Thanks to my guest host., Wendy

Thank you, Wendy, for watching over the site while we were on the road. As you can see, we were able to get online now and again, but were out of Internet range for days at a time. It was nice to know someone else was contributing.

Finding meaningful charitable deeds while we were on the road could have been easier if we'd planned ahead. There are service organizations around the world that could use a little help here and there. Of course, guest volunteerism is becoming increasingly difficult in this litigious country where volunteers must be fingerprinted, filed and tagged before they can so much as lick a stamp. I know it's for the protection of the many from the whacked out few. But still...it's sad.

And, honestly, I didn't plan on any big deeds this time outside the realm of the family and friends we visited. For one thing, hosts seldom have a problem with getting a little help from their guests, in my experience. Hosting a guest takes time, resources and really can put the host out. By finding a need and meeting it, I hope to mitigate the interruption my visit may cause to their everyday routines.

Over the past few days, we've: picked up glass in Goblin Valley State Park; cleaned up puppy poo inside a friend's house; supported small businesses in small towns and along rural roads; tended to the kitty we found abandoned in Arvin, CA (and since adopted); and offered aid to another traveler with car problems.

Worth it? Each of these tasks took only moments, really. Some were educational. All provided positive feedback to the girls and me.

Now, back to real life.

The year is almost done, and while I've not done anything earth-shattering in this project thus far, I'm also pleased to learn that my little deeds, coupled with yours, and yours, and yours, can make a difference.

Pete Seeger pretty much summed it up in this YES! article: "If there’s a world here in a hundred years, it’s going to be saved by tens of millions of little things. The powers-that-be can break up any big thing they want. They can corrupt it or co-opt it from the inside, or they can attack it from the outside. But what are they going to do about 10 million little things? They break up two of them, and three more like them spring up!"