The Ultimate Road Trip: Marriage Edition – One Week From The End Of The Road Trip

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog post – starting to tell you about state #49, Nevada – to say hello from state #50 – HAWAI’I!!

If you follow us on social media then you know that we’ve been in Hawai’i for almost three weeks. Today (Wednesday, December 25, 2024) is Christmas Day (Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to those that celebrate) and we are officially ONE WEEK from the END OF THE ROAD TRIP!! Please continue to expect little SHOUTS throughout this post!

When I looked back at when I last wrote one of these posts, it has been almost 20 months! Although, I did give you an update on my newest venture last December, and Stephen did write one that updated you on our post-road trip plans more recently. I wanted to write a little bit about how we’re doing (and feeling) about the upcoming transition. We’ve been learning on the go these last seven years. The last major road trip change and adjustment happened in October 2022 when we decided to speed up, instead of maintaining the pace we were seeing the states, in order the finish the road trip by the end of 2024. That was DEFINITELY the right decision.

To sum up how we’re feeling one week out from the end of the road trip in one word? TIRED. We feel tired.

After moving (on average) every 7-10 days for 2556.75 days (that’s 7 YEARS!!) that means we’ve moved ~300 times or ~42 times a year – although the final 2024 numbers and the seven year road trip stats will be coming out in January. That is a lot of moving days. They’re one of the main reasons we’re so tired.

Moving day for us generally looks like this:

Wake up – take Truffles out – throw the ball for Truffles – eat breakfast – throw the ball for Truffles – spend 1-2 hours packing up the stuff into our bags and boxes (this varies greatly depending on how long we’ve been in a place and therefore had time to spread) – throw the ball for Truffles – take showers – final packing – go get the luggage carts – go get ice and water refilled for the drive ahead – throw the ball one final time – pack the ball and confirm there are no other toys around the space – leash Truffles – load the luggage carts – check out – unload the luggage carts – walk Truffles for one more pre-drive potty – load the car – return the carts – move from the front of the hotel for a final picture for the featured image if we’re reviewing it – set the GPS and music – take off!… – stop for gas – then take off! – Drive anywhere from 10 minutes (very rare) to 8 hours (very rare) with our usual drive times being about 3-5 hours (but automatically add on two hours to almost every drive for food, gas, sightseeing, potty and play times and driver swaps) – arrive at hotel – grab luggage carts – walk Truffles for final pre-hotel potty – unload car – load luggage carts – check in (please picture Truffles waving and saying hello to every hotel reception staff member for seven years) – take 1-2 elevators to the room – wait in the hallway/take pictures of the room for reviews – unleash Truffles and get her water, food and ball – unload the luggage carts – throw the ball – return the luggage carts – unpack and rearrange the room into a suitable space (including but not limited to, unfolding puppy stairs, hiding puppy luggage so she doesn’t demand treats, set up the puppy walking and feeding stations) – throw the ball – sit on the sofa while scrolling through Uber Eats – go get dinner – eat dinner – throw the ball – shower – work/read/bedtime/watch TV depending on the days events – sleep.

Now, just do that about once a week! Add into the mix of every 7-10 days, two days for moving and two dedicated days for working (we work outside of those two days as well), and that leaves 3-6 days to see “EVERYTHING” there is to see in a place. Depending on the moving day or how busy the location has been, we also sometimes need a day at the hotel to recover and catch-up on things we’re behind on. So we’re now down to 2-5 days to see everything. But don’t forget grocery shopping, blog writing, puppy and self care (grooming, doctor visits, dentist visits, vet visits, and car care). Sometimes those things can leave us with 1-3 days to see everything in a location, try foods recommended by readers, find hikes, research local suggestions and more. Honestly, with some places – like New Harmony, IN (which is small but delightful) – that makes for a jam-packed but doable schedule. However, in larger cities and/or more interesting locations like Jackson, WY, that have lots of things you have to drive further afield to see? It’s a tall order.

And that, my dear readers, is why our overwhelming feelings are simply… TIRED. And yes, we made the choices we did, to see as much of each state as possible, work on the road more and more as time went on, we didn’t plan an efficient road trip from the start, we had a lot of changes, we had the pandemic and more to deal with. But, it doesn’t change the fact that we aren’t really “slow-mads” (nomads that stay in a location for one or more months at a time) and we didn’t plan it that way because we’d never done this before and it needed to be dynamic and changeable as we learned things about ourselves and each other through the process.

There are other feelings too though! So. Many. Feelings.

As the primary expresser of the feelings in the Pepper family – I’ll share mine first – and then Stephen will add his own thoughts below because I don’t want to put words in his mouth. At the end I’ll also sum up what I think Truffles would say if she were here and not in Denver right now.

Shae

I’m having a lot of mixed feelings. This trip started out in April 2016 with a drink at our local bar and my mom asking Stephen what his dreams were. He mentioned the road trip idea and the rest is history. We sold our house in 2016, downsized and gave weekly updates about what we were getting rid of and took off on January 1, 2018. My first feeling after tiredness is PRIDE. I’m so proud of Stephen. For following his dreams, to be brave enough to express them, and smart enough and dedicated enough to create all of the logistical things needed to make this road trip happen. I’m proud of me too – but my role in this road trip has mostly been social media, the occasional blog post, talking to people and seeing things. My challenges have been more internal – feeling lonely, disconnected, without community support or ways to give back to a local community, trying to stick to a budget (I’m the talker AND the spender), medical (finding doctors for my anxiety prescription refills, gall bladder surgery, etc.) and trying to keep up family morale.

I’m also SAD. Not only are we finishing a journey we’ve been on for so long (and oftentimes change is less expected – there’s not always a deadline for the next thing – it happens more organically), but we’re moving back to the UK. We’d originally planned to see more of the states we missed or loved on weekend adventures from a home base in a beautiful region of NY surrounded by lakes and wineries with plans to pop “home” to see US-based friends and family on the weekends. But, we also knew that the UK move was on the table – even if we didn’t tell everyone about it. So while that was a quick decision, it wasn’t a snap decision. So it’s sad to think that we won’t be seeing some of the sweet and wonderful places we fell in love with over the last seven years as soon as we’d hoped.

But it’s also EXCITING. Truffles will get to meet her extended UK family, the UK is much more dog-friendly in many ways, we’ll get to see UK friends and family more than once every year or two, and we’ll get to explore more places in the UK and Europe that we weren’t in a position to financially when we lived there the last time. We lived in the UK for the first five years of our marriage and we were young and BROKE! But for now, that won’t be road trip style.

I’m also feeling LAZY. I’ve not had to truly clean a house for seven years. Very little laundry, no sheet changing (except in our few long-term Airbnb stays), no vacuuming or mopping, no bathroom cleaning, no “tidying for guests.” Other than my ongoing struggle with the little “nest” that Stephen builds around his work space – and that will only get worse as he settles in somewhere. I’m not made for this cleaning all the time life. I’m made for housekeeping services!!

I’m STRESSED. There’s a lot of things that need to happen between now and March 15, 2025 (when we have tickets to be in Copenhagen to meet Thomas Dambo and take a tour with him – EEK!). There’s ~2 weeks of driving back across the country, seeing a few friends as we go along, Stephen has the annual Frequent Miler work retreat, we need to see the Thomas Dambo trolls that were built 30 minutes from our former home base after we left, we need to get all things Truffles sorted with paperwork for the move to the UK, seeing as much of my BFFs and family as I can, selling the car, and going through what remaining things we have to repack for a transatlantic relocation. I’m also offering six trips with Ignite Travel and two with Page Turner Tours in 2025 (check them out and come join us!). And all of that stress wreaks havoc on my sleeping patterns… leading us back to TIRED.

Stephen

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about all of the upcoming changes as I haven’t really had time to process everything. We made the decision to move back to the UK in early November, then shortly after that I spent 10 days flying almost 35,000 miles around the world as part of the Million Mile Madness challenge with Frequent Miler. As might be expected, that was quite tiring, especially seeing as the majority of those flights were in economy class.

After getting back, we had a few days in Las Vegas before it was time to drive to Denver where we dropped off Truffles and our car with some friends and then flew to Hawaii. We’ve spent a week on each island so far, trying to cram in as much stuff as possible on top of working during that time. So yep, Shae is right when she says that our lifestyle is tiring!

It’s meant I haven’t spent much time processing everything, instead focusing on the logistical side of everything like which flights we’ll be able to take with Truffles with us (you can’t fly directly from the US to the UK with a small dog in the cabin with you). One of the hardest parts of the upcoming move to the UK is not knowing where to move to. We want to live somewhere affordable to minimize our housing costs, but would like to live near friends. We’d love to live downtown somewhere so that we don’t have to have a car, but we’d also like to explore more of the UK and so having a car would be helpful. We want to live near a major airport to make it easier to visit more of Europe, but that will often bump up the cost of living.

I think there’s also going to be a lot of culture shock moving back to the UK. Although I lived in the UK until I was 29, the past 15 years – so a third of my life – has been spent living in the US. Although they share a language, there are some major differences between the two countries – some good and some bad. Like Shae mentioned, we’d gotten our hearts set on moving to the Finger Lakes region of New York, so I’m both extremely disappointed to not be living there in the next few years, while also looking forward to the good parts of living in the UK.

This all means like it feels like we’re treading water right now. We’re just trying to get through to the end of our time in Hawaii before putting much more of a focus on our move to the UK. However, after getting back to the mainland US we’ll be spending a week driving across to the east coast, so that won’t leave much time for planning anything. It’s therefore not going to be until mid-January that we’ll have any kind of downtime and, at that point, I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re completely exhausted and have no energy for anything!

Truffles

Truffles has gotten to live more in her 11.5 years of life so far than many people, much less other puppers. She’s been out there living a pup’s dream by hiking, exploring, meeting new people, getting new sniffs and being with her pawrents 24/7.

I think she’ll miss some of that adventure. But, as she’s aging, I think she’s also going to really pupreciate being in one home again, hopefully with a little yard or a park nearby for her to explore and relax in. She’ll have a regular groomer again that she’ll be able to see and the same vets who provide the same, consistent level of care to her whenever she has dogtor visits. We’ll definitely still have to make a concerted effort to get her out and about so she’s not bored after seven years of new things, but she definitely won’t miss moving day. We’re also stocking (p)up on her FAVORITE balls from Petco (the only place we’ve ever found them) so she can have all the playtime she needs to keep her little puppy heart happy.

~

So, that’s it. I hope you’ve enjoyed this look behind the scenes at how we’re all feeling one week out from the official end of the road trip. We’re going to give more updates and you still haven’t seen all of the beauty and wonder that’s been our time on Hawai’i. My mom and stepdad are coming to Oahu to celebrate the end of the road trip with us, so follow along on social media and watch for stats, countdowns and lists upon lists of all our best and worst things from seven years on the road in the coming months!