Some of the highlights?

Late one night at Natchez Trace State Park west of Nashville, Tennessee, it did not rain butterflies and flowers--it came down lions and wolves. I threw the tent poles on the windshield so we could move the car a short distance to a sheltered area, which would have been fine if I hadn't turned on the windshield wipers. Now, with broken wipers, we couldn't travel anywhere else if we wanted to. Eventually, the rain slowed, Gaby fixed the wipers, and I set up the tent.

One evening, at 10 pm while camping at McKinney Falls State Park near Austin, Texas, we discovered that zillions of tiny ants had invaded our tent and everything in it. We spent the next four hours in detailed cleaning. At least the moon was full.

Another evening, at 11 pm while camping at the Escapees RV park in Pecos, Texas, a bright light shined on our tent. "Police Department. May we see some identification?" A concerned citizen had been worried about a man tent camping with two young children. Pecos' finest were courteous and professional, and there was no problem once they had received back the report on our identification. It was several hours before I wound down enough to go back to sleep.

Still, we love to travel.

And the lighter and less cumbersome the better.

So, as we've been looking for ways to de-junk our life and lighten our load, we've found a couple of terrific websites: Doug Dyment has some terrific information and suggestions at his One Bag website. And I think the next piece of luggage we buy will be the Redoxx Sky Train bag or perhaps the less expensive Rick Steve's Classic Backdoor Bag.
 
What does traveling light have to do with languages? There are several useful lightweight products that you can carry with you. A card with a lot of pictures on it can help you cross a lot of language barriers. And a good phrase book can help you figure out what to say to get what you need.

In the end, though, while each of these is useful when you don't have sufficient command of the language, they are cumbersome.

It's better and a lighter burden to know the words you will need by heart. And that's where we can help--with vocabulary guides to movies, TV shows, novels, non-fiction books, and the Bible. Get started here, and let us help you get to fluency.

-Scott

 
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