Tag: Nomadiversary
Six Year Nomadiversary!

Six Year Nomadiversary!

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Hey Guys! It’s been awhile. How have y’all been?

Today marks our six year Nomadiversary! You know, when we started this whole nomad life, we were only planning on living in our home-on-wheels for maybe thirteen months and then as I kept researching places to go… it got pushed to two years…and then three years… and now we’ve been living the nomad life for six years!

This Nomad Year was pretty different for us. It was definitely the most stressful year we’ve had. I’ve never had to re-plan our nomad year sooo many times. Some cities were basically closed down to everyone except residents, some cities were wide open, but most cities were something in between. We started out in Logan, UT waiting to see what was going to happen with the whole global pandem thing and hoping things would start to normalize. Y’all know that things didn’t normalize at all, but some National Parks started to semi-open back up. In light of how some of the states we had reservations with were handling everything, we’d already canceled all of our remaining plans for 2020 except our reservation for Yellowstone. So, when some of the parks started to open with limited services…we made a new plan to try and see as many national parks that were on our original plan for the year as we could.

We only made it to thirteen National Parks during our sixth year of nomad life. But, Guys…they were some pretty amazing parks. We still talk about our time in Glacier and the bears we saw in Grand Teton. We found a few very cool State Parks too.

We spent a larger portion of this nomad year in Missouri with family than we’d originally planned. Jerl had to have another eye surgery (he’s doing well now) and then between all of the civil unrest and the continued global pandem troubles…we decided to winter in Missouri mooch-docking in my (Jennie’s) parent’s driveway…which was kind of nice since it allowed us to be around for the holiday season for the first time in a long time. After we had ice growing on the inside of our bedroom walls for several weeks (yep, we had both of our furnaces going and a couple of space heaters), we decided wintering in MO in an RV just isn’t for us. It was so stinkin’ cold!! I’m not sure where we’ll go this coming winter…that’s an entirely different conversation.

It was a good year for wildlife sightings! Our favorites were the bears in Grand Teton National Park. We ended up seeing a total of ten bears (a combination of black and grizzly) between Glacier and Grand Teton NPs.

I think the biggest thing we learned during our sixth year of nomad life was patience… Patience in our everyday life. Patience in our nomad planning. Patience with other people. Patience to overcome difficulties. Patience to wait for the right path to open up.

We’re just starting our travels for this nomad year…we’re hoping the year goes as planned! We’ve got some great parks planned so stay tuned for more of our crazy nomad adventures!

Thanks for coming along for the ride!

See y’all down the road!

#nomadiversary
Five Year Nomadiversary!!

Five Year Nomadiversary!!

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Hey Guys!! It’s that time again…it’s our Nomadiversary!! Today marks five full years of being digital nomads and living our American Dream. You know, we started this whole journey to show our boys that not all American Dreams have to look the same. Some might include a white picket fence, some have you wearing suits and working in offices, sometimes it means you go to work outside and some dreams might look like a home-on-wheels that takes you wherever you want to go. Everyone has different goals and dreams…and that’s ok. It’s those differences that make life so interesting and our Country so great. We really believe that if you can dream it, you can do it. You just have to be willing to put in the effort to make it happen.

It’s been quite the year! We started our year in Texas eating our way though BBQ places and then we spent a couple of months in Missouri visiting family. Every time we’re in Missouri we seem to have a never ending list of projects we need to work on. We did make it to Branson with my (Jennie) parents for a long weekend of family fun. And, the boys got to have Shop Class with Grandpa. We always look forward to our time with family.

We spent almost two months in Colorado finding the wild places and visiting National Parks. Colorado is, with out a doubt, one of the most beautiful states in our country. Our favorite day in Colorado was the day we went exploring up in the mountains on old mining roads.

Utah was in a word…amazing. We did some hard hikes, found some breathtaking views, drove down some awesome dirt roads and woke up with ice on the inside of our walls a few times.

We spent several weeks in Northern Arizona. before heading to New Mexico. I always forget how cold New Mexico gets in the winter. A few of us wanted an actual winter with a white Christmas so we ended our 2019 in New Mexico. We visited some new NPs and revisited an old favorite. Even as nomads we’ve developed family traditions…ours just revolve around certain places. Is it weird we feel at home in several different states?

Arizona was home to us for most of our nomadic year. We were just starting our time there when the Corona Virus started to do its thing. Luckily, we did get a little exploring done before everything closed down. Sedona has been one of our favorite areas since our very first visit back in 2015.

Ok, let’s talk about the real reason you’re all here…the foodies. We do love our local mom and pop foodie shops. And, Guys…we found some ah-mazing places this nomadic year!!

We had big plans for 2020 with tons of National Park units on the schedule. In February and March while we were in the Sedona area, we realized things weren’t going to go as planned. Due to the Corona Virus, everything started shutting down and it became almost impossible to find things in the grocery store. State and National campgrounds closed, some private RV parks were ordered to close, and…all of the National Parks closed. All of them. It’s hard to go on a National Park tour when the parks are closed and there’s no definitive answer as to when they’ll open back up.

When our reservations in Sedona ran out we decided to go ahead and keep with our planned reservation schedule. Our next stop was back to Page, AZ and honestly, we didn’t mind that it was basically a ghost town. Mostly locals. It was so different from the last time we were there when there were people in every nook and cranny.

For now, we’re hanging out in Utah, waiting to see what happens with the National Parks and the campgrounds. We’ve been enjoying the scenic drives that are close by…and the snow topped mountains aren’t the worst thing ever. ;-P

It’s been quite the eventful year for us even with this whole corona virus mess! During our fifth year of nomadary we: explored six states, visited thirty-two National Park units, drove a total of 4,689 miles, and made countless memories.

A few of our favorites from this year are hiking Angel’s Landing, exploring the mountains of Colorado, getting to talk to some Navajo while visiting their home, and hiking the Peekaboo/Spooky slot canyons.

All in all…I’d say our fifth year of living the nomad life was a success. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

See y’all down the road!

#nomadiversary