Being so wrapped up in my Obie project the past 5+ weeks, Tuesday’s amazing milestone flew by me before I had a chance to blog about it! 18 years ago on June 8 I began my inkmusings blog, later to evolve into garyvarner.com.

Where has the time gone?

Those early days of blogging were exciting since the form was new and we all felt like pioneers. I started out on Movable Type but eventually morphed over to the new kid on the block (at the time) WordPress 1.0. Ah, the good old days.

Since that June 8th post 18 years ago, my primary blog under its two titles ran up 181,842 words across 437 posts. Not all those years were actively blogging ones, else the numbers would be much higher. And I should note during those 18 years I’d spawned another six blogs with more focused topics, but they soon vaporized.

And now?

I’m beginning a new adventure, one that is raising eyebrows about what this 68-year-old thinks he can pull off! Wandering Obie begins on June 16th, Obie being the nickname of my new ‘21 Subaru Outback on which I’ve spent the last six weeks or so building a custom camper van-ish interior for these upcoming travels. Wandering Obie is the name of my new YouTube channel (formal announcement soon when I actually have a video uploaded!). It’s all about getting back to wandering America and Canada, enjoying natural settings and introspective times. This time, however, it’s a significant part-time effort versus the full-time van life I enjoyed during 2019.

Look for a blog post soon about the why: the philosophical, practical, and theoretical differences between this hybrid approach and how I roamed around America during 2019 in my Winnebago Travato Class B RV van.

I’ll be blogging consistently soon with lots about my wanderings, some of the usual blog fare, plus a few videos each week on the new Wandering Obie YouTube channel about where and how Obie takes me to interesting places.

Should be fun!

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