2,762 Miles to Happy: September 2017

“What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

The funny thing about adventures, is sometimes you point yourself in a direction, only to find yourself somewhere completely unexpected. Sometimes you looked at the map wrong, sometimes the road you originally set out on became impassable somewhere along the way, forcing you to seek out a detour, and sometimes, the temptation of a glint of light in the distance is just too hard to resist exploring. Whatever the case may be, adventure is about the experience, and not the destination, nor how you get there.

So as anyone who has followed along in the past knows, we haven't posted much in quite a while. I don't know if I would call it a block in the road, or just a decision to take a detour, but nonetheless, we have landed in a new place, and started a new chapter in our story. See... RV's are expensive, require perfect credit to purchase, and we aren't quite ready to hit the road yet. Tricia still has a few years of school before she can start working, and we didn't want our home-on-wheels to be worn out before we even got to start exploring with it. Much like RV's, California is also expensive, which is how we, as well as Tricia's brother Mikey, and his girlfriend Hannah (who decided to relocate from San Diego) ended up in beautiful, sunny Gilbert, Arizona!

In the East Valley of the Sonoran Desert, we are just half an hour from Phoenix. Having never lived this close to a major city before, this has been an exciting change for all of us. Events, culture, and food abound (and it doesn't hurt that AZ has the most relaxed gun laws in America!). Aedan (for the first time in his life) LOVES his new school, Tricia can work on her degree ENTIRELY online, and I am settling in nicely at Mercy Gilbert Medical Center.

None of us ever expected to actually WANT to live in the desert, but so far we are loving every minute. We still haven't found "our home" yet, but in the mean time, we are working on rebuilding our credit, learning the area, and adoring our Airbnb condo. Regardless of where this crazy new adventure takes us, we have no doubt that plenty of excitement lies ahead.