We are now one month away from the end of the sixth road trip that we have taken since we got married the summer of 2011. We left on our first road trip early in January of 2012.
Our totals for this five-year period of 2012 through 2016:
Driving miles: 46,000 miles
Number of states we camped in: 26 states
Number of places we have camped: 215 different places (several multiple times making 256 total).
Total number of hikes: 520 (including some when we are home for the summer)
Number of states we have hiked in: 22
Total hiking miles: 2770 In other words, we have hiked from our home in Langley, WA, to Atlanta, GA, to see Sean, Emily, Soren, and Sebastian (hope they have appreciated the effort)
Average length of hike: 5 1/3 miles.
Elevation gain of our hikes (i.e, how "high" we have hiked in total): 69 miles This is the figure that is hardest for me to wrap my brain around: We have hike 69 miles "UP?" No way.
Number of states we have danced in: 9 (plus Canada)
Cycling miles: 9500+. Although not really a part of most road trips, some miles were. Most miles were accumulated while we are living at home in Washington, although we have cycled in seven additional states on road trips.
Nights in our camper: 835 in this five-year period (i.e, out of 1827 nights).
That means that in this five-year period, we have spent 45% of those nights in our camper, which is just a bit under 2 1/2 years' worth of nights. Now wonder we refer to our camper as "home." Because we spend nights with family, etc., it is likely that we have spent as many nights in our camper in the past five years as we have spent in our home on Whidbey Island.
835 nights in the bed of a pickup, in five years. We never would have thought we would do this when we first set out early in 2012. And every night was wonderful.
Number of times we have gotten on each others' nerves living in a space the size of an ordinary closet: 0
We really had no idea what we were doing when we set out early in 2012 on our first road trip. A few months earlier I had asked Vicky if there were any things she had always wanted to do in her life that she hadn't done, and after a few days she said "take a road trip." I immediately exclaimed: "Me too!" If you had asked either of us then what "road trip" actually meant we probably would have said something like: "uh, drive on roads, stay someplace for the night, drive on more roads." In other words, we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into.......which has made it all the more fun and adventurous to learn together.
At first we looked for RV parks to stay, not knowing any other way to find places than by doing internet searches. We quickly gravitated to parks with campgrounds. By road trip 3 we had discovered "dispersed' camping, which means finding your own spot on public lands. Once we discovered that type of camping we were hooked, and it is what we do virtually all of the time now unless we need supplies or want to meet up with family.
We have seen the country in a way neither of us ever dreamed we could have when we set out five years ago in our old 1996 pickup and even older 1970 Chinook camper. We upgraded the pickup twice and the camper once. We have been to places we never could have imagined, slept in some of the most remote parts of our country, experienced beauty that we will never forget, met people we would not have met, and got to touch some aspects of our country's history that few others have touched.
We have been moved at much of what we have experienced and chagrined at how much more is needed to preserve the raw areas of our country for future generations.
Mostly what we would say is that every day we have "felt." The feelings could be excitement, discovery, adventure, serenity, exhaustion, exhilaration, confusion, success, failure, worry, whatever.
But we have "felt," and that is what life is all about as a human being---feeling. Every day that we wake up and take a hike we know we will feel something new and powerful that day. That is living.
There is a 10-15 year window for most people (if they plan well, don't have unexpected misfortune, have their health, etc.) when they are retired and can strike out and explore the unknown as we have done or in any of hundreds of other ways. One has about 10-15 years before old age catches up to you and creates limitations. We both are experiencing some of those limitations now, and hope we can eke a few more years of this life out of our bodies.
We both have the philosophy that retirement isn't just "not working." Retirement is, instead, an opportunity to re-define oneself in such a way as to keep the brain active and doing what it evolved to do--which was to acquire new information and learn. Vicky does not define herself as a retired police officer, law enforcement specialist, and probation counselor. She isn't just a remnant of what she used to be. Instead, Vicky is a "new" person--dancer, a hiker, a road-tripper, a cyclist, adventurer, etc.
One of the purposes of our blog is to show our families and other people the vast opportunities there are in this country to explore it, to find beauty, and to find the peace that comes from hearing coyotes howling in the distance in places where the only lights are the moon and the stars.
If this life-style ends for us for some reason, sooner than we hoped, at least we had it. And nothing can take that away from us. Our brains are different and better for the experience. And we did it together.
We have "felt."
In a few years, when our time comes, we are going to have our ashes mixed together and thrown to the wind somewhere in the Southwest Desert.
That way, for all eternity we will be taking road trips together.
How inspiring to read this as we are starting our road trip after retiring in the spring of 2016. Very well written, as well. We will be checking on your travels for ideas that we can benefit from. Hope you two can keep it up for many years.
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