Unexpected Plans. What Do We Do Now?
It's been a weird and difficult season in our lives and travel plans.
The past several months has been an interesting ride for us to say the least!
Back in March we came back to Oklahoma and put a pause on travel. This has been bittersweet because we don’t feel like we’re done with traveling at all. We have SO MANY places to explore and revisit. Two years on the road is not enough time to see everything we want to see. So it’s been difficult to “sit still” with a world of wonders out there.
But sometimes incredible blessings can come from the unexpected plans too.
Cancer always sucks.
My mom is a survivor of breast cancer. She battled this disease 22 years ago and kicked its ass, but for some reason after being cancer free for so long, it decided to return … on her back!
Apparently my mom likes to be the kind of patient who presents extremely interesting cases to her doctors and test their capabilities of medical knowledge. While the cancer she’s exhibiting is rare and perplexing, the good news is her oncologist believes it is easily treatable and she’ll be able to avoid the horrors of aggressive chemotherapy again. We pray this will continue to be true.
Being back in Oklahoma has given us the ability to help with her healthcare, and because we don’t trust most doctors (another post entirely), it allows us to ensure she gets the right treatment for her needs. Plus we didn’t get to spend much time with her during the pandemic and now we can do that.
A new business opportunity.
If you would’ve asked us in February what our plans were, it was to travel the coast of Florida while soaking up the sun like crusty old lizards. I mean, who intentionally wants to spend time in brutally cold temperatures? And anything below 60 degrees sucks in my opinion. Yet an unexpected business opportunity redirected our route toward Okeene, Oklahoma.
Since I have a lot of experience growing businesses and implementing systems to make them more profitable, my brother in law hired me to help his freight carrier company Josmus Trucking with their needs.
Apparently I’m a little more redneck than I ever thought possible!!!
The goal was spending 4-6 weeks getting things in place, but now it looks like the “trucker life” is in my blood and I’ll be staying on board this crazy ride for now.
Being in the trucking industry was not on my radar at all but it’s been awesome. I’ve really enjoyed working with Joe, who now affectionately calls me The Warden because I enforce the rules on his outlaw trucker outfit. LOL! Plus I’ve come to love his secretary, Sue, a rebel in her own right, as well as our office dog named Frank. We’re certainly a great band of misfits on a mission.
The insane hotel and gas prices.
I shared some honest thoughts about traveling in 2022 back in January. At the time, we were experiencing rate increases and other challenges to our digital nomad lifestyle. We never imagined how prices would be so insane by the time of this writing!
Donetta and I are currently traveling through Arizona and heading up to Utah for her Scentsy Reunion. Gas is almost $5 per gallon and it takes quite a bit of money to fill up our 2020 Chevy Silverado. So we’re thankful to be driving less these days, in addition to staying three weeks FREE at Diamond Resorts. Otherwise living our dream, even if part-time at the moment, would be cost prohibitive.
But wait. There’s more!
Obviously we haven’t written in some time. I started this post back in April and am just now having time to finish it. Life has been crazy and busy for us both so writing has had to take a back seat to everything else.
Speaking of …
In case you didn’t notice, we changed our blog name to ‘Life from the Road’. We’re doing this for several reasons including:
1. Changes in life and priorities. While we still have no intention of stopping our travels and exploring the world, my goal of building a business or brand around the Hotel Crashers adventure has changed.
I’m fully invested in my new job and other opportunities in the trucking industry. So there’s not as much time to write and entertain. Plus I want to write for fun, not profit. I’m learning everything I do doesn’t have to focus on growth potential.
2. We became partial owners in a fifth wheel RV. We’ll share more about this in our next post, but we went in halves on a fifth wheel with my sister and brother in law. We’ve lived in it for a month and love the home base concept.
Since we won’t be traveling every day or living in hotels full time, it makes sense to drop the name. And now we can write about the RV lifestyle!
Change is inevitable.
I used to jokingly have a mantra - All Things Subject to Change - because it’s just the reality of life. Even our best thought out plans or dreams can take on sudden changes.
We used to plan in advance but now we’re just going with the flow.
It’s really hard to think about the future right now with all that’s going on in the world. Between inflation, volatile attitudes and situations, political turmoil, and other hardships many are facing, life is complicated. Why complicate it even more?
Donetta and I are both excited and nervous about these unexpected plans, but we’re not gonna stop living our best life. We’ll keep exploring and sharing even if it’s in a new way for now.
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