Apparently, you can expect to hear from me only once every few months for the foreseeable future! I swear, I want to write more, but it’s just been a struggle to manage it all! Maybe it’s because I’m working full-time, building our property up from scratch, and doing regular life things… I don’t know. Sounds like a good excuse, right?
I guess I didn’t even start the story of actually getting to Oklahoma yet, so let’s roll back a bit to just before Christmas in my storytelling. We had been slowly packing and getting things organized for the move. But of course, with the holidays, we also struggled to find time with family. Then my grandma came to visit. This was supposed to be fun, but she ended up having a major medical event that completely refocused our energy. Now, on top of packing, working, and the holidays, we had daily hospital visits. Honestly, I was a bit of a wreck!
Even with packed schedules, we managed to get our camper loaded with a good amount of stuff for an initial trip to Oklahoma. Our planned leave date got postponed a little bit as we were managing life things, but we finally took off. For those who don’t know much about Colorado winters, they can be super snowy/icy and unsafe to travel, depending on what you’re driving, pulling, and how you’re going. We decided the safest way for us to go was through the lower passes via Utah. This made that initial trip a planned 19-hour drive for folks not towing heavy loads. Obviously, we had a heavy load, so we knew it would take a little longer…
We planned to leave around 4 AM, but due to unforeseen circumstances (because, of course), we weren’t on the road until about 7 AM. Our plan was to drive to Edmond, OK, and stay the night at my uncle’s before leaving in the morning to finish the trip. I had hoped to have dinner with my uncle, but slow driving and almost running out of gas in the middle of nowhere made that an impossibility. It’s amazing how much gas you can burn when hauling a heavy load and fighting the wind! We were about an hour outside of Oklahoma City when we were desperately looking for a gas station, watching the gauge move to empty. Thankfully, we found a station before getting stranded, but not before having to take back roads to cut down on fuel loss and then having to find another station because the one we’d found earlier had been closed for a while (Darn Google Maps and its outdated info!).
It was a VERY early morning on New Year’s Eve when we finally got to my uncle’s house. We then had to get going early that same morning, as we were planning on meeting at the property with the previous owner. On our way there, about an hour from the property, I decided we needed to stop for gas. We were just below ½ a tank, and I was not okay with getting stranded in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma. I am so thankful that I had anxiety because we lost an entire brand-new tire off the camper somewhere… yep… No clue where that bad boy went. We were now faced with a dilemma. There were no tire shops in the town we stopped in, and we had a meeting with the previous owner in an hour, while we were an hour away. Oh, and we couldn’t move the trailer from the gas pump because losing the tire sheared off the studs that were needed for the spare. Axel on the ground, and nothing nearby to help, I was getting a little panicked. It was by the grace of God that my new favorite guardian angels were at the gas station. They took J to the tiny hardware store just up the road to get some strapping to tie the axle up so we could move from the pump. They helped us get situated, and we left the trailer in the back parking lot of the gas station while we ran to the property for the meeting.
When I say that the property is beautiful… I mean it! Green trees even in the winter, lush grasses, and a flowing creek! We spent some time there, walking around, checking out what we had bought, basically sight unseen up until that point. After having gotten our fill, we had to figure out our next steps. On the way back to the gas station, we decided that we needed to get to the property a different way than we were planning, as there was a pass that was a little steeper than we were comfortable with for the heavy trailer on a spare. We knew that meant a one-day delay, as it was getting late, and with the holiday, we felt like there wasn’t a good way for us to get the tire fixed and back on the road to a decent place to stop. We took a short trip to the next biggest town to find an auto parts store, grab some dinner, and then decided it was time for bed. We spent the night in our camper, crammed in with all our stuff, no heat, no power, behind the gas station. Not a glamorous way to spend the New Year, but I think we were too exhausted to care.
The next morning was another relatively early start. Three trips to two different towns and more hours later, we were fixed and on the road for our four-hour detour. When we finally got to the property, it was once again getting dark, so we dropped the camper where we thought we wanted it to be and decided that heat, power, and showers sounded way preferable to another tight, cold night. Our closest “big” town is about 35 minutes away, so we trekked there, grabbed a room, some decent Chinese food, and crashed hard! The following day, we got up a little later so we could run our errands to establish an address, get some security lights for the camper, and then start the trek back to Colorado. Thankfully, we had way fewer issues on the way home. A huge shout-out to my uncle for once again hosting us and lending us his stock trailer to help us get animals and more stuff on the way back!
Once in Colorado, we spent the next week furiously packing while I worked, visited with my grandma, and generally tried to get out of there. The coordination of the stock trailer, trash trailer, and general selling of items went relatively smoothly. Then, at the two-days-before-leaving mark, my son came in after morning chores saying, “I think we have a baby goat!” Really?? Now, there was no intention of breeding our only doe we had left, but before we sold the buck we had, he had gotten out a few times, and well, life does what life does. Now we had to adjust our plans and hope for the best in moving a day-old baby.
The official moving day arrived, and I was SICK. Sore throat, coughing uncontrollably, exhaustion, the works. BUT we couldn’t afford to stay another day, so off we went. Again, leaving MUCH later than we wanted, but hey, at least we’re consistent! One of my absolute best friends and her spouse followed with some of our stuff. We did opt to go a different way and over a pass to “save” a little more time. I couldn’t even get across the state line before I had to tap out and sleep in the car. It was a restless night, and the next morning I felt even worse. You know that frustrating moment you’re trying to express how terrible you feel but just can’t do it justice? And really, it doesn’t matter because you have to just keep going? Yeah… I had that. That day’s trip was SO slow, with tons of stops, all because I felt like poop. Only a few hours after getting on the road again, we had another tire issue! A tire stem valve on the truck broke, and we had to find a tire shop that could fix that. This time it was only another two-hour delay. I think I might officially have PTSD because of tires (this is not my last tire story, sadly). We were so slow, but I still had to stop just outside of Oklahoma City for me to take a nap because I was not okay and starting to get dangerous on the road. J never fully understood how bad it was until talking about that day much later when he was all, “Oh! That’s why you had to keep stopping? I just thought you were being whiny and not used to long drives.” It was about 1 AM when we FINALLY made it to our new home. Once again, an uncomfortable night in the trailer was ordered, but we made it.
The next few days were spent setting everything up, getting the camper situated, the animal “barn” put together, and making sure I had a space to work. I slowly started to feel better, but recovered slower than usual, thanks to the sheer stress of moving.
So now that we’re here in the story, I can start to go through the excitement of being “Oakies” and how life is going here in later posts.
Rowan the offending brand new baby in her new environment.
Confessions of an Oklahoma Transplant 