15. the new addition to our family

About a year ago, when moving was just a twinkle in our eyes as we looked forward to retirement, we decided it was finally time to get a dog. Husband has been wanting a dog for years, but we had a small house with two cats already, plus we are super busy, so it didn't make sense to add a dog to our crowded lives.  In the winter/spring of 2016, however, we were shocked with the sudden and unexpected deaths of both of our beloved cats within 24 hours of each other. It was devastating. We decided we would institute a year of mourning before we welcomed any new pet into our lives.

We both grieved for a few months straight. But by the end of summer, Husband was ready to at least start thinking about our next pet. Always a cat tolerator and never a cat lover, he took our cats deaths as a sign that it was time to get a dog. But I just couldn't envision a future without a cat, so we decided to "compromise" and get one cat and one dog. His and hers pets, if you will.

We did much research and debating about the order of adoption, given that Husband very much wanted a purebed puppy and I very much wanted a humane society cat that was about a year old (young but not too young). We decided to get on the waitlist for a puppy away, and Husband did a bunch of research and decided to go with Welcome Home Labs in northern MN, with the hopes of welcoming a puppy as close to the end of the school year as possible.  (We visited them later in the fall, and even I, ardent cat lover that I am, left a little bit excited about getting a new puppy in the spring. They are great, if anyone else out there is thinking of adopting!)

The time passed, and we crossed off all the major holidays without our beloved cats: their birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. By early January I finally felt emotionally ready for a new cat. I started visiting the humane society, and keeping my eyes peeled for anyone who was looking to re-home a cat. On Martin Luther King Day (2017), we welcomed home our Cat. He quickly became king of the household, but also clearly needed a companion to play with (other than an unwilling one like me or Kid). We counted down until Dog could join our family.

And finally he did!

8 weeks

introductions

10 weeks

play time!

13 weeks (look as the size of those paws!)

I'm not sure I would necessary recommend getting an 8-week-old puppy the week before putting one's house on the market, but in retrospect (a month or so later), it had a couple unexpected up sides. (Like the fact that most of our stuff was packed away, which gave Dog a lot fewer things to chew on or to pee on. And most of Husband's hobby equipment was packed away, which made him have to focus all his attention on Dog.) But it definitely still added stress to an already stressful situation!

Despite the stress, Cat and Dog have been a delight to have around. And we think they are both going to LOVE Montana - Cat can become an outdoor cat (in the country) and Dog will have a lot more freedom as well. Unfortunately Husband is already starting to say things like "when we get a second dog..." (WHAT?!?!) We'll see!

5. awaiting retirement

Clearly we couldn't move anywhere until retirement, because we were settled! We have lived in our home since we got married 14 years ago, we both have good jobs, and we have "roots" in the midwest (MN/WI). It would be crazy to pick up everything and leave!

And yet we still shared this vision for our future. We would idly chat about when and how we could afford to take a trip out west again.  We wistfully thought about how amazing it would be to live within driving distance of "our" beloved Glacier NP. We daydreamed about leaving the hub-bub of a major metropolitan area. We both fondly recalled our upbringings in smaller towns. We wondered what it would be like to have a slower pace of life, with much easier access to the outdoors, maybe even with some chickens in our backyard.

We even sat down one day and compared  our visions of where it would be "ideal" to live. Amazingly, we had each come up with almost the same mental maps:

centered on the Northern Rockies (of the US), taking out SLC and Denver

I decided to sign up for updates on government jobs that could open in that area (i.e., WA, ID, MT, WY, OR, or CO). Sometimes when I was bored I would search for jobs in my field on websites like indeed.com. But mostly Husband and I just kept up with our usual routines, continuing to live our regular lives every day.

Looking back, we both identify the 2016 election as the thing that pushed us over the edge:  If the world was going to go to hell in a hand basket, we figured, we might as well be living our lives to the fullest in the meantime.

So we had some heart to hearts. Did we really want to do this? If we shared this dream, why were we going to wait 30 years or so until retirement? Did we want to model living boldly to Kid or not?!

That's when the search started in earnest. Given the type of work that I do, we figured it would take a good 3-5 years for our  "go West" plans to come to fruition. But 3-5 years was definitely better than 30 years, particularly if we were actively working towad our dream. By the end of November/beginning of December (2016), we were actively embracing a new vision for our future!

4. road trip

I haven't had the most positive work experiences over all. After getting my PhD, I was laid off from my first job (after less than a year!) during the height of the 2008/2009 recession. Thankfully I got a new job really quickly and really enjoyed it for a few years, particularly with the flexibility it afforded me as I pursued fertility treatments. But then I took on a leadership role without realizing that the company would basically be willing to pay me to work myself to death; it was only after getting totally burnt out (and clinically depressed) that I was able (through the help of my amazing therapist) to see how the work environment was not a good match with my personality, particularly given my spectacularly impossible job description. So I regrouped and took on a new job back at the place where I had done my postdoc many years prior. It started off great, but I quickly discovered some interpersonal dynamics on my primary team that ultimately interfered with my ability to do my job and, quite frankly, started to negatively impact patient care.

Seriously! Enough already!

So, to cope, Husband and I decided to plan a massive road trip vacation. Or, rather, we decided to take a massive road trip vacation, with me doing the bulk of the planning - because that's what I like to do, and because planning would help distract me while I figured out what to do next about my latest terrible work situation.

It was around late winter/early spring of 2015 that we (I) started to plan, and we (I) pretty quickly settled on a two-week trip highlighting the national parks of the north. I had had such a great experience at Yellowstone, and I wanted to both share the awesomeness and also test out whether other national parks would be similarly awesome.

After reading MANY guidebooks and even more websites, we ultimately landed on the following itinerary:

Day #	Day	Date	Event	Sleeping	Cost
1	Sat	6/18/2016	drive to Badlands	Cedar Pass Campground	$20/night
2	Sun	6/19/2016	hike in Badlands	Cedar Pass Campground	"
3	Mon	6/20/2016	explore Black Hills	Horsethief Lake	$26/night+$9 fee
4	Tue	6/21/2016	explore Black Hills	Horsethief Lake	"
5	Wed	6/22/2016	drive to Grand Tetons	Colter Bay tent cabin	$65/night
6	Thu	6/23/2016	explore Grand Tetons	?	$25/night
7	Fri	6/24/2016	explore Grand Tetons	?	"
8	Sat	6/25/2016	explore Yellowstone	Old Faithful Inn	$115/night+tax
9	Sun	6/26/2016	explore Yellowstone	Old Faithful Inn	"
10	Mon	6/27/2016	drive to Glacier	fish creek	$23/night
11	Tue	6/28/2016	explore Glacier	fish creek	"
12	Wed	6/29/2016	explore Glacier	rising sun motor inn	$165/night+tax
13	Thu	6/30/2016	explore Glacier	rising sun motor inn	"
14	Fri	7/1/2016	drive to ND	Cottonwood Campground (South Unit)	$14/night
15	Sat	7/2/2016	explore TR NP	Cottonwood Campground (South Unit)	"
16	Sun	7/3/2016	drive home	home!	FREE
17	Mon	7/4/2016	buffer day at home

Packing my tiny car with all the food and gear we needed was no small feat, but we did it. And the whole trip was amazing!!!! It turns out that national parks are really, really cool. Who knew?!?!  :)

We also learned so much about ourselves. The three of us travel well together, and we're entertained by similar things. (Okay, so Kid wasn't quite as stoked about long hikes and Husband and I were, but she was a trooper! And someday she'll enjoy hiking, darn it!) We also all enjoy similar scenery: the combo of mountains and water was a grand slam for all of us. While we enjoyed the Badlands, Black Hills and Yellowstone, we really fell for Grand Teton, and were absolutely, 100% in love with Glacier.

crappy cell phone photo from the parking lot at our glacier hotel

As we started our drive home, Husband and I both agreed that if there was ever an opportunity to live in Montana, particularly near Glacier, we would jump on it. Too bad we wouldn't be able to seriously consider such a thing until retirement.

Or could we?

2. my second backpacking experience

Husband has always been an outdoorsy guy. He likes to watch survival shows on TV, and likes to tell me things like how to start a fire from wet wood and other tricks that I hope I will never need to know how to do.  And I truly believe that the difference between him and a typical armchair enthusiast is that he probably could actually survive for more than a few hours if he was dropped in the middle of nowhere with nothing but the shirt on his back. Me, on the other hand? As much as I like looking at nature, most of the time being in nature is far less  enjoyable. There are bugs and there is dirt. Lots of dirt. And I am happy to avoid bugs and dirt whenever possible.

But I'm also someone who likes to prove that I can do things. It wasn't enough to graduate from college - no, I had to get my PhD. It wasn't enough to try to take up running in my 20s - no, I had to run a half marathon. (And then promptly swear never to try to run ever again.) I even tried for a "natural" birth, but I'll admit that once I was 24 hours into labor I called "uncle" and asked for the epidural - but that's a different story for a different time. But you get my point - I like to think that I can do anything if I put my mind to it, even if my only chance of being an Olympian at this age is if I pick up curling -- at least I still have a shot!

So when Husband suggested that we try camping, it wasn't enough for us to try glamping or even car camping. No, our unique combination of "his desire to use his survival skills and my efforts to prove that I can do anything" led us to an epic backpacking journey along the Superior Hiking Trail.

Honestly, I don't even remember how far we went. But I do remember that we hiked for hours and hours and hours every day, and there were many, many times I thought I was going die. Yet I also remember the solitude and serenity. The serendipity of seeing baby black bears, and of almost being trampled off the path by a running moose. The incredibly crisp and fresh air. And how well I slept (mostly from sheer exhaustion) every night.

It snuck up on me. I expected to prove I that I could backpack, but I didn't expect to (gasp) actually enjoy it!  It was that trip that started the wheels turning in the very back of my mind. So small and quiet at first that I didn't even realize it. But a little nudge of a gentle suggestion that (whisper) maybe city life isn't all there is...maybe the outdoors will beckon...maybe the bugs and dirt are worth it...