HItch Itch....

(For my sister-in-law, Phyllis.....we are still in Coeur d'Alen, but will be moving eastward Wednesday.....miss you and love you!)

Over the first 12 months of being nomads we moved quickly back and forth across the country, and now in the past 9 months, much more slowly.  I don't think we have completely found our travel style yet, but we are getting closer.  Somewhere in between fast and slow would be best......duh!  When we sit in one place for several weeks (the lone exception being Cedar Key) I start getting the "itch" to "hitch" up the trailer and change my view.  I admit it freely, I have become addicted to changing my view.  Here we are in a very beautiful area of our country, Coeur d'Alene, ID and after a couple of weeks I am thinking about moving again.  Granted, the primary reason for our spending a month here is that I have family nearby, plus we wanted to stay as far north as possible where the weather tends to be cooler on average.  

On the other hand moving at too fast a rate creates a sort of disorientation for me, and can increase our cost of living......the more miles you drive the more fuel you consume, and fuel, in our case diesel, is one of our largest expenses when we move great distances in a short period of time.  Moving a lot, as long as you don't move far, will not increase your fuel consumption too much.  A good example of this is since the end of June we have only traveled around 1,872 miles.....that's about 600 miles a month.....about 1/2 a tank of diesel per month for us.  On the other hand we have been paying to stay in RV parks a lot more, and dry camping a lot less.....the trade off being that when we travel fewer miles we have more dollars to spend on RV parks.  All that being said, until we arrived at our current stopping point we have moved a lot, but not too many miles.  I think that is the balance we are striving to attain.

Here are the numbers.......when we arrived in Cedar Key on December 29, 2012 we had traveled 12,445 miles in less than a year (11 months)....back and forth across the USA 3 times......literally.  Since then we have only traveled an additional 6,322 miles in the subsequent 9 months.  By the time we arrive back in SoCal we will have added approximately another 2,200 miles bringing our total since Cedar Key to a little over 8,500....we'll be there until after the first of the year, so we will have traveled about 4,000 miles less in our second year on the road, than in the first.

Monday I spent more time organizing the trailer, and putting stuff away, and TLE went to do some shopping.  The combination of the dust storm Sunday night, and the intermittent rain made the T-Bird look like it had taken a mud bath, so I spent about 20 minutes wiping it down, and cleaning the soft top so we could put the hard top back on before the rain comes again.

Around 5 we drove into Spokane for one last meal with my sister and mother as we will spend the better part of Tuesday finishing up our preparation for lift off Wednesday morning.  My brother-in-law, Bob, was heading off to a men's Bible study just after we arrived, and our two nieces were at school practicing for the school play, so it was just the four of us for a few hours.  Even though I know we will be back in this area again.....when I'm not quite sure at this point.......it was still a little bittersweet knowing I probably won't see my mother for another year, or more....of course the same goes for my sister and her family.  Every time I think I've got this "until next time" thing down I find out in some cases I don't, and that goes for saying the "until next time" to family members.  That has been the hardest thing about being nomads.......our long absences from family, and especially our children.

We headed home around 8:45, and I don't think TLE and I said more than 5 words the entire 40 minute drive home.  I think we are both feeling that ever present tension between being nomads and spending time with family.  It is a little sobering at times.

I don't want to end this blog entry on a "downer".....I'm just trying to be real, and trying in what may seem to be a somewhat feeble attempt, to convey the emotional conflicts of traveling full time.  I know it may seem like we are just happy go lucky, carefree people wandering hither and yon as the mood strikes us, or the Jello dictates......and that is mostly the case.........but the other side of our lifestyle is the absence of a lot of time spent with family.  Nevertheless, I know that by this time tomorrow (Wednesday) I will turn to look at TLE just after we have gotten on the Interstate and say what I always say....."It's good to be moving again!", and she will reply......"Yeah!".

Thanks for stopping by!