#246 Nomad Diary. 5-11 July 2025. Nomad Notes: "This Nomad Life-Style" We are Living. Nights in Moscow, Idaho with Jones Family. 1 Night at White Bird, Salmon River Cottage Lookout, Idaho Airbnb. 4 Nights at Boise, Idaho Housesit with Dahlia the Cat.

Near Seattle, Washington. Coffee Shop Stop on Our Way to Moscow, Idaho.

Second Breakfast at the Coffee Shop Near Seattle.

Talking to Our Sweet Quinn (4 years 10 months) From Our Truck. His Daddy Jeremy is Our 3rd Son. They are in Brazil.

Beautiful Mountains Heading East Toward Idaho

Another Gorgeous Mountain on Our Drive Washington to Idaho.

A Meal Stop in Royal City, Washington. One Main Street with About 7 Mexican Restaurants.

A Very Nice Salsa Bar in Royal City, Washington

Austere Landscape in Eastern Washington

Wheat Fields in Eastern Washington

Outside of Moscow Close to Our Friends House

Arriving to the Jones House Near Moscow, Idaho

Riding to Church with the Jones Family in Moscow, Idaho

The Jones Hosted Us in Their Home Near Moscow, Idaho for 3 Nights.

View from the Jones Home in Moscow, Idaho

Jones Home in Moscow, Idaho

Stephanie and Benjamin Cooking for Us!

View of Lewiston, Idaho with a Historic and Curvy Road in the Foreground.

Saturday. 5. Drive to Moscow, Idaho. We arrived at the Jones family around 4pm. Larry and Stephanie and 4 kids ages 10-21 are hosting us through Tuesday lunch time. 

Sunday. 6. Worship at Moscow church of Christ with the Jones family. Met Stephanie’s parents, and sister’s family. Darrell ended up cooking dinner by making his oat-barley pancakes for the whole crew of us. The family added all of the extras including bacon, yogurt, cottage cheese, syrup, fruit, etc.

Monday. 7. Day with the Jones. We all went for a mid-morning walk around a small lake near their house. In the afternoon I rode with Stephanie and their daughter Elizabeth to Lewiston. It was a scenic drive to get Elizabeth a short dental visit. On our drive back to Moscow, Stephanie took a different route where we stopped at a high scenic place above the city. From there we viewed both cities including Clarkston and looking down the mountain was a curvy, snaking road built in 1917. We were now driving a much easier road to climb the mountain. Stephanie had gone to college in Lewiston and run that winding road for an event in her past. 

Driving Toward White Bird, Idaho

Amazing View From Our Airbnb Above the Salmon River and White Bird, Idaho

Front Door of Our Airbnb Near White Bird, Idaho

Inside Our 'Tiny" Airbnb House in White Bird, Idaho

That View! Wow! Near White Bird, Idaho

View From Above Our Airbnb at White Bird, Idaho

Beautiful Scenery on the Drive to Boise, Idaho

Headed to Boise, Idaho

This Cutie. Owen (3 years. 10 months)

Drive to Boise, Idaho

Arrived to Our Pet Sit in Boise, Idaho

Our Cat Pet Sit in Boise

Tuesday. 8. We stayed until after lunch. Mainly to get connected to our Tuesday online Bible class. This is the class where we met Larry Jones resulting in his invitation to be with his family now. We had a good time showing up in class with the three of us together in Idaho. Drive to White Bird, Idaho. This drive is stunning. The climatic point is coming down the mountain into itty bitty White Bird. There’s not much internet connectivity along the drive. We stopped in an earlier town for a couple grocery items and gasoline. Our airbnb host let us know that a restaurant in White Bird was good to eat at. We decided to eat there before going to our airbnb. It was another 8 miles to our cottage. 5 miles of that 8 were going up a mountain. The last couple of miles was a narrow, winding gravel road with no side rails. Darrell was driving well. Arriving at our place with spectacular views was wonderful. We enjoyed our quiet evening with air conditioning and nice amenities. 

Wednesday. 9. Wake up at Salmon River Cottage with a view. Exercise on the deck. Make breakfast. Clean up, pack up, drive to Boise. Our drive is scenic through the canyon that is part of Hell’s Canyon National Area. Beautiful mountains, gaining more forests along our way. By lunch time we are in a plains area with more farming communities. There are signs and directions to recreational areas with camping, boating and fishing. We have lunch at a small town. We arrive at our Boise housesit around 3-4pm. Our host is Goldie with one friendly cat named Dahlia. Goldie has cleaned and prepared our room and bathroom as is normal. She shows us around through our afternoon together. She has some typed instructions. Mainly we are watering her flower gardens, a few vegetables and feeding the cat two times a day. The neighborhood has shade trees and that’s fabulous because the temperatures are in the upper 80’s to 100. Later in the afternoon, Goldie turns on her air to cool her house down. We all go out for dinner and enjoy time getting to know each other. She’s a retired artist who never married. She adopted and raised her Chinese daughter between San Diego and Idaho. Her daughter lives in California now.

Out for a Walk Near the Downtown of Boise, Idaho

Near Downtown Boise

Fun Sculpture in Downtown Boise, Idaho

Thursday. 10. Darrell made pancakes today. He makes enough for 3 mornings. Otherwise we will usually eat eggs, pork tenderloin and toast. Besides taking a walk around our block, we stayed in the house or sat out back. We worked on our computers. I had a call with Cathy (Nomad Notes) who lives in Brasillia, Brazil. We took care of the few responsibilities at our housesit. 

Friday. 11. Boise walking path downtown next to the river. Grocery shop. Lunch and dinner at our house. In the afternoon I drive downtown and go through the Idaho State Museum. Darrell gets a haircut. 

Nomad Notes. Thursday was a one hour call with Cathy. Cathy is in Brazil. She is unfortunate to lose her federal job after 17 years! Currently the US Trump administration is shutting down a lot of government jobs. For Cathy, her agency: US Aid is closing and she’s being let go. It’s a big disappointment for sure! She and her husband are moving from Brazil to Michigan. They have two children in college. She is brainstorming about how and what she is going to do next. She learned about us through a conversation with our daughter-in-law, Andrea at the Embassy commissary. This conversation with Cathy covered topics like my experience being a massage therapist, which I did for 16 years. I stopped massage therapy and increased my EPT business while we lived in Huntsville, Alabama. I was around 50 years old and worked for Madison Drugs. I also had my own office on and off. Madison Drugs is a natural pharmacy that offers massage treatments and other natural practitioner care. Cathy also wanted to talk about this nomad life-style that Darrell and I are living. She is exploring her possibilities and it’s fun to be in on her conversation and questions. During our call, I had to get Darrell involved because he is a huge part of why we do what we are doing. He’s the numbers and spreadsheet man. He’s the one with the pension and the years of income that we saved to live on now.

Here are some basics of our hows of nomad-living:

1. Answer the question: How much does it cost to be you? This was an important question that was posed at a retirement seminar that Darrell took years before retiring. We tracked our expenses of living in our 4 bedroom and 3 bath house. This gave us annual cost, monthly cost and daily cost of what we were spending where. Once we knew our answer, then we could analyze if we had enough to retire and at what ages. Darrell is the one with the pension income that we added to our savings withdrawal amounts. 

2. Analyzing retirement income before you begin can be tricky. Our sources were our savings and Darrell’s pension. Social security is a future income source in our current system. Would we have enough to pay for what it costs to be us? With education about this and interviewing current retirees, Darrell was getting the details with numbers and explaining to me along the way. He has explained this over and over and I’m still not solid on all of the details. I get much of the big picture and understand that we have enough to live similar to how we have lived. 

3. What is different now is that we aren’t saving from our income. We are withdrawing from our life-long savings as one source of our current income. We live on a fixed income based on our savings withdrawal and Darrell’s pension. Our savings is expected to run out as we live on it until Darrell is at the top age for beginning his social security. Currently we have been retired since 2022 and the market has been up and down. Our savings have not depleted at the rate we are spending. This is the magic of interest, investments and an up market. In reading about retirement there are articles that give people a general rule for saving and having enough to retire. We found out that these general rules are not what we have to go by. Specifically the 4% rule is way too generalized for our specific needs and goals. 

4. Money and Budgets are one aspect of nomad living. We have met other nomads through our travels and we discovered that no two are alike. Single, married or a family every nomad or nomad group has their own way of travel and working out the finances. We call this nomad living our game. Others have their game. What is important to one nomad isn’t always of value to the next nomad. Each traveler is unique in how they move about and how their budget works for them. 

5. Nomad living isn’t a vacation. A vacation is limited by time and returning to work. These boundaries are gone, and exploring has become slower than when we had these boundaries. Generally this slower pace results in lower expenses. One example that is easy to see is the “two together pass” in England. The train tickets are discounted by 50% or more if you travel at restricted times. More examples: visiting Avebury Stone Circle and not going to the more popular Stonehenge; Getting to visit 25 castles on our annual pass over 4-6 months versus the three that would be possible inside of a weeklong vacation. 

6. Books significant for us that we read early on were: How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free (Ernie Zelinsky) and The Psychology of Money (Morgan Housel). We got these books as referrals from some blogs or lectures. Since I have added: On Your Own: A Widow’s Guide (Armstrong and Donahue)

7. How do we decide where to go next? It’s a mixture of our interests, our values and our budget. It’s back to our game and our opportunities. It seems open-ended until you are restricted in some way. Like having to go to the doctor every month, or caring for a family member.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 ESV “Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.”