Posted February 11, 2026 – Narrated by Jim
“Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise”
When someone says, “Trust me,” it usually implies a breakdown in trust is already in progress. At birth, trust is the first trait we acquire—and the first we’re compelled to surrender. People want to trust. We need to trust.
During my years as a magician, I learned trust is essential for the audience to be fully engaged.
When Carmen and I hit the road, that same principle guided us as we balanced our loved ones’ trust—that we knew what we were doing—with self-doubt that kept us up at night. Now, ten years later we’re still hearing, “You make it look too easy.”
Guilty.
There’s a lot of stuff about living in Beauty that we don’t talk about. We mostly lie by omission. Withholding ick-and-oops stuff isn’t intentional; it’s just our way. Age turns us evermore toward stoicism. Whining isn’t constructive or informative. The same goes for lying.
Speaking of age, Carmen lies—but with a twist: she lies up, not down, adding one to five years to her actual age. She loves hearing when people say she doesn’t look that old. 😉
We should also come clean about our use of misdirection (if you want to be fooled, look where the magician is pointing). Sometimes we conceal our location—either enjoying solitude or hunkered down on all fours, wrestling with something broken.
Yeah, sorry about that. We’re bloggers who lie, but at least we don’t stand on our roof and lie.
But when it comes to danger, the truth is sacred. The pursuit of beauty can be life-threatening. The few close ones we’ve had served as teaching moments.
Safety before beauty is our motto.
They call it The Wild for a reason. What gets you isn’t the unknown — it’s underestimation and self-assurance. Prepare well. Pack smart. Trust your instincts. Think about the thing you don’t want to think about.
Before We Hit the Road
Back when this was still just a dream, we spent evenings “playing house” inside Beauty’s blueprint taped to the living room floor. French doors wide open to the San Diego skyline, we sat inside the taped lines, sharing a cheese and olive tray, toasting the future. We scoured blog posts boasting campsites with jaw-dropping views.
So, in that context, we imagined …
…Beauty’s door always facing southwest 😜 opening onto a shoreline view 😉 as we sipped our morning coffee. Conveniences always within walking distance 😝, and charming local shops stocked with all the fresh organic produce you could ever need 😂 at reasonable prices 🥴.
…No worries about floods, wind gusts, wildfires, predatory animals, man-eating mosquitoes.
Yes, we planned Living in Beauty under the influence of Unbridled Enthusiasm (which should only be administered by a licensed professional in a safe, controlled medical clinic and only if you have no underlying health conditions such as middle-aged burnout). These days, we plan more realistically about sizing up to a bigger roof and down to a smaller range … someday.
We still have a lot to learn about life on Spaceship Earth. Our land-roving university is the World’s Greatest Teacher 🍎. We’re not the best students and are never fully prepared for class, but we’re still at it because adulting is hard.
Early Lessons on the Road
In the first few weeks of our Living in Beauty honeymoon, we had a tire blowout on a Mojave Desert highway. Like amateurs we hadn’t properly organized or even unpacked our new tools. Wrenches clattered to the ground from our toolbox and the jack wobbled as we improvised roadside maneuvers under extreme heat. Curious onlookers slowed to watch— some sympathetic and others silently relieved it wasn’t them.
Thus “Professor Road” introduced himself and the pop quizzes came fast and furiously. It’s not the sort of class to slide through.
Lesson One is “Keep Your Cool.”
We’re not experts, but as long as we don’t drive over a cliff or collide with a moose or another vehicle, it’s a good day on the road. So far? Every single day has been good.
Planning, improvisation, and unpredictability are not separate from our ongoing narrative—but sometimes the only “beautiful” part of our day is having the right tool at the right time.
Awareness of our surroundings, listening closely to each other, and sharing our twisted inside sense of humor—reserved for such a time as this—is how we cheat fate and remember the journey.
The British are right: press on. Take it all in stride. Teamwork and a brave face push us through comfort zones—and ignite ingenuity when things go FUBAR.
Lesson from the Road
Treasuring the moment at hand rather than the moment that could have been saves the day.
There are dozens of National Parks we’ve yet to see. We’re smitten with free, uncrowded dry-camping spots tucked into the WUI (wildland urban interface)—tiny sanctuaries we stumble upon while scouting doggie bio-breaks. Our beloved olfactory specialist could sniff out a slice of paradise even in Malfunction Junction, East Los Angeles. Beauty is never more than a few paw-steps away.
With all due respect to the God-honest truth, we’ve determined that our curated photos and stories are meticulously accurate – with the rare omission.
Bright moments expand into soaring narratives with unavoidable gnarly bits documented in the subtext. And that’s the story we choose to live by.
The stuff we don’t want to headline isn’t so much embarrassing as it is tedious and mundane. We don’t dwell on maintenance, chores and long-term fixes. Like all homeowners, we accept these things as the routine expense of keeping an operational home. Life is too short for retreat or defeat due to minutia.
We’re on a Beauty hunt!
We are happy visitors on this earth where weather disrupts and preparations backfire. Surprises keep us frosty 😉. Sweat is the lubricant that keeps us moving.
The only real strategy we know is: stay on the move, fix things, and let beauty come when she will.
Because the moment you think you have it made in a gorgeous, remote off-grid area, that’s when your fresh water tank will burst…your bubble.
Some days test our creativity more than our patience.
Some days test our patience, more than our creativity.
Most days test both—before lunch.
Illusions are crafted behind the scenes …
… and in the pit …
to distract the audience with smoke, mirrors and trick wires.
Sometimes it can be a real shit-show.
The Takeaway
We learn from the worst days, share the best, and treasure the moments.
When bridges collapse, campgrounds flood, and perfectly good intentions spring a leak, the universal message is “Don’t take yourselves too seriously.”
Because life isn’t meant to be perfect, it’s meant to be lived.
Every drop-dead sunset and pinch-me view has backstory—glitches, laughs, lessons—the stuff that makes the journey unforgettable.
There’s always more to the story.
But, where to begin? Where to stop? Where to go from here?
We have no idea.
(if you were wondering, that’s a kayak under the cover, not a body bag 🤪)
All we know is how it began—with the two of us wrapped in a blanket, sharing a bottle of champagne inside a seriously flawed outline of a 30′ Airstream trailer taped onto our living room floor. The rest is a blur.
Living in Beauty is more than a name—it’s how we live, aiming for beauty and occasionally finding her in all her birthday-suit glory, past-to-present revealed. The trails we’ve wandered, the sunsets and moon rises that give us pause, and every unexpected lesson along the road guides us toward inspiration, recreation, and sanctuary.
We invite you to stumble along with us. We’re grateful to our followers who share advice, wisdom, and prayers.
We look forward to meeting you Out There on the road. Don’t hesitate to stop by and visit: BYOW (bring your own wrench).
Have a ‘between-the-photos’ moment of your own? We’d love to hear it—share your misadventures, mishaps, or magical moments with us and fellow wanderers who love the journey as much as the destination.
You can see our exact route on this map.
*photos in this post (unless otherwise noted) were taken and copyrighted by Living In Beauty.
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