Being home and lots of questions…

We’ve been back for two weeks. We got home just in time to experience some of the coldest weather Michigan has seen in a very long time. Many do not like it, we actually don’t mind it at all. Granted we have a different view now that we aren’t forced to face it first thing every morning during a commute to work.

Besides being here to see the beautiful winter, we are able to help out family and friends. Of course we are shoveling and plowing at my mom’s. She’s inundated us with food and giving us a roof over our heads so we are trying to pay her back any way we can. We are able to shovel and plow at my Grandpa’s, and help out a few others who needed a quick hand. It’s been nice not having a schedule and helping out keeps us busy.

We are excited, however, to get back into our house February 9. We can now tell you that our renters have been planning to leave for a while and he took a job back in their home state of Ohio. We stayed in communication with them and were okay heading back home when they told us in December what their plan was.

We honestly knew what we wanted to do just a few months into our adventure. We loved being on the road, we loved seeing new things, we hated the trailer. We are really happy we hauled the trailer all over the country because we got to do some really awesome trails in the Jeep, but when we left Alaska and Canada and got back into the lower 48, we were frustrated. It was harder to boondock, harder to get gas, harder to turn around if you missed a turn. It was just not what we wanted. We really wanted to go home, sell everything, get a new rig and get back on the road.

Traveling is for us. It suits us perfectly. We had different stresses than what our normal day to day was but we were able to handle it our way and in our own time. Although we absolutely love our house, we realize how much it ties us down. We paid it off two years ago but it still costs money and time to maintain it. We both feel like life is passing us by when we have to turn down fun things because we have to mow, blow leaves, stain, chop, split and stack wood. As we get older, we don’t want to spend all of our free time keeping it up. So yes, it will be up for sale at some point. We don’t have a place we want to live picked out. We want to travel, rent in places that interest us for a few months at a time, and experience more of what our country has to offer.

The vision of our ideal life has changed from what it was 17 years ago when we started building the house and that’s okay! As far as emotion goes, we have every single memory in our heads. We can look at pictures of my dad helping with the trim, Craig’s dad working on the fireplace or all of them helping sort 40 ton of rock in the driveway.

We’ve had many many questions since we’ve been back. What was our favorite place? Are we home to stay? Why did we come home so early? And how we could we possibly afford something like ths?

Our favorite place was Alaska. We’ll be home for about two years, we think. We came home early because our renters were leaving. And we planned together for the trip. We didn’t win the lottery or get an inheritance. Since 2009, when we decided that debt had no place in our lives and this type of trip was in our future at some point, we planned. We made a good income together which helped to start. We continued to work hard and we decided together about all of our purchases. We set ourselves up to pay off our house, put away money for retirement and have money to travel.

We are not going to go into detail about the numbers because it really is nobody’s business. The only thing we can stress is if you want to do something like we did, you have to communicate with your spouse. It’s hard to talk about big purchases with your spouse if you aren’t used to it. Some don’t like “asking for permission”. If you look at it that way, then you’re looking at it wrong.

When you start dreaming together and looking ahead toward a goal that you both want to achieve, then the things you want or think you need to purchase change. And most of the time, you’ll be on the same page about those things. We’re not saying it’s easy. We see many who have nicer vehicles, fun off road toys, and go on Caribbean vacations. It all looks wonderful and like so much fun. We aren’t bashing any of that. All those things make memories as well and we think that’s what is most important. What we are saying is that you can’t do it all. At least we can’t. So we made the decision that long term travel and experiencing different areas of the country is what is most important to us and we are making it happen. We are having the hard talks, making the difficult decisions and we are really excited about spending our lives together traveling in our own way.

Stay tuned, TheVugs180 continues…