Imagine that you had to pack up your whole life in the trunk of a compact car, what would you take? What would you leave behind? That was my situation as I prepared for my new adventure.
All in all, it was not as hard as I had initially thought. Though, I will say that I had a few priorities that had to go with me on my long journey to the Northwest. One included my Vitamix blender (something I do not leave home without) and my Instapot.
(Heck, yes, those are affiliate links to Amazon. You pay nothing extra, and I get a kickback for sharing awesomeness! Win-win!)
Both of these items are, by far, necessary in my life on a daily basis, they must remain in my tool arsenal in order to achieve daily success 😉 True story, they are my comfort tools in my daily food prep to keep me on my nutritional track!
In the end I packed everything into the car with LOTS of room to spare. If I might say so myself I was a packing queen and rocked it out!!
Learning to live with less is extremely freeing and feels so light and fresh! It's pretty much spring cleaning on steroids 😉 I just had the bare bones to live out this new chapter of my life. I was ready to just roll with it and adjust as needed. This journey is about growth, development and adventure!
As we began our 2200 mile haul across the entire west, I slowly watched my old life leave me in the rear view mirror as I looked forward to a new life. Oh, the things that I intend to learn, the things I intend to change, the growth I know will happen.
It is at this moment that I decided that no matter what happened in the next three and a half months... it would be worth it, would be wonderful, would be exciting. Yes, it was my choice at that moment.
My husband was a trouper and drove the entire way!! Our first day was a wonderful day, but a long day - we ended up driving for almost 16 hours and made our first stop in Durango, CO. It was such a fun day, filled with lots of talking, laughter, silence, and just “being”. Taking in all of the beauty that God has made. We literally were stopping our lives for a brief moment and smelling the roses, metaphorically speaking. Although that first day was a long haul, we definitely made the most of every second we were blessed with on that day!
As we woke up the next day in Durango, CO, so many fantastic memories came flooding in, views were breathtaking from our spontaneous Airbnb ($30 off your first booking). Happiness filled our hearts; at this moment we knew we were born to travel.
We took our time getting up that morning as we were trying to recover from the previous day's drive. We got re-packed up and got back on the road. My sweet husband found us an amazing breakfast spot in a town close by and we savored the morning rays of the second day! After filling our bellies with yummy omelette and skillet goodness we were back on the road and attacking each mile before us with ferociousness.
It is on this second day that we begin listening to inspirational, motivating and encouraging podcasts. After each podcast, we began to discuss what we got from the talk and what we could learn and implement moving forward...what an amazing time of reflection and growth. This will be a time that I will never regret or forget, it was a time of love, growth, development and retrospect. We not only grew individually, but together as well that second day.
This routine went on for the remainder of our three day drive, and it never got old or monotonous. Growth and development should never be regretted.
On the third day we stopped in Moab, Utah to see the Arches park. We were a tad bummed about the 30 dollar per car park fee, but had agreed that it would be worth it as we proceeded forward. Come to find out, it was a FREE day!!! Praise the Lord we chimed at the same time, high fived each other and proceeded into the park with happy hearts.
Can I just say at this point, holy cow, God is good. What an amazing landscape of incredible arch structures surrounded by mountains, with brilliant colors, truly awe inspiring! We unfortunately did not have all day to spend in the park, but from what little we saw we made a pact that we would return on our way back and possibly camp and hike the area, and truly take in the breathtaking views and beauty of God’s goodness.
I won’t lie, the last day was a bit hard as at this point we had gone through two time zone changes and over 1500 miles, and by goodness we were tired. However, there was just so many amazing countryside views as we finished out the Northwest countryside. As we drove through Snoqualmie we were greeted with a winter wonderland of absolutely beauty! It was definitely a site for sore, tired eyes and it redeemed us a little as we pressed on toward our destination that day!
Tall pine trees, mountains and northern landscape greeted us as we entered Washington state, finally we have made our destination. What a flood of emotions of happiness, excitement, anxiousness, love, and I can not lie, a little sadness knowing that our amazing road trip is coming to an end and life must kick back in and move forward towards this new chapter.
God is good all the time and He takes care of us and blesses us with amazing views that we must get out, see, explore and be thankful for every single day of our life!
