July 8- Morgan made breakfast tacos this morning and we were on the road by 8. We stopped for some things at Walmart, and then grabbed coffees at Mukwano Coffee there in Rawlins. We drove through lots of road construction and traffic and little rain showers today it seemed like. Morgan and i had almost forgotten what rain on the road smelled like and we have enjoyed every drop. We stopped in Laramie at a locksmith to see if they’d unlock our bike but that was a dead end so we found a guy named Jeff in Cheyenne that got it done for us so we’re good to go again. We pulled up to his house and out he came to get it fixed, and he also told us he doesn’t know where he falls on the religion food chain but that he’s born again so it doesn’t matter.

Our first stop in the Windsor, CO, area was to stop and see Lola and Heather but unfortunately Kyle was working so we couldn’t see him. We had such a good time seeing them and catching up and goodness I do miss those people. Then we headed to Clay+Alyssa where we had delicious food and parked our bus for the night. A little thunderstorm came through so we all sat it out in the bus for 15 minutes. I have so missed the sound of thunder. Morgan and Clay took the bikes out for a rip and then Alyssa and I went cruising around for abit.

July 9- We left Clays this morning at 730 and drove out to Josh and Holly’s house because she is my cousin and I hadn’t seen them for a long time and plus also we wanted breakfast. The waffles and turkey sausage did not disappoint, and Morgan and I were bummed that we couldn’t spend more time there or at least go swimming but the road was calling.

I dont know if you’ve driven between Windsor and Grant but it’s a pretty boring road with empty wheat fields and something called the Pawnee Buttes that we didn’t stop at but I didn’t really know if Buttes could be a thing here anyways. It is so green everywhere here, just like in Wyoming, so it’s beautiful driving as far as that goes. stopped at J and L Cafe for lunch in Sterling and that was cool and delicious. Morgan had a sausage and Swiss cheese and saurkrat brat that was so good. I took a turn driving for awhile but I got tired of fighting the wind so Morgan got to then. Theres a chance of thunderstorms tonight at Grant and I strongly dislike hail so keep me in your thoughts should hail arise.

We had to stop for groceries in Grant, and then i wanted to see Sonyas Cafe called Little Bluestem so we got some of the best iced caramel lattes we’ve had this trip. Would rate 8.4/10 and it is the cutest litte place that i urge you to try. We were parked on a side street there and some darling people came by and took a tour of the bus and were excited because they live in a tiny house in Grant! Then we were excited and had to drive by their place and check it out and it is so cute! So that was a fun thing. We got to Ryan & Lonetta in the late afternoon and Morgan went touring around their amazing vegetable farm “The Prairie Garden” while I went inside and got to know Anne and Theodore and caught up with Lon. We all went to Jerry & Minnie for a kabob supper and homemade ice cream. Mama Mary was there too, and then some of my old students stopped by to say hi and to see the bus so I spent the evening feeling old. Steve&Eva, Tom&Marsha, Elkanah&Kendra, and Tyson&Mia stopped in too. And Nathan&Maria were out visiting too which was so cool that we could randomly meet up with them here. Anyways we had such a good time catching up with everyone. Before bed a little storm came through (the dark blue storm clouds here are exactly the color of our bus) so we listened to the wind whistle which was something I hadn’t heard for awhile.

Tuesday, July 6- We drove through the most beautiful canyon on our way from Ogden, UT, into Eden where Uncle Dean and Aunt Carolyn live. A fitting name for the place. The bus chugged over the steep pass and we crested the summit to find a darling green valley with trees and grasses and surrounded by mountains. Uncle Deans live up on the side of the hills with a view of the valley that is so pretty. Aunt Carolyn had enchiladas ready for us when we arrived and after supper we went touring around with Uncle Deans looking at the giant houses and deer and turkeys roosting in the trees. They have a ski slope right up the road, and there’s land selling for $390,000 an acre. Its prime. We slept in the bus and it was bonus that it actually cooled off there in Eden for the night unlike our stop in Nevada the previous night. There haven’t been any bugs to speak of, but we are also still where it’s dry and crusty. (We did see Mormon crickets, or rather ran over them for several miles through Utah. Absolutely disgusting.)

Wednesday, July 7- We had casual breakfast and left Uncle Dean’s around 9:45, headed out towards Morgan and Cheyenne:) (i had that sign on my status earlier so maybe you saw it.)

We are having a fun day driving. We hit up Caffeinated Cowboy in Evanston, WY, for coffee and the MOST delicious huckleberry, cream, vanilla,7up drink ever. Wyoming is green which is a pleasant surprise from the other times we’ve been forced to drive through it. We stopped in Fort Bridger, a historic site, and rooted around there in history for an hour or so. We discovered Wyoming’s first schoolhouse so that seemed fitting for us.

A group of guys met us on a trail and what should we see but a “It’s a Bronson thing” shirt so we had a moment of bonding with a Bronson man from Utah. We also met the coolest older couple, Paul & Anita, who are volunteers at Fort Bridger for the summer. We had a good long talk with Anita in the blacksmith shop before she sent us up to the museum to meet Paul who loves history. I think we’ll look them up again when we come through, whenever that will be. Sandwich lunch before we hit the open road of Wyoming again.

We got to Rawlins, Wyoming, in decent time and found a cool little RV park where we could stay and charge up batteries and stuff for tomorrow. Morgan got the grey tank hooked up and I cleaned up in the bus. It gets quite dusty when we drive with the windows down all day. Then we took the ebikes out for a spin on the teeny downtown. Hit up Family Dollar for some staples and had supper out this evening at a place called Big Mike’s Steakhouse. Unfortunately, we locked one of our ebikes up and only have a set of keys for the other bike so we rode back to the bus and are working on finding a solution. We played a round of mini golf and watched the sunset. I understand that I talk about sunsets alot but they are just one of my favorite things, especially out here in the wide open spaces. Also we didn’t really play mini golf but we did kind of hit the balls around. Another skoolie pulled in while we were playing golf so afterwards they (Daniel&Andraya are their names) came over with their two kids and their dog and we met them and had a good chat. And of course since it’s a small world, Andraya and I figured out that we are both from around Alma, MI. It’s so fun meeting people with a connection. Their skoolie is a “toyhauler” which means that they live in the front part of their bus and the back half is cut off into a flatbed so they can carry a vehicle or dirt bikes or whatever. So we explored each others buses a little and got to know them and we hope to run into them again at some point because they are so cool.

July 4- Well, the day is almost here. I am sitting in the office at kevins typing this while Morgan worries over the batteries he’s working on hooking up. The goodbyes are said, mostly, and another place has a piece of my heart. I imagine my heart must look like swiss cheese, full of holes for every place I’ve lived and people I’ve loved. I’m glad. I hope all of you have swiss cheese hearts too. Hopefully by the time I post this we will be on the road and cruising, but I did want to quickly write a bit tonight.

This week we have been working on batteries so we can run the fridge and lights when we stop for nights, even if we aren’t hooked up to shore power. We still would like to put on solar panels, but since we aren’t going to be living full-time in the bus in Enderby, we will work on them later on when we aren’t pressed for time. Morgan built a side table we can set up when we stop, and then set our grill out or set up coffee there when you come visit us + the bus. It is the cutest table.

Friday evening the Elmer Jantz family reunion kicked off with supper and we spent some of the meals there this weekend, meeting new friends and connecting with old, and swimming out at the pond. In between meals we worked at cleaning up the lot where we live, loading our Jeep which will stay here for the summer, and hooking up our grey tank under the bus. Morgan figured out how to load our bikes and our flat top grill that we can’t bear to leave here. Actually, we are hoping to use that flat top to make street tacos for a fundraiser in Michigan when we get there! We drove the bus to the reunion Saturday and everything rode fine which is saying something on these California roads.

I am hoping to update the blog here every couple days, or at least more regularly while we are on the road so you know where we are and what we are doing. Our longest travel day is maybe 6 hours of driving and we are excited to take it easy with friends and explore places we decide to stop.

Yesterday we left around 10:30 in the morning with lots of last minute stuff pushing off our departure. What a feeling to finally get on Hwy 99 and start driving! The bus rides pretty smooth at 50 and 60 mph but 55 is really bumpy inside the bus so we had to find the sweet spot. We have some of the windows down for air flow since we don’t run the A/C while we drive. We also are going to try to get our driving done in the mornings so it’s nice and cool. We stopped at the Donner Pass rest area to walk and let the bus rest for a little. When we got to Reno we had a grocery stop to get things for our meals on the road. I found an old stone quarry about a mile off I-80, away down a rough washboard road that we drove down. We parked the bus there on a mesa against some hills. We had steak and salad for supper sitting on our chairs, watching the sunset from start to finish. The traffic on 80 was a low noise and the stars came out slowly. We showered outdoors to cool off because it was warm most of the night. We slept with all the windows open and the desert breezes coming through.

July 6- This morning we were up and on the road by 6:15. We stopped in Winnemucca for coffees (would rate 6/10) and have been cruising along ever since. I drove for a couple hours which was fun. All the campers and vans and RVs wave at us, and lots of trucks too. Soon I’m going to make sandwiches for lunch. We are planning to be at Uncle Deans for the night outside Salt Lake City. Driving 60 mph definitely takes more time so we are glad we didn’t plan any longer days than we did!

the weather is hot. Like, so hot that things are blurry and ice doesn’t even count in drinks and the pool is warm and really not that refreshing at all. The good news is that we are already two days into the five-day hot spell. woohoo. Plus my mood is low anyways since Mom and Madison left California yesterday morning. And Morgan has been gone working in San Diego and LA all week but he’s supposed to be home today maybe. And Father’s Day is almost here again so since I was in a blue mood anyways I went and looked through Father’s Day cards at Target and wept my eyes out. bleh.

But of course there is so much good to outweigh the heat and loneliness. Like last weekend us and Madison and Levi took our traditional summer camping trip over the Sierras to Bishop and Mammoth Lakes. We left Saturday and spent our first night camping at Bishop in our favorite spot out by the hot springs. It was quite hot when we got there so we set up our tent and organized stuff. We used our cast-iron to bake chicken and garlic bread and saute squash for supper and ate while we watched the sun set and the colors change into purples across the sky. We spent a long time watching the stars and looking at the sky through binoculars while we had deep conversations about God and the Flood and why we’re so human. In the morning we were up at 430 to head to the hot springs. I had the pleasant experience of freezing on the walk to the springs, and slipping and falling into three feet of 112* water all at once. I don’t know if it’s worse to fall into cold or hot water, honestly. We were the only ones there and we watched the sun come up while we toasted in the pools. I love that place. Fresh air, sitting in random hot pools in the grasses, surrounded by mountains and peace. Unfortunately, we had to cook breakfast when we got back to camp so the peace was short-lived. Madison made hash for breakfast and we all sat around a very tiny fire. We left around 9 and drove to Sabrina Lake where we spent the morning fishing with no luck and Madison and I reminisced about all the fishing trips with Dad. We drove into Bishop and had lunch at our BBQ place we like, and got some groceries for supper since the fish hadn’t made an appearance yet for our supper. We found a little secluded beach area and spent all afternoon fishing at Convict Lake. We swam there quite a bit too, although the water was cold. I caught the only fish of the trip, a nice little rainbow trout that we tied to the camp chair so it could swim by my legs while we sat in the lake. It’s a very dry year here in California, and we didn’t see much snow at all up on the mountains. Sabrina Lake was very low, with lots of rock islands taking over the lake. For night Sunday night we stayed closer to Mammoth Lakes and stayed in a campground, I think for the first time since we usually camp on public land. We had a secluded spot with nobody around us and we enjoyed being able to have a fire without restricitons so we grilled tri-tip for supper over the fire. We were all pretty tired from being in the water and sun all day, so we were all in our sleeping bags in decent time, watching the stars and falling asleep to the sound of the pine trees whispering their secrets to us.

Dillon and Renae and Max were here for a few days at the end of May over Mom’s school program. We spent the days having some tough discussions since we hadn’t talked like that since they’d left for the mission. It was so good to be together and play with Max, who is positively the cutest baby I’ve ever seen. He looks like us, I think, so he fits right in and we just know him. We spent a day in Yosemite admiring granite, and the rest of the days we stayed local. I am so excited to go see them this summer because of course their time here was way too short. Mom’s things were sent in U-Haul cubes out to Michigan a couple weeks ago, and her and Madison and dog Shasta left with the rest of their things yesterday morning, planning to make a stop in Center and a stop in Copeland. We are planning to meet them with the bus in Copeland in a couple weeks and then drive to Michigan together so I’m looking forward to that!

The bus is painted a beautiful blue grey color. I know, I can hardly believe it myself. The back deck is done and the top deck frame is on and I’ve stained the boards and Morgan is going to work on it this weekend. I’m working on trying to get things to stay on shelves when we drive so I don’t have to put everything away every night when we stop. I’m using Velcro squares but if you have a better idea, let me know! I’m also looking for ideas on how to keep our drawers and cabinet doors closed while we drive. Most of them stay closed on their own since they’re soft close, but a couple of the heaviest roll open so I need a solution to that soon. I drove the bus the other night for the first time. Morgan was nervous, understandably, but it went fine and I loved it. It will be fun to drive on the interstate.

This weekend we are having a supper with friends, I guess thinking of goodbyes and last times we’ll be with some of them. Tonight Morgan should be home and we are going to try this pizza guy we’ve heard about. Next week is babysitting a couple mornings, coffee with a friend, and the girls are coming over for Bible Study Tuesday morning. We are doing the “Daughters of Grace” devotional book if any of you need an idea on a good book to use.

Hope is a desire for better things to happen. This week through different happenings, I have thought on that little word so many times. If I didn’t have hope, there would be no reason to go on, and to be totally hopeless must be the most terribly sad thing. My Grandma Jul, and now my Mom, have both given me the same advice as life has thrown things at us and that is to always “just think positive”. As annoyed as that made me when I was younger, I no longer scoff at the advice. I have found myself using that positive thinking the more my mental health has improved this year. Positive thinking is envisioning good things to happen, which i guess is the difference between that and hope, since hope desires rather than envisions. I definitely have friends in my life that would argue this and say that positive thinking is just being in denial and living in a fairy tale. I couldn’t really function without occasionally positive thinking my way through events where I have to be with unkind people. If I didn’t think positive and have the hope it might be better than last time, I wouldn’t leave my house. But the next person believes they are just lying to themselves. We had a conversation with friends about this all and it’s very interesting to think about, although deep thinking isn’t really my thing. I’d be curious what each of you thought!

We are so busy. We are hanging out with friends and working and downsizing our belongings. Yes, we still have things to get rid of which may be a surprise to some of you. We have sold everything we own except what we use in the bus and winter gear and our three boxes of sentimental stuff and our headboard made of skis. Everything else is gone and we feel free as birds. Its liberating to know exactly what and where the few things we own are, and even more so when we realize that we are still happy even though we don’t have really any “earthly goods.” We have had to start buying a few things tho, like shoes to teach school in, and shirts, and dresses sewed so we have accumulated in the clothing area.

Our bus is currently at Eli’s where he and Morgan have been working on welding the back deck and the top deck on the bus! We are so excited to be on the next step towards our summer trip and finishing the bus. Next weekend we will hopefully start painting, and please don’t ask what color because we haven’t decided yet, unfortunately. Was it my job to figure out paint colors? I mean, maybe. I had originally wanted a white bus, but there are two other kinds of white buses in our area, prison buses and the buses that haul migrant workers to the fields. I do not want to be parked at a corner and have 20 farm workers or prisoners as the case may be, try to get in my house with me. So we are leaning towards some slate blue color which I think will be beauty.

Tuesday was Moms Grade 3&4 field trip and I got to go along! We left school at 730 (I picked up Natalie cuz she rode along with me) and drove to Monterey where all 19 students, aide, teacher, and 17 parents got onto a boat and proceeded to go whale watching! We were gone around three hours and saw dolphins, grey whales, humpback whales, sea otters, and sea lions. The whales were so so cool. We saw several pods, and the most active was the last one we saw before heading back to dock. We watched one whale swim on his back and slap his fins on the water before breaching 6 or 7 times. He was just so joyful playing in the water. The kids all watched for the whales tail fins when they would come up for air before their dives down. The tail fins are like a fingerprint so they can tell which whale it is by spots or colors on the tail fins, and of course each whale has a name. One of the whales we saw has only been spotted 32 times since 1999! There was a small bit of seasickness but most everyone handled the waves fine! Sorry, Kansas kids, that this isn’t an option for you. Haha. After we got back, Natalie and I got lunch overlooking Monterey Bay and then headed home because I had things to do and couldn’t stay the whole field trip. 10/10 would recommend whale watching for your next field trip:)

Last Saturday Mom and I had a vintage booth at the spring market that was held at Steve Jantzs. Mom is such a decorator so it was cute and she sold quite a lot of things so less for us to pack and move. There were lots of other delicious things being sold at the spring market too, like coffee and cookies with edible flowers and kittens and homemade paper. It was a good time, although I felt like I’d been baked at 475* by the end of the long day. Last night was Grace Home Fundraiser where we ate pulled pork made by MagBBQ. We ate with Jons and Jakes which was fun since we are all adults with jobs and never see each other cuz all we do is work and sleep. Don’t grow up kids, its a trap. Today Mom and I had a yard sale and finished getting most of our things sold. Tonight Morgan is practicing songs for the giant men’s group that is singing tomorrow evening for the Grace Home church service at Livingston, if you’re interested in listening. The singing is always so good.

We are excited too because Madison comes home next weeeeekend♡ and the next weekend which is the end of school and Play Day here, Dillon+Renae+Max arrive and my favorite people will be all together for the first time in a long time. Hence the reason we are packing and Mom is too, so we can relax when the fam gets here. We have a couple things and weekend trips we want to do in June with Madison before her and Mom start heading East again.

I have thought of so many people this week, maybe because when I am once again jolted with the realization that life is so short and time isn’t promised, I think through all the lovely people I have met and know and I am so thankful for. So you have probably crossed my heart this week. And please know that morgan+me are here, just living the best we know, and if any of you should need anything then you know where to find us. I feel like those things are not said often enough, and now I am sounding sappy but remember I love you, friend. Xo chey

It has been SO beautiful here. Like 74 degree days and cool nights, at least in the bus, and I have been spending alot of time with our windows wide open. The mosquito-eaters have been making the bus their home also and it’s annoying since there’s not a big home for them to fly away into another room so I don’t see them again. No, they are all in the same room as me, flittering around with those long legs and fizzy wings. And I still see mosquitoes because no, mosquito eaters actually aren’t useful at all and are known as crane flies that eat nectar. So really just taking up valuable bus space for no reason. But it’s worth it to have all that cool fresh air.

We went to Mackay, ID, to visit Madison over Easter. We had such a fun time. Uncle Deans, Cousin Lance, Grandpa Petes and Uncle Jeffs were all there as well and we spent three happy days eating and hanging out at Uncle Mikes with all of them. Madison and us and Mom spent one morning by ourselves. We drove into the mountains and along a river until we came to the hot springs. The spring runs under the road and pools in the river so you sit in the river but its very toasty if you can find the right spots. If not, you will end up with a scalded bum and freezing feet so after trial and error, we found spots and spend a while sitting in the hot river pots surrounded by mountains. I loved it. We ate sandwiches for lunch and pondered my family’s strange holiday dinner places: Christmas dinner under El Capitan in Yosemite, Easter lunch in the Sawtooth Mountain hot springs, New Years in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We wouldn’t trade them for all the amounts of traditional roast and mashed potatoes in the world.

Last week we spent evenings helping Mom at school for Open House. The school did the history of California with focus on different nationalities or events that helped shape California. Mom was in charge of the Gold Rush and given a random group of kids so that’s what we worked on. Dan helped Morgan make store fronts and the kids did awesome with each of the parts they acted out. We had the boys mining in the river and they had used the old dirt pile to dig a trench down. Then they filled it with rocks and gold stones and their job was to pan for gold in the stream while the water ran down, powered by a garden hose, not from the Gold Rush era. It was pretty cool. Then there were girls working in the bakery and doing laundry on washboards, a banker in a suit weighing gold in Wells Fargo, Levi Strauss measuring denim, and the Ghirardelli chocolate factory. Some of the other groups represented the Sikhs, the Mexicans, the Mennonites, the Japanese, Spanish Missions, the Portuguese, and the railroad.

So our exciting news is this: Morgan has wanted to teach school for a few years now, and it seemed like the time to do that so he put his name in the teacher bank and made a few calls… and so we are going to be leaving California and making our new home in Enderby, British Columbia, Canada, not toooo far from the Washington border on Canada’s west coast. Morgan is going to teach grades 8 and 9 and I am going to be teaching too! We are SO excited to move somewhere else and make a new home and meet new friends. I am in denial about leaving our people here so I just don’t think about it at this point. We are going to take our bus, (see schedule below) but not necessarily live in it in Emderby while we teach. We think it would be more hassle and stress to worry about winterizing and the cold and water and all. We would like to park it and keep it as an AirBnb while we are there but who knows.

Since we have a deadline, we have our to-do list made and it’s extensive. And expensive. Currently Eli is working on our back and top decks, while Morgan is getting the roof ready to paint this week before Eli gets the decks on. Friday, Morgan spent part of the day at the DMV working on the bus title and transferring it to a motor home. We have to get it inspected this week at the DMV and then hopefully, they’ll send off for our license plates! We want to have the bus pretty much ready to go asap so we can take it on a couple beach runs before any long haul trips.

We plan to leave after the Jantz reunion here in California that’s the first of July, and drive the bus out to Copeland to visit Grandma Jul and our other people there. We have a few stops planned on the way there. Then we’ll drive out to Central KS and see my “families” and then hopefully on to Michigan to spend a few weeks with Dillon’s and Mom and Madison. Yay! From there we will see, but most likely across Manitoba, Sask, and Alberta with stops at all the places, and then into Enderby. We are going to be SUPER flexible with our travel plans because it’s a bus so who knows? Maybe it will go all the way and maybe it will have to be helped.

I’m working as a nanny a couple days a week which I’m really loving. I’m so bummed I will have to give up my sweet kiddos in July. Anyways that’s part of my week’s agenda this week. We are getting our vaccines Tuesday, eye appointments Saturday, and some evening I HAVE to make butter chicken and naan bread for supper because it sounds delicious right now. In between, Mom and I are going through our school theme boxes organizing for next year and both of us are getting ready to start packing. I have a feeling its going to be hectic until school starts!

Wishing you a happy week friends♡

Well, per usual I’m way overdue on a post. We’ve been busy and surrounded with friends and that makes me happy. That being said, I’ll contradict myself by saying that we are settling into the bus more every day and life is slowing down. Not having to work every night and weekend on the bus has slowed things down alot for us and we like it. Morgan has the outdoor shower finished, although we still use Mom’s if we are over there for supper or anything so we can save water here. Our outdoor fire and eating area has had a little use, but not much since we’re holding out a few more weeks until its a little warmer in the evenings. We had a birthday party for my Mom here though, on the 14th, our first real deal! Jons, Benny’s, and Matt’s were here and we had such a fun time. Yep, three years of married and we weren’t on a Valentine date. We have spent a good amount of time hanging out with Jon and Alicia, and one evening we had a bunch of young couples over for LA hot dogs. Sunday we had various people come over and stop in at different times, including some girls from Center and some other youth. A couple nights ago we had some 20 more people down and it was a super evening with good foods and favorite peoples. We are having so much fun being in our own space with a place to have people over again!

The almond trees are in full blossom right now, and as luck would have it, we live next to an orchard so I’ve been taking blissful walks through the blooms and sniffing them and I guess I feel exactly like Anne of Green Gables. I have to really refrain from chopping branches off and bringing them into the bus because I’d like to just fill it up. The sky has been so blue and clear, and we happen to live by one of the higher overpasses around so the view from up there has been tops, like I can see Half Dome in Yosemite on clear days. We live on a pretty busy corner where occasionally various vagabonds can be seen riding bike or trying to hitchike with bags of trash so it’s not necessarily a completely calming thing. Anyways, in my orchard ramblings I found a discarded suitcase and some cats so then I began to feel rather like the Boxcar Children finding trash and making cool stuff out of it. It’s so fun. Maybe a boxcar house is next for us.

Mom had spring break this week, and it just so happened that Morgan plus his hired guy had work in Arizona, so Mom and I drove to Phoenix Monday and spent several days thrift shopping and eating at cool little places and admiring how clean Phoenix is. We had such a good time, and went to around 40 thrift stores. We also found this really yum place to eat called Culinary Dropout and I wished while we were there that the Breakfast Club had been along because it was our type of place.

On our way home we wandered through LA and picked summer fabric up. We also saw the LA unit guys because they passed us on the freeway, waving and trying to hand tracts out to us through the windows at 60 mph. Its nice to see the young people taking their work seriously. Haha.

On Saturday’s Morgan usually fills up our water tank which involves hauling it from somewhere else in a different tank since there isn’t a well on the property where we’re parked. We mow the grass around the bus area, and empty our compost toilet. We use coconut coir for our compost, so we buy a big block on Amazon to use that lasts for a couple months. We break off a good sized piece and pour water over it slowly and in about 15 minutes we can crumble it up and it’s about the consistency of potting soil so its pretty easy. We can put toilet paper in the compost, but it doesn’t break down very fast so we have a trash can with a lid that we put most of our t.p. in. I know this is detailed, but a surprising amount of people are curious so here you go! And, there isn’t any smell that we notice besides the normal bathroom smells you notice in your own house. We wash the Jeep and chop firewood and water the garden and admire our garlic cuz it grows so well. And Morgan and I sit on our lawn chairs and watch the birds sometimes and plan our next trips and watch the traffic and wait for Uncle Evan to go by in his truck and honk. Sometimes friends stop in unannounced and those are almost the best of times. Life’s pretty amazing.

In the midst of all, we still have our battles too. I have really been working on myself to look at the big picture every day to put things into perspective. I often feel like I just need a little encouragement so if you have experience with doubts, low faith, relationships (other, not marital), etc., message me. I’m glad to be in this battle with each of you.

Xo cheyenne