A Door Opens

I unequivocally love life on the road. It is a life of adventure, exploration, beauty, and peace.

Unfortunately, I jumped into it without any realistic planning. Yes, I did retire, but wasn’t collecting any retirement income. We were living off of the sale of our house, a finite resource. Life on the road was more expensive than I realized. It wasn’t sustainable for two people and one dog to make it for very long without working.

When we returned from our first leg of the trip, I stayed at the farm sanctuary where I had volunteered for several years. The director, a good friend, offered me a job if I would return to Ohio. I loved being at the farm and had always wanted to work at a non-profit. A door had opened, and I would be foolish to not walk through.

We were planning on leaving on the next leg of our adventure soon. I agreed to start in three months. We left and proceeded to see as much as we could in the time we had. It went against everything we had been doing to stick to a budget.

But it was worth it. I don’t regret any of it. If you’ve been following our journey through these posts, you know the fun we had and the sights we saw. Over the course of about seven months of traveling, we visited 17 national parks and monuments, at least 10 national forests, and two state parks through 24 states.

We won’t give up on traveling, even if it means long weekends for now. There are plenty of beautiful places we can visit in our part of the country. In fact, the only dog-friendly national parks are close enough for a 3-4 day weekend trip.

It is with mixed emotions that I start this next chapter, but I know it is what I’m meant to do in this place at this time, and I will relish every moment.

And please keep reading. This is not the end of my blog. I plan on posting more photos of our past travels and writing about my new adventures in the city and outside of it.