Now, where did I leave off?

My gosh, has it been over a year already? Where has the time gone?

There have been a couple of other times that I have gone AWOL on my blog for an extended period of time and it usually coincided with big life events. The first time was when we originally sold our big ass house on Pine Lake as Step One of preparing to become Nomads. The second time was right after we hit the road. I had blogged for years prior and by the time we actually began traveling, I needed a break! And now, for the third time, there was so much going on in our lives that I once again lost my mojo and could not focus on the blog. And, tbh, we weren’t traveling and this is, first and foremost, a travel blog. 

As you know from the last blog posted we were on our way to Texas in Ruby Red and then on to France where we would walk another 500-mile Camino, this time across the south of France on the via Podiensis. We did that, but I did not write about it because I have written about walking four other Caminos and I really had nothing new to say. Plus, it takes a heck of a lot of time and energy to write about the trip and frankly, when you really have nothing more to say, writing is almost impossible. 

HOWEVER, for the first time in our hiking journeys, Steven documented our trip with videos! And talk about time and effort, he really put his heart and soul into this series. For those who might be interested in watching our experience up close and personal, the videos are available on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. You can see the full playlist here.

But wait, there’s more! Remember we went to South Korea to ride bicycles across the country? There is a video for that trip, too! And then we visited Japan! See that video here.

So, our travels are documented, just in a different format. And Steven is a pretty good storyteller and I was happy to let him take the reins. I most definitely needed a break and once I get comfortable with not writing everything down, it is hard for me to return to it. Plus, we’ve had some major life changes, so there’s that.

After we finished our walk we met up with Bill and Kelly and their friend Linda in St. Jean-Pied-de-Port. The three of them had just finished their own Camino in Portugal. Linda’s partner Rick joined them and the six of us traveled on to Paris for a few days.

After Paris we returned to the ranch to liberate Ruby Red and made our way back to Mount Vernon, WA to spend another summer close to the WA-based kiddos. It was on our trip back to the Pacific Northwest in June that we learned Steven’s father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Over the summer months Steven made a couple of trips back to Ireland to be with his family. During this time we made no plans for travel and were quite content sitting still and being available to those we love. We even began to discuss settling down some time in the next year or two. After his July trip to Ireland, we decided to find a realtor and have that contact in our back pocket should we come across a place we might be interested in. Which is funny, because we didn’t even know specifically where we wanted to live! What we did know is that it had to be 100% Washington state, but exactly where? We weren’t sure. 

We visited a couple of Open Houses in Bellingham and near Mount Vernon just for fun and searched for properties online in Seattle and near our old hometown of Sammamish, just to get the lay of the real estate land. Prices in these areas have always induced sticker shock, but now you’d be lucky to get a decent fixer upper for a million bucks, give or take. So we started looking south in Ridgefield and Vancouver. With long-time friends just across the river in Portland we found the area appealing and a bit more affordable. So we found a realtor there and said “in a year or two”, but let’s just go look for fun and meet our new realtor face to face. Y’all, that’s like going to the animal rescue to just “look” at the kitties. You know you comin’ home with one.

On August 6th we visited a few homes for sale in Vancouver, WA, just across the Columbia River from Portland. The next day we made an offer on the first one we had seen, which was accepted. Our closing date was August 26th. During that time Steven returned to Ireland and while he was away, I packed up our stuff and readied Ruby Red for consignment. We loaded up a little U-Haul and moved into our new home on August 29th. It was a crazy whirlwind. We moved in with very little and no furniture at all. In fact, we asked the seller if they had any furniture they would like to get rid of, maybe we could buy it? They did! We got a big sofa and a bedroom set and a couple of other things to get us started.

We had planned to start from scratch but then another big thing in our lives happened that changed everything. My parents decided to sell the ranch in Texas and already had a buyer. That meant we had to get all our stuff from there if we wanted it. We had quite a bit of furniture and things that my parents had U-Haul’d in 2014 from our home in Washington to the ranch in Texas. We were clearing out to go fulltime and they had just bought the ranch and needed furniture. We had never really thought about a time when we might bring it all back to Washington, as far as we were concerned it would always be at the ranch. But time marches on, and there it was for the taking. All we had to do was get it from there to here. We figured why not, it would be less expensive to go get what we already owned than to buy new. So we booked our flights and rented a U-Haul. That trip did not work out as planned, as Steven’s father passed away a few days after we arrived at the ranch. Steven went to Ireland and I enlisted the help of our son Zac, who flew to Texas and made the trip in the U-Haul truck with me and all our stuff back to Vancouver. Though certainly not ideal circumstances at the time, an unexpected road trip with my boy driving cross-country in a U-Haul was totally our jam. It’s what we love to do. I did all the driving and he was perfectly happy just taking in the countryside. 

The same day we moved into our new home, we turned Ruby Red over for consignment and she finally sold earlier this year. For the first time in 20 years, 11 of them full time, we have no home on wheels. Alfred Hitchpop, our beloved pop-up which we got in 2006 was towed all across the Northwest and we made great memories traveling with our kids. We got Scoopy in 2013 from Laurie and Odel, who were our mentors and great friends. Bijou, the greatest little motorhome that could, was our home for over five years during our time in Europe. She got us through a pandemic and wow, did she take us to some great places! And then there was Ruby Red who we got in December 2023. We didn’t have her for long, but we sure did enjoy her and she was a great home for us while we mostly stayed put and pondered our future.

Steven has settled right in to a routine and he’s super happy living in a house but he also would have been fine if we had just kept on rolling. He is so adaptable. I have found the stability of a permanent home to have its advantages – friends, doctors, neighborhood, kids, lovely kitchen – and much more, but I miss traveling. It has been hard to stop the wheels. But when I drill down, I ask myself, if you had wheels, where would you go? And you know what, I can’t think of any place I’d want to go. We covered a lot of ground in our years on the road and it is enough. Except, there is this one place…Hawaii. During all our travels, we made it to 49 states, but we never visited Hawaii. Neither of us has ever been, but we are going! 

In September we will travel by train from Vancouver, WA to Vancouver, BC and board the Royal Caribbean Anthem of the Seas for a 12-day float to Hawaii. We do not consider ourselves to be cruise people, but somehow this seemed like a good way to celebrate our 50th state. We then have four days in Oahu before flying to Maui where we have rented a Jeep camper for another four days. Then we’re off to Kona where our daughter Tara lives with her partner Dave. We are so excited to see the place they call home. We’ll also visit the Volcano National Park before flying back to Portland. All told, we’ve planned a 28-day Hawaii extravaganza and we are both really looking forward to it!

As for this blog, I don’t know. I’m not ready to say goodbye, and I think I will need something to do on a long cruise with so much time at sea, so I might as well bring you all along on the trip, right? Let’s plan on that and then we’ll go from there. See you in September!

In the meantime, here are some highlights of our most recent adventures…

SOUTH KOREA

JAPAN

OUR NEW HOME

VIA PODIENSIS, FRANCE

FRIENDS

Next Up: Hawaii!