A week ago Friday, we were standing in our empty garage getting ready to hand it over to someone else. I think that’s when it hit us both. We walked through the house and garage one last time. I did cry, a lot. We have so many memories in that house, it was just hard to imagine not living there. We drove away and although I know we have great adventures ahead, I was not in a good mood.
Everything leading up to leaving was hard. It was hard selling stuff, storing stuff and packing stuff into our tiny house. I didn’t even want to think about leaving family and friends. We were so busy dealing with all of that, seeing friends and saying last goodbyes that when the the 31st came, I don’t think I had actually processed the fact that we were leaving our dream house. We just drove around a bit Friday afternoon and ended up having one last dinner with some great friends at our neighborhood bar. That was just what we needed. After a night of talking and laughing with Mark & Jackie, we were feeling better.
Saturday morning was another hard goodbye. We had stayed in my mom’s driveway and after she spoiled us with her awesome french toast, we said a teary goodbye. We appreciate all of our family and friends and the support they have shown us as we planned and are now living our dream. Thankfully we are only a phone call or plane ride away.
We meandered our way to my brother’s house in Decatur, Indiana. We stayed a couple nights and Craig was able to finish a few things on the rig he hadn’t been able to get to. Ryan and I put his old movies onto DVD and we had so many laughs watching old Christmas parties, hunting videos, and movies of his kids when they were young. If you knew my dad, he was the ultimate commentator. He would video us and ask us questions and we always hated it but seems it carried over because Ryan did the same thing to us and his friends on those videos. The videos just wouldn’t be the same without that funny sarcastic commentary. It was a relaxing couple days and I was sad to say goodbye.
The first leg of our adventure is the TransAmerica Trail (TAT). It begins in Ripley, West Virginia and goes east across America on 90% dirt & gravel roads. We took all back roads to get to Ripley and began the TAT at 5:20pm on Monday night. It started out paved and eventually turned into a skinny gravel road. It brought us up into the mountains and past farms and beautiful country. We saw so many deer as we crawled through.
To follow the TAT, we purchased tracks that are sold by a guy that runs it every couple of years. I am the navigator and had to watch them pretty closely as it was easy to miss a turn. I actually like to navigate and it went pretty well. We assumed we would be able to find a place to pull off and camp but this leg didn’t offer any place to do that as most of the land is privately owned. We drove until dark and finally found a pull off that looked okay. We decided to stealth camp in case we had to move quickly, which means we didn’t pop up the top of the camper. We folded down our new chairs we had put in the camper and settled in on the floor. The problem was that it was raining and it was hot! We couldn’t have the windows open and we were squooshed on the floor together and both pretty miserable. It as about 4:30am when we just couldn’t handle it anymore. We got up and decided to just keep driving. This is when we heard a loud annoying noise coming from the truck. We couldn’t really fiure out what it was with a flashlight and me driving so instead of quietly coming down from the mountain at 5 am, we were the horrible annoying tourists. We got to a gas station and Craig discovered a small rock had landed between the heat shield and the caliper on the passenger front side and that was causing all the racket. I drank my coffee and people watched at the small West Virginia gas station while Craig took care of our issue.
We drove the rest of West Virginia and started on the Virginia portion when we were both getting pretty tired. We found a small little campground and set up camp and settled in. The weather was nice and after a little nap we took a walk to a little river.
We knew at some point we were going to jump off the main trail of the TAT and drive the Atlantic spur that starts in Nagshead, NC and goes to Virginia. We decided to jump off at that intersection and head to Wake Forest, NC to visit Ronnie and his wife, Amy Jo. We had met Ronnie in Chicken, Alaska in 2018. He had ridden his Harley up there and we all met at the saloon and had a night of drinks and laughter. We ended up seeing him again in Fairbanks two weeks later when we were having dinner in a restaurant and he happened to walk into the same restaurant. We’ve kept in touch the past two years and we were so happy to see him, meet his wife and their cute pup Cooper. They have a beautiful property (and donkeys) and were so welcoming, it felt like we’d been friends forever.
Another friend and former colleage from JR Automation, reached out and invited us to his home in Greenville, NC. Brad and his wife, Jaclyn, had moved to NC in 2018. We pulled into Greenville with the hopes of camping at a campground that we had found close to them. Due to COVID, they were not taking campers and just as we were getting this information, it started to downpour. We raced back to the truck, soaking wet and feeling a little discouraged because the next closest campground was 45 minutes away. We knew finding places to camp the way we like to camp was going to be hard on the East coast, so we got a hotel just a few minutes from Brad & Jaclyn’s house.
Brad and Jaclyn spoiled us as well! They met us with drinks and served us an amazing meal. I had never met Jaclyn before and we talked all night as the boys meandered around Brad’s garage talking about boy things. We got to meet their sweet pup, Dozer, and threatened to take him on the road with us because he was so sweet and close to the right size for us. Pretty sure he was having none of that.
So after being on the road a week, we can say we are happy. We’ve already figured out a few things to change, we’ve enjoyed the beautiful back roads and small towns, and are happy living a slower paced life. We are headed to Nagshead today and hope to find a camping spot on the beach and then get back on the TAT tomorrow.