USA: Goodbye, Crooked Pine Road
The rest is still unwritten
The first time I set foot on Crooked Pine Road, I still had all my baby teeth.
It was the mid-1970s and my grandparents—having just emptied their nest of the last of five chicks—had decided to pursue a crazy dream. They traveled from Michigan to Montana and purchased a six-acre plot, a former potato farm with a gorgeous view of the Bitterroot Mountains.
First, they built a barn in the middle of the property and set up rudimentary housekeeping in it. Then, over the next couple of years, Grandpa built the house Grandma had sketched out on a napkin.
Two bedrooms with a bathroom between them. A tiny cockpit for a kitchen—no more than was necessary for the one of her to cook for the two of them. A little dining room with a bay window nook, complete with binoculars, for watching the antics of the resident wildlife. A living room dominated by a picture window and a stone fireplace, complemented by orange shag carpeting, avocado and gold printed wallpaper, and dark wood paneling. In the cement and cinder block basement below, a heavy-duty woodstove for heat, a large chest freezer for game meat, shelves to hold the canning jars of garden goodness, and a Sears and Roebuck wringer washer.
Both the house and its occupants were simple, practical, and hardworking. A succession of springer spaniels sat patiently in Grandpa’s lap for a nightly grooming session while Grandma practiced the piano, preparing for the weekend’s church service, or previewed books for the church library. An enormous taxidermied bull moose, the very one from the legendary hunt1 back in Michigan’s upper peninsula, oversaw it all from the living room wall.
As I wrote two weeks ago, when Grandma passed away and Grandpa decided to sell, Andy and I, along with our two young kids and one occasionally naughty dog, were poised and ready to buy the place and relocate—our own grand new Montana adventure.
We built a shop when we first arrived, then later remodeled the original little house, more than doubling its size.
It’s hard to believe, but the start of our Montana adventure was exactly twenty years ago this summer.
When my grandparents first bought this land on Crooked Pine Road, they were in their mid-fifties. They had worked hard for decades to build a life and raise a family back in Michigan, then walked away from everything that had ever felt like home to start this daring new Montana adventure.
I guess I have it in my blood. Sounds familiar, right? Here we are. Mid-fifties. Built the life. Raised the kids. Walking away (again) to pursue a new adventure far from home.
So, this is it. Ready or not, we need to be off the property at the end of this month—only a few days away. It’s been the longest, most stretched out and complicated farewell, but it’s finally time.
Goodbye, Crooked Pine Road.
It’s been a wild fifty years since we first met. There were so many good times here, full of laughter and campfires with family and friends. There were also hard times, lean times, discouraging times full of tears and heartache. Our faith grew here, and our faith also faltered here. This property has seen better and worse, sickness and health.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair . . .” —A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
Our footprint here is rapidly diminishing. First, we lived in the main house, which Andy transformed from its humble beginnings into a large and gracious family home. Then we lived at various times and stages in the apartment above the shop and a series of travel trailers in the yard or on the RV pad. For these last few weeks, we have lived inside the woodshop itself—only a sheet of flimsy and whooshy painters’ plastic sheeting separating our bed and camp chairs from the dusty workspace.2 And by the end of this calendar week, we will be entirely location-independent, camping in various places while we scramble to finish the last few tasks of the truck build.
Then we roll.
If our life were a book
We could separate our story into major sections or volumes, each with its own robust set of dynamic chapters.
VOLUME 1: our individual growing up years, culminating in our marriage in Southern California
VOLUME 2: our first major adventure, moving up to Vancouver, Washington, where we started a family
VOLUME 3: the great Montana adventure
VOLUME 4: the complicated years where we technically still lived in Montana but spent much of the year working teaching jobs in Salem, Oregon; culminated by us quitting said jobs and building Walter, our travel rig3
VOLUME 5: the location-independent years, no fixed address, just us and a truck and the open road, and whatever other surprises await
The fifth volume, as well as all other subsequent, unanticipated volumes, loom large in my imagination, like that song by Natasha Bedingfield that often echoes in my head:
Written in a similar format, what would your story entail? I would love to hear about the major themes/events represented in your various volumes in the comments below.
7 Questions
This week’s interview is of Sarah Unwin, a solo traveler Andy and I met on the island of Borneo back in December of 2023.
We had all signed up for a walking tour of Kuching, the capital of Malaysia’s Sarawak province. After touring the back streets of the city for a couple of lovely and educational hours, we decided to grab a beverage in the shade to cool down a bit and get to know each other. It was time well spent. If we have learned anything in our travels thus far, it is this:
It’s always the right choice to start up conversations with strangers and sit down for a beverage or meal together.
After that initial city walk and beverage, we got together another day to share a cab ride out to an orangutan sanctuary.
We also shared Indian food for lunch one day and enjoyed the city’s nightly light show on the riverfront.
We’ve stayed in touch with Sarah ever since we parted ways, with her still traveling and us getting ready to head back out.
So, without further ado, Sarah Unwin:
Where were you born and where do you live now?
I was born in London, the capital of England, and now I have a flat in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, but as I have been travelling for over 2 years now, I guess I don’t really live anywhere at present.
Of all the names and titles you have answered to over the years, do you have any favorites, and why?
That’s easy— “Mummy”
Can you tell me about one person who has had a significant positive impact on your life?
That’s really difficult so I am going to cheat and answer with a type of person… I have worked with adults with intellectual disabilities all my life and they have taught me so much about what being a human being is all about and what is important in life. But the most important thing they have taught me is that we are all the same, us humans. We all laugh when we find something funny, and we all cry when we find something sad. The rest is just window dressing because at our core we are all the same.
What feels most like home to you and why?
Interesting question. For the last 2 ¼ years, any room in which I put my ‘Rosie Riveter’4 card is home. Before I set off on my travels, I asked my sons to write something on the back that would inspire me if I felt down and very far from home. Every new room I arrive in, I find a place for Rosie and that instantly makes that room home.
What is one thing that makes you ridiculously happy?
Ooh—really difficult to pick just one, so I am going to pick a slightly odd one and say big belly laughs, the sort that leak from your eyes and make your cheeks hurt, when you laugh until you can no longer breathe and even then, find it difficult to stop. The one thing I miss when travelling is the British sense of humour. We have a weird style of banter, extremely sarcastic and we laugh a lot. I was an exchange student in upstate New York back when the dinosaurs were still roaming. There were seven of us Brits, and our humour baffled the poor Americans who were stuck in halls with us.
What is one thing that makes you terribly sad?
That’s easy—injustice in all its forms. I haven’t outgrown that teenage sense of outrage at all the many injustices in this world. The fact that all my fights against it have been futile makes me saddest of all.
What is one important thing you have learned over your lifetime?
That the most important things in life aren’t things. People who have made it to an old age and are at the end of their lives rarely reflect on the things they have owned; they talk about their relationships and their experiences. I’m not just talking about big things like cars that are essentially just a means to get you from A to B (which my 22-year-old Volvo does just as effectively as a car that cost 150 times more). In the West, marketing men have done a brilliant job on us, convincing us that so many products are essential. Taking just one example, think of our kitchens filled with products, then think of that delicious meal you had anywhere in Asia that was cooked using one gas ring, one pan, one knife, and one spatula. I prioritise my resources—as well as the planet’s—into making memories.
Finally, I asked Sarah to provide me a photo of her choice and she sent me this joy-filled scene of her and her two sons, plus a friend, cruising in that old Volvo:
Thanks, Sarah, for sharing a bit about yourself with us. I do hope our paths cross again someday, somewhere in the world.
If you’d like to see another 7 Questions segment, here’s a link to last week’s post, wherein I interview Robbie Springs, an American who has just settled down from many years of life at sea to build a home on an island in Fiji. Here’s the photo of the four of us I forgot to post last week—Andy and me, plus Robbie and her husband, Gene, when we met up in Australia this past March:
That’s all for now. We have miles to go before we sleep . . . in Walter, our beloved travel rig, at the end of this week.
So goodbye, Crooked Pine Road.
Hello, Volume Five.
Until next week,
Sherry
P.S. Thank you to the many who have recently subscribed, either at the free or paid levels, as well as those who have upgraded their free subscription to paid. I am so anxious to get out on the road and put your dollars to work via the Diesel & Dignity Fund, designed to bless those we meet along our path. You can read more about the purpose of paid subscriptions here.
The story of this particular moose hunt was written up in Outdoor Life magazine at the time. I don’t remember ever visiting my grandparents’ house as a child, either in Michigan or Montana, without being lifted up in Grandpa’s arms to pet the moose. When my own children were babies and toddlers, before we bought the house, they were lifted up just the same. Everyone petted the moose.
Living in the shop has not been a hardship, as we had imagined it would be. The spiders have kept their distance for the most part. The mosquitoes have not gotten bad yet. We are careful to clean up any food residue and empty the trash nightly, so the rodents have not returned. I’ve learned to be quite handy at pulling decent meals out of a small chest refrigerator, a single cupboard, and a single induction burner. Our camp furniture has been quite sufficient. The whole experience has actually been good preparation for our life in Walter. No complaints.
We are here this week, somewhere between the closing paragraphs of Volume 4 and the opening paragraphs of Volume 5.
I love that Rosie the Riveter is an inspiration for Sarah. My own grandmother was a real-life Rosie during WWII, working in a GMC truck factory in Pontiac, Michigan that was converted for wartime production of military vehicles.
Come to Columbus if you pass by. Also remember Gales Point Manatee in Belize. I can advise you on who to stay with if you want to go. I think you will love it.
I recently left my property of 18 years, hard enough, but I took my "stuff" with me. Can't imagine leaving EVERYTHING! I'm glad you've got a good hubby you're taking with you :D