid the bookstores, cafes, and music venues, I noticed a lot of welcoming pride flags.

Liverpool waterfront; that's a ferry going across the Mersey.

Of course the most famous music venue in the city is The Cavern Club, where the Beatles first played publicly, and its sister venue down the alley, The Cavern Pub. That's where Paul played guitar and sang one evening with a rocking band. When they played "Ferry Cross the Mersey," Dave and I touched hands. This electrifying, Uber-English musical moment was shot through with affectionate memories of the Ukulele Cafe in Nanning. That was where Paul played many evenings with international musicians, a boost and a refuge for us while living in a Chinese city of 8 million people.

Biggie Smalls

At this point, we'd been in England for over a month. We were enroute to Wales, and along the way we spent three days housesitting in Sandbach, a market town--meaning a small town in a rural setting that was given a historic legal right to hold a weekly market. Our hosts, both professional musicians, picked us up at the train station. 

We enjoyed their company while they showed us around and introduced us to their chill dogs, Biggie Smalls and Louie. They needed only one easy walk a day to the park down the street. That suited us fine because after so much travel and socializing, we were ready to take it easy. Laid-back Sandbach was a good place to do so.

Saxon crosses in center of town.

The house--which prominently displayed a large harp in the dining room--was a couple of blocks from the historical downtown. On the cobbled market square, two Saxon crosses, built around the 7th-9th centuries, stood tall.

Another feature of the town is the medieval parish church that stands on a low hill above Dingle Brook, the "sandy beck" that gave Sandbach its name. 

St Mary's seen in the distance past the graveyard.

I read that, amazingly, the church is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 (a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and part of Wales). 

I wandered through the church's graveyard, peering at the headstones and pondering all those lives, and all this history that is just the passage of time. One day, we will be someone else's history.

If you're interested in our life of housesitting, budget travel and living in Mexico, check out my books Wanderland: Living the Traveling Life and Call It Wonder: An Odyssey of Love, Sex, Spirit & Travel.