Home —After 14 Nomadic Years—Part 2 of 2

And then . . . continued from Part 1 (our most recent migration was prompted by an eviction notice) 

At the Florida co-op we'd planned to call home, our best friend there got kicked out with a 24-hour eviction notice for what we considered no real reason. We were upset about our friend. We were freaked out—what assurance did we have the same thing wouldn't happen to us? 

Technically, Wayne got the eviction, but I consider "us" a package deal.
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

In fact, when Wayne spoke up about it—or, in his words—"Lost his sh*t,"—that's exactly what happened. One day later, he got a 24-hour eviction notice, something that's never happened to either of us. 

Instead of settling into a home base, we'd have to hit the road again.
Photo from Pixabay.

We had no Plan B.

Shiva, was in the hotel with us, while we figured out a Plan B. She adapted far better than we did.

Despite liking the concept of a co-op, the reality was far from ideal. After the co-op, we wanted control. That meant living somewhere we felt we were free to express our beliefs on what we felt was right without fear of repercussion. That meant buying a house and no co-ops or HOAs. We decided to move closer to friends and family. 

We talked to Aaron, our financial planner, who helped us figure out how to afford the five years of travel we started back in 2012.

"Buy a house," Aaron advised. 

"You can afford it," he added. "If you don't do it now, you may not be able to later." 

Meanwhile, the folks we sold our trawler to offered it as a place for us to live aboard while we house-shopped. The boat was still exactly where we live aboard and sold it from in Portland.It sat empty and would be until May. We had someplace to go to.

Once again, we needed to get us, our "stuff"—not much, but more than fit in our sedan—cross-country. We also now had a kitty, too. We bought a RoadTrek mini campervan. 

This cross-country-mobile was a bit smaller to move us back across the country than
the one we took going the other way. This time, we came with a kitty.

Wayne drove the RoadTrek, and I drove our sedan, a nuanced repeat of when Wayne drove the RV from Portland to Florida, and I drove my hatchback. We knew we wouldn't want the van to be our primary transportation once we arrived in the Portland area. With everything else, selling our car in Florida then buying someone once we arrived was more than we wanted to take on. Besides, if we filled the car, there was more room for sleeping in the van. 

There's a reason we fled living aboard a boat in covered moorage in the Pacific Northwest in the winter. It's cold, dark, and damp. 

A rare sunny day. We were literally chillin' in the snow in our former boat
under the covered moorage in the background on Haden Island, Portland, Oregon.

It didn't help when the marina cut off the water for a week and a half in December when it was freezing. Out of sheer luck, we barely found out in time to top off the boat's water tanks. 

Not knowing whether one more toilet flush or glass of water would use up the last of our water makes me cranky. 

Being cranky in a small space is bad. 

My face looked like this (Shiva's visage was far more cheerful).
Photo by Niranjan _ Photographs on Unsplash

Another friend bailed us out—again. 

"I got this RV I'd love to get off my property," he said. We offered to do just that, promising to either buy it ourselves or sell it and give him the sales proceeds. He hates the sales process. We've gotten pretty good at it. In fact, it's already pre-sold (with a growing waiting list) for more than he expected to get for it.

Home sweet home in Portland-Fairview RV Park from January to late March 2022.
Lots more light than on the boat in covered moorage. Also much easier to keep warm in the winter.

The RV met with Shiva's approval as she figured out how to
turn it, too, into her personal kitty jungle gym.

Comfy: kitchen, couch, recliner, dining room table, full bathroom, decent-sized closet, a queen-sized bed. 
We had no trouble selling it on Craigslist.

We focused on finding a home in The Dalles, Oregon, because it's day trip-able to the Portland-Vancouver area where friends and family live. The Dalles also boasts more sunny days and lower prices than the Portland-Vancouver area. We aren't "building careers;" The Dalles is big enough for us to find jobs that will meet our needs. 

Viewpoint from The Dalles, Oregon on Columbia Gorge Scenic Hwy 30,
looking across the Columbia River to Washington State.

House-hunting, in case you haven't heard, ain't easy these days. Despite escalating prices and climbing interest rates. demand far exceeds supply. Most decent places we looked at went from posting (on Redfin, which we found posted new listings the quickest) within three days. Most places generally sold at the asking or over-asking. 

Cartoon pilfered from Morning Brew.

The first house we bid on we only saw in a Zoom walkthrough because I-84—the highway between us and The Dalles—iced up and closed. We made an over-asking price bid with a $40K escalation clause and still lost the bid. 

The second house we bid on with the attitude, if it's meant to be, it will be easy. We lost that bid, too. 

The third time, we bid on a fixer with a deflated Santa still in the yard in February. Then there was a pool with no recent service records covered by an ugly opaque brown tarp, weighed down by a cardboard box suspended halfway between the pool surface and the pool bottom. We were too distracted by the six chickens chasing us around the yard and dodging animal poop to take a peek beneath the pool tarp. We couldn't inspect the pool because it was winterized

Will the pool be usable come swim season? TBD for the great unveiling.

Our over-asking bid was accepted. The only concession the seller agreed to was a professional cleaning prior to closing. Their compliance with that is debatable. We closed anyway. 

On our supposed final presale inspection, the chickens were still there, but at least this time
they weren't running loose in the yard. 

We never pictured ourselves in a rancher, but there you have it. 

The chickens were gone by closing.

Wayne and Dana in the "before" photo of our new-to-us home in The Dalles, Oregon.
Photo courtesy of our awesome realtor, Ashley Almas, Sartori Realtors.

We're waiting until the oak floors get refinished before we move in, which will happen later this week.

Other than the two used recliners and one used desk chair from an estate sale, and my in-laws regifting Wayne's former couch and matching chair back to us, we have no furniture. 

We thought we'd move furniture into our garage while the floors are getting redone, but the spring on the garage door is broken. We decided to pay $400 to replace both springs, rather than pay $3600 for a new garage or wait 5-7 weeks for one less expensive. The repair is about a week out.

We've gone all the way around the house to move what we have so far, moving it in through the sliding glass door into the bonus room with a laminate floor, not in need of refinishing.

Location Location

After fourteen long years without a home base, we're looking forward to being part of a community again, and giving back and paying forward in the spirit of those who've generously supported us. Our home is now The Dalles, Oregon. 

What's Next?

Are there adventures ahead, besides remodeling and returning to (paid) work?

We certainly plan on it, though it may take us a bit to get our new-to-us home ship-shape first and getting past feeling "house poor."

We're looking forward to getting to know our new neighbors and hearing their stories.
Photo by Jeswin Thomas from Pexels

Oh, and there's a book and a sitcom script in the works. The former got put on a back burner with our constant moving. The latter was inspired by some of it. Please drop me a line if you want to be kept in the loop on those at dana "dot" greyson at .gmail.com.

Some Questions for You

• What unexpected events changed the trajectory of your life? 
• How do you believe your life would be different if it hadn't happened? 
• What regrets do you have? 
• Even if you have regrets, what likely wouldn't have happened if you got a mulligan and chose a different path that you are grateful for?

Home —After 14 Nomadic Years—Part 1 of 2

Our most recent move came about because of an eviction notice.
Photo by Maria Freyenbacher on Unsplash

How we got where we are now started with an eviction notice. More on that in Part 2. Let's start at the beginning, where Wayne and I started, with a pictorial "Cliff Notes" catch-up.

My former home in SW Washington. Sold, Feb 18, 2022 for $480K. I owned it 14 years prior.

In 2005 I got to know Wayne when I hired him to be my remodel handyman. He cleaned up after himself, so I married him.

In 2008, in the midst of the housing crises, I reluctantly agreed the mediation business I'd tried to keep afloat for three years was making it too hard to pay the mortgage. The job market wasn't much better. 

We sold our house in Vancouver Washington for what I owed the bank, about $145K, walking away with virtually nothing despite remodeling it. Recently, that same home sold, albeit with a remodel far fancier than the neighborhood merited IMHO, for $480K.

Shortly before we put our house on the market. we agreed to house-sit for friends in Vancouver, WA. Sometime after our house sold, we ended our house-sit and moved to Everett, Washington. I hated Everett. Wayne hated his job there.

"Let's buy a sailboat and leave the country," Wayne suggested. I didn't know how to sail.

Our 26' O'Day sailboat in British Columbia's Copeland Islands.

Wayne got a little sailboat for me to learn and to see if we could hack life aboard. He worked so many hours that until he quit, he didn't have time to sail it. With visions of ramming another boat on my way out or back into the marina, I was too chicken to learn on my own. Embarrassing but true.  But we had a great time after he quit, sailing up into British Columbia and back over three weeks, despite all kinds of dramas and discomforts. 

By that time, Wayne already bought s/v Journey, without me, but with my blessing, in St. Lucia, the Caribbean. We planned to sail Journey to Australia and sell there after five years of sailing.

Our living space was roughly 150 square feet, but we had a heckuva backyard!

S/V Journey, our 36 1/2 foot Pearson 365 sailboat, viewed from the mast in Fakarava, French Polynesia.

We sailed to Australia, and a lot of places in between. We sold our boat as planned in Australia within two weeks. We tooled around Australia trying to decide what to do next. 

This Landcruiser was "home" for about four months while we finished
our Australian circumnavigation we'd started by sea, over land.

Our Australian visas were coming up for renewal about around our planned 5-year travel mark. Without knowing what else to do, we "came home" to Portland, Oregon. Only—we had no home.

Wayne likes to say "We went from world travelers who sailed halfway around the world, to homeless, unemployed bums living in my parent's spare bedroom." We felt lost. It was a dark point in our lives.

Home from summer 2017 to fall 2020 in the Pacific Northwest, parked off Collins Beach, Sauvie Island.

Close friends unexpectedly set us up with their former boat, a trawler, which practically doubled our living space; we dubbed her m/v Serendipity. She enabled us live in an area we otherwise could no longer afford.

Princess Louisa Inlet, British Columbia.

We still hadn't found our groove since we stopped cruising. The tropics spoiled us; we'd always suffered a state of gloom that matched Portland's gray winters. We returned to some of our favorite places in the area and to some new ones in Washington State's San Juan Islands and through British Columbia.  We house-sat, to get us off the boat and out from under covered moorage in the winter. Then Covid hit, and that option dried up, along ability to go to New Zealand to escape our winter.

We wanted out—again—before winter arrived. We considered shipping our trawler cross-country, but decided we were better off buying there than shipping.

We sold Serendipity and headed to Florida in a new-to-us RV, which also provided a base for us while we shopped for another sailboat. Once we found our boat, we figured we'd sail to the Bahamas for the winter, return to the US, head up the Atlantic coast from spring until fall, then return to the balmy Caribbean before the next winter set in.

While we looked, we stayed in an RV co-op community in Florida.

The RV we crossed country in, before someone sideswiped it into a guard rail.
It still provided a temporary home base while we sailboat shopped in Florida.

With bought a lovely boat, but with limited options on the market and high hopes of getting friends and family to join us as Covid wound down, the boat was bigger than we wanted or needed.

Just before we took off for the Bahamas, I sold my beloved Prius and we turned our RV over to the insurance company of the woman who slammed it into the guard rail in Oklahoma, on the way to Florida. The RV was still drivable and livable, but the insurance company determined it was cheaper to sell than fix it.

Our large and luxurious Hirsch Gulfstar 45' sailboat with a guest room but no guests.

Once again our boat sellers told us, "We're 'keeping' the boat name for our next boat, you gotta rename her." We named her s/v Gallivant and sailed to the Bahamas.

A mellow sailing moment in the Bahamas aboard s/v Gallivant.

But we didn't like the feel of a boat that big. We'd lost our zest for cruising. We returned to Florida where again house-sat while sold the boat, in the same co-op community we stayed while boat-shopping. I fell big time for Shiva, the kitty who inspired our house-sit.

Smitten by this kitten, Shiva. Her owner was less smitten and as if we'd adopt Shiva.

Shiva's owner asked if we'd adopt her kitty.

"We're homeless. We can't take in a cat," Wayne said. "And what about when we go to New Zealand?" (We were still itching to return to New Zealand, and with the boat sold, once Covid restrictions lifted, there was nothing stopping us. However, the island-nation of New Zealand quarantines pets for six weeks).

Our Florida hangout, a co-op park where we boat-shopped and stayed for the boat sale process and after.

Meanwhile, we warmed up to the idea of calling Florida and the co-op we'd already spent some time at home, at least for winters. Against Wayne's better judgment, we adopted Shiva.

And then . . . 

This post was getting too long; the rest of our "migration" story will be continued in Part 2.

Location Location

Currently, we're in Fairview, Oregon, just east of Portland, Oregon. We'll soon be moving into our home is in The Dalles, Oregon, up the Columbia River Gorge, about an hour and a quarter's drive east of Portland.

Almost

Californa Redwoods, a Pacific Northwest sun escape from two years ago, pre-Covid.
Much has happened since then.

Today we are on the cusp of a new chapter in our lives. 

Assuming it works out—and we'll know later today—I can explain some of my silence soon.

 
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

Location Location

That too will be revealed next post.