A little history

I am not a writer. Let’s just start there. If I had to describe myself I would say I’m a traveler, an explorer, a bit shy and an introvert, a dreamer, and a car girl.

By the time I was 8 years old, we had moved like 9 times in to 7 different states from Utah to New York, to Maryland to California. My Dad worked as an engineer and was always being moved from project to project. I was the youngest of 3 kids until I was 9 and they had 2 more kids once we settled in Northern California. We actually moved 3 more times in California over the next 7 years while my father continued to travel even more, just leaving his family behind mostly. He traveled internationally and I cherished the times he came home bearing gifts from the often exotic and far away places he got to visit like Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. I loved his stories too of all his adventures and maybe his traveling has inspired some of my travels as well.

Having a family of 5 children and a wife he left home to handle all the family affairs while he sometimes traveled for months at a time took a toll on the family though and as a result he and my Mom divorced after 21 years and everyone seemed better off, eventually. My dad continued to travel and really never stopped until his health forced him to stop.

After he retired he joined the board of a humanitarian group that had work in Ethiopia, Sudan, Bolivia, Ecuador and several other countries. He was so skilled in traveling to remote regions and his engineering background helped them to improve their lives with water treatment and delivery, stoves, and food and health care. He was involved in designing and developing projects that kept him away for years.

In 2004, my partner and I started visiting him on his projects, usually with a group going over to assist. We visited Ethiopia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru.

In January 1, 1990 I got a job selling cars (my older brother Doug sold cars and was doing well) at a Pontiac dealership. I had a good sales trainer and a brother cheering me on from another dealership next door. I immediately started selling cars, lots of cars. I was a natural. Money came easily to me back then in the car business. I moved a couple years later to a used car lot where there was a much greater potential to make money and won a trip to Europe for being the top salesperson. I traveled to Portugal, Spain, and Italy in a super fast 8 day trip with a girlfriend of mine and I was hooked! But, the owner was tragically killed crossing the street one day and it all went to hell. The business was doomed to shut down and I was at a point in my life where I needed a break from my life too. A month or so prior to that event I had sold a motor home to a recently retired couple who had saved and worked the prior 40 years to they could finally go see the United States but the day they were to pick up their readied motor home, she had a devastating stroke and wouldn’t come out of it walking. They had waited too long. I knew then that the American Dream and how retirement was set up would not work out for me. I knew I had to see this world while I could walk and run and hike and bike. I couldn’t wait till “retirement” and tying myself down with a traditional family wouldn’t be fair to them either so I would learn that lesson too from my parents.

I met a gal a few months prior to my boss getting killed. She was a wild spirit who had just picked up her life, moved it into a U-Haul truck and drove herself towing her van from Connecticut to the 4 corners to escape the east Coast. We became immediate friends and lovers and knew we were soul mates. I asked her if she would be willing to sell everything she owned and go on an extended trip with me around the United States, camping in an RV? Without hesitation she said Yes. That was 1993.

We sold the house, cars, and nearly all of our possessions, bought a used 26’ fifth wheel trailer and leased a new Ford F250 to pull it with. We went to the AAA office and got maps and travel books for every state, we stack the truck with CDs and the RV with a cushy bed, fishing gear, bikes, recovery gear, as many VCR movies we could carry to keep us entertained on our little TV/VCR.

We traveled through 28 states starting south into Arizona, across to Florida, south to the Keys, then we zig zagged up the east coast all the way to Maine then back across country to Utah when we finally were running out of funds. We had a budget back then of around $2000/month mostly from the sale of my house. 10 months later we rented an apartment, sold the truck and trailer and secured jobs again selling cars.

30 years later here we are doing it again. I feel like one must reinvent themselves every 30 years or so. It keeps life interesting.