It’s Been a Year!
Today marks the one year anniversary of my departure from Kirkland, Washington, (Seattle area.) The whole adventure has been far better and more colorful than I imagined, and it’s changed my view of middle America, and what it means to live in the Midwest.
August 16, 2021- Leaving my old house for the last time.
As my friends know, I’ve documented every day of this adventure since July 21, 2021 while I was packing up the house. I did it for four reasons. One was personal safety. People always knew where I was and what I was doing. Second, I wanted to document the trip of a lifetime. Third, I wanted to record how I was doing day-to-day, and how this journey was impacting me. Last, I wanted to keep people up to date without writing lots of emails as it would take the focus away from the adventure. I wanted to be completely immersed in the road ahead.
When I thought about the adventure and what I was seeking, and where I wanted to explore before I left town, my brain could only take me as far as my prior experiences, combined with my imagination. What I didn’t know, and what I couldn’t comprehend at the time, was that the journey would reveal events and places that were not within the script I wrote in my head. It was better, and far more colorful.
My inability to imagine got in my way more than anything. I would assume something would be less exciting than it was in reality, and that was an important lesson all by itself. Paying attention to the moment was like sitting still with my eyes closed listening to music.
Two weeks later I was on the Lake Michigan shore in the new Sprinter.
Every day wasn’t perfect. But, yet it was. It added to the story. I had small challenges, but that was a part of the adventure. As the days passed, I learned to build that probability of uncertainty into my schedule and it all worked out. It reminds me of building a company and how it’s never a straight line to success. Instead, you are constantly dealing with lots of detours. This experience was no different. You just go with it.
This is what life should be like for me. If you’re days are turning one day after another into the same thing, it’s time to do something about it. Getting to that point took me a long time before I took action.
A stop at the birthplace of Flag Day in Waubeka, WI
I didn’t follow any “goals” as people like to create, but rather a criteria for myself, and that’s all I followed. Keeping the borders a little fuzzy made it interesting. The experience had to fall within some parameters, but always with room for something new and the chance to alter my plans in an instant. As Louis Pasteur said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” I was the prepared mind.
I did little things to set a general course, like avoiding bad traffic. Seattle gave me my fill. I preferred passing through small towns. I looked for interesting roads, routes along rivers and lakes, towns that had a story, and I did a lot of preparation when I was stopped somewhere overnight. I researched everything. I followed the weather, and I changed course a lot. I was on a mission to find home, and I didn’t know where or when it would all stop.
One of the hundreds of interesting stops.
As the changing seasons pushed me south, I ended up not too far from a place I researched years earlier. I once discovered a very special home in Mountain Grove, MO, not too far east of here, that looked like the perfect house. I researched the area just for fun, never seriously thinking that I may someday end up here. Yet, this is where I found home.
Weeks before I left town, when I started writing daily entries, friends would write me to comment or make suggestions. This was an important step because it helped keep me on Track.
Finding Moose Lodge in December 2021.
I looked at over ten thousand houses on Zillow, and dozens in person, and all steered me to the house I’m in now. I discovered what became Moose Lodge in November 2021 and the sale closed in Late December, just in time to bring in the new year, and just as the snow began in the south-west corner of Missouri. I fell in love with this place and now it’s home.
I wasn’t fully moved in until mid February, and I’ve been discovering this corner of our great country ever since. This was what I was looking for all along. I’m living the change I was seeking.
This was always about shaking up my world and it worked. It got me to a better place. I wish this adventure on everyone. I still don’t know what I’m doing next, but hope to find that incredible company to take on an amazing journey.
The life-changing component to my character was a renewed sense of self-reliance. I came away feeling like I could solve any problem and that no challenge was more than just a minor inconvenience.
I made it one year. It’s still not over.