#117 2023 January 14-20. Nomad Diary. How Long Will You Live This Way? 9 Night Road Trip Beginning Wednesday: Hartselle, Alabama to Portland, Maine.

 

Darrell at the Indian Creek walkway bridge.

View at Indian Creek with a Frisbee Golf flag and basket.

Saturday. 14. I began taking a clove of fresh garlic on an empty stomach. I’ve decided that the Italians have been making condiments for healthy living for centuries! Italian dressing with extra virgin olive oil, fresh garlic, vinegar, and herbs! Also pesto! These old, old recipes are not from just tasting good, but from hard earned living with dependence on crops and our connection to the soil. So, in this spirit of living a healthier life for myself, I’m trying out some extra garlic!  Of course we have morning exercise. A nice phone call with our kids in Maine. Darrell had a call with his mother and I with my friend Laura. We meet our sons Wes and Samuel at 11 am at a brunch restaurant as our mark of our last Saturday here for a few months. We took a long walk at Indian Creek walkway. When we lived in Madison, we walked this pathway often! Darrell worked near here and walked many miles here! We have spent hours and hours on this path and today was sunny, cool and beautiful!  We went back to our airbnb and I took a nap! I got a call from Christi, a woman from the Hartselle church, to invite us for lunch on Monday. We put it on our calendar to share time with a group of seniors from church here. 

Owen playing with Darrell’s coffee mug!

Sunday. 15. Another sunny and cold day. We attended worship at Capshaw church of Christ. We had lessons that kept us thinking and talking about the importance of Christ and his power and his spirit. How all this coordinates and conflicts with some assertions of the Holy Spirit and his power. So interesting and opening for my thinking and better understanding of spirit and it’s use in different passages of scripture. Went out for lunch then over to Eric and Erin’s. Rested through the afternoon with a good visit with Owen and a 5pm singing at Hughes Rd church. We met some new people there and visited for a while afterwards with longtime friends Linda and Charles! It was a sweet day! We drove 40 minutes back to our place, fixed our dinners and rested afterwards with a house remodeling show from Laurel, Mississippi. One of our faves!

Monday. 16. Sleep in until at least 6 am. Lol! Do our stand up DDP exercise routine. Darrell makes pancakes and dark coffee for breakfast! He’s especially good at making pancakes. I fix up bacon, berries and the table settings for our morning feast. We linger and enjoy our meal together. I get some laundry going and then work on this diary for a couple hours as we look forward to our lunchtime at O’Brian's restaurant in Hartselle. We went to the luncheon and there were over 20 people there. It was so nice to recognize so many from the Wednesday night Bible study we attended for 6 weeks while in Hartselle. We sat next to Christi and Rex and got a great visit in with getting to know them better. She had baked a birthday cookie to share with the group in recognition of 3 with birthdays. She has been a wedding cake baker and otherwise cupcakes and party cakes for decades! She makes that look easy. We went back to our house and took a walk.

Taking Owen for a walk.

Packing up our things to leave tomorrow. Our clothes are spread out on the bed. Darrell is reducing the number of shirts he owns by donating several. Our personal trunks are getting filled mostly with off-season clothes. Our current clothes go into our suitcases. 

Our truck crates with labels.

Getting our items out of the cabinets for packing into our crates.

Some pantry items to pack up.

What is left in our fridge will go into our cooler.

Tuesday. 17. We went to visit Owen. We stayed through his afternoon nap and visited a few minutes with Erin when she was finished with work. Eric was there too. We spent time packing today. We unloaded our closet, our kitchen pantry and storage. I did our small amount of laundry. Darrell was able to downsize some more of his clothes. I have downsized my clothes too, but mine still weighs more than his! Lol! I unloaded pounds of items to the thrift store and my trunk and suitcase still outweigh his!

Our packing is getting organized and lined up to load into our truck.

5 of our 8 crates are packed and ready for loading into our truckbed.

We have 4 of these sealing black trunks. One is stowed beneath these three in a hatched trunk. Behind these trunks are our 8 crates.

Here is our front truck seats with filter water bottles.

Here is our back seat packed with our suitcases, coolers and backpacks.

Darrell walking through the woods by a river with falls at Manchester, Tennessee’s Old Stone Fort.

A beautiful walk at Old Stone Fort along a multi-falls river.

Falls at Old Stone Fort. Manchester, TN.

Manchester, TN old town square.

Detail of an old door knob still in use at Manchester, TN old square.

Tennessee plaque showing a settlement date of 1836.

Wednesday. 18. We packed up our truck and said goodbye to our 6 week airbnb home in Hartselle, Alabama. We drove through the country to get to my friend’s house about 2 hours from us in Manchester, TN. I didn’t take any pictures of my friend Laura or her house on this visit! It was such a nice visit and there were so many ‘regular’ things for me that I hold in my heart always. Laura hosted us at her house for the night. We met up with her and her friend Miss Edie, who she helps out with, for lunch. We ate a nice Mexican lunch then went for a walk at the Old Stone Fort. The walk is beside a beautiful river with a lot of falls. The weather was overcast and there are no leaves on the trees. It makes it easy to see through the trees when they don’t have leaves. After our walk we arrived to Laura’s house and moved in for the night and visited for a while. That evening she usually meets two of her brothers for dinner at a local restaurant. They couldn’t make it so the 3 of us went to the restaurant. It was delicious! And it was vintage being decorated 50 years ago and still going now! I had a delicious and well cooked Alaskan Salmon filet! We were surprised at how we would not ever pick this place to go but their food was surprisingly very good.  We went to Bible study with Laura and met many people at the congregation where her cousin Terrel is the main preacher. We enjoyed the encouragement! 

Spectacular Great Falls at Mcminnville, Tennessee on our drive to Kingsport, TN.

Looking down the river at Twin Falls next to the TVA Mcminnville power plant.

Getting closer to Twin Falls at Mcminnville Power Plant.

Another view of Twin Falls at Mcminnville, TN. More spectacular than we imagined!

Climbing up a hill to a small cave and falls. Mcminnville, TN.

Darrell up in the cave.

Inside the cave that goes behind the small falls.

Darrell’s picture of me looking from the cave ‘window’.

Thursday. 19.  We went to breakfast with Laura at another Manchester old, old restaurant: Old Stone Fort Cafe. They made a really good breakfast at un-inflated prices! Lol. Time is standing still here in many ways. It is a place we likely wouldn’t ever go, but we are glad we did! Laura meets up with friends or family here often. We got on the road driving about 4 hours to Kingsport, Tennessee where we have a ‘reservation’ at Glenn and Phoebe’s house. On our drive we went to Mcminnville and found the amazing river and falls near there. They are spectacular and were on our way. Otherwise they are worth a drive to see. We especially liked that the leaves are not on the trees and we could see more. The day was bright and sunny too! We went to Cracker Barrell for lunch and we liked it. The last few times we’ve been there in 2021, we were not liking the smaller menu or the set up. But since then, the menu has expanded again and the lunch specials were well prepared and enjoyable. The restaurant corporation is under new ownership and they seem to be adjusting to the changes well, at least at the location where we stopped. We arrived to Glenn and Phoebe’s house and moved in for 4 nights. They just closed on their house here on January 6th. In Athens, Alabama a couple of weeks ago, we helped load them up as they were selling that house and moving here.

Phoebe and Glenn in their new (to them) home in Kingsport, TN. New light fixture hanging in kitchen and dining rooms. A brass fixture sitting on the counter awaiting tomorrow’s installation thanks to Darrell! 

Glenn and Phoebe’s new house in Kingsport, TN.

View from Glenn and Phoebe’s house in Kingsport, TN.

 

Owen’s sweet face as we visit by phone.

Friday. 20. Darrell did light fixtures today. His brother Glenn has been legally blind for a couple of decades and has a real challenge getting enough lighting to help him the best. We took Phoebe shopping and got ‘new’ light fixtures with lots of reflecting glass. Darrell installed 2 of 3 of them today. We had the place brighter thanks to Darrell and Phoebe! We enjoy visiting and playing cards. Darrell also was doing some odd jobs like taking out a gate at the top of the stairs and then having to repair drywall that tore from the glued bracket. Phoebe was also cooking for us.  

Nomad Notes.

A question that I’ve gotten more than one time in the last few weeks: “How long will you live this way?”  

My answer: “We aren’t sure how long. For now this is working for us. When we made our original plan we thought 2, 5 or 10 years. We have our current calendar projected through the spring of 2024.”

Even though we were both retired by March 2022, we had sold our house and most of the contents back in September 2020. We were planning this retirement nomad travel and working our plan for quite some time. Our original idea was to sell our house in the fall of 2021. Instead of that timeline we took an opportunity to sell a year earlier in 2020. This was more than a year ahead of my retirement date and a year and a half ahead of Darrell’s retirement date. At the time, we really appreciated this ‘extra’ time that we counted as practice moving in and out of airbnb’s and living with pared down items. We enjoyed lengthy road trips as I worked around my schedule and Darrell was a digital nomad throughout the pandemic and the changes resulting from the pandemic up to the time of his retirement. All of this was welcomed practice for us. Practice to learn about and to choose:  airbnb’s that suited us; the contracts on airbnb’s that we liked; price ranges and discounts on length of stays; how our budgeting was working for real; etc. There has been a lot to learn and experience in this fulltime nomadic living. 

I have thoughts of unwinding and unlearning from my former expectations and activities of living in a house that do not exist in this way of living. Things that do not exist for me like they did before: shopping to decorate our house; maintain our house; scheduled and regular payments for our house; share our house as hosts for meals and lodging; planning, shopping and storing for cooking meals; planning, shopping and having space for my crafts; decorating for holidays; and more.  I am letting go of old habits of thinking. As I let go, there is awareness of an open space, an expansion of space. I cannot know fully what to expect in this space of openness and something new. What I am finding and believed in general that every space I occupy has love and surprises. I live my life in spaces and places with love and surprises. I can tell the stories from where I am. I can enjoy my experiences with eyes of love and goodness that I contribute and I receive in different ways than I have been used to. 

Some of our timelines and activities are compressed from what they were in a house. For example: 1) Purchasing food now is usually with a 3-7 day outlook and for using exactly what we purchase. I have streamlined my ‘play’ in the kitchen. It is much more functional and direct for fixing for the two of us. Darrell has always been involved in the kitchen and still is. We each have our specialties and help each other prepare for our meals together. 

2) My crafts do not exist as they did when we lived in our house. This is true for Darrell too. For me, sewing and quilting was a big part of my life. Darrell was a house remodeler and wood-worker often restoring and repurposing old furniture.

3) Darrell and I live closer together with only one vehicle and no working schedules. This has compressed our activities and friendships into spaces where we are more often together. This has been a challenging change. My challenge has been letting go of my work where I was socially involved with my sisters and colleagues. We often traveled, worked and studied our profession together. Darrell and I talk often about these changes and growing together.  We have taken this change as a way to improve our communication and grow our friendship closer as we are living this path together. 

As compression of activities and spaces are noticeable in our changed ways of living; I also experience expansion of spaces that I now have access to. My experiences of expanded spaces in my life now include: 1) Traveling to new places and meeting new people often 2) Revisiting places and people 3) Slowing down to walk for hours together. 4) Having an enormous amount of friends around the world! 5) Living with more services provided such as: all furnished homes or cruise ships and eating prepared foods or in restaurants.

So, back to that question: How long will you live this way?  Hmmm…. ?  Not sure how long we will be Nomads, itinerant, travelers. I am sure that however I am living, I will always live with gratitude for life and goodness of God who gives all men life and breath and everything else with abundant life and mercy through and in Christ.