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So, what does the future hold? Beats me! In some ways wouldn't we all like a glimpse into our future ... if only that were possible? But in most ways, I think we're probably best off not knowing and just living our lives, as best we can, from day to day... from year to year. As little bundles of protoplasm with finite lives, not knowing details about the future allow us to focus more intently on today... the now.
But to the extent we can mold elements of our future as a result of our experience and feelings about how things have gone these past 3 years, this is what we'd ideally like to happen:
1) We don't foresee ending our version of this lifestyle any time soon. We're having too good a time to stop now. The bus-house has become our home and it does what we want it to do most of the time. While there's a whole bunch of things that could go wrong and force us into big changes before we'd like, we choose to focus on what we have today and what we're doing today. You can't lead your life based on "what if's" or "could be's" or "worst cases".
2) One of the reasons we're leading this lifestyle, we've said from the beginning, is to look for that place (or places) where we'd eventually like to settle down again. While it'd be fair to say we really haven't been looking hard at specific places yet... we're just roaming around the country, absorbing environments, letting places sort of "flow over" us... trying to get a sense of what feels right. At this point, we haven't found that place yet, and believe a single ideal place may not even exists for us. (reference my comments about 'compromise' in Part 1 of this series of posts.)
A number of factors enter into this decision. Closeness to family is an important one... maybe the most important. Low population density is a big one for us. Climate and weather are another. As much as we prefer to escape the depths of those tough northern winters, we also don't want to have anything to do with long desperate hot and humid summers. We've found we like the Texas gulf coast in January and February but don't want to be anywhere near there during summer. I mean, what's worse?... sub-zero temps and snow for 3 or 4 months or stifling heat and humidity for 6 or 7 months? Hmmm. This element is still a work-in-process.
3) As we settled into the lifestyle during the past 3 years we've been putting fewer miles each year on the bus-house and staying a little longer in places we find enjoyable. That trend will probably continue. Relax more, absorb more, enjoy more.
4) There are many more areas of North America that we haven't even touched yet. Among those places still to be explored and absorbed are Canada, Alaska, and the New England states.
5) At some point we'll get a fixed house that we can use as a base of operations for continued explorations. When that happens we'll downsize our big-rig RV to something much smaller that will enable us to get off the paved road and into more rustic camping opportunities. As I said in an earlier post, big-rigs can really limit your spontenaity and ability to go anywhere.
So, here's the plan: we're going for at least another 3 years of exploring and fulltiming, with only minor tweaks and changes. It's our plan and we're sticking with it.
[Go to Part 3]
Thom & Dar
