USA: One Week a Nomad

We're not Nomadic Matt or The Backpacking Housewife, but we're on our way

I’ve named the rooster Ferdinand.

Remember the red-covered children’s book by Munro Leaf we read as kids? By all appearances, Ferdinand the bull looked to be a formidable foe, but alas, he was not a fighter. Ferdinand was gentle, preferring to sit alone under his favorite tree and smell the wildflowers.

At least from my one-week observation, the rooster where we are camping this week is a gentleman—more so than any rooster I’ve known. He doesn’t wake his neighbors until the sky gets light, and his singing voice is clear and melodic, never brash. Although he is a hefty lad and stands tall and proud, he doesn’t bully or pester the hens. He doesn’t mind if humans come in his enclosure to care for the flock. And today, when I ripped a stale tortilla into small pieces and tossed the bits to the chickens, Ferdinand took very little for himself, even though he seemed to like the taste. And what little he did take, he willingly gave up for any henny who asked of him.

I highly doubt Ferdinand is his real name, but we are property sitting for some good friends who are out of town, living in one of the camping trailers parked on their simple little homestead. I failed to ask the chickens’ names before they all left for the week.

Life here is gentle, despite our continued pressing agenda—completing the last details of Walter, our big yellow truck build, so we can hit the road. We awake to the sound of Ferdinand and the wild birds—many of them different birds than we’ve known, and all of them industrious and ready to start the day early. The warm breeze, chattering in the leafy cottonwoods and aspens sounds completely different than the same wind whistling through the towering Ponderosa pines we lived beneath for twenty years. Our first morning, in fact, we thought it was raining. Nope. Just new tree sounds.

When we open our eyes here, we can see the soft blue and grey layers of the Sapphire Mountains out one side of our small camper bedroom and the rugged, snow-capped Bitterroot Range out the other. The Big Sky, with its puffy white clouds, feels truly expansive in this flat, open land on the edge of the river bottoms. Our previous home, where we lived until July 1, was tucked up against a steep and forested hillside. It felt cozy, closed-in, and protected. This Montana, only a few miles away from the other, feels “high, wide, and handsome¹.”

Nomad Newbies

It seems strange to think that we no longer have a place to call home. Not to be confused with the truly homeless, or unhoused, we are simply location-independent. We have no fixed address by choice.

When the night janitor was cleaning our local Anytime Fitness gym at midnight this past week and found me curled up in a chair in the lobby, bundled up against the air conditioning and tapping away on my laptop, he asked if I was traveling.

“Actually, my husband and I are nomads.” It was the first time I’d said it aloud—the first time it was true—and I felt a smile spread across my face as the words slid out.

“Right-on. That’s cool.” He nodded. “I’ve seen you guys come in other nights just to get showers.”

“Yeah, the water pressure here is great, and the hot water never runs out.”

“Totally makes sense. It comes with your membership, so you have every right. That’s so cool that you can be nomads and use Anytime Fitness, like, anywhere. And now you’re just getting your work done with the gym’s Wi-Fi?”

I smiled in response. I don’t usually work at the gym, but I didn’t feel good about sitting alone outside a closed coffee shop at midnight, so Anytime Fitness was the next best option.

“I love it,” he concluded with a grin. “Good for you. I totally dig it. Well, I’ll let you get back to work.”

Back to work

Getting back to work is what we have historically done best, and we still have a couple more weeks of it before we can leave the build process behind and get on with the travel. But without a shop to work in anymore, we spend nearly all of our time outside these days. Our skin is brown and usually sticky from both sweat and insect repellent (thus the regular late-night showers at the gym). Although my seasonal allergies have shifted into a higher gear than I ever thought possible, I love being outside so much. The trailer we are occupying for the week is small and already filled with someone else’s life, so we eat outdoors, too, watching the deer and the butterflies and the resident quail family, who scurry about with their five little ones like they’re part of a 1970s sitcom².

From the intro to the 70s sitcom, The Partridge Family

This afternoon as I took our sun-dried laundry down off the clothesline, I contemplated where I would set up my office later. It all depends on the day of the week, the time of day, and the angle of the sun. A closed coffee shop or the library—any place I can sit for free with open Wi-Fi and a table in the shade is best. I smiled to think how this quiet and gentle week is a perfect introduction to the life we anticipate leading once Walter is ready to roll.

Laundry day again

My workstation outside The Sour Doe (a bakery we will definitely miss), after they’d closed for the day

Three departures from the norm

For the last many months, our normal life involves six (sometimes six and a half) out of every seven days working on the rig, but we did have three big outings this week.

First, when we found ourselves with 45 minutes of downtime between errands, we went to the river, just a little way down from the Stevi bridge, and set out our chairs on the sandy bank. We did nothing but breathe and gaze at the puffy clouds as they floated downstream above us. Eventually, when the call of the wild finally became irresistible, we peeled off our work boots and socks and stood ankle deep in the cold, clear water. We just breathed some more, admiring the view. When it was time to go and we had patted our feet mostly dry with our socks and laced our boots back up, we both remarked how refreshing that had been, standing in that icy flow. Our feet felt cool and soft inside our heavy leather boots, like we’d been gifted a natural spa treatment.

The second little adventure was checking out the place we will camp and work next, after the week-plus in our current place is finished. A local woodworker/artist friend caught the vision for what we are doing—and what still needs to be done—and invited us to camp at their place (and use their workshop and tools!) in the backwoods, just a little outside of town. We took some time to go visit them and see if it would be a good fit for us and Walter the truck. Oh. Yes, it will work. We are so excited. I can’t wait to tell you more about it and show you photos.

Finally, our third big outing this week was taking Walter to a big community fireworks show. While most of the community donned their red, white, and blue (mostly red and overwhelmingly white, if you know what I mean) and crowded onto the baseball field, Andy and I climbed atop Walter in the parking lot and watched the spectacle from up there, with blankets and snacks. It was perfect—another great preview of the life ahead of us.

Tired but happy

We are physically tired of working at this relentless pace, yes, and we are emotionally weary from all the upheaval and change, but we are so happy. We have dreamed about this gentle and quiet Nomadic Midlife for so long. We have traveled all we can in the past few years to sample assorted tastes of what is to come. We have created travel-themed playlists of songs to encourage us as we work. We have read or listened to so many books on travel, nomadism, minimalism, simplicity, adventure, history, poetry, etc. And we are SO CLOSE to driving away from this valley, what once was our home.

One week a nomad. Of the many books that influenced us early-on is Ten Years a Nomad, by Matthew Kepnes, aka Nomadic Matt, who decided to try international travel and got so hooked he forgot to come home. Obviously, we are nowhere near that span yet. It makes me chuckle even to compare the two titles. We hope to one day look back on ten years as nomads, or, as God allows, even more—like the woman I’ve interviewed below for this week’s 7 Questions.

This month we are starting small, just camping a few miles from what used to be our home while we finish building Walter, but we have high hopes. Lord willing, like Nomadic Matt and The Backpacking Housewife, we will wander the globe for many years to come. And YOU, dear reader, will be coming along for the ride as we do. I can’t wait to tell the stories of the lives we encounter along our way.

Hey, here’s an idea. Maybe I should do a book-themed collaborative post with Shawn Smucker, the author of the beautiful and gentle Substack entitled “The Courage to Live It.” Shawn and his wife, Maile Silva (who writes about plant-based food³ at “Mai Time in the Kitchen”), recently purchased Nooks bookstore in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a life-long dream and a huge adventure. They love to talk and write about books. Perhaps we could team up somehow and feature a bunch of the books that have been influential in our journey thus far. Hmm. What say you, readers? Shawn and Maile?

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7 Questions

This week I’m excited to interview Janice Horton, a prolific author and an intrepid international nomad who, along with her husband, has been living the middle-age, empty-nest, location-independent lifestyle for over ten years already. As you can well imagine, she has been a huge inspiration to me. Although we have not met in person yet, Janice is someone I greatly admire. She’s a role model for anyone who has ever considered leaving it all behind, whether for a few months, a few years, or—like us—for the foreseeable future.

So, without further ado, Janice Horton:

Where were you born and where do you live now?

• I was born in England UK. But I lived in Scotland for a long time before I started travelling, so I consider myself Scottish. Right now, I’m back in England visiting family, having traveled from France where I was living for a while between travels.

Of all the names and titles you have answered to over the years, do you have any favorites, and why?

• I like being known as The Backpacking Housewife. It’s my identity as an ex-housewife and nomadic world traveller. It’s also the name of my website for midlife travellers and the name of my series of adventure novels published by HarperCollins.

Can you tell me about one person who has had a significant positive impact on your life?

• Without a second thought that person is my husband of 41 years – my backpacking husband – because he’s always up for the next wonderful adventure together!

What feels most like home to you and why?

• I don’t actually have a permanent home. But I do have places all over the world that feel like home. Places I’ve come to love and know well, with people I call friends. 

What is one thing that makes you ridiculously happy?

• We recently had an occasion to be together with our three sons and our three grandchildren. That has never happened before - as we are all usually thousands of miles apart - and that made me ridiculously happy!

What is one thing that makes you terribly sad?

• Having to say goodbye…

What is one important thing you have learned over your lifetime?

• That to love and to be loved is the most precious thing in life.

Finally, I asked Janice to provide me a photo of her choice and she sent me this shot of her, ready to fly off for the next adventure, wherever it may be.

Thanks, Janice. I do hope our paths cross at some point on this big blue marble in space. I think the four of us would get along fabulously and have so much to talk about.

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Dear friend,

I do hope you can find some gentle rhythms in the midst of your busyness. You don’t have to wait for some exciting faraway travel adventure to listen to the birds and the breeze in the trees, gaze at the clouds, and, like Ferdinand the rooster, gently and generously share your gifts—however small—with those around you.

Until next week,

Sherry

1. ‘High, wide, and handsome’, taken from the title of a book by Joseph Kinsey Howard, is a phrase Montanans love to use. It just seems to fit this place.

2. The Partridge Family was a musical sitcom in the 1970s chronicling the adventures of a ‘modern day’ family of troubadours, traveling and making music in their converted school bus—a predecessor to today’s skoolie movement. We seriously considered building a skoolie short bus before deciding on Walter, our Mitsubishi Fuso travel rig.

The original Partridge family from the TV show

3. My genetically inherited high-ish cholesterol levels are healthier when I stick to plant-based whole foods. I try to do it most of the time, unless there are no ways around it—or, like this week, we are caring for a flock of chickens who daily bless us with fresh eggs. I consider myself a nearly full-time vegan. I do eat fish, though, which I guess makes me a pescatarian—not to be confused with a Presbyterian or a Pastafarian.

A delicious gringo-style huevos rancheros-esque breakfast Andy made for us with the day’s fresh eggs