Two Year Nomadiversary – What now?

Two years! It’s been two years since we traded in our sticks and bricks for our rolling house of adventure. We’ve towed our house over 21,000 miles, stayed at least one night in 98 places (RV parks, state parks, national forests, boondocking sites), visited 38 states (45 overall since we started RVing 4 years ago) and 5 countries. When we decided to be “not normal”, we agreed that it would be a two-year adventure, we would find the next place to settle down, build a house, and that would be the end of it. So, there was a significant sense of urgency, at least for me, to cover as much ground as possible, to do and see all we could before we had a mortgage, bills for utilities, etc. We would have an anchor (aka traditional house) holding us back. No more adventures or at least a lot fewer adventures. We purchased land in the Heber Valley of Utah, had a perc test performed, contacted a builder, ordered a survey…the plan was in motion.

Then, about 6 months ago, something happened.  I was in Midland on a work trip and Reim calls me out of the blue and says “I love my life and I love this lifestyle.  There is too much to see.  Let’s keep going!”  My response: “HELL YES!”

Now what?  After a very snowy winter in Park City where all of us were suffering from cabin fever and the itch to get back on the road, we decided to implement a “no more than two weeks in one place” rule.  Well, Alaska ruined that for us and we’ve decided to extend our stay here (and our volunteer work at Denali State Park) by 2 months and won’t head south until late September (although we are curious about the winters in Alaska…maybe next time).  We’ll work our way to Texas for the holidays, then probably head east as Luke and Ireland both want to spend more time in New Orleans.  After a week or so there, we will work our way to the Florida Keys for some winter scuba diving (Ireland is now PADI certified).  Then we will be back in Texas in late February for a wedding, before likely heading to the mountains for some skiing.   We still have 5 more states to RV in and we have friends in Michigan that we want to visit.  So, we will probably spend extended time in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota during the summer, visit Iowa, then on to Hawaii (the plan is to rent a camper van in Hawaii and do some beach camping).  But who knows? Now that our pace has slowed, maybe we head back across the pond since that was “the best trip ever” according to the kids. 

Oh yeah, about the kids.  Like most teens and pre-teens, they have their good moments and their not so good moments.  As we’ve said before, this lifestyle is not all rainbows and unicorns.  What you see on Instagram and Facebook isn’t the whole story…only the good stuff, because who wants to see the bad stuff.  When we ask the kids if they want to settle down, we usually will get an “only if its <insert their favorite place at the moment>” followed by “let’s go back to the UK”, or “when we get back to <insert any other favorite place> we need to do <insert favorite activity> again”.  Bottom line is they are having an amazing experience, even if they don’t fully understand or totally appreciate it now.  Reim and I believe, hope, that they will be better adults as a result.  And, when it comes down to it, Reim and I make the decisions and they are just along for the ride…and it’s a pretty good ride.