Category: Blog

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Bailey Colorado For Our First House/Pet Sit

We are now officially experienced house sitters. We spent 2 weeks in Bailey, Colorado house and pet sitting and it was awesome. We cared for 4 dogs, 1 cat, 1 turtle & 1 fish. It was in a cabin feeling house with a beautiful view of the mountains west of Denver at an altitude of nearly 9k ft. We did all the things we normally do: work, homeschool, field trips, play at the park and library and visit with whoever we know in town. We kept pretty busy with so much to keep us entertained with a hot tub on the deck and movie nights and more! We really enjoyed the pets too! All the kids took really fast to the dogs and cat especially, they were super happy to have a pet in their life again.

1 very large malamute, 1 young husky, 2 black lab mutts (which reminded us a lot of our own Lucie), a gray sleepy cat a turtle and a fish (which the turtle ate and we felt like the worst pet sitters in the world until the owners told us it happens all the time). We were busy taking care of the home with our daily chores and taking care of the animals. You can’t imagine the hair that 4 big dogs shed in June!

We found a few hiking trail around and spent a good bit of time preparing for our international leap across the big pond to the west. We had a few immunizations (typhoid and Hep-A, yay!) to get as well as finally sorting out our luggage plans and international driving permits etc etc etc. So it was a mix of errands and fun/educational field trips, but we totally loved Denver and the areas we were able to explore.

We’re HUGE fans of trusted house sitters though! Go read more about it and sign up today! We were very happy to earn our first 5 star review!

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Preparing for Fiji

Through a worldschooling group on facebook, we stumbled on a family service trip/cultural immersion experience in Fiji. This was exactly what we were thinking of doing with our world nomad travels! But, getting to Fiji looked very expensive. 

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That’s a benefit of a round the world (RTW) mindset. We’re looking at one way trips and connecting them along the way with our housesits and other destinations. Since we’re not getting round trip tickets, we could treat Fiji as a stepping stone to the Pacific/Oceania region. We had Australia and New Zealand pretty high on our list so we thought we’d apply for house sits in those areas and make it happen. Soon after we were confirming a number of sits in the region! This also helped us decide on an international nomad adventure rather than going the overland/RV route. What better way to kick off a RTW tour than by visiting with a local Fijian tribe and living with them in a coop and help them but also be immersed in their culture.

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The organization works to help a remote island of Fiji (because Fiji isn’t remote enough). We’ll first fly to Nadi, on the west coast of Viti Levu (the biggest island of Fiji), which is the international airport in Fiji. Then we take a domestic flight to Labasa, the town on the north side of Vanua Levu (the second largest island of Fiji). Then we take a ferry out to the tiny island of Vorovoro. Look just north of Labasa, and you’ll see Mali Island. Vorovoro is an even tinier island off the coast of Mali, it’s not on this map but you can find it here.

Vorovoro is inhabited by the Mali tribe, which also has villages on other nearby islands. It is also the home of the tribe chief, Tui Mali and the cultural center. First the island was the location for a tourism community project which featured on the BBC Documentary called Paradise or Bust run by Tribewanted. After that, they partnered with a company called Bridge the Gap and Auburn University to assist the community with sustainable community development.

Bridge the Gap partners with Vorovoro in the planning and execution of Vorovoro’s community development goals and to bolster Vororovo’s global outreach opportunities while maintaining the integrity of the tribe’s rich cultural heritage and working to protect the local natural environment. The partnership uses a multipronged approach for reaching these development goals. This approach includes business mentorship programs, sustainable agricultural training, infrastructure support, and networking with various international organizations. (thanks Wikipedia)

We’ll be involved in building a kindergarten classroom for the local village school this summer and also joining the tribe for ceremonies and meals and other cultural activities like basket weaving, fishing (I hope to catch a fish with a spear), snorkeling, hiking and hammocking and more. We’ll stay in a hut by the beach as a family and eat (and learn to cook) local meals.

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So we’ll basically be living in Moana’s village, with a healthy portion of Given. At least that’s what the kids think and I hope they’re not wrong. If you want to learn more about those who started the Bridge the Gap organization here’s an interesting interview to read. Stay tuned for our updates, we fly in 1 week!

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Mormon Stories Retreat in Park City Utah

The timing worked out for us driving from my work conference in Jackson, Wyoming to our first house sit in Bailey, Colorado, that we had an open weekend. Researching where to go, we came upon a Mormon Stories Retreat in Park City, Utah. It fit our timeline perfectly and also was something that we’ve been interested in for a number of years.

A little backstory, we’re LDS, or Mormon, by way of religion. We were both raised in Mormon families and have been practicing and participating as members of the church our whole lives. I even served a mission for the church for 2 years, which I think may have sparked my itch to travel. I was in France and Belgium and talked with many people about Jesus. So, I had to learn French to talk to people and I really enjoyed getting very familiar with a foreign culture.

Slowly over the past decade, we’ve had what some would call a faith transition where for example we don’t take things as literally as we may have before. Mormon stories is a podcast that has helped us make sense of some of the issues we’ve had. It’s aptly named, they discuss stories of Mormons and aren’t afraid to talk about the taboo topics either. It’s part of the Open Stories Foundation, a non-profit, and the family of podcasts and websites has helped us view this transition as more of a journey or stage of adult development, rather than a crisis where everything comes tumbling down and crashing. Founded by John Dehlin, I know, controversial in the Mormon sphere, but seriously, don’t discount him because you’ve heard scary things about him. Take a look and see on the retreat agenda, there is no church bashing or telling anyone to leave. In fact, multiple times he shared the sentiment that “Leaving is not the answer”. Anyway, we’ve been fans for a while and have always been so far from any of the events that it hasn’t made sense to attend, but to have one fit in right when we had time and right in the area we already were was dare I say providential.

The Open Stories Foundation mission is to promote understanding, healing, growth, and community for people experiencing or impacted by religious transition.

The focus of these events is on healing and growth during and after a faith transition. John and Natasha DO NOT bash the LDS church in these events, and all efforts are made to make the conversations “safe” and affirming to believers and non-believers, church attendees and non-attendees. While attendees will sometimes vent their frustrations with their experiences, John and Natasha are fiercely committed to nurturing a constructive and positive environment where all are supported and affirmed.

The atmosphere and topics were very therapeutic and helpful and even healing. There was a large focus on mental health and positivity! We made fast friends with some kindred spirits! We even discussed how interesting it was that perhaps because we were all being totally honest and vulnerable with each other we were quicker to bond. We had a great time attending the presentations and discussions and even singing karaoke! Krista nailed Hamilton with Dr. John Dehlin! I did ok with some Weezer, and we and some other relevant favorites.

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Jackson Hole 10up Summit

I spent a week in Jackson, Wyoming while the family went to southern Alberta, Canada. I had to attend a work conference. It’s an interesting conundrum when working remotely with a distributed company that you aren’t physically with any of your coworkers. The people you work with, you aren’t actually ever with. 10up has an annual summit to bring everyone together for a conference. 10uppers give presentations to each other for a couple days, participate in a hack-a-thon, team building activities, celebrations and company awards (The Uppies).

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A huge perk to working remotely is being home more and spending so much more time with my family. So, it was hard to spend the week away from them. Spending a week with coworkers and only talking on the phone or video chatting with my family is the inverse of what I’ve grown accustomed to.

I enjoyed the Jackson Hole area and when I wasn’t having altitude and/or allergy headaches, I explored a bit.  I got to know a few of my coworkers too. It is nice to better know who I’m working with (and for).

The best part of the week for me though, was the excitement of the group hug when the rest of the family arrived to pick me up.

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Doing Yellowstone National Park, Day 2

 

 

In the morning, after staying at the Old Faithful Inn, we got more familiar with old faithful by watching a couple more eruptions and visiting the education center. From there we had to get outside and went on a geyser and hot spring pool hike. It was amazing to see all the colorful pools and spring streaming geysers!

“The vivid colors of Beauty Pool’s basin and runoff channels are created by microscopic lifeforms. Incredibly, these organisms survive and thrive in an environment that would be lethal to us and most other living creatures. Scientists are just beginning to understand these lifeforms: amazingly, hot spring environments may sustain a diversity of organisms rivaling that of terrestrial rain forests.”

My favorite is at the end of the hike (of course), it’s called Morning Glory and it’s a very vibrant and colorful but still pretty small pool.

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Next, we hiked back to the education center to finish some work and check on Old Faithful again. We caught the video they show after every eruption too. Highly recommend it!

Then we were off to check out the Grand Prismatic Spring! It’s very similar to Morning Glory, just lots bigger! So big, in fact, it’s kinda hard to see. I can tell that most of the famous photos are arial views. It’s just down the road a few miles but it was equally amazing!

Arial view of The Grand Prismatic Spring

Sadly, we had to head south already from there to get through the Tetons and down to Jackson hole. We’re total fans of Yellowstone though and will certainly be visiting again, hopefully with more time on our hands and an RV/camping gear. I had a work conference to attend with my new company 10up. They’re a distributed WordPress agency and it’s thanks to a company like them that we can nomad like we do! While I was in Jackson for the week, the rest of the crew went to visit family in Canada! It was a beautiful drive exiting the park and going through the Teton National Park too.

I think there were a couple other National forests or parks we drove through too, all beautiful. Here is the instagram roll from the day:

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Doing Yellowstone National Park, Day 1

We drove from South Dakota and through Wyoming to get to Yellowstone and it did not disappoint. We arrived through the West Gate and headed right for a couple places on our short list. We had to drive a few hours through the park since it was already late in the day. It was a beautiful drive though around the lake. We came across some snow and had to get out and play a bit. There was some thermal activity on the banks of the lake too, so wild to see steam coming out of crevices in the ground! We spotted some wildlife as well, a few buffalo, deer, a bigger deer maybe elf or antelope and a young grizzly bear in the road (sorry, no bear pics this time). There were quite a few spots we had to pull off and just soak up the scenery!

We got to Old Faithful to see it erupt at dusk.

We were lucky to have made a reservation at the Old Faithful Inn though and were impressed with how fancy and unique it was!

It was great to spend the night in the park and not have to drive all the way back out! We’d probably prefer to camp there, but as we don’t have the RV (yet) or the camping gear (anymore) the inn was the option and I’m glad we went for it. A fun experience overall and so nice to see Old Faithful out the window first thing in the morning!

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Visiting Mount Rushmore National Monument

After our stop at the Badlands, we found ourselves arriving at Mount Rushmore at dusk.

That was ok, because it’s lit at night.

That is after a ceremony, so it was great to be there for the presentation which was a narration about the history of the carving and the reason each president was chosen. At the end of the presentation the lights come on and then we could see the huge carving!

Here’s a video to get a better feel for it (not my video):

We learned about George Washington, the first President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, the third, Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth, and Theodore Roosevelt, the twenty-sixth. Each was chosen for their mark on the country. Washington because he is the epitome of the founding father and helped gain independence as well as formed the standard for the country. Jefferson because he was responsible for expanding the country with the Louisiana Purchase. Lincoln for keeping the country together throughout the Civil War, and Roosevelt for leaving the country through development and deepening the character of the nation and starting the national parks program.

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Good Times at Badlands National Park

As we were heading towards Wyoming from Indiana, we noticed signs to the Badlands, and having heard about them and looking up details as we approached we decided on a small detour to check it out. We were happy to present the rangers with our newly printed 4th grader pass which got us in free! We were pretty immediately impressed with a great overlook as we made our way to the information center, so we had to get out!

We were struck with blasts of wind as enjoyed the canyons and cliffs.

Then we saw something coming over the hills behind us, like a brown cloud and then we realized it was a sandstorm! So we ran to the car. Most of us made it in time, the rest of use was picking sand out of our hair and beards the rest of the day.

We checked out the Ben Reifel Visitor Center to learn all about the history of the area and participate in the Junior Ranger program. We were thoroughly impressed. We’re really glad that we stopped in to see the Badlands National Park and happy to report the badlands are a good time.

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Haters Gonna Hate or How We Cope With Naysayers in Life’s Arena

Haters gonna hate, I ain't even mad

Sharing news with people of our nomad plans is interesting… For the most part, people are amazed at first and supportive that we’re following our dreams and express some sort of “I’m so excited for you” or “I’ll live vicariously through you” and “Please, share lots of pictures!”. Usually it’s positive and supportive.

We’re not looking for approval or permission. We are excited and feel like we’ve done our research. Some people have expressed disapproval in our life choices though. It’s too bad that the naysayers can be so loud sometimes. We’ve been told that it will be too hard, that we’re being irresponsible, foolish, immature, selfish, blinded, that our children will suffer from our poor decisions, that we will suffer from our chronic instability, etc. Crazy to think that just because we want to be location independent, people will say these kinds of things about or to us.

We’re big fans of the author and speaker Brené Brown. Her thoughts helped us through that. Following a famous quote from Theodore Rosevelt, she compares life to an arena, and when you’re in an arena you likely won’t have support of the whole crowd, but if you’re careful about who you listen to, you will find supporters who are cheering you on.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. -Theodore Roosevelt
If you aren't in the arena also getting your ass kicked, I'm not interested in your feedback. - Brene Brown

I understand that there will be challenges to our nomad life, but there are challenges in any life style. We do know we will miss being around family a lot and anticipate that will be among the hardest parts. The world is only as scary as we let it be though, it is also an awesome place. We know others are sad and anxious for us, but understand that we’re not jumping into this with no plan or consideration. We are excited and enthusiastic, and we will certainly adjust as we gain experience and learn lessons. This adventure will no doubt be hard, we get that, it is also scary. But that’s not our focus, we’re being careful and doing our best to be smart about it, but I’m sure we’ll make mistakes and have hard days, but in those times we’ll need love from our supporters, we hope you are among them.

You can choose courage or you can choose comfort, but you cannot have both. - Brené Brown
Cheers to all my haters. Be patient. So much more is coming.
When setting out on a journey, do not seek advice from those who have never left home. - Rumi
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Working on the Road

We said goodbye and left home to start our nomad adventure!

  • Sell stuff, check
  • Get rid of rest of stuff, check
  • Sell house, check.
  • Pack up, check
  • Drive off into the sunset, check

We left Georgia and drove all the way to Indiana in a day to visit more family. Then a few more days on the road through Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota and Wyoming. As a family we’ve made road trips a tradition and have had a big trip across the states every summer for the past few years. We’re happy to be able to continue the tradition this year and incorporate it into our nomad life. In fact our road trips are what inspired us with the idea of living on the road full-time. We love to travel that much. The past couple years we’ve been aspiring nomads and been researching and putting things into place to make it a reality.

I’m lucky enough to be able to work remotely and we put it to the test while I worked from the passenger seat of the minivan! I’m pleased to report that it works pretty well. I turned on the hotspot on my phone (it’s not too expensive), I wouldn’t use it for video conferencing, but for my needs, it was alright. A few places were a bit spotty with connection (looking at you South Dakota), but most of the time I don’t need constant connection for the work I do, so we we’re just fine. I just need to push code up every once in a while and send/receive messages.

It did get tricky a few times however when the bright sun was coming down it was hard to see the screen! We had to get creative a few times to roll with it. It also gets pretty warm to sit in the sun in the car with a laptop on your lap for hours on end, so I’d recommend taking advantage of the cooler parts of the day to work from the passenger seat. If we can figure out how to work from the freeway, we expect to be able to figure out how to work from various countries and time zones too.

Driving across country gave us a good excuse to make some stops we haven’t been able to work into other trips. With Jackson, Wyoming as our destination for a work summit we would be so close it made perfect sense to hit Yellowstone Park on the way and the route went pretty close to some other landmarks too, like Mount Rushmore so we made it a weekend whirlwind through National Parks. 

We’re lucky to be able to take advantage of the Every Kid in the Park program, where since we have a 4th grader we get free admission into all National Parks for the year! We’re trying to hit as many as we can on our quick road trip before we leave the country, but as we have 4 kids, we’ll roughly have a 4th grader every other year for a while, so we can hopefully take advantage of the program more in the future. If you have a 4th grader, fill out the form on the site and bring it (and the 4th grader) to any National Park and you’ll get a pass for admission which is good for each and every National Park! We’ll try to follow up with a post for each park.