For the last seventeen years, I haven’t owned or rented a house or an apartment. While this doesn’t mean I was homeless, it does boil down to living alternatively, in a moving home on hulls or wheels or one that belongs to someone else. House and pet sitting gave Mark and me a welcome break from life on the road. And, when we were sailing (from 2007 to 2015), a multiple-week visit to family offered the same reprieve. I ALWAYS soaked up and enjoyed the luxuries found in a house, which are taken for granted by so many.

For example, we didn’t have to catch, collect, or grow some of our own food.

(Unlike my usual photos, these ones are flashes from the past, where modern convenience was lacking and “back to the basics” was favored. Click on or hover over them to read the captions.)

These “luxuries” were so profound to me that I touched on them in my upcoming travel memoir. Twice. But, once seemed enough, so I deleted the second mention. This is what I wrote in chapter eight, Hurricane Force, which is set in the Dominican Republic:

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