Oh the places we will go...

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." - Douglas Adams

It's nearly 1:00 in the afternoon and I am only now feeling awake enough to really think about the day.  The heat we've had over the last day or two is already taking a toll on my body and I feel even more convinced that our decision to move to a better climate is absolutely the right one.  Andrew and I frequently joke around about being the luckiest couple in the world but there is always a grain of truth in every jest and in this case we are dealing with more than a grain.  In the decision to move we have seen that luck become gifts upon gifts of all the right things happening at all the right times.  Naturally, we have had our moments where we wonder if this is really happening but then, when we realize it REALLY is, we experience a rush of gratitude, incredulity, and love.  Love for each other, for Aydan, for our family, for LIFE and for the chance to choose this amazing path to follow.

And that's where the gushy ends and the true purpose of this entry starts, although it all ties together.  We have been asked so many times what our route is for our cross country trip and I figured it was about time to share at least the first leg of our trip with everyone along with the cities we will be visiting on our path out west.  See, I told you it all tied together ;)  Here goes.

June 8th, we leave Fort Wayne for Andrew's family's cottage in Michigan.  We will be staying there with members of Andrew's family for roughly three weeks.  June 14th we will be heading back to Fort Wayne for our dear friend's, Joy and John, wedding on the 15th with a return trip to the cottage on the 16th.  We will have that whole week up at the cottage and then the following weekend my best friend, Megan, will be getting married in Traverse city.  After her wedding weekend we will start our trip up and around Michigan and into Wisconsin.  During our time in Michigan and Wisconsin we are looking to spend time with as many members of our family as we can.  We are still looking to lock down some of those details but we are expecting to be back in Fort Wayne for the last time on the third of July.  We will stay through the fifth and then head to Indy to visit Andrew's Uncle Tom followed up by visits with the Evansville crew.

Once we leave Indiana we head off to Edisto Beach State Park.

These pictures are provided by the internet but I will most definitely be adding our own pictures once we are actually there.  This state park is  located an hour south of Charleston SC and an hour north of Savannah, GA.  Perfect for visiting two of the places I so very much want to see.  Aydan and I have been to Charleston twice before but we wanted to share it with Andrew since it is so amazing.  Savannah is supposed to be super haunted as well as temptingly full of American history.  I am looking forward to long days of exploration with my family.  Our campsite is reserved from July 10th to July 15th.

Next on our definite list is New Orleans LA.  We will arrive at Fontainebleau State Park on July 16th and I'll get to spend my 35th birthday in a city I have dreamed of visiting for the last 20 years of my life.

Again internet images but definitely looking forward to staying in campsite on Lake Pontchartrain, 24 miles away from New Orleans.  We will reach New Orleans from the park by taking the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.  

I am thinking for my birthday I would like to visit the French Market and go to the perfume shop featured in "Jitterbug Perfume" another delightful ready from my favorite author, Tom Robbins.  My friend Leah has told me that visiting New Orleans is as close to visiting Europe as you can get without leaving the USA.  I shall very much be looking forward to this city.  

We will have a list of places we want to visit at each stop but that seems like a bit too much to get into at the moment.   Next stop, Natchez, Mississippi and heading north a bit more before heading west.  

Introducing The Mark Twain

Four weeks!  We have four weeks left until we head out.  So much to do and this morning...well, I have ambition but not as much energy as I would like.  My avoidance tactic is going to be writing a new blog entry while I drink coffee and enjoy the quiet stillness in my home.

It's nearly impossible to wrap my brain around the fact that in a handful of weeks this will no longer be my home. “Home” is such a strange word, loaded with meaning and images that go so far beyond such a simple word.  Once I walk out of our house for the last time with my husband, my son and my dogs, this will become a house again and home will be the mobile group of love found in my family.  That IS home.  The people you love being close to you and sharing in taking care of each other.

And close we will be as we make our cross country trip.  It's time to introduce The Mark Twain.

Yes, he's back as a pop-up camper :)  Ha.  Just kidding.  Shortly before buying our new home on wheels Andrew and I had been watching a Ken Burns special about Mark Twain.  We were both even more inspired by this literary giant than we had been before, but not so much for his contribution to the written word as by his adventurous spirit.  One of the commentators on the documentary said that Mark Twain wanted to visit all the places he had been to in order to do something others would or could not do, to see and share the wonders around the world and to live a life less ordinary and more extraordinary.  With that thought in our heads we named the camper The Mark Twain. 

When our four weeks are up we will be on the  road for roughly three months.  There are so many places we want to see and experience and we will have this cozy space to live in while we do so.  It may not seem like a lot of room to put three people and two dogs but considering our family mostly occupies one room in our house and the kitchen, I think we will be ok.  There is plenty of room for us and the dogs inside the camper as well as an awning that pulls out to create a lovely, shaded outdoor space for us to hang out in. I can't wait! We may be separated from the real Mark Twain by time but we are joined to his spirit of adventure just the same.  

Energy is kicking in and it's time to get some things going!  Much love to all! And to wrap things up, how about a few more pictures of the camper?  

 

Get up and GO!

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." - Mark Twain

I remember well the day the travel bug jumped up and bit me.  In third grade we were given our world history book and the very first page I opened to was a full page photo of the pyramids at Giza.  It was a night photo, no glaring sun on hot sand but the cool, mystical light of the moon embracing these majestic structures.  I had no idea what they were or in what country they could be found, but I knew someday I MUST see them, I must learn about them, I must walk close to these ancient tributes to man's ambitions.  The smell of well used book and the hopes for the adventures of someday filled my dreamy little brain as I laid my head down on the book and sighed in happiness.  To travel!  Someday...

One of my biggest "someday" dreams was to live on the West Coast close to my friends Leah and Adrien, their son Lillian (Liloo more often than not) and Iskra, their dog.  Five years ago they made a crossing from Fort Wayne to Vancouver, BC.  This year, Leah's dream of island living came true.  They have found an adorable house to rent on Vancouver Island, close to Victoria. Although we are so far away from each other, Leah and I have managed to strengthen our friendship and to still discuss the plans we have for the future.  I had given up the dream of joining them any time soon and had decided to put it on the list for someday, probably closer to retirement, and that maybe, for now, I should live a more stationary, hopefully more stable, lifestyle.  I put my wandering spirit away, set lovingly aside for the day when I would need it again.  That time has arrived and we are rejoined in a way that makes my heart sing and my body feel more vibrant and alive!  

To date, I have seen quite a few historic locations in the United States, been to Cancun twice, have crossed into Canada on a handful of occasions when my family and I lived in New York, and attempted to run away from home in 2008 (another story for another time).  No crossing the pond for me yet.  But I know it will happen.  The desire to travel, to see different places and people, to feel history under my feet, has never left me.  

After a life changing event in October, Andrew and I came to the decision that life is too short to not live the way you want, to be where your heart most wants you to be, or to live the life you could only live if you dreamed it...or had the courage and resources to make it a reality. I know that someday may never happen, that life is precious, oh so precious, and while this may be considered cliche, for me these realizations are filled with conviction.  I am fortunate that my family feels the same way. Life is to be lived! So let's go! 

But go where?  The decision was quite easy.  Washington state, hopefully Seattle, would be an ideal location for us for numerous reasons (again, another time for those reasons).  The decision made and location chosen, it's time to start getting ready.  Andrew and I have been plotting our course, contacting friends and family across the country, packing the house and DOWNSIZING our possessions in a severe way.  Our yard sale pile is easily three times the amount of things we have decided to save and send to Nora, Andrew's mother, who lives in Oregon.  We are lucky to have a place to send the things we can't give up, although that mostly seems to be books at this time.  I can't give up my books!  And media mail makes it so I don't have to!  Hooray! 

In 29 days we will pack into our truck with the camper attached to it and we will be on our way! There will be no direct route to our final location.  The chance to see and experience different places is too great to pass up.  Washington may be on the west coast but our travel plans take us through Michigan, Wisconsin, back through Indiana then crossing to the south east coast for some historic site seeing, places that make my heart race out of sheer happiness and excitement.  We will see Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans.  There will be travels up the Mississippi River and plantations, hundreds of years old, to wander through and marvel at the way people lived once upon a time.  We will head out west, visiting my brother and his family in Colorado and then Andrew's sister in LA along with whatever stops in between that catch our interest. After that, the trip will head north again, visit San Fran and keep pushing on until we reach Nora in Oregon.  We will stay with Mama N for a week before joining Leah and Adrien at their house on the island.  Whew. I did try to make that brief but it's hard to sum up a trip that will last approximately three months.  

More posts to follow, of course, and more pieces to pull everything together...this will be fun to resharpen my writing skills, especially with such an exciting topic to explore.  

Have a lovely day all! 

The cast of characters

I knew when we decided to take this trip that I would, in some way, want to chronicle our journey and share it with our loved ones...but where do you start?  I still don't know but hopefully I can do what they do in TV shows and have memory flash backs to help bring the audience up to speed with everything that has led up to this moment and, let's face it, that's a lot of back story to try to get through during this, our first time together.  Today, the goal will be to introduce my family and just break things down so we have a level starting point.  Here goes.

This is my son, Aydan.

He's 12 and quite the stellar young man.  He loves history, music, minecraft, stop motion videos (watching and recording) and he has just discovered a love of climbing that I am certain will be more fully assisted by my husband, Andrew, who can and will climb anything it looks possible to climb. He plays the trombone in regular band and jazz band at school.  He's a smart one, capable of having conversations with adults about serious topics, like gun control in the United States, but he's also goofy, and quick witted.  I'm his mom so I am naturally a little biased but I'm also quite confident on the accuracy of my biased opinion.  He's a favorite among our friends and acquaintances.  Like I said, stellar young man.


This is my husband, Andrew.

Andrew and I have been married since March 29, 2013, just a little over a month.  The story of our wedding and how it came to be is quite fun and I'm sure will be its own topic, but not right now.  Andrew is smart, helpful, sincere, funny as all get out, and my favorite person to spend time with.  His desire to see the world from not just his point of view but from everyone else's too is one of his most endearing and admirable traits. I am the luckiest girl in the world to have found a man that has so completely enriched my life as well as Aydan's life.  It's as though our lives were always meant to be together. 

These are the pups, Rosie...

And Crumpets

Both girls were adopted from local shelters but at different times.  Crumpets was with our family first in 2009 and Rosie joined our family in 2010.  We frequently joke around about how Rosie is really Crumpets' dog but it is a joke based on observed behavior.  Crumpets is a dog-dog.  She likes to eat dead things, roll around in geese poop and looks her happiest when she is covered in wet and mud.  Rosie, not so much.  She tip-toes around in the rain and wouldn't be caught dead covered in mud if she can help it.  A bit of a princess if you ask me but so sweet and snuggly that her short comings are fairly easy to overlook. 

And this is me. 

I did try to find a few pictures that weren't from the wedding but I don't really have my picture taken very often and I did just get married so these are pretty current and so so pretty :)  What do I say about me?  I love being a mother, a wife and a dog owner.  I love to read and cook and bake, I look for opportunities to meet new people and learn from them.  I want a life less ordinary and I certainly have been granted that, through choice and some situations that I would have wished away had I been given the choice, at least when they happened, but I know now that all the things that happened to me have made the person I am today and I love who I am...

That's us!  There will be others added to this list, people that make our lives extra amazing but I feel this may be a good start for now and a good place to end.