To the unlearned, Grandma is a 15 year old, 3 inch plastic doll with the inscription Grandma. To the believers, however, Grandma is a traveling guru that has been passed down from backpacker to backpacker. Grandma can be reliably traced back to 7 generations of backpackers, myself excluded, and has been referred to in ancient writings by countless nomadic tribes. Ancient legends attribute the original design of the Giza pyramids to Grandma's students.
Grandma's previous owners include legends such as Nick Clifton, Chris Baldwin, and even Jimmy Page, former guitarist for Led Zeppelin. Grandma has inspired Nick's patch approvals, Chris' chants on ICB, and some say, Jimmy Page's Stairway to Heaven.
My traveling with Grandma started in Scotland, but shortly after, she quickly decided to leave me and opted to stay in a storage facility in Edinburgh for 5 months, hidden from history. Rumor has it, she was doing some backpacking of her own through the mystical highlands, only pretending to be in storage. There have been rumors of her attempting to negotiate truces between the McDonald and Campbell rival clans.
An early rescue attempt by Nick Clifton failed later in 2001, when the entire British railway system collapsed when en route from Bath to Edinburgh. It is said that Grandma adamantly refuses traveling with previous owners. Near the end of 2001, however, Grandma befriended my pal Anna in Scotland, and convinced Anna to mail her to California, and meet me in my US Motorcycle tour. Grandma arrived unscathed, having mastered ancient arts of meditation that allow her to be trapped with just the air in her lungs.
Presently, Grandma and I are traveling abroad, in hopes of visiting every continent.
Although notoriously hard to photograph, due to her inability to reflect light, here are a few rare photographs she has acknowledged for publication (click on the images for greater enjoyment). More will follow, so check frequently...
Grandma receives thousands of emails a day, and can't possibly respond to all her fan mail, but she does read all of it. So drop her a line; she's been known to answer prayers.
Her address is: grandma at quesejoda dot com.