A Whole 'Nother Thang...

 

Well, we done did it.

When it came down to finding another rental property that accepted pets, all while paying an obscene amount of rent, we just couldn't fight off the bad feeling... like this was not what we were meant to do.  We had no earthly clue WHAT we were supposed to do, but this wasn't it.

Which poses a rather sticky dilemma.. what DO we do?  Buy a house in this market is out of the question.  Neither one of us really wants to live in Idaho, where Tracy works.  

Enter the sweet kiss of serendipity.  

Several months ago, I got the sudden impulse to invite Tracy to one of my shoots... this time in California.  She had nothing going, so she agreed to keep me company, and we set out for CA... driving.

Long story short, we had a phenomenal time. We went to the coast, explored our old haunts in the Santa Cruz Mountains, had breakfast at a hole-in-the-wall cafe in Boulder Creek, and climbed down to the rocks at Davenport, and at crab on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.  It was magical.

We had long mused about how fun it would be to be able to travel together... see things we had never seen before, or reexplore places we loved.  

About the same time, we had gone to the movies and saw "Nomadland," starring Francis McDormand... whose character lives a kind of nomadic life with a group of fellow wanderers... 

The final nail in the coffin for us was the memory we had of renting a 29' travel trailer a number of years ago, when our two youngest were still at home... we took them to Southern Utah on Spring Break.  And had a blast!  

So, on a whim, I decided to stop one day when I was out, and check out the travel trailers at a local RV dealer.  Expecting them to cost WAY more than I was prepared to pay, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were actually quite reasonable.  

I was particularly attracted to the 5th wheels, which seemed like mini homes on wheels.  But what to pull it with?  My old Expedition, I knew, wasn't suitable.  That threw a bucket of ice water on my dream.

That is, until Tracy filled out an online approval app by CapitalOne, which cheerfully informed her that she was approved for up to a $75k loan.  

I went to a dealership right around the corner from the RV dealership, and lo and behold, they just HAPPENED to have a pristine, immaculate Dodge RAM 3500 turbo diesel club cab dualie... just BUILT for towing.  Took us all of an hour at the dealership, and traded in our two cars to drive off with this beautiful truck.

Now... what are we going to pull?  After a rather cursory search online, we found a used 5th wheel for sale by a guy in Ogden... went up to see it, and he told me that he had been hanging onto it since his wife had passed away for the "right person" to take care of it.  Apparently, I didn't scare him off, because after meeting my wife and I, he was convinced we were the "right ones." 

Now the challenge was financing this new trailer... we doubted our credit union would, but decided we had nothing to lose.  Our jaws literally hit the table when they told us, "Sure, we'll finance that."

Every single element of this process fell swiftly, and neatly into place.  And the cherry on top, was that we both felt immensely good about our decision... and the direction we were going.

As luck would have it, both us of work mostly from home... as long as we have internet, we can work.  For some thing, though, Tracy has to actually be in Idaho... such as for jury trials.  She had one scheduled during the first 3 weeks of June, we we decided that that would be an excellent "trial run."  

We spent several weeks getting the trailer loaded and outfitted, and then the fateful day came... 

(to be continued...)