Home?

Current location: visiting Boulder, CO


I haven't felt very inspired to write lately. I don't exactly know why, but in part I think it's because we feel unsettled. I've thought many times about writing, and even started a few, but the right words just weren't coming. And I'm not sure they're here now either, but I feel like I need to post an update. We've accomplished a lot, but yet there's not much exciting going on all at the same time.

Since ending our summer job and leaving North Shore Campground, we had a nice relaxing break in Oregon. From there, we headed up to Tracy's aunt and uncle's in the Seattle-Tacoma area, where we plan to spend the winter, or at least part of it. We spent our first week there getting to know the lay of the land and preparing for our multi-week trip back "home" to Colorado.

That's one word we stumble on a lot...."home". We find ourselves, and most of our friends and family, referring to Colorado as home. But it's not really home anymore. Our rig is our home and the entire country is our home. Yet when people ask us where we're from, we both tend to say Colorado. Our license plates and drivers licenses say Texas, we came to feel that northern California was partly our home, but the fallback is always Colorado. Will it always be or is it just that we're too recently departed from Colorado to completely detach?

Before we could leave for Colorado, however, we had arranged to take our home in for some warranty work. We had compiled a pretty long list of issues over the summer. None are major, most are just minor annoyances, but we wanted to get them fixed before getting parked for the winter. After talking with the dealer, we decided that leaving the rig with them while we're in Colorado would work the best for all parties. But dropping off our home and then driving away felt really weird. We both felt it. That's our whole life that we're leaving behind. Now we truly do feel homeless.

We were excited to get back to Colorado and reunite with friends and family. We did the drive in 2 very long days. We questioned ourselves multiple times about what we were doing. I thought our new lifestyle meant that we didn't have to do these types of marathon drives any more. Really, what was our hurry? It's not like we had to rush back to work or cram in a vacation into a short span of time. I guess, ultimately, it came down to frugality. Since we weren't towing our home, it meant that we had to sleep in hotels. We knew our gas expenses would be high, so I guess we figured we could save a few bucks by limiting ourselves to one overnight stay. I'm not sure it was worth it and we may slow down on our way back.

We've been in Colorado for about a week now. It's been nice reuniting with friends and family. We've been able to spend some quality time with each of our moms and have met up with a few friends. We have many more people to see and are trying to fit as many in as possible. We also squeezed in a quick trip to Nebraska to visit Tracy's son, some of her other relatives, and some close friends. We've crammed in a lot in a week.

Although we're having fun, we've also been feeling a bit discombobulated. We're missing our home. We miss our bed and our pillows. We're missing Jasper (he stayed behind in Washington). I think this trip has taught us yet another lesson - one of the greatest benefits of having a home on wheels is that you can take it with you. Next time, we won't leave ours behind. It's not that we aren't comfortable where we are. We have everything we could ask for. And we are very grateful for it. There's just something comforting about having your own belongings around you and living in your own space.

I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make. Maybe I'm just rambling. We've expreienced a wide range of emotions over the last few weeks and I suppose we're just trying to find our way. I guess that's just normal life, regardless of what lifestyle you're living.

Shocked, Dumbfounded and Speechless

Current location: Boulder, CO

I've been a bit behind on posting, partially because not much was going on. I was going to post an update tonight...but I decided to catch up on the blogs I follow first. One of the first ones I read was Margie's, which was written by their daughter about their unexpected and untimely deaths. I had to read it several times to convince myself that I was really reading the words correctly.

Margie's was one of the first blogs I started following. She was a frequent commenter on my blog. We corresponded a couple of times via private email and although we hadn't met in person, I considered her a friend. We had made tentative plans to meet this winter when she returned to Tumwater, WA, which is not too terribly far from where we will be.

It's moments like these that reinforce our decision to live our life now. None of us know how many more tomorrows we have.

I don't know what else to say...the words are not coming to me right now. Rest in peace, Margie and Bruce.

Got A Little Too Much Color At The Beach

Current Location: South Beach, OR

We've had pretty good weather since we arrived. It takes until about 10am for the fog to burn off and then the sun is out until about 4pm when the fog starts rolling back in. The temperatures have been a little on the cool side, but with the sun it's not too bad.

Our campground, South Beach State Park, is just about perfectly situated. We're nestled in trees so we're not right on the beach, which means that we're protected from the wind and the brunt of the salt. There are several walkways leading to the beach, the longest of which is about 1/2 mile. Once at the beach we can walk quite a ways. On the one end is the jetty which leads into Newport harbor. I'm not sure how far it is to the other end because we have yet to reach the other end, but I would guess it's at least a 2 or 3 mile stretch of beach.

Hunter, we have discovered, is a beach dog. He gets that wet sand between his toes and he turns into a puppy. Full of excitement and energy. He loves being chased by the surf and I think he's finally figured out that he doesn't want to drink the water (although he has to try it at least once a day!). We let him off leash and he just runs laps around us, spraying sand and splashing water. He runs himself so hard that I sometimes worry that he won't be able to make the walk home.

One of his favorite games, we've discovered, is blocking us from running out of the surf. As we walk along and the surf starts rolling in, he intentionally stands right in front of us so that we can't get out of the way. As we scream and giggle, he thinks it funny and splashes around to get us even wetter. This has become a daily occurrence.

But it's all fun...until someone gets hurt. Can you guess who that might be?

Yep, you're right!

In all of the excitement, Hunter somehow head butted Tracy. It's amazing Hunter didn't knock himself out too. 24 hours later, the black eye surfaced.

I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to think that this lifestyle might be a little too dangerous for some. Remember this picture from back in April?

Matching black eyes. What's next??!? I'm not sure I want to know :)