…well, at least as much as my furry tyrants permit!

Lots has happened since my 8-year anniversary post.

If you’re easily bored and don’t feel like reading a long story (I know I tend to ramble), here’s the short version:

After returning to Mesa from our travels last winter, we downsized into a smaller Airstream and spent most of the winter customizing it to our liking. Then we sold the other Airstream and hit the road again on April 1st of this year.

We traveled up the West Coast and into Canada, but instead of continuing north to Alaska, as originally planned, we started heading east. Somewhere along the way, we decided to look into shipping the RV and truck to Europe.

We currently are in Eastern Canada and are now seriously preparing to ship everything to Belgium from Halifax in October 2025.

A new chapter is about to start, and usually I’m the “There’s magic in every beginning” type, someone who wholeheartedly throws herself into new endeavors . But this time, I feel a little sad.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how exactly I feel. Sad, for sure, and a little unsettled, because while I’m ultimately making the decision, it feels like various circumstances have steered it more than I have. Or at least, those circumstances have sped up the timeline on something that is now happening way sooner than I expected, with so many things I still wanted to experience left unexperienced.

Long version below:

National Parks

We ended the 2024 travel season visiting a few more National Park Service Units, which led us to

a total of 227 visited NP units, 48 of which were National Parks. Our plan for this year was to finally hit Glacier NP in Montana and some of the more accessible NPs in Alaska. Yeah, life is what happens while you have other plans….

Early Voting and heading home

After the last few NP units we headed to Texas, so I could vote early. Absentee voting in TX, unlike AZ is a pain in the you know where and I wanted to make sure my vote was counted. TDA thought that was a complete waste of time in TX, but I was determinined that if things were tight, even possibly somewhere down ballot, it wasn’t going to be my vote that was missing.

From there we slowly made our way home to AZ, via a couple of stops close to the Mexican border both near TX and AZ so I could refill a prescription in Matamoros and arrange for a dental exam in Los Algodones as well.

We got back to Mesa and settled in our lovely little community in early November and were looking forward to visiting my Mum in Germany for Christmas.

A new Airstream

Shortly after getting back to Mesa, I came across an offer for a 23FB Airstream, which was our ideal floorplan. It was at a dealership in California, which we weren’t so keen about, as we would have preferred a private seller. We had been looking for one casually for a while, so I sent them a message, asking about this Airstream, while considering a quick road trip to look at it. After a couple of exchanges with the dealer, I realised that I didn’t want to deal with these people, so we gave up on the idea.

I kid you not, only a day later another 2008 23FB Airstream pops up at an other dealership, this time in Montana. Yay, ways out of the way, of course.

After a couple of messages, a video walkthrough with a sales guy and some negotiations we ended up making a deposit on the one in MT. Because of an emergency with one of my cats, TDA had to drive up there by himself to do an inspection. There’s a whole long story around that, but that would definitely be too much detail to cover, long story short, we ended up purchasing that trailer and named her Fibby.

Moving in

We spent most of the winter getting Fibby ready just like we wanted, solar setup, new floors and all. While we were still working on customizing Fibby, we put Sara, our 1998 Airstream on the market, just to see.

We sold Sara way quicker than we thought. We scrambled to downsize some more so we could move. Fibby is only 5.5 inches narrower than Sara, but also 11 inches shorter (both are considered 23 ft models, but Sara actually was 23ft and 11 inches). Wow, I had totally underestimated how difficult it would be to further downsize. Plus none of my previous storage solutions fit as the cabinets were configured differently. I ended up playing Tetris for days just to get everything organized and then I would start over, because it never was quite right.

But eventually, after rehoming a few more items via my beloved Buy Nothing Group and our community free shelf, I finally managed to fit everything we had prioritized into Fibby. The Winter flew by and I seriously have no idea where the time went. I definitley didn’t spend as much time volunteering and socializing as I usually do.

On the road again

We had planned to head to Wilcox to celebrate our friend C.‘s birthday at the end of March, but we just weren’t ready in time, so C. came up to Phoenix and I made his birthday cake in Mesa this time.

On April 1st, no fools, we finally hit the road.

We spend a few days in Wickenburg with some of our dear MMC friends and then headed north via Northern AZ, Nevada and through Oregon. In Yakolt, WA we went to see our friends D&D, who moved there from Nevada a couple of years ago. Then we spent a few days in Olympia, WA with our friend K. who recenlty purchased a small farm in her neighborhood. I got to watch the Procession of the Species in Olympia, while my friend K. was in it. What a treat, good vibes all around! And a lovely experience to watch people get together and do something positive. It was a reassuring, almost healing thing to witness.

I had made arrangements to fly out of Seattle for my mum’s birthday in May and had booked an RV park in Chimacum, WA for TDA and the kitties to wait for me. Our plan was to head to Montana after my return and then through BC and the Yukon to Alaska. Somewhere between Yakolt and Olympia we changed our minds for a myriad of reasons.

I changed my flight to fly out of Vancover Canada instead of Seattle and I found a campground for the kitties and TDA in Surrey, BC.

After my return we made new plans.

My desire for FIRE started in Canada, in 1990, during an epic 3 month coast to coast road trip, fresh out of high school and on a shoe string budget. I always wanted to have that kind of freedom again. Stop where you want, if you like the place, stay a few extra days, don’t worry to much about anything…other than the beater car breaking down, which it did, once, LOL!

So instead of heading to Alaska we decided to explore Canada this summer, starting on Vancouver Island and heading all the way to Newfoundland, where we are now. We visited old family friends along the way, some of whom I hadn’t seen in years. We visited with fellow humanist A., I knew from HSGP, and her family near Red Deer AB. I even reconnected with my old penpal, whom I hadn’t seen since 1990. We visited many places I remembered from that epic 1990 road tip and discovered lots of new spots in the process.

And somewhere along the trip we started to consider to not turn back south once we get back to Nova Scotia, but to ship Yoda, our truck and Fibby our Airstream to Europe instead.

Sigh.

Part of me desperately wants another winter season in Mesa, seeing my friends, another summer travel season to fill in some of the gaps on the National Park Service Units map. I definitely wanted to throw a farewell party and invite my friends in Arizona. There’s many other things I wanted to accomplish or organize or just do before leaving the US and I hate hate hate unfinished business. I am a wrapper upper kinda gal.

And now, we are leaving just like that, something we didn’t know yet when we set out on this trip.

And normally I should be brimming with excitement about a new chapter, but alas I am not.

It’s not that I don’t like Europe, I do. And I definitely want to be closer to my mum, just in case. And there’s a million other reasons why we are doing this otherwise we wouldn’t have decided to do this….but still there’s a little twinge in my stomach.

So much for living life on my on terms??

Conclusions

More of the same, like every year. I am ever so grateful for the freedom FIRE has given me.

Make time for the people who matter to you, because nothing in life is ever guaranteed.

Even though some of our decisions feel like dictated by circumstances, the decisions are still ours to make.

I am grateful we have the means to pick up and pivot from situations that no longer work for us and search for new solutions that might. Time will tell if they do.