Author: Shauna Vugteveen

Our 180 didn’t get started when we thought it would. We had so many people asking when we were leaving that we took a guess, but when we didn’t feel ready, we were fine with taking a few extra days. Until you have actually planned and packed for something like this, you will never understand why exact dates and times just don’t work.

We finally hit the road at 11:30 am on Thursday, May 24, 2018 and headed for the Two Hearted State Forest Campground where a few of our friends were camping. We had been there once before although amidst all the planning and packing we failed to confirm a route there and figured we’d just follow our trusty Maps app on our phones.

For whatever reason, Maps decided to send us down some two-tracks that were not at all cool for our 50 foot rig to be traveling on. We were hoping the trail would pop out onto a better traveled road. It wasn’t until we came to a complete impassable wash out that finally turned us around. As Craig was slowly backing up our rig up a two-track hill, I was outside with Gus trying to guide him while being eaten alive by UP mosquitoes. During all this, poor Gus had to poop. As Craig was backing up, Gus dropped his butt in the path of the trailer. Craig couldn’t hear me yelling, so I had to drag Gus off the road as he’s trying to lay one down. Anyone watching this debacle would’ve been thoroughly entertained.

We got ourselves turned around and back on the main gravel road when we encountered pretty severe water over the road. Craig determined one side was shallow enough and we went for it and got through it just fine.

We rolled into the campground a few hours later than we planned, truck & trailer full of mud, happy to see our friends and set up for the night. We had a great couple days and said our goodbyes Saturday morning and headed to the Houghton area to meet up with a larger group.

We got to the Houghton area Saturday afternoon and set up camp on a friend’s 40 acre property. There was five truck campers, one travel trailer, and three tents. It was a big fun group and everyone had dogs. They all got along fine when we got there but Monday morning our little Gus got in a scuffle. We don’t know exactly what happened, but we’re assuming it had something to do with the fact that he was in “sniffing for food” mode and another dog came up behind him startling him causing the scuffle. He ended up with a cut under his eye and side of his head. It didn’t seem too bad so we tried to keep it clean and went about our day.

We spent time touring around the area, eating good food, drinking good beer and telling lots of stories around the campfire.

Tuesday morning we were able to tour the Keweenaw Brewing Company which was really cool to see. We even got to have a “freshie” right off the canning line.

As we headed out Wednesday morning to head to the Skanee area with everyone, we decided Gus’ wounds weren’t getting better. His whole jowl was swollen so we found a vet in L’anse to get him checked out. Because of the location of the wound and his orneryness, they had to sedate him. We hung out for 7 hours while they fit him in their schedule and patched him up. We joined everyone else at camp where we did some more touring, eating food, drinking good beer, and telling lots of stories around the campfire. It was significantly colder and rainier but we made the best of it.

So our first week felt like a normal vacation for us. We are pretty used to things not going perfect. If they did, then what would we talk about. It’s how we handle them that is important to us. Of course there is a little impatience and frustration, but we always end up finding a solution, working it out, and moving on.

We said goodbye to our friends Friday morning and are now on our own. We think it will feel more like our 180 as we get used to our own routine and schedule.

Off to Glacier…

The past three weeks have been a whirlwind. Many people assumed that because we are now “retired” we were just taking it easy and relaxing. Unfortunately, we haven’t really been able to do that. Waking up with no alarm has been the best part of it all, although we both still get up before 7 anyway. The nice part is starting out our day having breakfast together and talking about what needs to be done.

The “to-do” list was long and very daunting. But together we got through it. We were able to get together with some people we hadn’t yet had the chance to. Some people were surprised that we thought of the things that we were addressing. We made sure our phones and debit cards were Canada friendly, met with our insurance agent to be sure our house, vehicles and liability insurance was what we needed it to be. We met with our financial adviser and did our wills and put together our legacy folder for “just in case”. We’ve typed out a lease and instructions for taking care of our high maintenance house for our renters and were able to meet with them and go over it all.

Craig worked on the trailer and truck stuff and I did the seed, fertilizer, wood chips, cleaned the gutters, and stacked wood. We packed up personal things and put them in storage. The house was cleaned so our renters, who are also are friends, could move into a nice clean house.

As much as we’d love to say we just picked up and took off, that is not how we want to leave our home or our family.

I stopped in at my Grandpa’s this week to say goodbye. This is a really hard thing for me because my 91 and a half year old grandpa isn’t doing well. His heart, that has always been so full of love for us all, is weak and they cannot fix it. My Grandpa has always been on the go. He has traveled a lot and has had the chance to see amazing sights. But leaving now is tearing me up. I know he wants us to go, to go live our lives and see amazing sights like he did. It doesn’t make it easier. So to help him out with his sprinklers and get his cottage on Ford Lake open, even if he never makes it up there this year, was important to me.

What is really great is Craig and I continue to be on the same page. We’ve had to balance out the things we need to do to be ready to leave with the things our family needs us to do. That’s just what you do when you have amazing families like we do.

So here we are, a few days after we had originally thought we would leave, and a day after most people thought we had left. Leaving is exhausting and emotional. But all of the chores and lists are completed. We are ready to put the normal life behind us. We are packed up ready to go, we are finally on the road!

We are going to see amazing sights and make new friends and catch up with old ones somewhere on the road. We are going to embrace this goal that we have achieved and come back with memories that we will never forget. Thank you to all who have been so supportive and we hope you continue to send us notes, advice and stories of what is happening here at home.

So it’s not goodbye, it’s see ya later

We were basically neighbors growing up with a 7 year age difference so we were never on each other’s radar until later in life. I love our story because we are small town kids that fell in love. Our families went to the same small church and were good friends. We actually questioned whether or not we should date because of how close our families are.

We dated for a year a half, got engaged and had a beautiful wedding October 1, 1999. It was the best day. Since our families were friends everybody knew everybody. It was truly a perfect day!

Six months after we got married we went to Colorado and camped in the Rocky Mountains. We set up a tent and toured around in a Jeep Cherokee. After that trip, we would go camping whenever we could. We went on four wheeling trips and camped on Drummond Island. We bought our first truck camper in 2001. It was a huge heavy ugly thing that made us fall in love with truck campers. We got rid of it after a year but still knew that was the way we wanted to go. Craig found Four Wheel truck Campers years later and we purchased a base model in 2007.

We were so excited to have our first camper. I was looking forward to not sleeping in a tent. Looking back, we wouldn’t have purchased it had we known then what we know now. We eventually discovered that we hate debt. Like really hate debt. We were a typical couple with credit cards and car payments and really had no business buying a brand new camper. We decided together we wanted to be debt free and we worked really hard at it. Our goal was to pay off our house by the time I was 40. We missed that by a few months but were super happy February 2017, that we were finally debt free and the world is ours.

One thing that has helped us stay on the same page and continue to strive to meet our goals together is that we enjoy talking to each other. We love having long talks in our garage and we take road trips without the radio on. We’ve done that a lot in the 21 years that we’ve been together. We never get sick of it. I believe taking the time to listen to each other has gotten us to where we are now.

We finally decided 2018 was our year. So here we are, planning for life on the road. We don’t know what is going to happen. And we think that’s okay. Stuff happens and it’s how you deal with it is all part of the journey. We’ll continue our talks but we’ll have them in many different places while traveling many different roads.

So stay tuned…hopefully we entertain you, show you some beautiful sights and inspire you to step out of your comfort zone a little.

How do to you prepare to leave for a year? We have made lists upon lists trying to cover our bases. We know things aren’t going to be exactly perfect but hopefully the majority of it goes right.

We met with our future renters and feel comfortable with that arrangement. We know them, we really like them, we’ve camped with them, and see no issues in this area. What we do worry about is the house. We have been in our house for almost 15 years and things are worn down and breaking down. So on top of trying to prepare our truck, camper and trailer for our life on the road, we have to address the issues with owning and leaving our home.

This is actually one of the topics that comes up frequently in our garage talks. We absolutely love our house. We designed it and contracted it ourselves. We touched pretty much everything that went in it. The 20 tons of rock in our fireplace was handled many times and eventually put in by Craig and his Dad. I stained every single piece of wood and it was all installed by Craig and my Dad. It was definitely a labor of love that took 2 ½ years to complete from date of purchase to move in. We planned to retire here.

But here we are, almost 15 years later and even though we sit in our living room still admiring all our hard work, we both cannot stop talking about getting out on the road. We have started to feel like the time and effort we continually have to put in to keep up our home is exhausting. We’ve always felt the relief of it all the minute we got on the road together. We travel whenever we can and found our talks gravitating toward places we would love to live and things we would do differently.

We definitely have emotional attachments to our house. We are really hoping this trip clarifies a few things so we can truly know what we want when we come back. We are not trying to pack our emotions away. We are trying to come to terms with emotional attachments we have made. If we take the house out of the equation, what would we really go do?

So on top of getting the house ready for our renters to move in, we are working on selling stuff, packing stuff away, and making sure the people we take care of are being taken care of. We do not take leaving lightly. I know I’m going to be homesick. We are going to miss our families and our friends. I’m going to miss my mom terribly. She does so much for so many people, including us. I don’t think she realizes how needed she is. But in turn, we try and do whatever we can for her. So leaving affects her. She has great family and friends and I know she will be very well taken care of. But the thought of not seeing her is one of my greatest fears. Hopefully we can Skype and talk on the phone and I won’t be completely homesick and want to come home within a few months.

We are going to miss our Saturday afternoon clubhouse gatherings with Craig’s dad, mom and neighborhood friends. It’s a given that we all meet in Dad’s barn, have a few cold ones and chat about whatever is going on that week. It’s always so nice to catch up with everyone other than just seeing what is going on via Facebook. We hope we can get a few people to come out and visit us and have the ultimate clubhouse gathering with a beautiful mountain view.

Even though we are going to miss so many things here, we just can’t contain our excitement about this adventure. We’ve had our moments of “what are we doing” but it always came back to both of us wanting to do it and doing everything we can to make it happen. Craig has been planning and working on getting us ready. He installed flooring and cabinets in the trailer. He’s figuring out our water system and shower, and we’ve done some fun DIY projects that makes the trailer feel a little more like home. It’s a lot to think about to make sure we are comfortable without spending a ton of money. This preparation time has been frustrating and fun and just adds to the anticipation of it all.

We love that our planning and preparation is a team effort. We know that we will carry that through to when we are on the road. It’s going to be an amazing time for us and even though we feel we won’t actually be completely prepared, we’ll be prepared to handle whatever happens.

You guys are doing what? You’re going where? For how long? Can you get your job back when you come back? Is your route all planned out? Do you know where you’re going to stay?

These are just some of the questions we’ve heard for the past 9 months after we officially announced that we were going to quit our jobs, rent out our house and travel for a year.

But why the 180? We had paid off our dream house, we both have great jobs that we like, we live in a nice community close to family and friends. Why the huge life change instead of just going on vacation like everybody else? Continue reading “Why the 180?”