The Adventures of Jim & Rhonda

We’ve been taking typhoid pills all week, probably not the best week to do them with moving and all but hey, last time we took typhoid we had no issues. So, poor JIm has been sick as a dog all week  – fever, upset stomach,stomach cramps, etc. – and he finally decided he is NOT taking his last 2 pills and will just get it in shot form when we’re at the travel clinic next month. I am going to continue my the dosage with my one last pill tomorrow night since I”ve just been a bit “off” all week and have had headaches but that is about it.

This afternoon we’re lucky enough to get blood drawn to verify our Hep B booster kicked in. Getting a hold of one of my veins is always a tricky proposition at best so I am prepared to be poked & prodded more than once. Oh the joy of preparing for travel!! A few more shots and some malaria pills and we are done!

We have a 24year old horse we call Bug and a goat named Butler. Obviously one of the challenges with us going round the world was to find suitable care for them while we’re gone. We found a great boarding stable not far from where we live that is willing to take them both and they also recommended an equine transport company to move them. So, on Monday I called the Joe to see when he could transport them & he said “How about tomorrow?” – I thought for a moment I was going to hyperventilate.. a part of my mind was screaming no no no this is all happening too fast! We arranged to have him come Sunday morning instead but as I got off the phone Jim, seeing the look on my face, said “Our life is really moving in fast forward these days isn’t it?” It was a perfect definition of what we’re both feeling.

We were hoping for the house to sell quickly, of course, so we could embark on this grand adventure we’ve been talking about for several years. But we never anticipated it selling in only 3 days and having only 30 days to be out AND find board facilities for the B’s AND get everything moved into a storage unit while keeping out what we’ll need in the apartment AND GETTING an apartment, AND having the house ready for the new owner. We have to be out next Thursday and as of yesterday I finally started to breath again because we are actually probably ahead of schedule for getting everything done.. it’s all been a bit much at once!

It’s been a HUGE blessing that Jim was laid off from his job because he’s been stuck with most of the “joy” of packing and moving. Not lucky for him but I just keep imagining how much more difficult it would have all been if we’d both been working full time AND had to get everything done.

At this point we’ll have everything moved into storage by Saturday, we’ll move Bug & Butler to their new home on Sunday, and we’ll move ourselves & remaining things to our apartment Wednesday evening. All in all it’s been a very busy, often stressful, month but within 1 week we’ll really be ready to start focusing on the fact that we are now able to make a long talked about dream become reality. I am SO looking forward to spending the time off with Jim discovering new cultures & meeting more people of the world -and then….. we’ll just see where our life goes from there.

We took a break from packing/ moving over Memorial Day and spent 4 nights camping at Trout Creek Campground near Warm Springs. It was a new site for us and a pretty nice campground… 16 sites, about half of which are right on the Deschutes River. It’s a no services campground but they do have toilets & garbage pick up which was a nice surprise.

We went w/ our brother & sister in law Ken & Wendy and their 2 dogs and had a fab, relaxing trip. Lots of time spent fly-fishing, napping, eating & drinking. It was a great escape from the pressures of packing & moving that we’ve been going through recently!

Once back in town we commenced with the move and got a boarding stable lined up for our horse Bug and our goat Butler, got an apartment secured for ourselves for move-in (only 10 more days!!!) and have most of our worldly possessions in the storage unit. Life is definitely changing!

Every so often I’m really reminded of why we’re taking this trip (or at least one big reason) and that is to truly live life to the fullest and appreciate every day. In the last couple of years we’ve lost my sister in law, my mom & our dog and have cried many tears along the way. A  good friend of mine lost her mom almost exactly 2 weeks after I lost mine and every time we see eachother there is that little bit of sadness of being kindred spirits.

I just heard from her and on the way home from putting flowers on her moms grave she found out one of her dearest friends from childhood was killed. There is much sadness in the world but I think we all need to take away the lesson that you must truly LIVE, not just exist to work to pay your bills, etc always waiting for  “someday” to follow our dreams & truly appreciate the wonder of our lives.. Too bad it often takes tragedy to wake us up to that fact but I know I, for one, plan on making every day count.

We put our acerage on the market on 5/10 and sold it on 5/12… Great news! We sort of figured it would go quickly since finding a small acerage is a bit tough in the area, however we had no idea it would go so quickly! It was especially a blessing since the same day as the house went on the market Jim got layed off from his job! It was a bit of a shock but we realized it was meant to be once the house went so quickly.

Well I slaving away at the office wishing I were anywhere but here, he is at home packing, securing the storage unit, making endless phone calls for appointments for inspections, etc, finding an apartment, etc. It has certainly taken a lot of stress of me since he’s accomplishing so much during the day I haven’t been having to do much in the evenings to prepare.

So, the time frame has been moved up and I’m looking at 31July being my last day at work with a departure date for our RTW sometime in mid-August. I can see this is how the entire trip will work… we’ll have a bit of a plan and something will come up to completely switch things up!

My in-laws have a time share in Fiji so we’re also now thinking of spending a week or two on “vacation” before we actually start our RTW. I will still officially be part of the travel community before we go so we are going to get a travel agent rate on Air New Zealand w/ a stopover in Fiji for around $700pp from LAX. Not a bad deal.

Right now we’re so busy with all of the emotions of the last week it’s still a bit surreal (not only did JIm get layed off and we sold our house but I also cut my hair really short and am in the process of getting as blonde as possible pre-trip. With my pre-mature grey it will be much easier to just have it light to begin with so the grey will blend in easier but what a shock to the system!)  I think the fact that we’re really doing this won’t kick in for a bit longer!

Our plan is a bit dependent upon when our house sells, which will determine when we leave. But, if all goes as scheduled & we depart this fall this is our plan:

New Zealand/ Australia – 2-3 Months

Bali – 2 weeks

SE Asia – 2 months

India /Nepal – 2 months

Africa – 6mths

South America – 3-4 months.

We are only booking the air to New Zealand to start so will be loose & fancy free so this is a rough plan, to be sure. Right now the big challenge is finding a place to board our horse & goat, find storage space, get shots and, oh yea…sell the house!

Jim’s sister Wendy is a realtor so she is on the case and hopefully will all go quickly. If so we’ll put most things in storage & shack up in an appartment for a few months, finalizing shots & planning and saving even more money.

Well, 2 years after this blog started we are actually finalizing everyting we need to do to leave on our RTW. Poor Sophie went to doggie heaven last fall and we have since been getting our place in order. It goes on the market on 10May!

Our first round of shots starts on May 2 and we have a consultation for lasik surgery the week after. God willing, the house will sell quickly, we’ll get all of our medical in line & we’ll be leaving sometime around October.

Since our last entry we’ve been to Europe twice (Prague/ danube cruise ending up in Budapest, and Spain) and Mexico twice (Playa del Carmen & Puerto Vallarta) with lots of weekends in Vancouver, BC, Seattle, Oregon coast, & camping mixed in.  But we CANNOT wait to embark on our RTW after years of talking about it.

Jim & Rhonda met in fall 1988 and got married in June 1990 & 15 years of bliss have followed. Jim is currently 40 years old and does outside sales for a worldwide fastener company. Rhonda is (almost) 38 years old and works in the sales & airline reservation department of a company that runs escorted group tours… mainly in Europe but a few other destinations as well.
Jim was born & raised in Oregon. He has lived for a few months in Alaska while working on a fishing processor.
Rhonda was born in Minnesota and also lived in South Dakota and Iowa before moving with her family to Oregon in 1984.
So far, our love of travel and new cultures has taken us to 4 continents and 24 countries. We are planning to sell the house & take off on a 1 or 2 year RTW journey once our beloved basset hound, Sophie, passes away. Since she is almost 12 years old we’re thinking we don’t have a lot longer to go.

We live on 3 acres in the foothills of Mt. Hood and also have a horse (an Arabian named Bug whom Rhonda has had for 22 years!), and a goat named Butler plus our cat Muffin and the neighbor cat Rudy who has chosen to live with us instead.

We love the outdoors, food, adventure and good friends. Hopefully you will all enjoy following us on our journeys.

We headed off on Friday afternoon to a fishing resort near Florence, Oregon. Our brother in law Ken, who works for the BPA (Bonneville Power Administration) has been based at their campground for 2 months for work so we thought we’d go down and check it out. We had rented their bungalow unit and Jim’s parents had rented a 1-bdrm cabin for a couple of nights.

Upon arrival at our bungalow we opened the door to the horrific odor of old urine. Jim said he wasn’t at all sure he’d be able to sleep in the place but since it was already 9pm we thought we’d unload, open up the windows to air it out, and go hang in the 1bdrm cabin for a bit. Bad idea.. we should have just gotten our money back at that moment! We were woken up many times that night by the stench of old urine…too horrible! So, next morning “checked out” of the bungalow and told the owners we’d sleep on the sleeper sofa in the 1bdrm Saturday night and then just take over on Sunday when the in-laws left. That worked for Saturday night but , unfortunately, the place was already rented for Sunday night… we’d figure we’d deal with where to sleep that night when the time came around.

The resort (campground really) is a great location. Really gorgeous, huge lake, docks, restroom-showers, etc. and a lot of people w/ camper hookups or tents. Normally we spend Labor Day Weekend backpacking and were regretting not just having our tent with us on this one.

After a day of bocce ball, fishing, lazing about ,etc we spent another long night on a 30year old sleeper sofa but at least woke to another perfect day on the lake. After mom & dad D took off Jim & Ken went fishing in a different location and Jims sister/ Kens wife Wendy and I took the dogs for walks, lazed in the sun, drank too much and finally required a nap. Jim & I had planned on just driving home Sunday afternoon as is only a 4hr drive and he had to prepare for a work trip anyway but… since they didn’t return from fishing until after 7pm we decided we’d just sleep on the convertible table-bed in Ken & Wendy’s camper. As you probably guessed by now..we were destined for another night of little sleep with the 2 of us (both tall) and our basset hound Sophie crammed on their table! But, a fun time was had by all as we sat around the campfire smoking cigars, having adult beaverages, and toasting marshmallows for smores.

Monday dawned bright and was another perfect day..sunny and a high of around 75degrees. We left the lake at around 9am in order to avoid traffic home and also to get home in good time to feed the 2 B’s (Bug, the horse, and Butler, the goat) & cats and relax before another work week. Our dreams & plans for our RTW trip are getting ever stronger and although we are not looking forward to Sophies demise it will be nice to finally sell the house, get everything in storage and be off to explore still more of the world!

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