When I was a younger man, I did a lot of traveling. I am not sure where the wanderlust was born, and I am not sure how to quench it as a father and farmer. Perhaps some of it is rooted deep within my ancestors’ DNA, those men and women who traveled from Western Europe to the Americas and kept moving West. And even before them, the ones that Ancestry.com can’t seem to tell me about. Perhaps it started when I was a small boy and we left Nome, Alaska to take a 13-state road trip as a family. I’ll never forget driving into the Dakota’s with thunder shaking the car and lightning flashing on both sides of the road. I was terrified to see lightning for the first time so close!

Including that road trip, I have been to a few places. From the great state of Alaska, I have road-tripped east and west and back again across the United States. I have driven across the Golden Gate Bridge and watched a Broadway Play. I have visited the Taj Mahal in India and hiked in the Annapurnas in Nepal. I prayed in a pew in Venice and took funny pictures at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I bathed in the Euphrates River and rode a camel in Qatar. I slept on a park bench in Croatia and fell off a four-wheeler into a creek in Bulgaria. I sold peanut butter in a park in Quetzaltenango and slept in a hammock in Tikal. I housesat in the jungle of Costa Rica and ate the best tacos in the world in Mexico. I snorkeled in the waters off Thailand and studied Buddhism at a retreat center in Dharamsala. I blacked out in Ireland and slept in the woods in Germany. I drove through Vienna and ate snails in Brussels.. later puking them up in the bathroom.

I am so glad I quit drinking…

Most of that traveling was done pre-marriage and pre-kids. We try our best to travel, we really do, but sometimes it seems like we are never going to leave our little homestead for longer than a couple weeks at a time. If at all…

We have been to Mexico, Montana, Kodiak, Missouri, and other parts of Alaska. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to sound like a sob story… I am grateful for the traveling we have done, and I realize that millions of people are starving in this world as refugees; millions of others don’t have clean water, money… the list goes on… I get it! So I don’t want to complain, but I’m just saying- sometimes it seems like we are trapped out here on the homestead.

So we ask ourselves the questions…
Do we get rid of the egg layers, goats, and ducks?
What do we do with our batteries if we leave for an entire winter?
What is the best thing to do for our family? Stay where we are- or travel elsewhere?

We are not getting rid of our animals!

If plans always worked out like I wanted, if Mr. Robert J. Stark was God, we would be on a hot beach in Mexico right now eating street food and surfing. We bought tickets, booked lodging, and figured out some ideas about what we would do. Three months in the Nayarit, with the four of us and some friends. As the date approached, the farm sitter fell through, and we had to cancel our tickets.

We have searched for other farm sitters, and it’s not cheap. One guy whom I was recommended said that we would have to pay for his flight here from California, and then pay him $115 per dog, with an additional 45 dollars for each dog. I wondered what he would charge per goat. Per chicken? Per duck? And per chore? Because there’s a lot more to be done here than just sit around and snuggle with a damn dog or take a dog for a walk, pardon my French. Another lady said she charges $20-$65 a day, and that because we are off-grid and have all of the animals, we would be on the high end.

So on top of the cost of flights, lodging, food, and on and on… we would have to pay her $1,950 for a month. Phew… We really cannot afford it.

Now, we haven’t stopped searching and hoping. We are not willing to give up our animals and our lifestyle. We value them too much and think it is the best thing for all of us right now. But we have been searching for a legit farmsitter and we may have found the right one. We shall see… She is coming over after the new year… cross your fingers.

This is my ideal situation…
We find a family/person who is doing the same thing that we are doing out here. They decide to leave on a vacation and cover down for them, and vice versa. But it’s not that easy… or is it?

As a family, we have big dreams of traveling. We want to take long bike trips in Europe and the U.S. We want to eat gelato in Italy, visit the Andes, heck… we want to go to Seward for a week to visit friends. And…

We want to buy another house.

So, I know this post is going all over the place, and that is okay. I did not want to write it because I am currently working on a Newsletter for “Paid Subscribers”… (An idea we are trying to pursue… to have people pay 1$ a month to be a paid subscriber and receive sweet perks that all of you ordinary folk don’t receive)… And I didn’t know what to write about. And I hate to say it, but since I am an author I have created a higher level of expectation for my writing on this blog than Savanna’s expectations for herself. Not to say that her posts aren’t FAR superior to mine, I just generally take mine more seriously. Blah, blah, blah… Can you tell that I’m rambling?

Either way, back to the house-buying endeavor…
Before Covid, I applied for a Graduate Program in Moscow, Idaho, and I am glad we didn’t go because that killer weirdo would’ve probably tried to murder my gorgeous wife and our first kid would’ve been born in Idaho instead of Alaska. (Just like her daddy.) We were dead set that I was getting in. For a month we were obsessing over houses to rent, houses to buy, jobs, neighborhoods… the whole deal. Needless to say, I didn’t get in… and we were bummed.

A couple of years later after Primrose was born during Covid time and we were tired of the craziness in our area, especially Homer (no offense folks), we were in hog heaven in Mexico. No masks, no worries, sweet beaches, great food, kind people, and the dollar went a long way. We thought, “Heck, let’s escape that cold Alaska hell and live down here in royalty.”

Well, we couldn’t get a loan on a house and we didn’t have enough saved for property. And at first we thought about selling our place out here, back when the market was crazy, but then we started to cry one day together when we thought about never being able to come back here and not leaving it to our kids. So Mexico fell through.

The next one was Ecuador. We listened to podcasts, looked up real estate, researched books, watched YouTube videos, the works. But as we looked deeper into the logistics, knowing that we didn’t want to sell our place right here, it was not feasible to fly from Alaska to Ecuador every year or two with two dogs and a cat. And since we couldn’t drive there, it wasn’t realistic. So again, Ecuador didn’t happen.

So we had a period of respite after that one. We decided that we were not going to move anywhere else, that we are meant to stay right here doing exactly what we are doing. I can keep writing and building a career as an author, Savanna can spend her time beading and learning about herbalism (she’s going to laugh at this sentence because she literally only cleans, cooks, and takes care of kids), and we can both work the land like we want to. Our kids are healthy, free, and provided ample space to be wild and build self-reliance. It’s a dream life out here, no doubt. We have close friends that are like family, and it seems that God has put all of those obstacles in our path to teach us patience and acceptance of the here and now.

But all of the sudden, we started talking about buying a house in Missouri. It was an idea I pitched to Savanna back when we both worked full-time with Ninilchik Traditional Council. We made $21 dollars an hour x 2, and every day we went to work we repeated the mantra, “Forty-two dollars an hour, forty-two dollars an hour.” Because the job was that bad. We paid off our property, bought and installed a yurt, and made some financial gains. Back then, I wanted to invest the money into buying a house in Missouri for Savanna’s mother to live in. She could pay part of the mortgage, and we could be investing in our retirement. It fell through….

But the idea came back… I am tired of looking into investment options that are rooted in war, destruction, and pharmaceuticals. I am tired of having our money sit in a bank without any interest, and it isn’t a lot of money, but it should be working for us. So after careful consideration, Savanna and I started looking at houses in the Kansas City area. We spent a couple of weeks going back and forth about the idea, trying to keep from obsessing because it “probably wouldn’t happen.” But it kept coming up…

So… we’ve gone forward with it. It may sound crazy, hell, I am a little crazy, no doubt. But we are buying a house in Kansas City, Missouri where Savanna’s mother will live and pay part of the mortgage. I see it as an act of kindness for a family member who will have a place to grow older, work less, and help us out in return. I also see it as an investment opportunity for Savanna and me.

So… we are going through the process now. And let me tell you, the real estate market in Kansas City is freakin’ hot! Houses are sold within days!!! It’s so fast. The house we are buying was on the market for 3 days. Grandma went to look at it, she loved it, and she checked out a few others. The price was right, the neighborhood legit, so we pulled the trigger. We could have easily overthought it… “What about that neighborhood?” “Let’s keep looking…” On and on… But instead, we decided to go for it… So, on January 22nd– we are supposed to be the official owners of the house.

So… we are planning to fly down there to help Grandma move out and in… cut the ribbon on the house… spend a few weeks sleeping in our new house… and spending quality time with Savanna’s 4 sisters, and the daughters’ 9 cousins.

You know, I’m going to wrap this post up with this… I wanted to move to Mexico because I wanted to live in Mexico. The same with Ecuador. I wanted to move to Idaho because I thought it would be good for my writing career. But Missouri!!! Ha! I never wanted to live in Missouri! But I do want to be there for our family, and I want our kids to spend time with their cousins, aunties, uncles, and grandparents. I truly believe that God is in control of this one, and when I stepped out of the way and let God do the work, this is what happened.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading!

If you have any suggestions regarding the “Paid Subscriber” idea, please let us know.

Thank you for the endless support of our family and my writing.
I hope 2024 is the best year of your lives!