Winging It

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”

Except that we hadn’t actually made any plans. We just packed everything we owned into my new car and drove to Chattanooga, without housing or jobs lined up. We’ve lived in a van for a year, so clearly we can live in it for a few days while we figure things out, right?

We loaded all our stuff into my tiny hatchback, leaving the van almost completely open for us to keep living in.

While making the drive up to Chatt, we were able to stop and climb at Horse Pens 40 in Alabama.

However, we didn’t account for the weather. Throughout our trip, we went where the weather was ideal for camping and climbing. If it was rainy, too hot, or too cold, we simply moved on. In this case, we had to stick around Chattanooga, and it was stiflingly hot.

We found a great house for rent, but had to figure out what to do for a few more weeks before it became available. Fortunately – once the previous tenants moved out – our wonderful new landlords offered up their driveway as a place to store our vehicles and they are letting us stay in the basement of our new place while they get the house ready for us.

Everything we own, emptied into the basement of our new place. Now we just need to figure out how to fill a five bedroom house, seeing as we have no furniture.

It’s amazing how we can spend over a year on the road, always feeling right at home in the van, but the moment we try to make it in a city, we feel homeless. For around a week, we struggled to get access to showers (our nationwide gym membership apparently has locations everywhere but Chattanooga), mooched air conditioning off acquaintances, and tried to figure out where to pass the time (since our van had turned into an oven).

On the bright side, being on the road for so long has made this transition incredibly easy. It doesn’t feel like the jarring change that moving away usually is. On the other hand, since John had to fly to Boston for work, I now find myself alone in a city where I don’t know anyone yet… on my birthday. Happy Birthday to me!

John ditching me to fly out of Chatt’s tiny airport. All the cool kids fly with oscilloscopes.