Our First StopWe had 4 hectic days between getting home with our new rig (blog) and selling our house (blog). So, when we walked out of the closing meeting on our house, we felt elated! |  Taken just minutes after the closing on our house 🙂 |
We were free! We were off on our great adventure, and our first stop? A whopping 1000 feet away in our neighbor’s driveway. 🙂
Parked next to our neighbors’ pole barn. Our recently sold property is literally just through the trees to the right!
​Due to our compressed home sale schedule, we had not exactly figured out what was next after that. We also had quite a few tasks to take care of in Freeland still, such as changing our address, utility transfers, banking changes etc…. Luckily, we had GREAT neighbors all around us in Freeland who helped us so much with getting on the road. Ross and Dawn Olson were kind enough to let us live in their driveway for a few days while we wrapped up our life in Freeland.
While we were there, Caitlin and Dawn befriended and rescued an elusive stray cat that had been hanging around for about a week. The poor thing was very thin and flea-bitten, but she was sweet as could be once she realized we weren’t going to hurt her. Within a few days of bringing her to the Humane Society of Midland County, she had adoption applications on her ready to give her a new home!
Sugar Springs
​Next we headed about an hour north to a hidden treasure of a community just north of Gladwin, Michigan called Sugar Springs. Our good friends Dave and Ellen Casper have some property right on a grass airstrip that they have water and electric hook up for RVs on. We have been going to Sugar Springs for a few years to fly powered paramotors with a group of friends, and that is how we met the Caspers.
​Sugar Springs is a beautiful quiet community centered around 2 lakes and includes some private features such as a golf course, campground, airstrip, and trail system. While we were there Dave had the opportunity to do some flying and Tom was able to join him with a drone! Take a look at the gallery for more pictures! We stayed in sugar springs for a week relaxing and getting our feet (or should I say “wheels”) under us after all the work getting out of our house. We want to send a BIG thank you to Dave and Ellen, for allowing us to stay on your property for a few days. The peace and tranquility was just what the doctor ordered! Plus, it allowed us some time to get to know our “new” fifth wheel (see right). |  We took all the wheels off to inspect the brakes and hubs. We will be needing some new brake magnets, but the Never-Lube hubs on our Doubletree/DRV looked okay. We ordered a spare hub just in case. |
Big Goodbyes
​After leaving Sugar Springs we headed down to a campground near Birch Run, Michigan to meet up with our good friends Tyler & Jen and Caitlin’s sister, Sara, to enjoy one last weekend camping and say a heartfelt goodbye. We weren’t certain when we were going to see them all again, and they would be sorely missed!
The weekend we were there happened to be the campground’s Halloween weekend, and we got to hand out candy to the trick or treating kids all dressed up. Most of them collected bucket loads of candy! Why didn’t we go to campgrounds for trick or treating as kids??
Campground trick-or-treaters. Mocha looks nervous! (left).
For the special occasion, we opened a special 2004 vintage bottle of wine we had been saving for a couple of years. It was fantastic, and a fitting send off with the friends that really introduced us to wine! Thank you, Ty and Jen!
We also proved that the new rig can easily fit a party of five!
Wedding Festivities
​After saying our final goodbyes, we headed down to Brighton, Michigan to help prepare Tom’s parents house for his sister’s wedding a week later. We parked in their neighbor’s yard (THANK YOU FRED AND MARIE!) so we were feet from the action. After a week’s worth wedding planning, lawn maintenance, decorating and setup we were finally ready.
Unfortunately, the weather decided not to cooperate in the least giving us a cold, rainy and very windy Michigan day to work with. We were prepared, however, with a huge heated tent and everything went very well! The wedding was beautiful and the party was a blast! We also got to be wedding DJs* once more, just like in our college days! (*See About Us)
​Farm Days of Fall
In the days following the wedding, we were whooped!
​Luckily, our dear friends Tim and Aleta have this cute, quiet farm that we were invited to park on for our wedding recovery. Did we mention she has two horses?? Caitlin was in horse heaven! And so was Aleta; it’s always more fun to have a riding partner!
​Luckily, our dear friends Tim and Aleta have this cute, quiet farm that we were invited to park on for our wedding recovery. Did we mention she has two horses?? Caitlin was in horse heaven! And so was Aleta; it’s always more fun to have a riding partner!
​It has been one year in September since Caitlin had two horses of her own, when we started preparing for this journey and downsizing. She sold one to a Hippotherapy Clinic in Ohio, and intended to keep the other. Tragically, she lost the other to cancer within a week of the first’s sale.Aleta had also not ridden for a long time due to an accident at the beginning of the summer. These were her first rides since before the accident.
It was so good to be back in the saddle for both of them!
South for the Winter
​At the wedding, we met up with some family members who had traveled from West Virginia. They were planning a trip to Florida, and were in need of a house-sitter for a couple of weeks starting October 14th. Since we were already planning to head south (it was really starting to get chilly at night!), it just made sense to make their place our next destination and help them out a bit!So, after several beautiful days on the farm, it was time to head south. We said our final Michigan goodbyes and hit the road again. It was a little weird leaving Michigan knowing we wouldn’t be back until at least next year when it started warming up again. Now we know how geese feel flying south for the winter!
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Interesting blog. I am also a Michigander. Like reading about your journey.