About
Rick:
Facebook: Road Life
Writer & Rick's Roads
Rick is a
Boston boy, transplanted to Key West, Florida at age 45, and
transported onto the byways and highways of North America at age
66, when I proclaimed "Enough Is Enough" and escaped the
full-time work gig and submitted to the sirens call of the Open
Road.
There's not much I enjoy more than
taking a break on a long roadtrip, taking a seat at some
roadside watering hole, pulling out my leather-bound journal and
pen, and letting my mind pour onto the pages. The
sentences gush like rivers. Moments from hours ago come
back from blurred memory, details sizzle, nameless faces come to
life, and seemingly insignificant events swell into episodes and
chapters.
Technology as phased out the pen in
most cases now -- rendered obsolete by the iPad. I still
do my best drafts with ink and paper, but there is a lot to be
said for the expedience of plipping on a screen, tweaking a few
edits, and tapping "Publish."
Utah Highway 228, driving to the
Needles Area of Canyonlands National Park
My
Writing Background
A
matriculation from Boston College with a B.A. in English led to
a 14-career as a high school English teacher.
The best course each and
every year was Creative Writing. Handing
a roomful of 17-year-olds an open invitation to make withdrawals
from their cascading brains — instead of the usual deposit,
deposit, deposit — led to some amazingly times. The
goal was to have them feel that writing was not
merely a tedious task that had to be completed on
deadline; it could be enjoyable, as an escape,
as a way to tap into who they were and whoever they thought they
could be. Some of their work was fantastic. (Some
wasn't. Not gonna lie. Ha.)
Underclass
curriculum involved writing, vocabulary, writing, vocabulary and
more writing. It was about How
It Is Done; how to use words to their advantage, how to build
sentences for ultimate clarity, how to construct a cohesive
essay. If they could gain a degree of mastery in these
skills, they would not fear the process, and they could learn
the power of effective communication.
As track and cross country coach, I wrote
more than 300 articles for the local newspaper under the
pseudonym Thom S. Hunter, a twist on the name of my favorite
gonzo journalist of the era.
I
love words. Teaching those young adults how to wield them
was exhilarating ... and exhausting. After 14 years, I
took Thoreau's advice and pulled myself out of the rut of
conformity ... and out of the snowbanks of the northeast..
Relocating
to Key West opened the doors to doing writing, rather than
teaching it. After the summer
cross-country roadtrip of 2004, the “short letter" to family and
friends, turned into a 3-volume, 115-page, fully-illustrated
document entitled, Road Romp
'04, or How I Spent My Summer Vacation. (See
Samples)
That was done Old
Style: scribbled journal notes from the road
painstakingly transcribed
afterwards into Word.
Then
came
the technological expedience of the iPad Mini in 2012, and an
immediate zoom into blogging, which billowed and bloomed into
the tome that is “Barhoppin’ Bone Island”, more than 900 typed
pages written purely for the enjoyment of friends. Recently
I've upgraded that site into
the more SEO-friendly KeyWestBarHops.com.
Tioga
Road, the only east-side entrance to Yosemite National Park,
California
Ahhh, the
Road, the Road...
I
have owned eight conversion vans from 1979 through 2019, the
best five of which were good for an average of 200,000
miles. They crossed 48 states and 9
provinces. Having
summers off was a huge plus back in the 1980's, but the more
recent major trips came in two-week or three-week bursts
in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
More recently, there was an Alaska
exploration in 2015, and a 23-day campervan (i.e., Toyota
minivan) tour of Europe that passed under 18 flags and covered
just under 8,000 miles.
There might be a night or two in an inexpensive hotel room
on any given roadtrip, but I've always preferred bedding
down for the night in my own van, and there have been
quite a few inventive locations.
In February of 2020, I purchased a 2018 RAM ProMaster
cargo van and spent the next year-plus immersed in a DIY
conversion into a fully livable RV, with solar power,
running water, screened windows,
refrigeration, and much more. It is fully
documented in my other new website, www.RicksRoads.com.
Monitor
Pass, central California, in mid-May (yes, mid-MAY).
A New Post-Career Career
Well, now, there
is no time limit, no rush to get in "one more National
Park" before grudgingly returning to work. And that
means more time to write about my own travels, and to
write in any way I can about road life, road travel,
driving vacations, and the like.
And more time to write for you.
What do you need? From the formal and
efficient tone of white letters, to the concise verbiage
of Google ads, to comfortably narrated case studies, to
casual and conversational blog posts ... or anything in
between. I understand the user experience subtleties
of a successful website, and can help you express your
ideas in a way that the site visitor will enjoy, from the
landing through the sales page, right into the follow-up
communications.
I love doing Internet research.
You find some dang cool stuff when you burrow around in
rabbit holes. Check out some of the US State Facts
in the various chapters of the RAMblings (see
Samples) and you'll see what I mean.
Give me a shout and we can discuss
your needs and what I think I can do to help you make them
happen.
|
