The next adventure has begun!

The next adventure has begun!

Nearly two weeks ago, I left my home in Monroe, NY, heading for the wonderful state of Montana, where my new home will eventually be located. This is a journey that was years in the making and is the culmination of many dreams. And what an adventure it has already been.

There are many ways to move long distance. You could fly to your new home after having all your belongs head out with a moving company. Or you could sell everything, fly out, and start from scratch. You could pack your belongings in a U-Haul and drive to your new location and then unload your own belongings. Or you could do what we are doing. My husband drove all our belongings and my car out a month or so ago, put it all in storage, flew home and then we left again. This time in a travel trailer loaded with our food and other items. We don’t know exactly where we’ll be living for now, so we are sort of nomads on our way to somewhere.

We decided to make an adventure of the move. In the last eleven days, we traveled through fifteen states. We traveled south to Virginia first to see one son, then west to Kansas to see another, then up through Nebraska, Wyoming, arriving in Montana yesterday. What an amazing experience, and only the beginning of this great adventure.

So what makes a journey interesting?

It might be:

Living in a travel trailer, being awakened at 1:30am by a strange wind. It sounded like all the air was sucked out of the universe, and then blown back in with a vengeance. Lightening was striking in an endless array of light. Thunder didn’t boom, but rolled for minutes on end. The rain pounded on the roof of our trailer, with gusts of wind of nearly 70 mph. We learned afterwards that there was a tornado watch and severe thunderstorm warning that night. The awning of our little trailer was being blown around. The trailer was shaking. I had real concerns that it might be thrown in the air, perhaps into the nearby river. What would my next steps be if that were indeed to happen? At 2am, with the wind buffeting the trailer, that’s exactly what I was thinking of. Backup plans. Luckily, emergency measures were not necessary and all ended well. But phew.

And then there was the camper battery that died, resulting in a refrigerator that would not stop beeping a warning message until it ran out of steam and was just giving a pathetic click-pause-click in warning. We had to be so careful to pack only those items we really needed since the refrigerator is so tiny, so we didn’t want to lose anything! Luckily Walmart wasn’t too far and we got a new battery. Nothing major, but a wrinkle in the days plans.

There was the gorgeous park-like state campground in Indiana where there were only about 20 campers taking up 200 spots. We were all by ourselves at the end of a street, and it was just so peaceful. We decided to have a campfire, sat down in our seats near the fire and little black bugs started falling on us from the trees above. Lots of bugs. We don’t know what they were, but were still picking them off of us the next day. Maybe that’s why the park was empty?

Or the state park in West Virginia where we had to drive down a 10 or 15 mile road with the trailer. The road was partially washed out and very skinny and windy. We kept saying “Are we going the right way?”  There was no place to turn around so we just kept going. We finally found the campground entrance, and then traveled all the way down into this little valley where the sites were. Once we got out of the camper and tried to hook up to the electric we found there wasn’t any because there was a huge storm that knocked the power out. There was also no wi-fi and no cell service. Luckily the power came on, and we just dealt without the cell service. But it was weird getting thrown back to the 70s where you couldn’t call anyone unless you had a land line!

Also, I never traveled in a camping trailer before. Do you know how when you’re thinking of buying a new car and you all of a sudden see them everywhere? Or you are pregnant and you see pregnant people all over? Well, now that we were traveling in a trailer, I notice them everywhere. I don’t really consider trailers to be “camping.” I have camped. With tents and no electric. So trailers are not camping. They allow you to bring a small home with you wherever you want to go. OR. Bring a huge home along. Most of the RVs we saw were HUGE, as in 40′ long! On a few occasions, we wound up at a campground that was just like a big RV parking lot, and we were the smallest “drag” on the lot. Interesting experience.

And just another thought…  America is truly beautiful. From the plains to mountains, wild flowers, butterflies, lakes, rivers, hundreds of miles of corn, soy, horses, cows, elk, deer, and the list goes on. We live in an amazing country, and the fact that we can get from one side to the other so easily makes it easier to give in to wanderlust.

The first part of this journey is over as we arrived in Montana. Now we get to experience the rest of the adventure. Getting a home built. Finding a place to live in the interim. Getting my broker license so I can continue my real estate career. Meeting people. Exploring our new town.

Oh, and here’s a small glimpse into what made us want to come here. When our home is built, we will have views of the Flathead Valley and Glacier National Park. But that’s not the only view we will have. The following photo is what I will see every morning when leaving my home. This is my driveway heading down the hill. Who wouldn’t want to be here?

More will be coming soon about this gorgeous place I now call home.

And now I’m off to whip up dinner in my teeny-tiny-itsy-bitsy-camper kitchen.The next adventure is underway!