The Whole Point Was to Be Flexible

I'm sorry I've been quiet for a while.

Truthfully, I've been dealing with some emotional stuff, and this summer didn't exactly turn out the way we thought it would.

But then again… maybe that's the point.

When Mike and I started this whole adventure, one of the things we talked about constantly was being flexible. We were leaving behind a pretty traditional way of doing things, and we knew that meant we couldn't expect everything to go according to plan.

Somehow, though, actually living that philosophy is a lot harder than saying it.

We're so ingrained from childhood to follow a certain path.

Go to school. Graduate. Maybe go to college. Get a job. Work. Buy things. Pay bills. Work some more. Build a life around a schedule and a series of expectations that were largely laid out for us before we were even old enough to question them.

Mike and I have both been working since we were legally allowed to at 15 years old.

That's almost 30 years of working. We're concidered to be on the young spectrum of "middle aged".

So it's probably not surprising that learning to stop thinking in terms of “the plan” has been harder than we expected.

Because this was supposed to be an adventure.

And the whole point of an adventure is that you don't always know what's coming next.

Things We Definitely Didn't Plan For

We didn't plan on Mike being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and suddenly needing regular medical care and checkups.

We didn't plan on diesel climbing nearly two dollars a gallon from what it was when we originally started planning this lifestyle.

And we definitely didn't plan on our first attempt at workamping/camping not working out and ending as abruptly as it did.

We didn't plan on a lot of the things that happened this year.

Some of them were frustrating.

Some were scary.

Some were heartbreaking.

And some simply forced us to sit down and say, Okay… well, that's not going to work. What's next?

But that's where the flexibility part comes in.

Because we're two adults.

We don't have dependant kids whose lives and schedules we have to coordinate around. (We do have grown 18+ kids who do not live or depend on us.)

We have some four-legged kids who are very important members of our family, obviously, but they're also pretty damn adaptable.

And that means we have something a lot of people don't necessarily have:

We can pivot.

We can change our minds.

We can change directions.

We can try something and decide we don't like it.

We can sell something.

We can buy something else.

We can stay somewhere longer.

We can leave sooner.

We can completely screw up the original plan and make a new one.

And honestly?

That's kind of freaking awesome.

So… What Now?

Well, we're changing the plan again.

We've decided we're going to sell the bus.

That probably sounds strange after everything we've put into it, but the more we've thought about it, the more it makes sense for what we actually want.

The bus was supposed to help us travel and see the country.

But a 40-foot diesel bus is expensive to move around, and diesel prices have changed the math considerably.

And the truth is, we really want to travel.

We want to see the United States before we settle down.

We want to explore places we've never been.

We want to meet people, find weird little towns, eat good food, get lost on purpose occasionally, and figure out where we might eventually want to plant some roots.

Eventually, yes, we'd still love to have land.

We'd still love to build something that's ours.

We'd still love to experiment with gardening, self-sufficiency, preserving food, and all the other slightly feral homesteading things we've been dreaming about.

But we're not in a hurry anymore.

And maybe that's another thing we're learning.

We Actually Did It

When I look back at this year, it's easy to focus on everything that didn't go according to plan.

But then I have to stop and remember something pretty important:

We survived.

We didn't starve.

We didn't freeze to death.

We didn't roast to death.

We figured shit out.

We made it through situations that weren't what we expected.

We met some genuinely wonderful people.

We made friends.

We had experiences we never would have had if we'd stayed on the traditional path.

And despite all the chaos, we actually had a pretty damn decent summer.

Maybe it wasn't the summer we planned.

But it was ours. It brought us closer. Made us stronger. (Though there were probably days Mike wondered if us [dogs and me] and the bus would still be there when he came back ..ha)

And that's worth something.

The Next Chapter

So here we are.

Another pivot.

Another plan that isn't exactly the original plan.

And another reminder that the plan was never really the point.

The adventure was.

After the next few months of preparing, selling the bus, figuring out what comes next, and getting ourselves organized, we're hoping to finally hit the road by the end of the year.

Technically, we'll be about ten months later than we originally planned.

But who's counting?

Okay, I'm counting.

Ten months. 😂

But we're still going.

And maybe that's the most important part.

We're still moving forward.

We're still figuring things out.

We're still dreaming.

We're still choosing a life that doesn't have to look like everyone else's.

And I'm going to try really hard to start sharing more of that again.

Because this blog was supposed to be about the adventure.

And apparently, the adventure decided to remind me that adventures don't come with itineraries.

So here's to the unexpected turns, the backup plans, the complete plan changes, the ridiculous situations, the lessons we didn't ask for, and whatever the hell comes next.

We're ready.

Well…

As ready as we're ever going to be. ❤️l