500 Saturdays: Nomad Diary

Monday Reunion after 40 years with my High School girlfriend! She lives in Olympia. We reconnected through Facebook in 2009. She and her husband drove down to have lunch with us in Vancouver! Wow! I still love her and I was so excited to be together for a few hours! Tuesday we drove to view Mt. St. Helens with just clouds! Lol. We had rai, fog, sleet, snow, and sunshine 🌞. A very mixed day with no views of any of the big mountains. It was it's own kind of beautiful.  Thursday is turkey day.  It was a delicious success! I made a pumpkin pie and pecan pie bars. Jeremy baked the turkey, made mashed potatoes and whipped cream for dessert topping..  Darrell made crockpot stuffing and giblet gravy. Andrea cut up and prepared Brussels sprouts and green beans.  Dana brought flowers and sparkling juice. Quinn's artwork is on the fridge.  Our group included Dana Cargioli,  my sister, Annette's d...

Here we are on Saturday in our Brush Prairie Airbnb.  Behind me is the one door into the main room combined living room and kitchen.  Darrell is enjoying the comfy recliner.  We flew Tuesday from Huntsville, Alabama to Portland, Oregon.  The airlines (Delta) kept changing our flight time from our original tickets until we got into Portland at 10:30 pm, not our original time of 5pm!  We had already planned to spend that first night at a hotel near the airport with a shuttle.  On Wednesday we slept in for us to about 5am local time, got a pretty good cup of coffee in the hotel lobby.  It is Portland, Oregon where the coffee is usually really good!  We put on our winter coats and walked about a 1/2 mile to a breakfast place we found on Google.  Airport Cafe was very clean and operated by a senior Asian couple.  The food and prices were good.  We took a hotel shuttle back to airport, got our rental car, drove back to our hot...

It's true today that I am officially retired.  In May of 2020, I knew that Darrell and I would retire together.  By August 2020 Darrell was quite certain he would be able to retire in March 2022.  About a year ago I began announcing to my clients that I was closing my business at the end of 2021.  My last day was yesterday.  I've gotten the question, more than once, what will you do now that you aren't working?  I don't have the answer fully worked out.  I know there are things I want to learn and things I need to learn.  This nomad life takes a different kind of effort than living in a house. We have felt like we are practicing as we are learning this different kind of living.   Shopping and purchasing short-term, furnished rentals is very different from paying a mortgage.  We have booked out our future stays almost through February.  We have some weeks of gap from the end of February to the end of May when we have a 34 day cr...

This Saturday is the day after a Friday family wedding near Gettysburg, PA.  Once we were up and checked out of our hotel, we spent the morning walking around Gettysburg and looking at the architechture.  I've included several pictures of houses and buildings.  I bought a loaf of sourdough bread at a baking company on the square.   We ate lunch at Dunlaps in Gettysburg, then started our drive to Bryce Resort in Virginia. Crab Bisque and a Salad made by a local recipe of lettuce, boiled egg and a sweet dressing. At Dunlap's Restaurant in Gettysburg, PA View on bridge looking toward Harpers Ferry, West Virginia on our way to Virgina. Darrell's brother Glenn and his wife Phoebe invited us to their family vacation at a 4 season resort in Virginia.  They were staying a full week.  We were able to stay 4 nights before heading back to Huntsv...