Over the past 6-plus years, we’ve left Pennsylvania many times, however, this time was different.

In the past, we always knew when our approximate return date would be.  This time, not so much.  We know that we’ll arrive down in Melbourne, Florida on February 5, 2027, and begin a new chapter of living in a sticks and bricks dwelling again.  The next date that we’ll get back to Pennsylvania to see our family, well, it’s a bit of a moving target right now.  That’s what made this round of “see you later” get togethers a little tougher than they have been in the past.  The hugs were a little tighter, a little longer, and the eyes might have been a little cloudier this time around.

Bittersweet is the term that keeps coming back to us.

We’re excited as can be about this final (for now) trip across the country, our cruise to Hawaii to notch our 50th state, reconnecting with some friends and family, and the book signing events scattered throughout the trip.

But saying “see you later” was rough this time.  We were blessed to work with an amazing group of people.  People who we consider “Soul Family.”  People who we were able to connect with on a special level.  Once in a lifetime people, yet we’ve been blessed to meet so many of those types of people throughout our travels since 2020.  The same type of people who we’re sad to part with here in Hershey are the same type of people that we’ll get to reconnect with as we cross the country.  We live in such a polarized time in the history of humanity, yet Sandy and I often must pinch ourselves at the number of incredible humans who we have been blessed to cross paths with on our travels.

Blessed encounters and bittersweet good-byes are what we’ve experienced the most during our full-time RV journey.  It’s one of the things that makes it such a special lifestyle.  Being on the road always gave us hope that we’d cross paths in the future.  Now that we’ll be “settling down” for a little bit, makes it feel like the chances of crossing paths are a little less likely now.

I mean let’s face it, we’ve bumped into our nomad friends in some of the most unlikely places.  Places like Tok, Alaska, Homer, Alaska, and Banff, Alberta to name a few.  I’ve always scheduled my book signing tours around places where I knew we had friends or family that we could visit.  It always gave us the opportunity to reconnect.  It gave us a sense of knowing that it definitely wasn’t a “good-bye,” we could make sure that it was just a, “see you later.”  That’s what is hitting me hard this time around.  Sadly, some of these feel more like “good-bye” because we won’t control the date as well as we did when our house had wheels.  After this book tour, I truly have no idea when I’ll get back on the road to sit in a grocery store and tell my story to strangers and get to hear their story as well.  I’m already in the process of lining up book signings with some local bookstores in the Melbourne area, but it just doesn’t feel the same.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m looking forward to this new chapter.  I will once again be working with an amazing group of people, doing something that I love.  That drove a large part of the decision to settle down in Melbourne for a while.  We’re going to spend a lot of time with our toes in the sand and salt water, which will keep us healthy.  Most of all, we will be near family and a whole other group of great friends who we love.  Obviously, not our kids, grandkids, parents, brother and sister-in-law, and our nieces and nephews, but we will be near family, and that means a lot.

But even with all that, we’re going to miss our Pennsylvania family dearly, and especially the unknown of when we’ll have the opportunity to see them again.

The one thing that I must focus on though when those thoughts start to get me down a bit is the fact that Sandy and I have been so blessed to have such a great family and an incredible group of friends.

When I reflect on my blessings, I think about what an amazing life I’ve had.  I think about our incredible family.  I think about the amazing people we’ve met.  I think about being healthy enough to ride my bike 63 miles round trip to visit my daughter following her surgery.  I think about traveling with our grandson and our nomad friends throughout Canada and Alaska.  I think about how few people have been able to travel to all fifty states in the U.S., and in just a few days, we’ll be able to say that we have done that.  I think about the thousands of ball players I’ve been blessed to coach, and how many of them I still have relationships with today.  How many former coaches have been able to park their RV in a former players yard or driveway and crash for a few days?  That’s pretty special.  I think about jumping off high rocks into cold water with my grandson in Washington state.  I think about having several great canine companions over the years, including one who was with us for over 15 years and traveled to 46 different states and one Canadian province with us.  I think about the opportunity to puppy sit and witness a young golden retriever named Jaxson, that Youk sent us, grow and mature over this past summer.  I think about how I was able to ride a roller coaster again for the first time in over twenty years because of the amount of weight that I have lost – and I rode several.  I rode them alone, with work friends, with some of my grandkids, and with my daughter.  I had a blast every single time.  I think about that great group of friends who we worked with in Hershey.

I think about all the blessings in my life – way too many to list here.

But I do wonder about what tomorrow may bring, and then I must reel myself back into this moment, and being grateful for everything that God has brought us though.

When we started this nomad lifestyle, we never had an exit plan, and if we did, this probably wouldn’t have been it.  Nonetheless, here we are.

So, we must continue to be grateful for what we’ve experienced and cherish the new moments as they come.

On the road or not, we really have no idea what the future holds, none of us do, so we just have to embrace every moment as they come and trust God that everything will work out exactly as it should.

Cheers to new chapters, cheers to fond memories.