Travels with My Mortgage
My blog is called Travels With My Mortgage because my one consistent travel companion in the last 11 years has always been my house payment. I didn’t start traveling extensively until I was in my early-30s, after my husband I had bought a house and we had a monthly payment. Behind all my travel stories around the world is a wonderful home, a finanical obligation, and decisions about how we can budget our lives so that I could follow my passion.
Turks and Caicos
I wasn’t new to solo travel when I went to Turks and Caicos alone in the summer of 2022. In 2018, I spent a month in Southeast Asia, traveling around Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, enjoying only the company of hired motorcycle drivers or friendly tour guides along the way. I went to South Korea and Japan alone in 2019, and then to Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia in January of 2020, just as news reports were emerging about a novel coronavirus, two months before the same news was circulating in the United States. I love traveling by myself. I love making my own decisions about when I sleep, when I eat, what I eat. I love having the full range of a hotel room, spreading out all my belongings across couches and armrests and bathroom sinks, half of any bed my clothes laid out so I can see everything I brought with me at all times so I can meticulously determine what to wear without ever packing anything that goes unused.
Morocco
When my twin sister Erin and I turned 30 in the summer of 2012, we started a tradition of traveling together every five years to celebrate our birthdays. The first trip was a two-week trip to Europe to celebrate our passage into a new decade. The second — in 2017 for our 35th birthdays —I decided that we would travel to Morocco and Senegal, and to make the trip extra special for Erin, I did my best to keep the location a secret. The first leg of the trip was from Washington, DC to Casablanca, and I made it my personal goal to try to see if we could get all the way to Africa without her knowing where we were vacationing.
Reverend Larry and the apple king
It was a car accident that led to me starting a nonprofit with my friend Ward. I was driving my pickup truck home late one night from work when a young college student ran a stop sign right in front of me. I t-boned his car going less than 30 miles an hour- not fast, but I still hit him hard enough to make an impact that was damaging. Luckily, I hit the car right behind the driver’s seat, where no one was sitting, saving the other driver from being injured. I was in shock, but unhurt. My truck was not as fortunate. It was destroyed and had to be towed away. Stranded without a ride, I once again called Ward to come to rescue me. He was such a reliable, good friend who would do anything for me. Even though it was much after midnight, he came and picked me up and took me home.
The end of lost
We were told later that when we hit the ground, it only made one sound—a single, dense thud representing two bodies being taken down simultaneously. I didn’t hear a noise when it happened. I was too shocked to find myself no longer upright. Only a second before, I had been straddling my bike, squinting through the rain as I looked forward down the road ahead of me. Now I was lying on a set of railroad tracks in an industrial area of downtown Baltimore, wearing a black trash bag like an oversized, awkward, and useless raincoat. I was soaking wet and miserable.
There is a best travel bag
Me in Belize just thinking about how much I love bags.
I love bags. Really. I seriously love bags. Just ask my husband. I have a bag for every item or occasion. Pool bag, beach bag, shoe bag, overnight roller suitcase, overnight bookbag, grocery bags (cold items), grocery bags (non-refrigerated items), computer bag, electronic accessory bag, diaper bag, toddler cooler snack bag, water-proof dog walking bag, business casual office bag, standard purse, oversized luggage bag, fanny pack for the gym, skateboard pads bag, wetsuit bag.
Hawaii
My husband Jim and I honeymooned in Hawaii. It was magical for so many reasons. Not only because we arrived two days after our wedding, high from the excitement of having our closest friends all in the same room and feeling so loved and so celebrated, but because Hawaii feels like magic. The vibrant colors of the plants, fruits, and vegetables, the wildlife, the sounds of the ocean – the fact that, even though it is a very popular tourist destination, we found ourselves alone on beaches or volcanic trails more often than we could have imagined. There were many magical moments that I still think about 15 years after that trip. But one moment – one special moment, magical moment – I think about almost daily.
Iceland
The only photo I took in Iceland.
Whenever I have the chance, I try to double up on the locations that my trips will take me. A daylong layover can offer a lot in a second country – an overnight stay can feel like a whole other vacation if you plan it right. When my husband and I went to Barcelona for our 7th wedding anniversary, I booked our flights through WOW Air (RIP), which had a mandatory stop in Reykjavíkon both ends of the trip to Spain, the latter being a full 24 hours in Iceland.
My Friend Dick
It’s five a.m., and in an hour, I am leaving for the airport to fly to Florida from Virginia to visit my friend Barb. Three weeks ago, Barb’s husband, Dick, passed away suddenly, and both Barb and I, and so many others, are devastated by this loss. Like Barb, Dick was also a close friend of mine. They are so well known to me that I actually wrote a book, The House of Life, about their lives. It was published 10 years ago, in 2016.
chop suey documentary part 1 - 3
VCU-TV/HD turns its lens toward Richmond, Virginias favorite used book store, Chop Suey. Owner Ward Teft gives an inside look at what makes this store so loved and adored by the community. Used books and fresh starts.
How One Couple Brought Health Care to Haiti
In May 2016, when I heard the news of the doctors’ strike taking place in Haiti, my heart sank. Doctors, nurses and medical residents had been on strike since March as they protested low wages and demanded better working conditions, leading to the shutdown of Haiti’s largest hospitals. And now, as the news of the devastation caused by Hurricane Matthew floods in from Haiti, ever more families need access to health care and medicine as quickly as possible.
Books on Wheels bloggler
Due to our eviction from the previous evening, we moved the bus to our friend Becka’s house in the Garden District, where we are able to enjoy the pleasures of indoor plumbing and the World Wide Interweb. On Monday morning we woke up early again, and walked around a nearby cemetery looking for zombies and discussing serious issues like “Do you think vampires ever get tricked by an eclipse?”.
It’s still our city episode 22
Shelley Callahan is a long time Richmonder who fell in love with the city more than 25 years ago while attending VCU. In the past two decades, Shelley has had the pleasure of running a local nonprofit called Books On Wheels for 8 years, running the Books, Bikes and Beyond thrift store and art gallery for 5 years, and helping to organize the BEST FRIENDS DAY festival for 10 years.
In 2021, Shelley designed and published the BEST FRIENDS DAY yearbook, which is a collaboration of incredible photography and art from amazing people all over the world and an effort to archive what was some of the most insanely fun experiences that Richmond had to offer in the early 2000's.
Best friends day: 10 years later
Shelley: So, do we want to hear the real story first or do we want to hear the myth?
Anna: I want to hear the myth first. I mean, the lore will probably be funnier.
Randy: Well, it’s not too in depth, and forgive me if I am wrong, it was many years ago. but I thought it was Tony [Foresta] and maybe you [motions to Shelley] and your sister [Erin] went to Hadad’s [Lake] one day and got wasted, and called it Best Friends Day.
Fair observer: feburary 2018
Oxfam, one of the UK’s largest and best known charities, is currently entangled in a scandal following revelations that senior staff members engaged in sexual misconduct during the 2010 Haiti earthquake recovery effort and had hired prostitutes while working in Chad in 2006. The report revealed that aid workers held sex parties, turning a villa rented by Oxfam into a makeshift brothel, with senior officers allegedly attempting to cover up the behavior.