Tucson

I wanted my first blog post to be a picture of our rattlevan parked in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Riverside, California. The photo would be captioned "Auspicious Beginnings" and would, I thought, be perfect. But trees blocked my view of the big blue letters from our parking spot, and Chuck and I drew the line at moving the rattlevan to a better location just for a photo-op. So that moment came and went, a few days ago, and the blog stayed empty.

Even now, it seems too soon to start this thing up, seems like it should be postponed until something actually happens (aside from lovely desert driving and camping).

But, because friends/family/acquaintances have expressed a certain unease with our road trip, and because I've got a little time to kill while waiting for the brake shop to open tomorrow morning for a final checkup on the rattlevan, I'm going to make this -- a post written in a Tucson cafe called, excellently, Cartel -- be my first.

Welcome. This is going to be fun.