Staying Still

~Friday, October 21, 2022~

Day 859

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHANE!! 😘🎂🥳🎈Our youngest turns 26 today. Gosh, where has the time gone? We are so very proud of you and the adventuresome man that you are. Keep living life to the fullest and hope your 26th year brings you loads of fun experiences! We can’t wait to see you in just a few days!

Jeff had had a horrible night’s sleep and wasn’t feeling 100%, so asked if it would be o.k. for us to just stay “home” for the day. He felt a little guilty, with it being our last day in Bend, but obviously we weren’t going to push it if he wasn’t feeling good. It was just as well to stay put, since the weather wasn’t all that great anyway. But here’s the thing…….I was actually somewhat relieved to know we weren’t playing tourist today. To me, it is clearly a sign that we are longing for some permanence for a while. It’s not to say the RV lifestyle isn’t for us. But there comes a point where you just need a break from the exploration. The nomadic lifestyle does lend itself to be exciting and appealing. But when it comes at you on nearly a daily basis in 28 months time, the truth is, it’s exhausting. I’ve written about this before, but now that we’re getting close to staying put for a few months, we’re even more eager for a change. I think it’s also been accentuated with the fact we’ve been moving quickly most of the summer. The ideal scenario is staying in one place for at least a week, not 3 or 4 days like we were doing. We are completely ready to embrace idleness. Hopefully, by January, we are ready and willing to see new places again. The discoveries have been amazing but it’s also given us an opportunity to see what really suits us. And we think that having a balance of a home base mixed with travel is more fitting. I honestly don’t think we could permanently live full-time in an RV, no matter what the size. That was never the intention anyway, but meeting so many people on the road with no intention to have a permanent home again, made us question if we were fit for it as well. We’re not. So, we stick with our plan of doing this thing until April 2023 when we begin the intense search for our new home base!

Beating the rain which started around 5:00, I was able to finish up detailing the outside of the truck while Jeff rested. As you can imagine, I had a line of customers. Going along with it, my reply was always, “I’ve maxed out all of my customers for the day”, which always got a chuckle. It’s actually quite interesting to go from a region where most people don’t give a hoot how dirty their truck/rig is (Alaska) to an RV park where no one can stand one speck of dust or bird dropping on their trailer. Actually most Class A owners who stay in RV parks share this mentality. I don’t think Hank’s ever looked this handsome other than the day we drove him off the lot. Now for the inside.