Chapter 22 - On The Road Again

At the end of Chapter 20 I noted that we would be taking a break from house sitting in order to take care of my mom, "... what we will do is push the 'pause button' on future house sits indefinitely until it no longer makes sense for mom to live here, at which time we will reevaluate our options and forge ahead again. This, as the section heading reads, is one of the curveballs of house sitting."

Curveballs indeed. The last year and a half has been both challenging and rewarding. Challenging in that providing live-in home care for an elderly parent is no easy task. Rewarding in that we were able to give my mom an extended period of time in which she could stay in the home of her dreams. But eventually it was just not possible for two non-clinical people to provide the geriatric care needed for an 88 year old woman in a house not designed for a person with limited mobility. Fortunately last June we were able to find her an excellent apartment in an assisted living facility where she is getting the care she requires and thriving as a result.

Since then, our family has been busy going through all the extremely bonding steps of fixing up her house (the one we all grew up in) and preparing it for sale (note to self... approach TLC with premise for new reality show - Extreme Bonding). 

SO... as of December 14, Charli and I are officially houseless, because if you recall, we sold our last house back in 2014. But we are not addressless, because thank you South Dakota! I know, South huh? Yes, we now have a mailing address in Sioux Falls, and for a few good reasons:
1. SD caters to vagabonds like us who don't have a permanent home and travel in RVs... or Priuses packed to the ceiling. They actually have a mailbox company that will issue you a regular street address, which is important because many institutions won't allow you to use a PO box.
2. SD will take you as a resident for the mere act of staying ONE night in a South Dakota hotel or campground. And, their DMV and vehicle registration offices welcome you. In fact, we were able to obtain a SD drivers license and get new license plates in just a couple of hours, not to mention registering to vote at the same time. Charli and I are now two of the newest "great faces" you can find there.
3. SD has no income tax. It's not a huge reason to emigrate to the plains, but hey, we'll take it!

All of this leads to now, December 24, as we sit at our first house in 18 months in downtown Los Angeles. These next few weeks will be a bit of a scramble but for now we have plans in place for the rest of the holidays until early January, when we head up to Lincoln, NE for a month. This will be our "base camp" where we can settle back into our routine and get our future gigs locked down. It will also be a good location for me to head back up to MN for a few days at the end of the month to take care of some personal business, see some friends and play some music! All good things.

So here we are, back on the road again. We are super excited to see what lies ahead on our house sitting adventure. It has been exactly 4 years since we pulled out of St. Cloud in our little road warrior, who by the way has just surpassed 200,000 miles! People keep asking us, "how long will you do this?" and our response has always been, "until it's not fun anymore." Well guess what... it's still fun! So I guess that means we forge ahead and go where the road leads us. And at the risk of sounding redundant, I will once again leave you with our motto de la vie -

Not all those who wander are lost - Tolkien