#250 Nomad Diary. 2-8 August 2025. Week 2 of 8 at Our Madison, Alabama Airbnb. Nomad Notes: A Mid-Way Milestone for 500 Saturdays!! Ways That We Have Changed Since Becoming Full-Time Nomads.

Swan Creek Walk in Athens, Alabama

 

Phone Call with Quinn in Brazil

Owen and Esther Sitting With Grandpa at Our Madison Airbnb

Eric and Erin at Our Airbnb

Owen by the Tree in Our Yard in Alabama 

Saturday. 2. Today Darrell decided to look at taking a cruise starting in Southampton, England on September 27th. It was one we considered several months ago, but we weren’t ready to commit. Now, it is possible for us to consider this cruise. It is on the Emerald Princess and is a round trip to the Arctic circle in Norway. This is the same ship that we are booked with our son Samuel in October for coming Southampton to Fort Lauderdale. Darrell’s current eye treatments have been varied on this next round to have more weeks in-between doctor visits, and this allows us more time away and to consider taking this cruise. We discussed it and decided that we can do it. Darrell got through all of the booking for this cruise. Then we made our list of what we need to do next. Our first to-do item was to change our plane tickets to England. We had already looked into our possibilities before booking the additional cruise.

Sunday. 3. Mornin g routines of exercise and breakfast. Worship at Capshaw church of Christ. Eric’s family came for lunch to our Airbnb house. It’s worked out really well to have them for lunch on Sunday. It’s our second Sunday in a row to have tacos at our house with them. Later in the afternoon Darrell and I were able to decide on our travel dates to England and to get our air tickets changed. We are able to fly one way from Huntsville to Atlanta and then to London on September 19th, the date we check out of our airbnb. Eric and Erin have agreed to let us park our truck at their house while we are out of the country and returning at the end of October. Monday. 4. We have a quiet house and we are sleeping well! It’s quite comfortable and I’m glad for this because we are here for 2 months. After breakfast, I have a 2 hour phone call with my friend Laura. Darrell has a dental appointment today. We go for a walk after lunch at Swan Creek Park in Athens, Alabama. The nice, wooded walk with a stream, at the park is about a 15 minute drive from our house.

                             At a Ladies Small Group From Church Dinner Get-Together

                                                Our Madison, Alabama Airbnb

Tuesday. 5. Our regular morning. Tuesdays are often the day we do our ab routine workout. It’s a tougher workout routine and I’m so pleased when I am able to do it and get it complete for another week! We go over to the Capshaw church of Christ for a 10am Bible class. We are in Acts. This week and last week we are on an interruption from our online class from England. Once that begins again we’re hoping that we can do both Bible classes on Tuesday with the current time zone and time differences. We’ve been doing the online class since 2022, I think. We are hoping to revisit the Tunbridge Wells church of Christ when we go over to England on Sept 19th. It’s been since the spring of 2023 that we were last there. We stay in touch as we attend their online Tuesday class. In the afternoon, we went shopping on our way to Indian Creek walkway. We walk on the path through the woods and enjoy the much cooler and cloudier weather today. After dinner we go to see Owen and Esther. We take them to their neighborhood playground and spend about 30 minutes outside playing. They both ran circles around the tennis court! Such great energy and toddler joy!

Wednesday. 6. Morning routine. I woke up at 5:30 am in a great mood. I woke Darrell up and he was not as energetic to get up as I was. He got up anyway. We exercised and were finished with breakfast by 7am. I put black beans in the Instapot to cook. Around 8:30 I went over to Eric’s house for a couple of hours. Me and the kids hung out once they got used to just ‘grandma’ without ‘grandpa’. Then I went to Athens and did a little shopping before heading home for lunch. After lunch Darrell goes for a nap. I do some cleaning and prep-cooking.

Thursday. 7. Morning routines. Darrell makes oat-barley pancakes that last about 3 mornings. We have slices of pork tenderloin that I have baked ahead and ready to slice and warm in a skillet. I measure out a bowl of additional toppings for each of us. It includes non-fat greek yogurt, Good low fat cottage cheese, fresh berries, a local seasonal peach, and nuts. We serve it all up with a tablespoon of real maple syrup and strong black coffee. Since last fall when we changed our diet to include higher amounts of protein and fiber and less saturated fats, this breakfast has become our absolute favorite! We both want this almost every day that we can make it. 

Friday. 8. 

Nomad Notes. Here I am at #250 of my 500 Saturdays. A mid-way milestone. I’m asking myself how I have changed through these years of travel. I knew. We knew we would change through our experiences and through our nomad living. We didn’t know how we would change. I’m thinking of some of my changes. I see the world as a smaller place and a bigger place at the same time. The smaller place perception comes in my thought that I’m just an air ticket, cruise ride, or road trip away from going to a location about anywhere. A trip to London takes less than a day. We can be in Brasilia, Brazil within 24 hours. We can enjoy driving into British Columbia or Utah with a slowish pace of a couple of weeks. 

The world seems huge when I think of the vast Antarctica. We saw a itty bitty portion of it with its massive miles-long icebergs and colonies of penguins making a snowy mountainside stained with their traipsing. 

Our planning for where we will go next has become closer and closer. We aren’t planning months in advance for most things. Our first couple years of retirement we knew where we wanted to go. We had a big plan and we have completed those plans. This year we had the idea to go to Alberta and British Columbia for a couple of months. We planned from February for April- July. Our road trip back to Alabama was still getting details and stays within the month and even within a couple weeks of travel. It all went well. It was enjoyable to stop with friends and family for 2-3 night visits as we took 3 weeks to drive from Washington state to Alabama. The trip even felt rushed a bit at that rate. Through this spring and summer odyssey and adventure, we have some very loose plans that only go through mid-January. 

We are in this current Airbnb through September 19th. There is a window of 2 ½ weeks that we have no bookings for a stay yet. I have some ideas for where we can go and I’ve been finding airbnb’s that look good to me for my ideas. And as I find places, we are still not quite ready to book and confirm. A part of our hesitation has to do with needing to be in Huntsville for Darrell’s eye doctor appointments that have various dates. 

The eye treatments have certainly changed our tether to Huntsville. 

We also have some ideas of where we want to go at some point, but we aren’t feeling the need to commit to one direction of the other at this point. 

What I’m saying is that we have both become more relaxed about planning where and when we will go. 

I have become more relaxed and accepting of myself as a nomad. I’m 5 years into calling myself a nomad. I’ve got an equivalent of a Bachelor’s degree and heading for my Masters with this kind of living.

Since last fall when Darrell needed to lose weight and reverse his NAFL (non-alcoholic fatty liver), we began eating a higher protein diet, less saturated fats, more fiber, tracking, and learning. I’ve lost 10 pounds and gone down 1-2 sizes. I feel better and stronger. Our streamlined eating plan is working for us both for now. If or when it doesn’t work, then I’ll figure out how to change. For now, this type of eating is very different for me from how I was eating. This is a big change for both of us. 

I read this to Darrell and he added a few comments. He noted that changes occur that don’t have to do with nomad living. But the particular changes that have to do with nomad living that he’s noticed are that our planning cycles are very different than when we began. We are more ok with last minute planning. Some things need earlier planning like going to tourist areas during peak season. Going to non-tourist areas is easier to plan as we go. There is an exception with staying for a month is worth planning ahead weeks or months. Mainly because on airbnb usually there is a discount for a month long stay. If we wait too close to our dates, then sometimes we can’t book a full month. There might be a nice place, but their calender has a weekend blocked by another renter. 

The other perception change for us is what we consider a short cruise versus a long cruise. Being on a ship for 1 or 2 weeks seems short for us now. We still feel like a month is a long time on a ship and we have been ready to get off of the ship after a month.