Strolling down Queen’s Lane seven years ago, I couldn’t have imagined that the blog I created to share my 40-day Oxford experience would evolve into its current form.

When I returned to the U.S. after that trip, “Red Dirt Kelly” officially became “The Red Dirt Chronicles (RDC), a group project of thoughtful Oklahomans who wished to document and share Red Dirt culture, both literally and metaphorically.”

From spiritual reflections to sports to women’s issues to financial information and more, our team cranked out posts for two years. Then suddenly, our entire group all got tired at the same time.  Sometimes doing things for free makes it easier to get tired, but that wasn’t the case. We genuinely all reached certain professional pinnacles and pivotal moments in sync.

So we stepped back, took a breather, and rather than let the RDC be put to rest, Oklahoma Horizon TV — or rather, Alisa Hines — utilized this platform to post their video news about Oklahoma, Career Tech stories, and other state-related topics.

Then, I got rested. And Alisa turned the RDC stewardship back to me and a new project I had been thinking about christened Every Point on the Map.  Our team of Rachel, April and I completed almost 15% of our goal — what an incredibly incredible journey!

Then, April moved to Texas.

Then, Rachel moved to Boston.

And, sometime in-between, I had moved to Texas for two years but came back to Oklahoma and now live in Ada.

“Wild Ride” doesn’t quite capture the feeling of whiplash I’ve been through this past year.

But I’m still here. And so is the Red Dirt Chronicles. And so is Every Point on the Map. And I’m almost ready to kick off Chapter Two of that project.  I’m just waiting on the right vehicle which should be here in a couple of weeks.

Until then, I want to thank all the dear friends we have made along this seven year journey.  I feel like the RDC is a big magnet, and everyone who gets close gets collected…and sticks.  I don’t feel dragged down by the sticking–it’s as if every time we pick someone up (a reader, a contributor, a story, a supporter), the journey is just that much sweeter.

Within the next week I’ll be sharing some content we haven’t yet published in order to ramp up for our next Every Point Run.  The first out of the gate will be our conversation that took place in Cushing at the Tuesday Night Music Club.

Until we start that process, I thought I would give you a little sneak peak of an abbreviated working draft.  At the time we visited this group of adorable, deeply devoted musicians, they were in their seventh year as well.

Here’s to the next seven ~ Love, Red Dirt Kelly