With Seattle and so much of the scenery in the rearview mirrors of my van, I was already forgetting about the draconian world I was leaving behind. I knew I was far away when I’d talk to people who were unsure where Seattle was on a map.

I knew I was in a different culture when the Pacific Northwest, in general, made the weekly national news because of what the Midwest saw as shockingly stupid government policies. I found that amusing. It was a moment of, “Well, I guess I’m not the crazy one after all!”

I was generally too busy working on my big experiment to even think about what I left behind. I’d miss my friends, but we had Zoom. My entire focus was on solving the problem of finding that ideal base. A search of over 10,000 homes on Zillow, and A-B selecting every night of roughly 150 homes, would quickly narrow down the group to one or two.

The process was more difficult than I anticipated because so many homes were very photogenic but rough-looking dogs in person. It’s the photos they didn’t include that generated the rapid in-person rejects.

One home in particular outside of Mineral Point, Wisconsin, looked amazing in photos but was horrible in person. No, no, I’m understating it. This house in person looked like a set for a serial killer. I couldn’t get over it. I said to the realtor that I saw it as a teardown. It was so horrible, I felt catfished. How did I miss how grim the place was? It looked like it had good bones in the pictures, until you got close and saw that the doors were too low and out of trim, some couldn’t close at all, and nothing was built to code or by the hands of a skilled builder. The only redeeming factor was the stone construction. It was what someone would build alone if they were missing a few marbles.

I just looked on Zillow for sold houses in that area, and it’s not on the list. I don’t think it ever sold. It’s probably a rental or abandoned.

Others were remarkable but lacked something important, such as a yard, adequate garage space, or neighbors who weren’t selling meth. One cute house in the woods butted up against a generational, yet somewhat accidental, automobile junkyard. It was always something, until I walked into this house.

The question was, can I do my best work here? The answer was YES!!! Then multiply that by a thousand. It’s remained true since the day I moved in. The second question was, could I still build my work from this remote location? After three years…hmmm. Maybe, and that’s where I am in the experiment. I have clients, but can I sustain them here, and will I still attract work at major distances? I think so.

This is where the big experiment remains incomplete. What you see on this website, my writings on Quora, Substack, and other places, are all intended to prove the big experiment: that someone could, in fact, build the perfect life off the beaten path and still have an amazing career. The answer is still QED. (It’s Latin. Look it up.)