Here We Go Again....
Life is about to get interesting as we transition from our homey apartment to life on the road.
I know, I know, you haven’t heard from me for quite some time now and all of a sudden I am making this huge claim that we are on the move again.
Our apartment lease is up on July 7th and we have been tossing around several ideas of what we should do once that day comes. Of course it has always been the plan for the summer to travel to Oregon and back, with a stopover in Utah. On our trip we will see parents, kids and grandkids. We also have clients in Oregon who we are excited to be working with, so there will be some extra stops in Gold Beach, Metolius, Elgin and possibly even Helix.
We started planning and whiteboarding and through that process we decided to just let this apartment go; we could always rent another one once we return and of course there is always the plan of buying a house, hopefully sooner rather than later. I actually found the one I wanted a couple of weeks ago, but Rick wasn’t super thrilled about it, so I know that is not the one…not now anyway.
I’ve dreamt of buying a van and fixing it up to camp in and tour the US and Canada, and Rick was finally starting to get on board with the idea, so we started looking more into that option and even took a drive to Oklahoma City to test drive the one we found on the internet. Rick had talked to a nice lady on the phone at the dealership and she acted like she would be our salesperson, but when we arrived we were informed she would not be our salesperson, nor would we even meet her…she was just the lady who answers the phone. This threw us off a little as we stared into the eyes of our 12-year-old salesperson, who, while very nice, was not who we expected to be wheeling and dealing with whatsoever.
He took us out to the Dodge Ram Promaster Van we were interested in and told us all about its safety features and then we told him about a few as well. He was glad to learn more about the product he was trying to sell us.
Then he gave us the keys, no exchange of drivers licenses, nor promises to return the van, just, “Here you go, the freeway is that way, you can’t miss it.”
Rick drove a couple of blocks and then pulled into a large parking lot so that I could drive it through a few neighborhoods to get the feel of it to see if I was going to like driving it. The seats seemed to be a little stiff, nothing like the wonderful seats on our Ford Explorer we were thinking about trading in exchange for this van.
After fifteen or twenty minutes of driving up and down narrow streets I pulled into a wide spot on the side of the road and Rick took over once again. He was anxious to get it out on the open freeway. After a couple of wrong directions from me, the navigator, he was finlly able to put the ‘pedal to the metal’ as some would say in decades past. My seat was getting stiffer with each passing mile.
Once off the freeway I took over driving again and drove it back to the car lot where we spent the next hour or so talking with our young salesman. After a way too low bid for our Explorer we decided to go home and think about it, parting ways with the nice young man we slid into the comfy seats we had grown accustom to over the past four and a half years we’d owned the Explorer.
As soon as we started talking about our experience we knew the van was not for us. We would be spending the summer months touring the West; we knew we could not spend that much time sitting in those uncomfortable seats…we aren’t as young as we once were and our backs are not as tough as they used to be.
From there we shifted our thinking and thought about getting something we could pull behind our Explorer that we love so much. It was only a day or two later when we decided to drive to Poteau, Oklahoma to look at a trailer we had found online. It seemed like it would be perfect, not too small, not too big.
To make a long story short, we bought a trailer, not the used one we originally went to buy, but a newer one that was just like it, only new, with just about the same price tag. It was in Texas, however, and we were in Oklahoma, so we drove home with the intention of picking it up in the near future.
Once we were back in our cozy apartment, that will be absolutely hard to leave, we decided to make sure our Explorer was ready to start towing this 23’ trailer; we took it to the mechanic for a once-over and found we needed new CV axles, struts and shocks.
And that is where we are. Our Explorer is in the shop, the Texas trailer is now in Poteau, Oklahoma and we are anxiously awaiting our first camping trip in the new addition to our list of possesions.
While we wait I’ve started the process of packing up the apartment and have gone through the clothes in my closet, dividing them up into piles for keeping, donating, storing, and also a pile for keeping in the trailer.
I have also begun the big process of going through my beads. I currently have thousands of beads for jewelry making and even made a trip to the Gem and Bead Show in Tulsa yesterday where I bought even more beads…it truly is a fun and creative outlet. I hate to do it, but I will be putting many of my beads in storage. I will also be taking some along on our summer trip so I can make some jewelry along the way. Of course you can see more about my beads on my YouTube Channel - For the Love of Beads and Bowls, and please feel free to like and subscribe.
The next step in the process is getting the Explorer from the shop, driving to Poteau to finish signing the papers, and then taking our new trailer to Wister State Park for our very first camping trip with it. I will be sure to keep you posted on how this next season of our life plays out.
Until next time, I wish you peace throughout your day and a good nights rest.
Lori
I miss you too!
Always a new adventure! I love the trailer 🤍