Details, Details, Details...

How will finances work?

What to do with the house?

What kind of trailer will we live in for the next year?

What will the route be?

What equipment/gear do we lack?

That pretty much sums it up. (Picture taken at Lake Granby)

The last few months have been a whirlwind of activity. Besides all the "normal" running around with work and family and kids' events, we are fully in the throes of transitioning from the life we have known for the last twenty-plus years to life on the road. Getting vehicles ready (we FINALLY sold our trailer, the Moby1 XTR), collecting gear, acquiring the necessary travel documents, and the biggest of all: preparing to be out of our house for a year!

Watching the Moby1 drive away with its new owner.

From the beginning, we knew that the major hurdles would be managing our finances, sorting out what our vehicle and camper would be, and figuring out what to do with our home. During the early summer of 2022, I was ready to sell the house. Prices were silly-high and I've never been particularly attached to A house. In fact, between 1992 and 2007, I had never lived in any apartment/house for longer than two years. Three things, kept me from pulling the trigger. First, we still needed some place to live for a year. Second, although I believed the market was about to soften, if it did not and instead continued to balloon, buying another home when we were ready to get off the trail could have been beyond our reach. Third, Terri and the kids were NOT ready to make that jump. See, I'm sort of a "burn the ships" kind of guy. The rest of my family is not. And, because they are already stepping waaaay out on the edge of life by giving up close contact with friends, routines, and basically all the things they have known to be consistent for the last fifteen years, the decision was made to keep the house.

Around the time we went public with our decision to retire from the Dallas Police Department and travel for a year, we found out that a family we love and have known for years was looking for a house to live in for a year. It was literally a match made in heaven. After a number of conversations and some serious prayer, we all reached the conclusion that our perfect home would be their perfect home. It brings us so much peace knowing that a family we care about very much will be here while we are gone.

Of course, that leads to the next huge step: packing this joint UP! Our furniture will be staying in place, but all the closets, cabinets, cubbies, and crannies have to be packed. This would be a huge job for anyone, but I have a gift for expertly, even artistically, organizing an impressive amount of crap into any space. That means those areas mentioned above, as well as under beds and in the garage have LOTS OF STUFF. Some folks are minimalists... I am a maximalist.

Packing so tight that the only place left for the beer is in the climbing shoes!

This is a good example of what every closet in my house looks like.

Although our departure is not until late June/early July, we have already begun this process. Closets are slowly being gone through, space for storage in the attic is being organized, and decisions are being made as to what needs to stay out for the trip, and what will be placed into hibernation. If I let my mind wander down the rabbit hole of everything that has to be done, I find myself spiraling into a loop of inaction (for your edification: O.O.D.A. Loop) and have to consciously extract myself from the storm of "must dos" and focus on the task in front of me. For a non-planner, its tough.

When your lighting slightly interferes with the shot...

For a planner like Terri, its even tougher, because her partner in all of this is busy exploring... the rabbit hole I just mentioned. I'm running around doing a bit here and a bit there with no real method to my madness. Even today, as I spent the first part of the day working on passport photos which I had assured her I could get done without a problem... there was a problem. What's beautiful about stepping outside of your norm is how you grow as a person. When I told her there was a problem, I expected a barrage of, "I told you we had to get this done sooner!" Instead, she showed me more grace than I deserved. I, in turn, realized that it wasn't fair to her to just take things as they come. I have to do better being proactive about getting things done. See! G-R-O-W-I-N-G! It's beautiful.

Taping out the trailer plan is a great way to see what a space will really feel like.

Over the next few months, things will start happening faster and our updates will be more and more frequent. We will discuss finances, how we got to where we are and what our budget looks like. I'll dive into our gear and why we are taking what we are taking. And, I hope that very soon I will be able to write about our camper, and what shape our home away from home will take. There are some really exciting announcements coming that I can't wait to share. BUT, all in good time. Our departure will be here before we know it. Then, its off on the first leg of our journey, the Florida Keys. We can't wait to get started and we can't wait to share our life in the dash with you!