Anyway, for the last few weeks I was in Northern California visiting my family as I attempted to figure out exactly what I am doing next. I get to do this about once a year, so I tried to savor it. I didn’t come up with many answers, but being in that part of the world was an answer to something in itself. It reminded me how much I miss that place. San Rafael, where I mostly grew up, doesn’t have its hooks in me much, but Arcata, where I went to college, really does. I love the cold and the green and the overall feeling in the air that everything is, as we NorCal kids really do say, “all good.” No matter where I am on the coast between the Oregon border and San Francisco, I get that feeling full blast.

One spot I visited in particular was Mendocino, a historic little town on Hwy. 1. I lived there for a few years in my childhood, and now it’s like my secret lover from the past with whom I can never actually settle down. It’s beautiful and quiet, a kind of sanctuary, and I love it perhaps more than anywhere I have ever lived. When it comes to pristine, breathtaking beaches, craggy tide pools and undeveloped ocean front, nowhere in the East has anything on that town. But I can’t move back. It’s no place to be young, unless you have a great game plan that can include living in a community of 1,000. I have a friend who moved away from there when she was in her twenties or thirties because she knew she would never find a man in all that rugged beauty. That was the 1970s, and I can’t imagine anything has changed that in that department since.

But my heart still lives there, part-time at least. Here are some pictures from Mendocino and the miles of Hwy. 1 that connects the village and its surroundings to San Francisco.

I miss it already.

Hwy. 1 on a cloudy, cold weekday. My favorite kind of day.

Somewhere between Mendocino and Pt. Arena.

Moo. Somewhere between Mendocino and Gualala.

There's one in every family.

I love this.

Mendo headlands.

Mendocino, a fuller view.

A Mendocino ritual I have yet to do.

Portuguese Beach, two blocks from my old house in Mendocino.

The most curious cows I have ever met happen to live in Luray, Virginia.

Like right now, as I sit in my chilly trailer in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I’m hunched over my computer, and I feel like crying because all I want to do is to write words that matter. I know I can (I think I can), but I worry about my dedication. I get so afraid that distractions like Facebook and viral video and my desire for a partner will waylay me. I’m scared I won’t make things happen, won’t sell articles, won’t search for that gem of a story. I want to step into being the writer I think I am. God, I want to create.

I find this sudden insecurity strange, because the last few days have been so pleasant. They have felt fated, even. When I first rolled into Luray (about 30 miles behind me) I spent several nights at the Country Waye RV Resort under the warm wings of its owners, Erich and Sulamith. I had not been in the South for years, and I loved basking in the genteel, green beauty of rural Virginia. The retired couple told me their life stories and brought me to their end-of-season park party. There, I felt popular, as people many decades older than I beamed over the idea of this trip. They asked me about the trailer; they asked me about my writing. I was all too happy to just talk and talk. I went to bed that night a little drink on white wine and pumped up with the support of strangers. Everything felt as I was hoping it would, months ago, before I left on this thing. It’s amazing how sweet it is to be appreciated.

Downtown Luray, Va.

I coasted on that feeling into Tuesday, when I met up with Sherry and Tom, a cool couple my parents’ age. They’re friends and kin of my friends Starr and Mitch of Silver City, and they welcomed me into their home so fully that I was taken aback. When I drove up to their little house, perched over pastoral Luray, they even had a place to park my rig. There was this instant intimacy between Sherry and I especially, and I loved it. I could have easily talked myself hoarse with her, a bubbly former-Deadhead hospice nurse who likes to knit and make beaded jewelry. Without reservation, she brought me into her history and showed her art and family photos. Tom was great as well, and I was completely dumbfounded as he led me around his collection of more than a thousand Native American arrowheads, tools and various chiseled points. He has a sixth sense for finding them and seems to do so wherever he goes. He has probably a dozen framed collections of them all over this house, and they look like a scientist’s grouping of butterflys or bugs might, propped up against a plain background, enclosed in glass. He has even more filling drawers and cabinets. I had never seen anything like it. Talk about manifesting your dream. I would never know how to even start to look for such things. I wouldn’t even know finding them was possible. Tom looked subtly proud but also played it off like it was no great shakes, just a hobby like anything else. I was fascinated.

Right before I left the pair, I got to see another side of Tom. He received a package, and he looked puffed up with excitement when he realized what had arrived. I watched as he unfolded a plush, dark red Santa suit, apparently a step up from the one he had worn for years at his family Christmas party. As he modeled the jacket, he explained that there was enough room for his belly pillow and that, with this new get-up, Sherry probably wouldn’t even have to hem the pants or sleeves. All he needed now to fully transform was some white dye for his bushy, salt-and-pepper beard and a pair of those little, round-rimmed glasses, which he showed off as well. The scene was so good-hearted.

Another friendly thing that took place in Luray was a dinner party that Tom and Sherry threw that one night I was at their home. They invited two of their friends, and we all talked about things like politics and adoption and regional accents and my trip over mounds of tasty, carefully thought-out food. Sherry and Tom insisted I sleep inside their house, and while I usually prefer my own digs, I was happy to be enclosed in their world. It made me feel warm and safe, and it was as though, for about 20 hours or so, I was visiting my own extended family. Later that night, the three of us went for walk with their old, lumbering dog around their quaint, green, staunchly conservative town (they, by the way, are not). The next morning, Sherry and I went for a run. I felt so at home and content. This is why, once again, that my original idea of this trip centering on me being completely alone is a sham. Just as much as I need and crave my solitude, I need people. Nothing makes a place make sense like some genuine folks welcoming you into it. In some small way, I feel I get Luray now. Damn, I feel lucky.

Sherry and Tom, some nice Lurayians.

So what, you might ask, is this moodiness a day later? Why plunge into doubt and worry after experiencing so much kindness? I think, like everyone, I just don’t want to mess this up. As clichéd as this is to admit, I want to make something of myself. And sometimes I worry I won’t take the risks to do so.

Is that justified? I don’t know, though I’m sure my fear is in no way original. These feelings make me want to write out a strong, cinematic decree about my intentions and myself. And since I have no editor to advise me not to, I’ll give it a whirl.

Here it is:

I am on this trip, and I’m open to wherever it takes me. Even if that means getting another newspaper job, even if that means meeting someone and settling down. Even if that means traveling for two years. I just want to work hard and support myself and make art. I want what I do to matter, whatever that happens to be. And I’m not going to give up. That’s my promise to myself.

Does that read like things I’ve written before? Oh, probably, but that’s just because the same feelings have been with me for months.

Time to get back to myself and to start putting all this into practice. Step one: Get the hell off Facebook — at least for a couple hours.

Let me back up, explain. My name is Stina Sieg. I’m 26, and I have just left on a solo journey around America and Canada in a silver, Boles Aero trailer, vintage 1969. I want to explore these countries, and myself, over the course of at least a year. I don’t know what I’m looking for, exactly, just that I have to go. As I’ve been working at newspapers and magazines for the last five years, a big part of this experience will be paying my way by getting writing and photography gigs as I go along. This thing of procuring jobs is one of the scariest parts of the trip to me, but it’s also one of the most necessary. I love hearing and telling people’s stories. My pen and camera get me outside myself and into the world, and I feel such gratitude to them for that.

Plus, I’m a terrible barista and a spotty waitress, which makes me all the more grateful for finding my vocation.

I’m a Californian, but in the last few years, I’ve also lived in Oregon, New Mexico and Colorado. Three weeks ago, I left my most recent home of Moab, Utah. After pausing in the northern section of the state to do some writing work, I sprinted across the country in four days, eventually arriving at a country town, north of Toronto, where I did some stories for a few small magazines on either side of the border.  Really, I should have been writing my blog weeks ago, but my world was so new and jostled that I didn’t feel I had time to describe my impressions of things.

In lieu of this blog, I have tried to commit to memory certain moments since I left Moab on July 15. In Vernal, Utah, I ran through silvery blades of rain along the downtown strip and smiled because the wet felt so nice. In Cheyenne, Wyo., I took pictures of the baby rabbits hopping around the visitor center’s lawn. I remember how good Iowa’s green, rolling hills looked after Nebraska’s flatness. At a parking lot somewhere in Illinois, I think, my truck slipped out of gear, and my trailer almost slammed into someone’s fifth wheel rig. Here, in upstate New York, I fell in love with banjo player Old Man Ludecke while driving and listening to the radio. Later that day, a friendly guy in Batavia helped me out when my tire blew. More recently, in Moravia, I smiled wide as a slightly drunk, lusciously effeminate, energy worker boy told me that I’d be “all powerful” in four years.

I’m not pretending that all these experiences add up to anything specific. I have no conclusions to draw, and I guess that makes sense. I’m only at the very beginning of this trip, and I’m gently opening myself up to it. I’m excited. I’m scared. God, I want to explore.

I am that mix of emotions and more as I sit in this New York campground. The rain is dying down, and I’m contemplating my next move. I’m thinking Québec and then Maine, but who knows? I’ll let it unfold. Without sounding too presumptuous, I invite you to follow me. I don’t know what form this blog will take yet. I just know that I want to share this trip, wherever it goes.

Thank you for reading. I’m honored. I promise much more to come.