#willierose

The Oxford Dictionary defines the word 'faff' as "to spend time in ineffectual activity" but in Hidden Valley it has a slightly different meaning and is sometimes a way of life. Lucky for this dirtbag before climber, faffing happens almost as much as climbing and well, I'm down to faff with the best of them... Packing up the bandit to take lots of dirty dudes for hot springs soaks, cooking family style Dutch oven meals together, coming up with random games and contests, doing stick & poke tattoos, chasm runs, iron door missions or just hiding away from the wind in someone's van. There is a lot of fuckin around going on out here. And I'm sorry I've been off the grid and not getting anyone's messages for weeks but I have a lot of faffing to do in Joshua tree. This is ineffectual but very very important business. Time to get back to it. #ladyadventures #sailortheroaddog #willierose #theadventuresofwillierose (at Joshua Tree National Park)

Yesterday, I finished my last bowl

Hi 👋🏽 I'm Genevieve, and I'm "just a gasoline girl in a lithium ion world," as a good friend told me while we drove #WillieRose the #ToyotaBandit back cross country. I guess I'm also an analog girl in a digital world because while I've always loved capturing and sharing stories on social media, I've taken to shooting on an old #35mm camera. I've spent most of 2017 shooting rolls of film (but not developing them until now) and I realize I haven't posted much lately. Partly because instagram, a platform in which I've met & connected with so many amazing people, has also left me feeling a little disappointed & disheartened about the way humans in this world treat each other sometimes. There's also been a lack of posting due to my own personal anticipation of sharing stories through photos I've taken, on a real camera, rich with personal history. For my entire life, I've taken photos but I would not call myself a photographer until I learned how to shoot on full manual settings and utilize light to make magic, much like the photographer friends that never cease to inspire me with their work. It was also a personal goal of mine, to fully embody & own the creation of my story telling through my own words & photography. After a quick & straight forward crash course on taking photos with my newly acquired old #nikonfm2, from friend @jamesoneilphoto, one of those talented & inspiring photographers I mentioned previously, he snapped this photo of me and sent me out into the world (well, at least the western United States) strapped with my mother's old film camera and ready to take on the challenge of taking photos to capture the people & moments of this #vanlife so rich, that the stories kinda just tell themselves. Here's one of only two photos out of over 200 that I didn't take.

Fully moved back into j tree and brought a few friends with me. Can't wait for all the other friends to arrive. So who wants to come visit? #sailortheroaddog #willierose #theadventuresofwillierose #ladyadventures (at Joshua Tree, California)

After the first week away from my house on wheels, since moving into my road home over a year ago, I'm happy to be home sweet home and back on the west coast. Leaving family in the east to come to back to an empty bandit #WillieRose in a city where no friends or family are waiting for me, is bittersweet. Anticipating my homegirl @trimncopper's arrival in SoCal is just plain sweet! But I'm kinda missing a road fam at the moment. So anyone wanna meet up to park & explore in/around San Diego?? How bout sharing a campsite in J Tree this weekend? I make a mean campfire skillet bread pudding with all things coconut... Just sayin. photo: @dosomethingcool (at San Diego, California)

My car/home has a name, but not just any name. It's #WillieRose, after my grandmother (Mema as I called her), Wilhelmina Rosa, who my grandfather always called "Willie" and she was one heck of a story teller. My two all time favorite Mema stories were of the night she met my grandfather on boats literally passing in the night and the night the two of them braved the catastrophic fire aboard a cruise ship, to save other passengers' lives, which led to them jumping hand in hand from the top deck of the Yarmouth Castle as it burned and sank into the Atlantic fifty-one years ago this week. Talk about being ruined for romance by wildly adventurous maritime love stories at a young age! I mean, no wonder I ended up being a free-spirited romantic that travels around in a land yacht just livin' & lovin'. It's been a goal to live my life paying homage to my story telling free-spirited grandmother who lived her life in love, by wearing my heart on my sleeve while being true to the fernweh that very much is part of who I am. My loving mother & step father keep cautioning me about the types of relationships I'll make on the road, about not staying in one place long enough to meet a "nice man" or how I need to be wary of guys that see me as a free-spirited traveler and not who I am on the inside. But then I talk to my friends and loved ones I've met over my lifetime & on the road and realize that the part of me that I've learned to love the most is the person I've become on the road that is free-spirited, as always, but loves with wild abandon and is trying to open her heart to the heart-thumping adventures of love. Regardless of what you call home or who inspires your life, I hope you all live in love. 💗 (at Black Rock Desert)