CURRENT MISSION
Just returned from a week in Costa Rica -- time of my life taking a writing/life class and yoga everyday, and belly dancing! Will be traveling to Winnipeg with friend this fall...

Getting to the Met in NYC. Need to get my art fix... And perhaps Europe again ASAP -- have a Paris transport pass and only seven years to use it in! Ugh.

ABOUT ME

Laughing and traveling are my two favorite pastimes. I live on a 120-plus year-old farmstead on ten acres which I purchased over 30 years ago. I drive a half-hour every day to my work in a library(and being the only worker there) located on the White Earth Indian Reservation, through beautiful countryside rarely seeing more than a dozen cars on the trip. I traveled to Italy alone at the age of 25 for three weeks, and two decades later did it again. On that trip I traveled to Tesero to visit my sister-librarian (sort of like a pen-pal) and she set me up in a lovely accommodation above the local pizza parlor, had me to supper at her home and drove me to see the sights of the Val Di Fiemme which used to be part of Austria. I flew in and out of Venice, one of my favorite cities on earth. In 2009, I was in Istanbul and drove through Turkey, hopped to the isles of Kos and Rhodes ending in Athens and recently had a California adventure. Here in Northwest Minnesota my cat and I make a very happy life together. I drive an old Cadillac -- my '89 with the Continental pack (tire hanging on back -- very classy) has over 280,000, had an '87 with over 350,000 so plan to drive it till it dies under me. If I'm moving I'm happy. Have had all sorts of occupations -- prior to my thirteen-plus years at the library I was a highway paving company flag girl (at my age that description was pushing it), have substituted school on and off over the years, worked at local newspapers and still write a weekly column, appearing in two papers, have sold wild rice on the side of the highway and bartended just to name a few. Am a very young, twice-divorced woman in her 60s still looking for the best years to come.

PHILOSOPHY

I believe we're all here for a purpose, mine being bringing a bit of laughter into the world. Recently I joined the little church near my home and have enjoyed laugh-filled sermons and great coffee (I tell people I joined because the coffee was so good). My relationship with God is very important to me and I am the most blessed person (I used to say luckiest) you'll ever meet. But I won't try to convert you... so don't worry your pretty head!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

UPDATE AGAIN -- Not many people want to come to NW Minnesota (110 miles from the Canadian border) but all are welcome (the gal from Florida never did email me, she gave me a sort of negative review, but Ad was great in Amsterdam...). Ended up at relatives' and a friend's place in Tacoma before and after the full boat scholarship to attend the Association of Rural and Small Library Conference last year...

Now 2014 Update -- a week in Paris last year, Seattle and Boston and just St. Louis (my hometown) last week. Am still a librarian and currently looking to couch surf to attend a rural library conference in Tacoma, WA, 9-3 thru 9-6-14. Here's old notes...

I am so excited about CS -- what a wonderful idea! My trip to Turkey and Greece, as well as one to Scotland a few years ago, were taken with my nephew (who's my age and more like a brother) and his wife who make my participation very reasonable. For instance, if the room is $200 a night and the extra person is $25, I pay the latter. They rent a car, but I can't pitch in because, "We'd rent it anyway, Lois." So even a lowly librarian who knows how to save a buck can travel. But with this exchange I find my horizons expanding enormously! And my home, albeit humble, has a couch which I would be willing to occupy when CS guests come to visit -- you can have the bedroom! When I moved up here out of college I'd purchased an old schoolhouse with running water -- you had to run to get it -- and an outhouse. I now boast indoor running water and bathroom -- must be living right -- and my aforementioned nephew and his wife own the schoolhouse, so still in the family.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Update, stayed with Ad in Amsterdam a few years ago -- a real treat. Just one night on way home from Paris...

Regarding my neutral review, the gal only gave me a few days notice and by the time I got back to her she made other plans.

Interests

Traveling, art, reading, conversation, fishing, hiking, writing, photography, laughing.

• cats
• arts
• writing
• photography
• beer
• coffee
• yoga
• running
• boating
• reading
• traveling
• cars
• painting
• fishing
• hiking

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies -- Midnight in Paris (was there two months later), After Words (about a librarian who goes to Costa Rica -- wish I'd seen it 20 years ago -- oh, that' right, it wasn't made back then), Flawless, Pirate Radio, Harold and Maude, GWTW, Bull Durham, Ghost Town, Notting Hill -- the list goes on and on...
Music -- Jonny Lang, The Flight of the Conchords, Billy Squire, rock and roll and the blues -- more to list...
Books -- Canada; The Goldfinch; just finished the Geography of Bliss; loved the Dortmunder series of Donald E. Westlake (who passed away last Christmas [2009?]) -- hysterical blundering NYC thieves, mysteries; Richard Halliburton (wonderful old travel books); again, too many to list...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Costa Rica at fabulous, outrageously reasonable place. Be my friend and I'll turn you on to it!

Traveling alone to Italy and seeing the sunset over Venice, also at my Manarola hotel on the Cinque Terre, again in Italy 20+ years later...

Teach, Learn, Share

I hold a MFA in painting and metal smithing and have taught creative writing in the past. Could also teach photography. Have done yoga, and would like to learn more. As a librarian in a one-person library in a 1934 WPA stone building, in what used to be the city liquor store (read bar) -- with old beer coolers behind my circ desk (this is why I tell people I feel so at home here) -- I think I've found my true calling.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Great conversations, great laughs (who ever hear of lousy laughs?), travel stories and travel dreams. Am also an excellent driver and would be more than happy to chauffeur you around...

Countries I’ve Visited

France, Italy, Netherlands, Scotland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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