Photo Diary: Towing a Vanagon Through the Rockies

Towing a Vanagon (check out our newly purchased Westy) through the Rockie Mountains was not fun.  In fact, it was scary as hell.  Mountain passes, an auto transport, fresh, slippery snow, and icy roads do not mix.  

We drove 17 miles an hour on 70 mile an hour roads, towing a VW mini bus.  

While Chris had white knuckles, I had to convince myself we weren't going to die.  I didn't want to become visibly nervous and distract him.  

So, I took out my camera.  If all hell broke loose, we'd go down with some beautiful pictures of what caused our demise...the whole idea amused me enough to distract me from panicking.  

Here's a few of my pics, taken while driving.    

Van of My Dreams

The Westy Fund

We started a westy fund a few months ago (along with our house down payment fund, our emergency fund, and our swear jar-just kidding, we don't have a swear jar).  

After searching for a Vanagon on the typical sites, Samba.com, BusDepot.com, and GoWesty.com, we found one on CraigsList.  Go figure.  

Drinking Wine On A Train

 "Wine on a Train"

Ahem ahem...

Headin' to Christmas with the family,

Subaru'd make it if we're lucky,

Bought some tickets, depots yucky,

Got my bags and coat and mittens, no clue what to expect, 

The kids behind are pretty noisy,

The track is smooth but it's still squeaky,

More pile in at every station,

Think I may start an Amtrak petition,

It's hot in here, they're a sleepy crowd,

But our car squeaks, and I can't tune it out, 

I need some zzz's, these new folks are a pain,

And now you know why, I'm drinking wine on a train. 

(Cut me some slack, it's 3:00am.) 

While Wandering West...

Driving across the top of Montana, through all of the little towns that have been trapped in the late 1900's, has been a serious blast from the past.  (Not like I was alive for most of the 1900's but I've seen movies…)

The feel of a simpler life is all around these little towns.  There are no Targets, Best Buys, or JCPennys.  I suppose you could always order things online, but otherwise you just make or grow it yourself.  That whole concept is so appealing to Chris and me.  

A simpler existence is what stemmed this whole adventure.  

Many of you already know that we dream of someday having a homestead.  It can be small; we could even make it work with one acre.   It would be so amazing to be able to rely on ourselves as much as possible, and not have all of the extras that crowd life.

Simplicity.  This fly-over state is full of it.

There are also a lot of cows.

Boomtown Motivation

Work, Work, Work

So anyone who knows me and Chris knows that we came here for the opportunity to make some cash.  No question about it.  

Knowing that info, it should be no surprise that we want to work as much as possible, and make as much as possible, while staying sane, of course.  

That Time We Almost Picked Up A Fugitive

clip art from examiner.com

(Well, fugitive is probably too strong of a word for what she was, but the poor girl was definitely running from the cops.)

Story Time

Once upon a time, in a time not too distant from right now (like maybe two months ago), in a land not too far away (down the street), two people were innocently driving down a lovely neighborhood road.  

When suddenly, without warning, a young girl ran into the street, seeming to come out of nowhere (she came from between a couple houses).  

Says the 7th Grade Girl

"I like to read.  So does my mom.  She's reading something called Fifty Shades of Grey but she won't let me see it.  I don't know why".

My 8th Grade Photo

Take a look at this teenager.  This is me in 8th grade, in all my pre-pubescent awesomeness.  Next to 8th grade me, is Kindergarden me.  Notice the apathetic, don't-give-a-poo, look on my face.  

I was 5 years old, and man, did I have the world figured out.  I was sassy, adorable, and boys feared me.  Well that last part might be made up.  

Now go back to 8th grade me.  Take a moment to really take that photo in, in all it's middle school glory.  

Stick Fires

(I almost deleted this post.  Then I decided it's too rediculous to take down.  It may also be too rediculous to keep up.  But, considering how I wrote the majority of this blog, it made the cut.)

I want to learn how to start fires with sticks.  Not just for camping and survival purposes, but for it's entertainment value.  

How to Merge Your Blogs in Blogger

If you're like me and your current blog isn't your first crack at this, but you still like some of your posts from older, still existing blogs, then you may want to merge them.  

This will help your older posts be seen and allow you to delete those old blogs, freeing up those domain names, guilt free.  Those posts can be kind of sentimental can't they?

Here's what you do...

Not My First Time

I'm going to be honest with you.  This isn't my first time.  I've written blogs before.  I know, I know, how could I keep this from you, you ask.  Well, I'm sorry ok?  It just happened.  

The good news is that I've officially merged the three blogs together.  Yes, there were three!  ::dramatically throws herself onto the couch::  But I swear the other two didn't mean anything to me!  

Which is true and why I restarted with MCM (you know, My Caffeinated Mornings?).  

...6:30am and already a pot of coffee in...

Flirts of Boomtown

I'm sure plenty of you have heard horror stories of women getting harassed in Williston because of the seems-like 10:1 guy to girl ratio here.  While there are a TON of men, they're not all creeps.  A lot of them are actually pretty funny.  

10 Rules to a Happy Marriage

I've been asked many times what the secret to a happy relationship is and the truth is, there's more than one answer.  There's 10.  Just kidding, there's more, but I'm lazy and only want to talk about 10.  

10.  Make an effort to woo each other.  Just because you've made your relationship legit in the legal way, doesn't mean you can stop trying to impress each other.  You've heard of keeping spice in the relationship?  Well, that's what this is.  Making an effort to woo the other person.  Surprise her with flowers, make him his favorite meal.  Just do it!

9.  Speaking of wooing, let's not forget dating.  Yes.  Date night.  It may sound cheesy, but who doesn't love cheese?  I know I do, especially with a good wine.  Hey, that sounds like a great date night!  If you don't want to call it date night you don't have to, you can call it ball and chain night for all I care, just as long as you make plans to do something fun- just the two of you-on a regular basis.  

Our Fellow Hell-goers

Grocery shopping is interesting here.  

Most people do their shopping on Sunday since that's the only day they don't work.  If you do decide to join the rest of the town and do your shopping that afternoon you will wait in line a looooooong time.  (We've waited 45 minutes-that's extreme, but it's happened.)

The better choice is to shop on Sunday morning.  But... it means you're skipping church.  And heaven forbid you skip church. ::she says sarcastically:: (According to a few extremists I've met, we're probably going to Hell.)

The Crunchy Trail (or, My Passive Aggressive Rebellion)

Let's talk about my sprint down the crunchy trail since we moved here...  

First, let me begin by saying that this is a lovely town, with lovely shops, restaurants, and people.  However, it is not "crunchy friendly"- Crunchy = "conservationists, environmentalists, neo-hippies, tree huggers, nature enthusiasts, etc."- and that is a total bummer.  

I Learned Something Today

3 facts about me.  

I use many different pet names with Chris.  

I am horrible at spelling. 

This is how I spell these pet names when I'm texting Chris: Hunny, Sweety, Sweatheart, among others.  

I learned something today.  

Sweatheart is not the same as Sweetheart.  

Like my drawing?

So it's been a while

This is so cliche.  The blogger that doesn't post for 6 months and then write the "oops, it's been a while, there's just so much going on!" post.

Well here's mine.  Oops, it's been a while, there's just so much going on!

The biggest update is that we've moved into a house.  That's right, we no longer live in an RV, whoop whoop!

More on that later.  Right now, I'm going to go make dinner.

That's another thing, I cook now!  HA!  Who saw that coming?  Not me!

Why I Blog in the AM

Because everyone else is sleeping and the wifi works.

Yep, that's pretty much it.  

WiFi in the park...I can't really complain because it's free.  However, it's free because it doesn't work the greatest, therefore they can't charge for it until it works.  

If you hope to do anything internet related in the evening, good luck.  It's like 50 people trying to eat dinner off of the same pizza.  You might get some, but not enough to count.  

In Other News

Chris is kicking butt at his job.  I love my job so far, and I'm sure I'll keep loving it.  It feels amazing to be able to do what I went to school for.  Not everyone gets that chance, and I'm grateful for it.

Bella is also doing well.  See?

Guess what I got for my birthday!

Here's a hint.  

How about a few.  

  

So I blinked and a week went by

Its feels like I blinked and a week went by.   I've just been so busy lately.  

That's because... I am now officially employed!  

And not just simply employed, but with a job I actually went to school for, pretty impressive eh?  I know I'm excited.  

It's been a long process, with waiting for my ND license and whatnot (I hinted at my excitement almost a month ago and posted about my experience finding a job and how quickly that part of it went.)  I'll just say nothing happens quickly, especially over Christmas.  

Procrastination

How do I procrastinate?  Let me count the ways...

• Hulu and Netflix (thanks to our family)
• Ancestry.com 
• This blog
• Books, oh how I love books
• My journal
• My dog
• My new camera
• My yoga mat

Yep, that can usually kill a day.

Good post, eh?

I Think I'm Becoming a Tech Geek

Happy Monday!  

I drove Chris into work this morning at 6:30 and decided to stay in town since I had a meeting at 9 (and our RV parking lot is complete ice and I don't want to drive through there more than once if I don't have to).  

Then the meeting was postponed until 11.  Which means I've been killing time for 4 hours at a coffee shop in town.  Foouuur hoooouuuurs. Good thing I brought my iPad.  

Let me tell you why I've fallen in love with my iPad.  

In the last few hours I've added to my family tree in ancestry.com, read part of the book I'm reading, and I wrote this post.   

I fought getting one for months.  I didn't need one. They're too expensive.  But Chris insisted I'd use it and love it.  It still took some convincing, since you can buy a lot of groceries for the price of an iPad.  But we bought it, and I love it.  I think I'm becoming a tech geek.  

This morning, while chilling in this coffee shop, waiting for my meeting, I've added a few generations to my family Geneology, read a couple chapters in the book I'm reading, and wrote a blog post.  

Not bad for only bringing one thing with you.  

Simply Going Green isn't Good Enough

The last few years we've gotten pretty serious about not eating complete crap and just using natural stuff in general.  

We've always recycled and done our duty there, but we've decided simply going green isn't good enough.

We have a few grand endeavors for this new year and one is to start making a lot of our own products instead of buying them.

We also want to start growing any food that we can while living in a gravel RV park, so basically anything that we can grow in pots.  As you may have read, that's going to be a challenge for me and will probably be mostly up to Chris.

When these New Years resolutions will start, not sure, but I'll keep you posted on how we're doing.  

I Kill Plants

Confession:  I kill plants.   

Doesn't matter what kind it is, I will kill it.  

This isn't a secret.  For years now I've been given plants that are hard to kill.  Sadly, they've all been added to my plant cemetery.

The two (only two) plants I have now are only alive because of Chris and other plant friendly people.  

I want to grow my own food and my non-green thumb may cause me some problems.  

I want to grow tomatoes and beans and lettuce and potatoes and and and... I need to figure this out.  This whole growing plants thing.  

A New Year and a Birthday

With my birthday only 3 days into the new year, a new year is literally a "new age" for me.  

Today is my birthday.  

I'm 28.  

I feel incredibly old.  

I know I'm really not, and my older friends are rolling their eyes, but it's the oldest I've ever been.  ;) 

I remember my last birthday feeling very different.  I felt like my 27th year was going to bring big changes.  While I expected to finish my masters and get a job, I never expected to move to the prairie of North Dakota.  

It's exciting to think about the possibilities of a new year and I definitely have my hopes for what I want to happen.  

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.