Let’s get this part out of the way up front. This road trip does involve a car. I would love to say we figured out a way to do this trip car free, but we didn’t. Do we love road-trips? Well yes, they are a great way to explore the western USA. And who doesn’t love the idea of (safely) cruising up the coast singing along to the radio?
In a movie of this road trip you’d now have a montage of us visiting our storage unit to pick up cold weather and water proof gear and excitedly stuffing the rental car with this and that (A cooler! An air filter! Bike helmets! Rain gear!) Upbeat fun music would play. And what would be the music playing when we have to take all of that stuff out of the car each night and into a hotel? Some mournful march. So many bags.
Going from one backpack each to this excess of luggage is quite a shock. We’re also toting around groceries from our stay in SF, since we’re house sitting in Seattle and we love the opportunity to cook. And has anyone ever stayed organized during a road trip? Not us.
There is something about heading north from San Francisco which always excites us. North. Towards wilderness. Towards mountains and coastline. Remote stretches of road and big views. Not south towards bigger population centers, but north.
Still racing that storm which eventually wrecked havoc on much of the US, and coated Seattle in ice, we spent a night in Eugene and got an early start to make it to Seattle and our first house sit, the temperature dropping sharply each hour, and the ice day looming.
Snow. Freezing temperatures. Sleet. Streets and sidewalks were solid sheets of ice. Thankfully we went grocery shopping right after we got to our two cat house sit, so we were well equipped to stay inside with the kitties and wait for the thaw. We did put on our boots at one point and opened the front door. The ice on the front steps convinced us to just go back inside. We were regretting not grabbing our traction devices for our boots during our storage unit rampage of stuff accumulation.
Once the snow and ice had melted we took one of the cats outside on her leash and harness. Seattle weather wasn’t done with us yet though. During our last morning at the house sit high winds caused a power outage. Now I regretted not having the small solar lantern I always take camping. Rich regretted not grabbing the headlamp he had held up in the storage unit. Thankfully, we had noticed where our host kept candles and matches, so, congratulating ourselves on our adaptability we began to pack up by candlelight.
So what was the draw to Seattle in December, you might wonder? Good friends were going to be visiting family in Seattle and generously included us in their Christmas celebrations. We found two different Trustedhousesitters in two different Seattle neighborhoods, and jumped at the opportunity to explore a city we are familiar with, but want to know better.
As we travel we wonder a lot about when and where me might settle eventually. Back in SF? Somewhere around Seattle? It might be difficult to understand how unstressed we are by our lack of future living plans, but we’re really enjoying our travel life. When we aren’t trying desperately to find something in a pile of luggage. Solution? Less stuff!
Less Car, More Life 