The Adventure Begins

Adventure (noun) : An exciting or very unusual experience. Participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises. A bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome.

Our ancestors, mine and Carries both, went on difficult adventures. Far enough back, mine were Vikings facing the fearsome north Atlantic to venture to far off lands. They colonized, traded, invaded... they ventured out into the unknown with no modern instruments. More recently, my Great Grandfather came to America from Norway to homestead near Canton, SD. Other ancestors of mine came even earlier from Norway to Wisconsin, one fought for the North in the Civil War.

Back a few generations, Carries ancestors traveled from Germany to America, losing a child somewhere in New York.  (He found his way to southern Minnesota at some point.) The rest, having no choice, continued west and eventually homesteaded the farm that Carrie grew up on between Avon and Tyndall, South Dakota... well Dakota Territory at the time. Like my Viking and more recent ancestors, Carrie's traveled thousands of miles across the Atlantic by ship and thousands more across land by wagon pulled by animals, horses, oxen, or some such.

Our ancestors were courageous, strong people. The distances they traveled with what we would consider primitive methods would terrify most of us today, myself included. So, when people seem amazed at the journey we have undertaken, we look at it through the lens of our brave ancestors. We don't feel all that courageous. Yet, an adventure it is from our cushy, first world perspective. 

The reasons for our journey were likely similar to those of our ancestors, opportunity, better environment, and maybe just the need to see what's on the other side of that next hill. We'll talk about that more in another post. Our problems though, were likely quite different and far less dangerous. Some of our problems were already staring us in the face, some would come soon. Others, well, there were other problems bubbling under the surface that would rise up much later.

We had made it across the state of South Dakota, only 350 miles of travel into a 1,500 mile journey. The Phoenix, our RV, was not going to make it the rest of the trip. We were traveling by caravan, the RV pulling the Jeep and Carrie following in her Dodge Dakota pulling a 12 foot long cargo trailer. The last time we had taken the Phoenix over the Rocky Mountains we had to unhitch the Jeep and have Carrie drive it until we reached flat land again. We had forgotten that, hadn't planned for that. We had to make a decision. 

Turning back just wasn't an option. We had worked too hard for too long to get to this point. We loved Sioux Falls and South Dakota, but there just wasn't opportunity for us there anymore. We'd spent half a lifetime trying to make our home state work for us, trying to fit in. At some point you have to realize that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is a definition of insanity.

So, we could sell the RV and cut our losses... but what would we live in once we got there? We could try and drive it anyway and hope that it made it. Improbable. Finally, we could have it transported. Yes, we give our ride a ride. 

After a degree of research by the lovely Carrie, she reserved a trucking company to pick the RV up and drive it all the way to Whidbey Island. I would drive the now well repaired Jeep and she would drive the now well repaired Dodge that decided to nearly catastrophically lose it's entire breaking system the day before we were planning to leave. On a side note, dying, grinding brakes combined with the speeds and steep slopes of the scenic Black Hillls of South Dakota highways make for some... unique... aroma's. Brake pads certainly have a smell all their own. 

With heavy hearts and lighter wallets, on April 3rd, 2016 we set off into the west. There's a sadness in leaving behind South Dakota, but a joy in beginning a new adventure.

                             Sundance, Wyoming

We blazed across the seemingly endless Wyoming. I swear that state is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. Borders made by the Sleestack. Then there's Montana. Montana is just plain big, but once you get past the part that looks just like the scrub lands of Wyoming and dry grasslands of western South Dakota, you do finally get to some impressive scenery.

                             Bozeman, Montana and the beginnings of the Rockies.

After a couple of days travel we crossed the border of our new home state, Washington! We spent the night in Spokane at the Best Western Peppertree Airport Inn. This is the same hotel that Carrie and I stayed at on our first exploration of Whidbey Island. It's a very nice place with a 24 hour swimming pool and hot tub. In typical fashion of our trip so far, the hot tub was down for repairs! However, they also have a great continental breakfast! We're all about the food. When you figure the cost of three people going to breakfast at even the Denny's across the parking lot, the price of the hotel room is suddenly more affordable.

Once again we did not spend any time exploring Spokane. Someday we will remedy that as it seems like a very nice city. Instead we plowed ahead into the morning light, leaving the pines of the Rocky Mountain foothills to emerge into the rather arid farm and ranch country of central Washington.

It only takes about four hours to drive across most of Washington, until you reach the Cascade Mountains. The Cascades are known as the Alps of America to some. It's understandable as this is a beautiful mountain range. Rocky, snow capped peaks rise like frozen titans all around. Interstate 90 cuts through them only by permission. Still, we have little time to linger here and continued our pace all the way through them.

It's an odd and sudden transition to descend from the majestic Cascades straight into the urban sprawl of the Seattle Tacoma Metro area. With my Jeep in the lead and Carrie following close behind with the pickup and 12 feet of cargo trailer, we entered the big city traffic... right at 5:15pm. Yes, every car in the Pacific Northwest had just left work parking lots and entered traffic. Apparently all 4 million area residents wanted to be on the same 30 feet of interstate highway that we were on. It was quite a welcome. 

Now, I should back up a minute... well, not in traffic... but I should point out that Carrie has never driven in a very big city. She has driven Sioux Falls plenty. She has driven city buses and tractors. She is an experienced driver in general, but had never been presented with the "opportunity" to drive in major urban traffic. So, of course, why not try it for the first time at rush hour and with nearly 25 feet of vehicle trying to follow a Jeep Wrangler.

I will say that the drivers of the Seattle metro make things a little easier. I've driven a lot of this country at one time or another. I've been in the traffic of Orlando, Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. I've seen some crazy drivers, I've seen some rude drivers.  Minneapolis drivers are fast but fairly organized, I like driving there. Illinois drivers don't seem to understand that the gas pedal provides a variable rate of travel and seem to have cars that are permanently locked on Hyper Space. The drivers in San Fran are pretty courteous, the drivers of LA are just plain mean.  Seattle drivers remind me of San Francisco drivers. It's a fast pace of 6 or more lanes of traffic speeding through the city, but if you hold pace with everyone else, they open spaces for you and don't crowd you out. There's a "in it together" kind of feel. As long as your mannered enough to signal your intentions, you do ok. I like driving there. Carrie, not so much.

Deep grooves in the Dodge steering wheel not withstanding, I focused on finding holes in traffic large enough for our mini convoy and Carrie did a great job of staying with me. It was crazy at times, it was a complete standstill at times, but we made it through the worst of it and arrived at the end of the road, Mukilteo, Washington. 

There is this moment, as you leave the hustle of the interstate and enter the more residential area going into Mukilteo, when you come out of the houses and trees and suddenly see it. Cody's jaw dropped as we started down the hill. He stared out the window to the left of the Jeep. "I get it now," he said to me, eyes wide in awe. The trees parted to reveal an expansive view of Puget Sound and the tree covered islands that seem to float in the distance. Majestic is an understatement, particularly when one has lived their entire life surrounded by flat land and farm fields. 

Mukilteo is home to the historic Mukilteo light house, an Ivars Restaurant location, the Silver Cloud Inn, and most significantly the ferry dock. On the other side of the water, not that far to tell the truth, sat the ferry dock at Clinton Washington on the Island known as Whidbey.

                             The view from our room at the Silver Cloud Inn. Mukilteo, WA

                             The ferry dock and the little beach at the Silver Cloud in. 

We checked into the Silver Cloud Inn where Carrie had found us a beautiful room with a view of the ferry dock and the sound. We settled in briefly, then headed to the Ferry to check out the island! It was a short visit but a joyous one and Cody's first time on a ferry and first time on an island! Having arrived a bit too late for most of the restaurants on the island, and being very hungry, we left Whidbey behind for the night to go eat at Ivars next to our hotel.

                             On the ferry, Whidbey Island behind us.

                             A full ferry headed in to Mukilteo, the Jeep is on the right.

We had beat the RV by only one day. The next morning I to had rise early, miss the wonderful continental breakfast they have, and drive to Fort Casey on Whidbey Island to meet the truck driver. It was a beautiful, sunny morning and I didn't mind the drive itself. The ferry ride over was refreshing, I love riding the ferry! The drive on the beautiful, winding highway 525 that runs the middle of the island was wonderful. At the end of my trip, in a large parking lot next to the Port Townsend ferry dock, sat the Phoenix.  

I thanked the driver, signed some papers, parked the RV in a safe spot and went back for Carrie and Cody. They had kindly gathered some breakfast for me, a welcome sight in a long morning. Packing our things, we left the hotel, boarded the ferry yet again, and set off to start our new life.

                              Officially becoming, The Anderson's on Whidbey Island!

On April 6, 2016, we set foot as a family on Whidbey Island, Washington. That morning we officially became the Anderson's on Whidbey Island, determined to have a constant presence, determined to buy our new homestead. 

Of course, nothing ever goes that easy for us....

The Black Hills of South Dakota

After an… interesting… trip across the state of South Dakota, we finally settled in for some rest with Carries parents near Hill City, SD.  For the past, well, year really, we’ve been doing nothing but pack, organize, plan, repair, remodel, and pack some more in preparation for a major journey. Add to that the thought of moving 1,500 miles away from many of our friends and family, and 2015 and the beginning of 2016 were stressful to say the least. As you can imagine we were ready for R&R now.

Our first couple of days in the Hills we simply rested. We gathered what essentials we needed and then settled in to watch movies, enjoy some great food, and spend time with family. Yet, knowing that it would be quite some time before we made it back to South Dakota again, we also wanted to enjoy some time as tourists.

We set out on our first Black Hills expedition with a quest to visit as many rock shops as we could in a day.

Now, you may not know this about Carrie and I, but we are amateur rock hounds. We aren’t extremely knowledgeable about geology yet, but we’re learning.  We can generally tell an agate from a quartz from a granite. We know a bit about selenite, tourmaline, garnets, hematite, and a few other gems & minerals. Mostly we know what we like in the “Ooo, pretty” range of rock hounding.  In short, we both walk around with rocks in our pockets…. which of course is better than rocks in our heads!

So, we spent our day in Keystone at the Rock Shed, Hill City at the Dakota Stone Rock Shop and with the very nice ladies at the Things That Rock rock shop. Finally we ended our rock shop tour in Rapid City at our favorite shop, Indigo Iris Rocks and Stones. We found some great treasures to take on our trip at each stop! We concluded our day with a drive through the hills and a brief stop at Horse Thief Lake for a stretch and a bit of photography and a quick visit to see George (the side of Mt. Rushmore). (click pics to enlarge.)

 

 

Our next outing was to visit what is easily the worlds largest art project and will be the worlds largest monument when it is completed. It has its own art and history museum and is a tribute to a great leader of North America. Most of you have probably guessed it. Need more? It is a memorial to a man who fought for his people and was ultimately killed while under a truce agreement to visit his ailing wife. This is also a monument that is being built with no government money at all. It is funded strictly by visitors, sales, and donations. Yes, we spent part of an educational day at the Crazy Horse Monument.

We viewed the massive monument to Chief Crazy Horse, then we went inside to learn about him, the monument, and Native American Tribes of the area. There we were, surrounded by art works and history, and Cody… Cody found a gun. Granted, it was a very finely crafted and artistically engraved rifle. Next he found a tomahawk, then some pistols, a club, a bow, a sword…. there could be a trend here. Yes, Cody is 16.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the monument, museum, and gift shop and we thought we’d continue our stay with a lunch at their on-site restaurant. It was Easter Sunday and not too busy, but we certainly weren’t alone. Imagine our surprise when we learned that the restaurant at a tourist destination, that you have to pay to get into, was offering seating by reservation only. Yes, with no public notification that we could find… and I did look on their website before we left… they were offering seating only by reservation. Oh, and it would be an hour and half wait.  Deciding that the rather small $19 per person buffet didn’t look or smell all that good anyway, we chose to dine elsewhere. The sad thing was that half the seating area was empty. There were easily 10 tables open that were being unused.

Beyond that, it was a very nice trip and I highly recommend visiting. Cram everyone into a single car when you do. There is a per person fee, but there is also a cheaper car load entry fee.

Going back to our love of rocks, our next expedition was to a place that was on Carrie’s “bucket list”… the Fairburn Agate Beds.  Consulting people in rock shops, a book about the agates, and another about rock hunting, we had a fairly good idea of where we were going. Take this certain road out of the town of Fairburn for twelve miles. When you see the 4H Picnic Grounds sign, turn in and park. Easy, right?

Well, it’s important to understand that maps from the 1940’s are not always accurate. It’s also important to understand the only constant is change.  So there we were, 12 miles out of the almost ghost town of Fairburn, looking for a roadside sign. At sixteen miles we still hadn’t seen it and had run out of road. Fortunately we hadn’t run out of luck. A local rancher drove up in his pursuit of a wayward bull. We had, in fact, just seen the rather self-impressed bull standing in the road about a mile back and told him so. When asked about the agate beds, however, we learned he was a new hired hand in the area and didn’t know about them.

So, we turned around and tried again. We found a gumbo filled mud hole of a driveway that looked like the right place on the map. There was no 4H sign, but there was a National Grasslands entrance sign. Knowing that the agate bed was within the Buffalo Gap National Grassland, this was a positive, er, sign. Determining that the truck would likely sink to somewhere near India if we tried to drive in, Carrie and I jumped out to do some recon. We avoided the prairie quicksand and walked about a quarter of a mile to where the trail met French Creek. There were the occasional tell-tale signs of someone sifting gravel through a qualifier, so we thought this might be the place.

Now for those who haven’t gone out to play with rocks or prospect for gold, a qualifier is a pan with holes in it. Smaller rocks go through, bigger rocks stay. You do this through a series of progressively smaller qualifiers and sift the good stuff out of the sand and dirt. The result is a sandy pile, which we found a few of.  What we didn’t find was anything that looked like something that might be called an agate bed. We did find a few nice quartz pieces and some bits of Prairie Agate, but not very much.

Returning to the truck, we learned that Merlon had gotten more information from a young boy who lives in the area and, in fact, he was helping the previously met hired hand to escort the proud bull back to his pasture. The 4H sign was apparently a sign of the past. It no longer existed and we needed to turn in at the French Creek Campground sign.  A new sign of the times I guess.

We did this, found the sign directing us to the agate beds, and still felt a bit lost. A dirt road crossed, well disappeared under really, French Creek at this point and disappeared over a hill side. Still nothing that looked like agate beds here, but we had hope.  The five of us crossed the creek on foot, not sure if driving the truck through was a good idea, and started up the path. Cody went on ahead at a faster pace. After a bit, I decided to join him.

The short path soon turned into somewhere between a mile and half and a thousand miles to get to the agate beds. Yet, we did indeed find them! Before us was a collection of hills, ravines, and washes just covered in quartz and agates and other interesting stones. It wasn’t so much a matter of it being difficult to find something to pick up, it was more a matter of wanting to pick up everything! Never have I seen a more beautiful collection of minerals, especially quartz, so concentrated in an area and just laying on the ground. The quartz in particular was what some call prairie tumbled. They were all rounded like river rock, and very smooth.

Cody went back to inform Carrie and her parents that the beds were more than just a mythical legend while I started the hunt for a specific kind of agate, the illusive Fairburn Agate.  After a time Carrie, Kathy and Merlon arrived with the Dodge Ram. It seems that a much smaller vehicle had made it back there, so they figured the Ram should surely make it. It did and we were grateful.

Carrie & Shawn. Pic by Cody.

We all spent the rest of the afternoon filling five gallon buckets with geologic treasures and having a wonderful time. We might have found a couple of partial Fairburn Agates, but we definitely found Prairie Agates, quartz of many kinds and colors, and so much more. This place is definitely on our visit list the next time we come back to the Black Hills.

Our last big goal was a bit out of this world, yet not. It was to a place that “means something”. According to stories, there are those who traveled millions of miles to visit there. According to legend, a giant bear was behind its creation. We drove, with Carrie’s parents, through the heart of the Black Hills. We passed the past glories of gold and fortune. We emerged upon the high plains to the north and turned west toward the arid lands of red, of mesas and canyons, of tumbleweed and pines. 

Turning north again on our journey, we topped a hill where it was revealed in the hazy distance. Like a mirage, or perhaps an omen, it loomed above the surrounding terrain. Through a valley, around a bend, and up another hill and it was closer, yet still far. Even at this distance it was huge, a geologic Rex surveying its domain. It grew larger, almost impossibly large, as we reached the gate that gave us access and audience with the cold monolith. “Devils Tower National Monument” the sign read.

As a child this was a place of wonder and dreams for me. I grew up with the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” making a massive influence on my young psyche. My fascination with UFO’s and aliens… and Devils Tower… barely waned in the following years.  This would be my third visit I think. This ancient volcanic creation was as impressive as I had remembered. The only thing that would have made it better would have been a hike with Richard Dreyfuss…. Or maybe Giorgio Tsoukalos.

The wind was cold this day, however, and more snow was threatening to roll in. Thus, our stay was not as long as others I’ve made. Carrie, and Cody and I made the walk up the sidewalk leading to the boulder field at the tower’s base.  Kathy & Merlon joined us most of the way. Cody, clearly having a degree of mountain goat coursing through his genetics, immediately started to climb the boulder field. However, the winds of March soon convinced us to enter the visitor’s center and gift shop.  Yes, we bought stuff.

 

Our visit to the tower complete, we returned to South Dakota and the north Black Hills city of Deadwood! Being March, the town was fairly quiet. The historic buildings, locked in eternal stately poses, could be enjoyed, and photographed, as we took our time walking the storied streets without crowds to hinder us. The ghosts of gamblers, miners, and working girls watched on as we explored the modern remnants of what was once a very rough place.  We took the time to visit a few gift shops, peaked into the fateful Saloon #10, showed Cody a bit of what a Deadwood Casino looks like, and took many photos.

By this time, there was talk of a large winter storm bearing down on the Hills, so we felt it best to return to the Heart of the Hills. After a long scenic drive, we arrived back in Hill City to enjoy a delicious meal at the Hill City Café and then back to the acreage for a long winters nap.

The Black Hills, especially in the summer months, has something to offer for most everyone. It is a tourist region, so everything costs more. Yet, it is worth a visit to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Monument, to the shops of Keystone and Hill City, the shops and casinos of Deadwood, and so many other attractions and locations.  Even the winter has offerings with skiing in the north, four wheeling, snowmobiling, and more. It’s a wonderful place to visit but a challenging and expensive place to live.

We will always love the Black Hills and will miss the beauty of the pine covered landscape. Yet, we know this is not where we belong long term. It’s hard to come to grips with where one doesn’t belong, especially when it’s a beloved place like the entire state of South Dakota.  We will return to visit, but our future lies elsewhere.

The journey continues….

DEPARTURE

The day came, and went. We weren’t ready. So, we set another day. It came and went too. Finally, we set that hard date of March 20^th. Most everything was complete. The trailer we had acquired was filled to the roof and ready to hitch to Carrie’s Dodge Dakota. We had only a few items to pack into The Phoenix and we could be on our way. Those “few” items were apparently distant relatives of the five loaves and fish and quickly displaced any possibility of walking or sleeping inside the RV.  Packing to become Homesteaders is much different from packing for a trip it seems. We soon had items that we hadn’t used in years but just might come in handy while fending for ourselves. 

The projected departure of morning quickly became late afternoon, then early evening.  Yet, with sunlight still in the sky, we were ready to hitch the trailer to the pickup and the Jeep to the Phoenix (the RV). My first goal was the trailer. With a full load the tires were looking a little pudgy around the bottom. A quick check told me they were a bit low on air.  With the expert directions of Carrie, I skillfully backed the truck up and the hitch dropped on the ball with little difficulty. The Dakota had a different opinion. As we cranked down the trailer jack, the pickup began to creak, groan, and find it’s way toward the concrete. Yet, the foot of the jack lifted off the ground before the hitch touched… a good sign.

Feeling confident that we were on our way, I jumped behind the wheel of the Dodge and slowly pulled out of the driveway… almost. “Stop!”, Carrie yelled. I stopped. I got out. I smacked my forehead.  The low ride of the hitch had conspired with the slightly steep angle of our driveway leading the trailer jack to bottom out. The term bottom out is used here to mean a situation in which the jack completely buries itself in a small portion of dirt which had to be driven over to get completely out of the driveway. Indeed, it wedged itself between two portions of concrete. It was not moving.

Determining that we didn’t really want a new lawn ornament, Carrie reminded me of the new 6 ton bottle jacks in the RV. This did the trick, lifting the fully extended trailer jack out of it’s two foot deep grave. A bit of wrangling and a different, higher, ball hitch and we succeeded on our perilous journey from the driveway to the street. After a quick trip to top off the air in the tires, I parked our rig at the curb and discovered that the Dodge had become a bit snooty. It’s rear, and the hitch, were nearly touching the black top while it’s nose was positioned firmly into the air. Yes, the pickup was ready for lift-off.

 Now if you’ve never driven a vehicle pulling a trailer before, you may be unaware of the phrase “the tail wagging the dog”. It’s like it sounds really. Imagine driving down the Interstate Highway only to have an overloaded trailer swing to one side thus causing the pickup to swing the other direction, and then back the other way when the driver tries to compensate. This is a little circus act that often ends up performing in a ditch near you!

Determining that we didn’t want the pickup and trailer to become a ditch ornament, we proceeded with unpacking the trailer and sacrificing items we thought we could live without. This exercise continued until the pickup was at least closer to the level condition it was before the addition of the trailer.  By this time it was very late into the night.

Around 1:30am on March 21st, we finally hit the road.

The first stage seemed fine, though we figured out The Phoenix was getting about 3 miles per gallon. Yeah. I was driving the RV with Cody riding along. Carrie followed in the pickup. Then it happened. Somewhere shortly before Chamberlain, Carrie called… “pull over, there are sparks coming from the Jeep!” Not needing to be told twice I quickly found the shoulder of I-90 and pulled over. The smoke had stopped rolling off the front passenger side tire by the time I had walked back. The tire itself was pretty torn up and listing more than a bit to starboard. A quick check found that we didn’t have the key positioned quite right in the ignition to keep the steering unlocked. Quite the contrary, it locked up so well I almost couldn’t get it to move. As a result, the tires were tracking wrong and tore up a tire. We would find out later that it wrecked the brakes and the axle as well.

Let me just stop for a moment and say that we are big fans of AAA! It was around 3:30 in the morning when that slightly sleepy tow truck driver came to rescue us. A pretty friendly guy for that time of the morning. He easily got us to a truck stop at the Chamberlain exit where we could also park the RV for the night. We then found refuge in a very nice AmericInn across the street that had very soft beds and a pretty fare continental breakfast. After a bit of sleep and food, we found a U-Haul and rented a car dolly to tow the Jeep to the Black Hills.

The motorhome was getting a little better mileage with the Jeep on the dolly, but it was still only around 5.5mpg. Not great. Then we got to hills. Near Wasta, SD is a pretty steep and long hill coming out of the Cheyenne River valley. The poor RV made it, but we were down to 25mph by the top of the hill. We made it into Rapid City without too much more difficulty, fueled up again, and started toward Hill City and the acreage of Carries parents.

We barely made it out of Rapid City. A very long hill lies on the south edge of town. The Phoenix had a lot of will, but the hill had more won’t. Most of the way up, we lost power. I pulled over. It started again, traveled a short distance and stalled again. We repeated this little cycle until making it over the hill and up another small hill to the parking lot of one of our favorite rock shops. 

Once again I mention that we are fans of AAA. While Carries parents came to drive us to their place, AAA came to bring both of our vehicles in for evaluation and repairs.

By the following day we determined that if the RV couldn’t make the hills here, it certainly wasn’t going to pull the Jeep through two large mountain ranges. It made the same trip back in 2004, with many other issue, but we had to unhitch the Jeep and have Carrie drive it through the worst climbs. We can't do that this time, so we realize the RV will not make the trip as is. We will be seeking a way to transport our RV to Whidbey by other means. It will still make a wonderful cabin, and will likely drive around on flat land just fine. We just need to get it there.

With that, we are safe and sound in the Hill City area and ready to have a little fun and relaxation.

The journey continues.

The Mud-hap

One of the time consuming parts of preparing for our great journey has been an intrusive law in Sioux Falls that prohibits one from parking their own RV (or camper, trailer, boat, or even car) in one spot for more than 48 hours. Yes, technically if you don't move your car, even if it's completely in your own driveway, before 48 hours you can be ticketed. Herbie down the street sat there for years until recently. Apparently our local "watch dog" of neighborhood vanity laws was unaware of the car part. He or she was clearly aware of the RV law. (Thank you, the nice letter from the City when we went over by a couple days was so friendly a greeting!)

As a result we have been moving "The Phoenix" (our RV) to an outdoor storage facility on a regular basis. The upside is that I've gotten a lot more practice driving the rig again. It's nice to be comfortable operating 30 feet of indignant motorhome whilst traveling 1,500 miles behind it's wheel at Interstate Highway speeds. The downside is that we need to keep working on it and it's not always here.

While these trips south of town are typically uneventful, a recent trip gave me an "opportunity" for a little muddin'! Now, muddin' is something usually best attempted in a Jeep or lifted pickup. You know, go out in your 4X4, find a mud hole, dive in at full speed, splash around a lot, and make the local car wash see dollar signs as you approach.

After much melting I discovered the gravel lot where The Phoenix nests had become a little, let's say... soggy. Thinking that the size of my tires would largely ignore such a minor wet spot, I positioned our bird for a landing in her roost. I lined up, started to back in, and quickly learned that the muddy looking area had delusions of grandeur thinking itself more as the Okefenokee Swamp than a parking lot puddle. The rig planted herself firmly in what would turn out to be some form of north-land quicksand. She fought valiantly in our attempt to dislodge the rear tires from the sticky clutches of this hungry puddle, but to no avail. After a bit of rocking back and forth, I soon decided that all motion was simply digging us in deeper.

I surrendered.

Fortunately, the owners of the facility had equipment capable of pulling her out the next day and we were able to return and drive her safely home again. So, our first little mishap... er... mudhap of the trip. Hopefully the last.

A New Adventure

43 years. For 43 years I've lived in South Dakota. I was three when we arrived here. Carrie was born here. Sharon was born here, moved to California, and moved back. Cody was born here. South Dakota has always been home. Still, it's time for a change.

I'm Shawn. Chances are, if you're reading this, you already know me or someone in the family. Chances are you know us all. My wife Carrie, our youngest son Cody, and my mom Sharon are about to make a massive change in our lives. We are leaving South Dakota. We will travel 1,500 miles to the Northwest to become homesteaders in Washington state. My two oldest children are, unfortunately, not coming with us. Ryan is in college and doing his own thing. Eryka is out of high school and into a career training program and is doing her own thing. Hopefully we will get them out for visits, we also plan to come back for visits.

The first question we get from friends and family is "why move away?" There are actually a number of reasons. The first, and most important, is Carrie's health. The fiercely cold South Dakota winters cause her extreme pain in her knees due a permanent chronic condition. On the flip side, the summers are too hot for Sharon's health. I don't handle the heat well anymore either.

The next reason is opportunity. As an artist whose goal is to pursue a career as a working artist, South Dakota is a difficult place to be. I need a place with opportunities for artists. Indeed, even trying to find work at all in South Dakota has been a collection of road blocks for me. I've worked in advertising and marketing for around 27 years. Yet, because of a combination of upper management experience, owning my business, and not have a University degree, I have not been able to find work here. Believe me, I've tried.

The timing is finally right for us as well. Ryan and Eryka are doing their own thing now and don't need us around really. Carrie is on disability. Sharon is retired. Cody is home schooled. I just completed my Bachelors Degree in Studio Art. Everything is falling in place.

The next big question we get is "where are you going" and "why there?"

We are moving to southern Whidbey Island in Washington. Whidbey is straight west of Everett and Mukilteo, a bit north of Seattle. The Island is around 45 miles long from north to south, 10 miles wide at the most, 3 miles at the thinner points. The south part of the island is an artists colony area. It is populated with artists, authors, actors, musicians, and crafts people. It is home to frequent festivals, fairs, and weekly markets. There are also a good number of art galleries, wonderful restaurants, and unique shops in towns like Langley, Clinton, and Freeland. The people are kind, open minded, and welcoming of new people.  Oh, and no, it doesn't rain all the time. Whidbey is in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains and gets less rain annually than Sioux Falls.

After a few years of research, a visit, and lots of planning, we are taking the leap and moving to an island in Puget Sound. Carrie, Cody and I will be going out to find and purchase land and then put up a house. Once we have proper shelter, I will fly back, finish packing up the house, arrange for our things to be shipped, put the house up for sale, and then drive back to Whidbey with Sharon.

We invite you to follow our adventures, and maybe mis-adventures, here on our blog and on our Facebook page. There's a badge to our Facebook page in the column to the right. (Just click on it to visit our page.) We'll be posting stories and pictures as we go. You can also subscribe to our blog by email. Just put your email address into the little box to the right and hit submit. Follow the instructions that pop up, then check your inbox for a confirmation email. Then you'll get automatic notifications whenever we post!