Happy New Year! This isn’t even my first blog of the new year, but let’s look past that. What are your 2019 plans, ideas, and dreams? For us, they’re similar to what we had planned last summer before we set out for the open road: to do things differently.
And yet we rang in 2019 doing things, well, the same as we have most of the years we’ve spent together. Sleeping. We’re a rowdy bunch; I think we made it all the way until 11pm this year! Where we spent it though was a really lovely town: Victoria, Texas.
Venturing out
I’ve said multiple times that one of the best parts of this trip is that we’ve been given the opportunity to see places we’ve never heard of before, and places we would otherwise not seek out on our short vacations. Victoria is no exception to the rule. It’s historic downtown with houses the size of imaginations, the beautiful cemetery, and the wildlife Bernadette and I were able to see on each of our walks all add up to the quaintness of the town. I say “quaint” but I was also so happy to find that it had a Target, which is my one real addiction in life. I love pacing those clean aisles from clearance section to clearance section. Oh Target. But I digress…
We decided on Victoria because it was a good place to weather the storm that was scheduled to hit the beach we had been staying on, and only two hours from Houston. We’ve stopped at several places like this that I haven’t mentioned in our blog; we try to drive around 2 hours on a travel day on average. Ideally, we stop at places that have beautiful sunsets, because I’m not much of a sunrise gal. What I mean is, I’m usually in bed drinking coffee still when the sun rises.
Changing it up
So while we might have rang in the year in the same way in 2019 as many other years, we also started it much differently – in a different town than the week before, and a different place than the week before that. We’re not content to live the expected lifestyle, so we’re doing things differently. I don’t think any of our close friends or family were surprised we decided to join this adventure – Jeremiah thinks outside of the box constantly and acts on it. (Seriously, if you don’t know him, Jeremiah has done the following things in the past 9 years I’ve known him: replaced a BMW engine with a LS motor and raced the car after, built a racecar from scratch and proceeded to win local hill climbs and autocross with it, built a software company and successfully sold it in three years, and bought an RV to fulltime in – but those are “big” things. Every day he does things that I consider brave and he considers normal. He lives life differently, and fully.)
But, here’s the reality:
But, 2018 was not the year we had imagined. The grief of losing Gordon so unexpectedly on the brink of our adventure has permeated it’s memory. I will, very likely, hate 2018 forever. While we were able to do some amazing things, when you lose someone you love very much, it is hard to see the good. I am grateful for what 2018 has taught me, taught us. I’m thankful that we were able to begin our expedition, but I am hoping that 2019 leaves us a little lighter-hearted than 2018. I realize we’re very lucky that we were in a position to be able to do this – don’t get me wrong. I had just pictured it a little different, a little fluffier, a little softer. Walks with one leash were the most difficult part of this journey so far.
Moving Forward
So now, I am looking forward to what 2019 will bring, and hopeful that we can succeed in living in it a little differently than 2018. Here’s to more towns like Victoria, more walks on the beach… straight from our doorstep, and to the unknown that 2019 will bring. Cheers.
