#this kind of took on a life of its own. barely how i thought itd look but it was a nice lighting experiment

[princessjungeun]

Champion

Content warning: violence, blood, fighting, bullying-ish? Talk of homelessness and family issues

The reader i wrote as a black, queer, female. If you don’t like that oh well, use your imagination then :)

You didn’t necessarily choose the flighting life, it chose you. Growing up you didn’t have the picture perfect family that many had. To be honest you couldn’t even really say you had a family. That was until you met Matthew, known as BM.

Before meeting BM you were sleeping on benches, in hostels, or in a kind older woman’s house. One night you were approached by a young man in his late 20s. He offered you a place to stay, he’s pay for your school, and whatever else you needed. At the time you were only a young teenager, so going with him could be risky. But winter was coming and you knew you’d end up dead if you stayed on the streets.

Matthew knew you weren’t straight from the day he met you. He saw how broken you were from not having a family and he understood to a certain degree what that felt like. He knew if he left you on the streets, itd be dangerous for you. A young, black, queer, female didn’t belong on the streets.

BM kept his word and took care of you as if you were his younger sister. He was a trainer by day and fighter by night, competing in UFC fights every weekend. He told you constantly that you were going to learn to fight, but her never actually trained you.

You had a lot of past issues and traumas which contributed to some of the internal anger you had. Matthew often told you that if you tried fighting or even just swinging at his heavy bag, it’d help you feel better. But you always pushed the idea away not wanting to waste time on a coping mechanism you know probably wouldn’t work. He’d asked time and time again if there was anything he could do to help, but you always refused. The thing was you weren’t one to open up about yourself. Besides Matthew you didn’t know anyone really. Even in school, nobody talked to you other than your best friend, Hyunjin and your girlfriend Lia.

You and Hyunjin bonded over the fact that you two lived almost similar lives. He understood a lot of the things you went through and how you feel now.

Whereas Lia...she was different. Lia was the first person you ever met that made you feel something. Lia was the only person that could make you smile by doing absolutely nothing. You definitely don’t look like the type to be with someone like her but you’d go to any length to protect her. Even if it meant you got in trouble, you had nothing to lose anyways.

This was put to the rest one day in school while you and Lia were passing to classes together. You ended up getting in a fight and badly injuring another student.

When BM came to pick you up, he saw the male student you beat up being driven to a hospital. No charges were pressed as you were doing it in self defense, as you had many witnesses to help you defend your case.

You sat at the kitchen table as he yelled at you furiously. “What the fuck are you thinking Y/N?!” You looked down and said “leave it alone i’m not in trouble with the law, his parents aren’t pressing charges.” Matthew asked, anger laced in his voice “that doesn’t matter you could have killed him.” You responded bluntly “but i didn’t. Isn’t that right? Plus you don’t even know what happened!”

The two of you went back and forth for minutes before you were both calm enough to actually explain in detail what happened. “I was in the hallway with my....uh- Lia and this boy touched her ass. And then I told him he needed to apologize and he pushed me and told me to fuck off. Then I told him if he touched me again I’d beat his ass...and he pushed me to the floor and I told him again to apologize to Lia. But then he threw Lia to the ground then punched me in the face. So I started hitting him and I-I guess I lost control.”

Matthew sat in silence for a moment then he said “you’re gonna learn to control it. Come on, get up.” You asked “huh?” He repeated himself “I said get up.” You groaned then followed him outside to the garage. There, hanging from the ceiling was a heavy bag, and weights littered across the floor. Putting gloves on your hand he said “punch me.” Looking at him with wide eyes you said “wha-no I’m not going to-” He yelled “PUNCH ME GODDAMN IT!” You did as he said and full force threw a punch. He caught your hand in his, looking at your fist in his hand he smiled.

It was now that he decided that he was going to take a break from competing so he could train you. In the beginning he was afraid you’d get hurt, although he wasn’t your blood relative, he took care of you like one.

You trained before and after school with Matthew. Running mile after mile, throwing punch after punch, push up after push up. You never got a break unless you were seriously injured. Matthew showed no mercy, although you were like his baby sister, he needed you to be the best fighter in the circuit.

Nobody in school knew exactly what you were doing, but it was evident at the growing muscles in your legs and arms. Also the fact that you were constantly bringing meal prepped food Matthew made for you as your lunch.

You girlfriend grew suspicious of what you were building strength and muscle for, but she never asked. She told herself that if you wanted to share with her what was going on, you’d do it on your own time.

Eventually the day came for your first fight. Matthew woke you up in the morning and you both took a light jog in the morning. He didn’t want to overwork you before your big day.

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Hours passed as you anxiously awaited your first fight. You were nervous but you tried to play it off, but Matthew could read you like a book. “You’ll do fine. I trained you well. Make me proud ok?” He hugged you and kissed your forehead, this was the first time he truly showed affection to you.

He helped you braid down your hair so it was out of your face. “Look at me.” He held your face in his hands as he applied a thin layer of Vaseline to your face. “It’ll help make the punches slide off...sounds weird but it works.” You let him grease up your face before saying a quick prayer that you’d be ok.

When you walked into the arena loud shouts filled the building. You did your best to not look terrified but it definitely didn’t work. Matthew removed your robe before telling you “it’s fine. Your opponent is a rookie like you, she hasn’t done this before ok? Relax and concentrate...and don’t kill her.” You nodded before doing a quick handshake with him and walking into the ring.

The overhead speaker filled the arena “For the first Rookie fight of the night We have Y/LN Y/N of Korea vs Pranpriya Manoban of Thailand!” You looked up at the girl in front of you, she was definitely at least 21 whereas you were still a minor, almost an adult. The two of you shook hands before starting.

Pranpriya put up a good fight, but you won fairly quickly. You ended up coming out with a busted lip to show for your victory while Pranpriya was knocked out on the floor. Matthew shouted wildly, incredibly proud of you. A smile creeped onto your face as the referee held your arm up, indicating that you won.

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Fight after fight you won, gaining attention of not only Korean citizens, but internationally as well. You remained the youngest rookie in the circuit, as well as the youngest with the most wins.

You gained the name Ali after Muhammad Ali, although you weren’t a boxer, you had the passion, the strength, and humbleness of Ali.

People talked about you wherever you went. There were constantly cameras following you and Matthew. Lia is still your girlfriend as well. For a while she didn’t know you fought, as she didn’t keep up with UFC news. When she found out she refused to come to your fights. Even though you won almost everytime, she couldn’t bear seeing you get hit.

The only fight Lia agreed to attend was the first and only one you lost. Without a doubt you didn’t make it easy, but you didn’t tap out when you should have. The result was brutal. It was against a champion, Ha Sooyoung. She was a rookie like you but she was known to be violent, beating her opponents until they were just barely able to walk out the ring. Many asked why she was still allowed to fight, as many thought she was violating some type of rule. As it turns out she wasn’t. Sooyoung never once broke a rule.

Sooyoung not much older than you but she was far better at that time. She was known to be vicious and quite talkative in the ring. She’d say anywhere from one word, to a full lecture. Her words got to her opponents easily, making her lethal. At the time you weren’t worried about her, but you learned the hard way not to be so nonchalant. You started out winning but slowly your chance of victory faded.

Making sure to not stay in one place, you walked around the ring. You’d already gotten punched in the face so much your lip was busted, nose with dry blood, and a puffy eye. Out of the corner of your eye you saw your girlfriend watching you.

Sooyoung followed your gaze before smirking and going in for another jab. You fell to the ground and Sooyoung climbed on top of you. At this point your vision was practically gone, your ears ringing. You could hear Matthew shouting for you to fight back, but you couldn’t push Sooyoung off. You felt pain sear through your body punch after punch, kick after kick.

“She’s teasing you! Tap out Y/N! ITS FINE TAP OUT PLEASE!” You heard Matthew shout from the side of the ring. Although you didn’t know what to do, you knew for a fact you weren’t going to tap out, you’re not a quitter. You felt Sooyoung throw a punch, this time hitting your lower ribs. Wind knocked out of your chest and you gasped for air. You felt your body cry for help but you weren’t letting up.

As the last of your adrenaline flowed through your veins you went to punch Sooyoung in the head, but she grabbed your arm. She smirked once more before whispering “K.O.” Everything went black and you fell back against the ground.

Due to that loss you needed a break from fighting to heal. You suffered a concussion, three broken ribs, a broken nose, a broken jaw, ruptured apendex, 3 stitches in your lip and 8 over your eye. The healing process was beyond terrible for you, as all you wanted to do was train again. Your doctor told you that you were lucky, if she punched you at another angle you would have died.

Although you were grateful she didnt go through and do the complete worst, she did get you pretty good. Once you fully healed you weren’t able to forget that night. Solely because of the scar that ran down your eye. Matthew jokingly called you Scar, as your scar closely resembled the Lion King character’s.

You continued training as soon as you got clearance from your doctor. Once again you remained a champion against everyone, except Sooyoung. You’ve never fought her after that night, as much as you wanted to, there was still a fear that she’d do much worse than she already did.

Now you were weeks away from the World Champions. You could have gone last year if you hadn’t lost that fight. It was set that you were to fight the one opponent that you’ve never beaten, Ha Sooyoung.

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“Baby.” You shook Lia’s leg and she looked up at you, “Hmmm?” You asked “I know you don’t like coming to my fights anymore...but worlds is in a few weeks and it’d mean a lot if you were there.” She responded “of course I’ll go see you at worlds, do you know who you’re fighting?” You nodded and carefully said “um...funny story.”

You stopped for a minute then decided to just rip off the bandaid. “Ha Sooyoung.” Lia froze in your embrace.

“Is that a good idea? I mean I’m not saying you’re a bad fighter...obviously you’re amazing but- She almost killed you Y/N.” She brought a hand up to your face and ran her fingers along the scar on your eye. Lia softly said “I don’t want to lose you.” You kissed her lips softly and said “it’s fine, this time I’ll win. I promise you will never lose me.”

Matthew flung the door to your room open, “What did I tell you about closing the door all the way?” You both in unison said “sorry it won’t happen again.” He nodded and said “Y/N come on we need to practice.” You nodded and stood up, kissing your girlfriend goodbye.

•

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Finally the day of World Championships came. You didn’t feel the nerves hit until you were in the ring. Everyone around you was screaming your name, a few cheering for Sooyoung. She looked different this time. Her hair was short now, she looked bigger, stronger. But so were you.

Sooyoung got you pretty good the first round, your cheek starting to bruise from a punch she threw. Your leg already in slight pain from a kick and elbow jab.

She moved around you, eyeing to see if you’d look away. She made a move to kick your side, she missed. Your eyes locked with hers and she smirked “wheres your little girlfriend? Lia is it?” You ignored her but she continued talking “she’s pretty that one. Pretty eyes. Soft smile. That cute dimple, she’s cute don’t you think?”

Your opponent continued to taunt you, knowing from her first victory that Lia was your weak spot. You’d gotten quite a few punches and kicks in, but nothing that was putting you at an advantage.

Sooyoung walked up on you this time trying to knock you to the ground. Quickly you maneuvered around her, so now she was the one on the ground. The two of you went at it, dodging slaps, punches, and elbow jabs.

She ended up rolling over so now you were below her, your one arm underneath her leg. Sooyoung delivered a hard punch to your shoulder and she smiled when you winced in pain. She asked “this is what happened last time right? And your little girlfriend watched me damn near beat the life out of you? It’s a shame she’s going to have to see that again don’t you think?”

You felt her fist collide with your side, she without a doubt broke the same ribs she did before. Putting you in a headlock you felt panic rush through your body. Her voice laced with venom “when will you learn? You can’t beat me. I hope you told her you loved her.” Sooyoung swung again knocking you square in the cheek. As your eyes started to flutter shut, breath escaping too fast for more to come in, a familiar voice ripped through the arena “Y/N!”

Lia

Your eyes flew open at the sound of your girlfriend’s panicked screams. With all your strength you jammed your elbow into Sooyoungs side. She let go of you and with all your strength you rolled over, Sooyoung now beneath you. You could see the look of fear in her eye as your fists collided with her body. Seeing nothing but red you continued punching and slapping her, squeezing your thighs around her torso.

Blood spilled from her nose and ear, her lip busted, eye swollen shut. You jabbed her ribs again, letting your strength and anger take control of you. Even when she’s long been unconscious you were still hitting her. Two large referees pulled you off of her, tears stinging your eyes as you cried out of frustration.

The arena fell silent as you all waited to see if Sooyoung would get up, the countdown boomed through the speakers. “3! 2!-” As it was about to hit one Sooyoung’s eyes fluttered open and she staggered to get up. She limped over to you, looking even more angry than she was before.

Sooyoung wiped blood from her eye before saying “you thought it’d be that easy?” Without hesitation you stepped closer before roundhouse kicking her in the temple. She fell to the floor and this time she definitely wasn’t getting up without help. Screams of your name ripped through the arena and you looked at the referee who deemed you the winner.

Still in shock you didn’t really understand what was happening until you were handed the World Champions belt. You posed for the pictures that were to be taken, however you didn’t smile. It was evident that you were still confused.

When the gate to the ring opened you saw Lia and Matthew standing with proud smiles. You dropped the heavy belt into Matthew’s arms as soon as you could. Throwing yourself into Lia’s arms you sobbed heavily, thanking God you were able to walk out victorious.

The small girl under your embrace held you tight, with every passing second she held you closer. Finally she broke and she cried “I was so scared I was going to lose you”. You pulled away and wiped away her tears “I promised you I wasn’t going anywhere.” You held her face in your hands before kissing her again.

The referee shoved you back into the ring, this time Sooyoung was gone. The only traces remaining of the young Korean woman was her blood stained on the floor.

Balloons and confetti rained from the ceiling, people’s shouting your name filled the arena.

“Ladies and gentlemen. We now have our 2020 UFC World Champion! Y/N ‘ALI’ Y/L/N!” You held the championship belt over your non injured shoulder with a smile.

Once again you were the champion.

#kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #kpop fluff #itzy imagines #itzy scenarios #choi jisu #loona imagines #loona scenarios #loona sooyoung #loona yyxy #loona yves #ha sooyoung

[artesesarthouse]

MLP season 1 appreaciation!

With MLP coming to a close I wanted to show my appreciation for it.So i'm starting a small series of poster like pictures that depict each season basically, with a lot of easter eggs and a theme dealing with the season. i'd like to talk about my experience with the show and my opinion of the season as a whole. So feel free to read below!

Heres the links to future posters aswell!(coming soon)

Season2 Season3 Season4 Season5 Season6 Season7 Season8 Season9

Man it's been so long since the show started and i became a fan of it. An old friend of mine got into mlp and introduced it to me and my other friends, naturally we were skeptical and at the time, i grew out of my phase of watching dumb lesson of the day, random children shows. The only things i started to like were story driven like avatar, anime and some live action shows as well. I gave it a try cause i have not found a good show in a while so i was bored and tried it out. At the time i started, season 2 was over and it was in the mist of the hiatus to season 3. At first i thought it was meh, like how i predicted, lesson of the day for very young kids, but i kept watching cause like i said, i was bored. As i kept going i begin to enjoy it more because for one, the shows cartoony animation was kind a joy to watch, CNs animation kinda took a downturn so it was pleasent to see it, then i noticed that the jokes were geniunely funny, coupled with the animation and it became a joy to watch, but most importantly what it did, was actually teach good lessons, yea some were obvious but some were also ones you wouldnt hear in a kids show because they would simplify the answer to dumb it down. Those lessons over time really impacted me because, not many people know but, i used to be a bully. not a "gimme yer lunch money or ill punch you" bully, but a manipulative one, i manipulated old friends against each other for my own gain because i wanted toys or money or just the title of 'best friend' and it unfortunately carried over into my high school years (which is when i started watching mlp). In school there’s no course for being a good person (barely any course for important real life stuff in general) So its not like i was taught well how to treat others, its was usually just said "be good or else" which is not the right way to teach a kid things. In the end MLP slowly showed me what i was doing wrong and from that i strengthened my relationships with my closet friends.

But enough personal crap lets talk about the season itself. In general its a fine season, nothing wrong but nothing spectacular yet. Since its the first season and like with every show, the first season is usually the "worst" because the writers are still getting their footing and figuring out what they want to do or what the fans think. Its funny seeing how things have changed like for one AJS voice sounds so much younger then later one, seriously compare S1 AJ to S9 AJ, they could practically be seperate VAs. My opinions of the mane 6 were pretty cut and dry, mostly because Season 1 didn’t give much character development for them outside there stereotypical roles for the most part. like Twis the nerd, Flutter the shy one, AJ the cowboy, rarity the princess, Pinkie the goof and rainbow the jock. Which is fine i liked them for the most part if i were to list them at the time itd be AJ,Pinkie,twilight,flutter,RD,Rarity. I think i liked AJ most because she was confident and straightforward, always cutting to the chase and not taking any bull. Rarity was my least fave because she was the pompous pamped trope so her shtick got annoying quick (funny enough she becomes like my 2nd fav by season 9 0.0) also speaking of annoying RDs voice to a long time for me to get used to, i just didnt like how scratchy it was , i kept wanted her to clear her throat lol. But one thing that wasn't annoying was what i argue the show was best at, songs. now at first the songs were ok just  a laughing moment cause pinkie pie was silly, but then we got winter wrap up (i still listen to versions/remixes of it today) Art of the dress and at the gala, god those are fantastic. and they only continued to get better with each season. in short, Season 1 of mlp its just an average season with funny goofs and some genuine good advice for young people (or idiot high schoolers) But it only got better once I started Season 2 c:

#mlp #my little pony #season 1 #season 9 #fan art #fan made #digital art #art #twilight sparkle #fluttershy #spike #applejack #rarity #rainbow dash #pinkie pie #gilda #trixie #cockatrice #owlicious #gummy #princess celestia #cmc #cutie mark crysaders #zecora #big mac #Big Macintosh #sonic rainboom #canterlot #ponyville #g4

[themoneybuff-blog]

Exploring the U.S. by RV: The price of adventure

Shares 352 Two years ago today, Kim and I returned to Portland after fifteen months traveling the United States in an RV. Believe it or not, Ive never published an article about the trip and how much it cost. Although we kept a travel blog for most of the adventure (including a page that documented our expenses), Ive never gathered everything into one place. Until now. Today, I want to share just how much we spent on the journey and some of our favorite stops along the way. It seems like the perfect post to celebrate the start of summer, dont you think? The Lure of Adventure All my life, Ive wanted to take a roadtrip across the United States. When I was young, I was lured by the adventure. I wanted to climb mountains, swim rivers, and explore canyons. The older I got, the more fascinated I became by the countrys regional differences. The U.S. is huge, a fact that most foreign visitors forget. Most American citizens dont even realize how big the country is. I wanted to see and experience it all. Although Ive dreamed of a cross-country roadtrip, its never been practical. As a boy, my family was poor. My parents didnt have money for something like this. As a young adult, I couldnt afford it either. For a long time, I was deep in debt. Besides, where would I find the time? I had to work! To top things off, my wife had zero interest in driving cross country. But in my forties, a curious set of circumstances came together to move my epic roadtrip from dream to reality. One day in early 2014, my girlfriend Kim asked me out of the blue, What do you think about taking a cross-country roadtrip? What did I think? Hell yeah! is what I thought Making a Plan As Kim and I began to discuss this adventure, our biggest concern was money. As a financial writer, Im acutely aware that every dollar I spend today is roughly equivalent to seven dollars I could have in retirement. Every day, I preach the power of saving. I wanted to keep our trip as cost-effective as possible. (Besides, Kim would have to quit her job as a dental hygienist in order to travel a huge financial sacrifice.) My goal was to keep our costs under $50 per person per day. In fact, I had high hopes we could do the trip for $33 per person per day (for a total of $24,000). But the U.S. is expensive. How could Kim and I make this happen? From the start, we knew hotels were out. Even cheap lodging would be far too expensive for us to stay within budget. Personally, I liked the idea of bicycling across the country like my friends Dakota and Chelsea have done. Kim wasnt keen on the idea. (Nor was she willing to make the trip by motorcycle despite being a die-hard Harley girl.) After a lot of research, and after talking with Chris and Cherie from Technomadia, I came to a conclusion: The best balance of cost and comfort would come from crossing the country in an RV. With this bare outline of a plan, the true trip prep began. Searching for Bigfoot After deciding to travel by RV, there were more questions to answer. Neither of us had experience with recreational vehicles. Among other things, we needed to figure out: Should we buy a truck and a trailer?Would it be better to buy a motorhome and tow my 2004 Mini Cooper?What about new or used? With used, you never know what youre getting. But a new RV costs $80,000 or more and loses value quickly.How much space did we need? What kinds of amenities? After crunching the numbers, there was an obvious best choice for us. If we bought a used motorhome, we could tow a car we already owned while (we hoped) avoiding a big hit from depreciation. In fact, if we were diligent every step of the way, it might even be possible to resell our RV after the trip and recoup most of what wed paid for it! We spent the autumn of 2014 patiently sifting through Craigslist ads for used motorhomes. We visited dealerships. We attended the local RV Expo. We walked through dozens of models searching for the right fit. Some were too long. Some were too short. Some were too fancy. Many were run-down and in a state of disrepair. Finally, in early January 2015, we found the perfect rig: a 2005 Bigfoot 30MH29RQ. (Translation: A 29-foot motorhome with a queen bed in the rear.) The owner wanted $38,000 for it a fair price. He wouldnt budge when I tried to negotiate, but I was okay with that. My research revealed he was actually selling a slightly better model, one worth a few thousand dollars more than he was asking. We bought it. [embedded content] Over the next two months, Kim and I prepped Bigfoot for departure. We spent $2000 making minor repairs and installing a towbar on the Mini Cooper. We cleaned the motorhome from top to bottom. We took weekend test trips to RV parks around Oregon and Washington. When all was said and done, wed invested $40,000 to get our caravan ready for the road. Into the West Kim and I left Portland on the morning of 25 March 2015, my forty-sixth birthday. We sped through Oregon we love the state, but were both familiar with it and entered northern California. We spent our first week on the road exploring the Redwoods and weaving through wine country. Along the way, we got a crash course in driving a motorhome. Near Cloverdale, California we took a wrong turn onto a cliff-side gravel road. We stopped immediately. Good thing, too. Turns out a week earlier some other poor soul had driven his RV over the side of the cliff. East of Sacramento, we took another wrong turn and found ourselves driving down a narrow dike road during rush hour while high winds buffeted the RV. Very scary. At times we felt like Lucy and Desi in The Long, Long Trailer, but after a couple of weeks Kim and I had learned how to handle our motorhome, both on the road and off. [embedded content] Early in the trip, our expenses were out of sight. We ate out too often. We bought too much wine. We did too many touristy things without searching for discounts. We rationalized that since we were visiting all of these new places (and might never return), we might as well pay to experience them to the fullest. This was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, after all. The problem, of course, was that lots of fun costs lots of money. Ten days into the trip, our average spending was over $120 per day (or over $60 per person per day) almost twice what wed hoped to spend. Yikes! We tightened the purse strings. We stopped eating out so much and cooked in the motorhome. (We cook a lot at home normally, so this wasnt a tough transition.) We bought a National Parks pass, perhaps the best purchase of our entire trip. (For an $80 one-time fee, you get one year of unlimited access to all sorts of government-owned sites.) We learned to entertain ourselves at night with books and boardgames and a hard drive filled with old movies and an iPad filled with comic books. During our 33 days in California, we marveled at the states vast variety of terrain. We drove through forests and deserts, skirted ocean cliffsides and walked across mountain streams. We hated L.A. traffic not recommended when youre in a motorhome towing a car but enjoyed almost everything else. We loved Arizona even more. Maybe we had low expectations, but we were blown away by the magnificent scenery of the Grand Canyon state. For nineteen days, we basked in the warm spring sun and admired the colorful rock formations. It was in Arizona that we discovered the joys of drycamping (or boondocking). For the first seven weeks of our trip, we mostly stayed in RV parks and campgrounds. At $20 to $50 per night (with the average park costs around $35), lodging was our biggest expense by far. Drycamping costs nothing. All you do is find a spot where you can legally park for the night National Forest land, a friends driveway, certain businesses and casinos and set up camp. You dont have access to electricity or fresh water, but thats okay. The beauty of an RV is that its self-contained. (Our Bigfoot had a generator for electricity and a 63-gallon freshwater tank.) After boondocking only once during our first 50 days on the road, we managed to live off the grid for 33 of the next 80 nights. Once we began pinching pennies, our travel costs plummeted. We werent spending $120 per day anymore. Our average daily spending fell to $50, which lowered the trip average to about $80 per day. A Costly Repair With all this frugality, did we feel like we were depriving ourselves? Not at all! As we made our way from Arizona to Utah to Colorado, we found we could still afford wine and an occasional restaurant meal. Plus, we were paying to do a lot of touristy things, such as soak in the hot springs in Ouray and ride the narrow-gauge train from Durango to Silverton. At the end of May, we stopped for a week to visit family and friends near Denver. During this break, our RV costs dropped to zero no fuel or lodging expenses while we stayed with Kims mother and hung out with Mr. Money Mustache which allowed us to spend a little more on fun. Good thing too because Fort Collins has a great beer scene. We hit the road again in early June, making our way into Wyoming to visit Yellowstone and the Tetons. We zipped over to Idaho to spend time with Kims father in Sun Valley. From there, we drove north into Montana to lounge around Flathead Lake and explore Glacier National Park. Costs stayed low as we crossed Montana to enter the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota. After celebrating Independence Day in Deadwood, our average daily spending for the trip was about $84. We felt good about that number. Itd be nice if it were lower, but $42 per day per person seemed reasonable. At that rate, the trip would cost us $30,000 for the entire year. On July 8th, the tenor of our trip changed. So did our costs. We were cruising across the vast emptiness of central South Dakota when the motorhomes engine overheated. We pulled off to give it a rest. The oil level looked fine, but I added more just in case. It didnt help. An hour down the highway, the engine seized up completely. Turns out Bigfoot had spun a bearing and the engine was toast. (Also turns out that spun bearings are not uncommon with this particular engine.) Unfortunately, we were in the middle of nowhere. The nearest town was Plankinton, South Dakota (population 707). Fortunately, the folks in Plankinton were friendly. The owners of the local garage diagnosed the problem and ordered parts. Meanwhile, we got to know the owners of the only RV park in town. We spent ten days drinking beer with Plankintonians while exploring nearby attractions such as the Corn Palace and the real-life homestead of Laura Ingalls Wilder. In the end, the engine repair cost $7751.39. Ouch! We did not count this against our daily trip budget but instead factored it into our overhead, much like we had with the purchase price of the RV. (You might choose to account for it differently.) The Expensive East When the new engine was ready, we waved good-bye to our new friends in Plankinton. We drove through Minnesota to Wisconsin, where we spent a week in the Great North Woods. (At the recommendation of world traveler Gary Arndt, whom we had lunch with near Milwaukee, we took a boat ride out to view the amazing Apostle Islands.) After eating our fill of Wisconsin cheese, we crossed into Michigans upper peninsula and then drove south to Indianas Amish country, where we rested for a week. (We also took the time to dart into Chicago for an overnight trip.) From there, we moved to Indianapolis and Cincinnati. As we made our way east, we noticed some interesting changes. First, there were fewer opportunities for boondocking. Theres less government-owned land in the East than there is in the West. (The western U.S. is largely government land, which means lots of places to camp for free.)Second, while gasoline prices were lower in the east, everything else was more expensive. RV parks were more expensive. Groceries were more expensive. Beer and wine were more expensive. Restaurants, especially, were more expensive. Our average daily spending started to creep upward. By the time we reached Ohio in mid-August, we were shelling out $120 per day again. After 150 days on the road, the average for the entire trip was $93.48 per day (or $46.74 per person). By this point it was clear that we couldnt spend a year on the road for our initial $24,000 budget. (You might, but we couldnt. Not while enjoying the lifestyle we wanted.) Even $30,000 for the year seemed unlikely. We revised our budget upward to $36,000 (or about $50 per person per day) not counting the expensive engine repair. We had plenty in savings, so we could afford to stretch some, but we still wanted to spend as little as possible. From Cincinnati, we traveled to beautiful West Virginia, then north to Cleveland. After that, we hopped over to Niagara Falls, where we camped for a few days at a winery. (We helped bottle brandy and bought a few bottles of wine in exchange for firewood and a place to park.) Stopping in Savannah During September, we sort of lost our steam. The enthusiasm wed had at the start of the trip petered out. Instead of exploring Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and North Carolina, we holed up in the RV and worked. It might sound crazy, but we missed being productive and making money! Being hermits saved us money, of course, but we felt like we were wasting an opportunity. After much discussion, we decided to take a break. We spent a week driving around the eastern seaboard, looking for a place to park for the winter. We fell in love with Savannah, Georgia, so we rented a condo and put the RV in storage. For six months, we lived a relatively normal life. Kim found full-time work as a dental hygienist, and I launched Money Boss (which Ive been folding into Get Rich Slowly since re-purchasing this site). Our six months in Savannah were interesting. I had never lived outside of Oregon, so I suffered some culture shock. I always say that Im relatively conservative for the Portland area but that still makes me pretty liberal for anywhere in the southeastern U.S.! While in Savannah, we didnt just work. We made sure to have some fun too. Over Christmas, we flew to New York City for a long weekend, where we got to hang out with some of our favorite money bloggers. In February, we took a couple of weeks to tour the state of Florida, from Jacksonville to Tampa to Miami to Key West to the Kennedy Space Center. Important note: By this time nearly one year into our trip Kim and I had both started packing on the pounds. Sad but true. We were eating great food and drinking great beer everywhere we went, and we were out of our exercise routine. Not good. After returning from Florida, we began planning for our return trip to Potland. It had taken us six months to make it from the Pacific to Atlanta. It seamed reasonable to budget the same amount of time for heading home. Old Pros If this were a travel blog, Id cover the return trip in depth. A lot of fun stuff happened during our final three months on the road. But this is a money blog, and Im trying to focus this article on the financial side of our journey. As a result, Im going to gloss over a lot. Financially, not much exciting happened. From the start, the return leg felt different. For one thing, we were old pros at the whole RVing thing by this point. At the start of the trip, everything had been new and exciting and even a little scary. A year later, however, Kim and I had things down to a science. We were no longer freaked out by little problems. On our first day back on the road, one of our headlights went out. No problem! Kim promptly repaired it. The return trip felt different too because we spent less time with friends and family. While we did stop to see people along the way, we didnt have nearly as many contacts in southern states as we had in the north. Also, we spent much more time in state parks during the drive home. Traveling east, our camping spots had been varied. Sometimes, we parked in driveways of friends or family. Other times, we did drycamping on Forest Service land. Many of our campsites were located in Thousand Trails parks, which means they were essentially free. (Kim had access to an annual pass through her father.) But these options were few and far between in the Southeast, so we learned to love state parks, which are cheap and plentiful all over the United States. (State parks can get busy on holiday weekends, but otherwise are nearly empty especially midweek.) Finally, we changed the pace of our travel. On the outbound leg, we moved camp every two or three days. (We moved every 2.84 days, to be precise.) But going home, we intentionally slowed down. We tried to say four or five days in each location. (Until we picked up our puppy in Oklahoma about which, more in a moment we moved every 4.25 days.) In short, we stayed in each location nearly twice as long on our way west as we had on our way east. The Journey Home We had intended to spend six months driving home, just as wed spent six months getting to Savannah. That was the plan. We knew that our first two months would be spent carving an S through the southeastern United States. And, surprisingly enough, those two months went as we thought they would. We left Savannah at the end of March and drove to Asheville, North Carolina. (This town is like a training ground for hipster who arent ready for the West Coast, I observed.) We visited Dollywood and Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Eastern Tennessee. We dallied a few days in Nashville home to the worst drivers we encountered on the entire trip (no joke!) where we had a lot of fun immersing ourselves in country music culture. I was pleased to see the Taylor Swift exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame! One of our favorite stops on the entire trip came in Lexington, Kentucky. For one, we got to hang out with friends for the first time in months. More than that, northern Kentucky is beautiful, filled with rolling green hills and horse pastures. Kim and I spent our fourth anniversary as a couple watching the races at Keeneland. And, of course, we sampled the Bourbon trail. [embedded content] From Kentucky, we drove west to St. Louis, then to central Missouri. My grandmother was born near Lake of the Ozarks, so I spent my time there trying to imagine what it must have been like for her as a girl 100 years ago. (By the way, did you know that the Ozark Mountains are the opposite of most mountains? Most mountains are formed when land thrusts up from the Earths crust. The Ozarks were formed by erosion when the vast inland sea that once occupied the space between the Rockies and the Appalachians drained away.) Our next stop was special. In late April 2016, we drove into northeast Oklahoma to visit my cousin Gwen and her family. She and her husband Henry moved from Oregon many years ago, and they now own a 100-acre creek hollow outside Tahlequah, Oklahoma. (Tahlequah has two claims to fame. First, its the endpoint of the Trail of Tears. Second, its the setting for Where the Red Fern Grows. In fact, one scene in the book takes place on my cousins property!) From Tahlequah, we doubled back on ourselves, turning east. This part of our trip was educational, to say the least. We got to see some of the poorer parts of the country. We spent a couple of nights in beautiful Hot Springs, Arkansas, for instance. Hot Springs was once a booming resort town, popular with tourists from the East Coast. Today, the downtown area is a hollow core of what it once was (although there are a lot of people doing their best to save it). Memphis was even worse. Kim and I spent several days in the Memphis area, driving down into Mississippi to travel the Blues Highway. This part of the U.S. is poor. Its infrastructure roads and services and so on is falling apart. It was shocking. (About a month after we drove the Blues Highway, we stayed a few days in Natchez, Mississippi, a few hundred miles south. Conditions in that region were even worse.) Our eastward extent ended in Huntsville, Alabama, where we enjoyed spending time with my college roommate and his boyfriend. From there, we headed south to the Gulf of Mexico, which we followed from Gulf Shores, Alabama to New Orleans. Kim and I loved southern Louisiana. The culture is distinct. The people are friendly. The food is amazing. It was here that we realized our favorite parts of the United States are those that retain a distinct character. You see, much of the U.S. has become homogenized. Indianpolis could be Orlando could be Sacramento could be Cleveland. No knock on any of these cities, but theres a sameness about them despite the unique aspects of each of them. Cities like Miami and New York and New Orleans, however, feel very different. Theyre unique. They have a unique culture, and they cling to it in the face of pressure to conform. As a result, theyre the most fun places to visit. (In each case, we believe this is because the population of these places is so diverse.) Our leg across the Mississippi to Houston was interesting. And frustrating. It was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend 2016, and the heavens opened up. It rained and rained and rained. Texas isnt equipped to handle so much rain. There was flooding everywhere, and roads became impassable. What ought to have been a five-hour drive to our campground turned into eight or nine hours of struggling to get where we wanted to go. We had to change plans and camp at the first place we could find with open space. As you know, Texas is h-u-g-e. I mentioned earlier that the United States is larger than most folks realize. Well, Texas is too. During our nearly two weeks there, we visited Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas. Even with all of that driving, we barely scratched the surface of the state. The Home Stretch At this point, we were just over two months into our planned six-month return trip. We had planned to head toward west Texas, then revisit some of our favorite western spots from the previous year. That plan changed when: The couple who had been watching our condo in Portland found a home of their own. The extended housesitting gig worked out well for them because they were between places. It gave them time to be patient and purchase the perfect house. But once they found it, they were eager to leave. (And understandably so.) As a result, we needed to return to Portland sooner than anticipated.We got a dog. When wed stopped in Tahlequah, Oklahoma in late April, Kim fell in love with a litter of puppies. Can we take one home? she asked. At the time, I argued against it. But over the next few weeks, she whittled down my defenses. By the time we reached Dallas just a few hours from Tahlequah I agreed we could get a dog. So, after our time in Dallas, we returned to the 100-acre creek hollow where my cousin lives. We picked out our puppy (which we named Tahlequah, naturally) and spent a few days getting her used to the RV. When we felt like she was ready, we hit the road making a bee-line directly for home. But even when youre trying to make tracks in an RV, things still take time. Despite the fact that we were rushing the last part of the trip, it took us three weeks to get from northeastern Oklahoma to northwestern Oregon. We spent our first two nights with the puppy in tiny Kingman, Kansas. There, we enjoyed one of our favorite campsites: An entire country fairground where we were the only guests. We had the run of the place, which was awesome because we could get the puppy used to us and we could get used to her. Plus, the fairground was cheap cheap cheap. Note: By the way, we found this location with our copy of the book Free and Low-Cost Campgrounds, which was a godsend on the trip. Although were all accustomed to great cell service in cities, the reality is that most of the U.S. has shitty coverage. Theres just no need for it in sparsely populated areas, and most of the U.S. is sparsely populated. (This fact surprised me, by the way. For some reason, I thought the reality was population density but the opposite is true.) As a result, when youre doing an extended road trip, you need important info in print format. From Kansas, we drove through the most barren stretch of our entire trip eastern Colorado to visit Kims mother in Fort Collins (and to see our pal Mr. Money Mustache once more). Then we burned rubber (literallytwo of the RV tires started to fall apart!) to make it to her father outside Boise. We spent the last two days of the trip visiting my brother in central Oregon, then on 29 June 2016, we pulled into Portland. At long last, we were home. Culture Shock at Home Once Kim and I returned home, we experienced unexpected culture shock. After fifteen months of what was essentially an extended holiday (despite the fact we both worked in Savannah), normal life feltwell, normal life felt crazy. We were overwhelmed by the busy-ness of it all: the pace, the scheduling, all of the requests for time and attention. Why is this so tough for us? I asked after a couple of weeks at home. I dont know, Kim said. But it sucks. She was right. It did suck. About that time, I read Guardians of Being, a short book that mixes the philosophy of Eckhart Tolle with the animal art of Patrick McDonnell (from Mutts). Tolle, of course, is best known for his massive bestseller, The Power of Now, which encourages readers to get out of their heads and be more present in the moment. I was struck by this quote from Guardians: Most of us live in a world of mental abstraction, conceptualization, and image making a world of thought. We are immersed in a continuous stream of mental noiseWe get lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating lost in a maze of complexity and a world of problems. While we were on the road, Kim and I lived in the Now. We were always present in the moment. We might have vague plans for where we wanted to be in a few days or a few weeks, but mostly we made things up as we went along. Where do you want to go next? Kim might ask, and then wed pick a spot. Where should we camp tonight? I might ask as we drove to the new town, and Kim would find a campground. What should we do for dinner? Should we visit that park? This site is awesome lets stay a few more nights. Nearly everything we did was spontaneous. We had no plans or commitments and it was wonderful. But back home, even without jobs to go to and few plans, the pace of modern life was staggering. We were always doing something with somebody. We scheduled appointments and anticipated commitments. We had to-do lists. We went to the gym three mornings a week, took the puppy to puppy classes, agreed to help colleagues, and so on. There was so much going on that there was never a chance to simply be present in the Here and Now. We had no margin in our lives. And the stuff! There was so much stuff! We had few possessions in the motorhome; we didnt miss what we did not have. At home, even though we had less than many folks, we were surrounded by tons of stuff. Tons of stuff! So many books! So many clothes! So many dishes! So much in every closet and cupboard. Kim and I were overwhelmed because we made a sudden transition from doing and having very little to doing and having a lot. All of the stuff and commitments comes with mental baggage. It takes brainwidth. Even after we had settled down, we found it tough to resume normal life. Kim went back to work four days a week as a dental hygienist. I resumed writing and giving speaking gigs. We did our best to return to our old lifebut it all felt wrong, like old clothes that no longer fit. So, we bought a place in the country. We have access to the city when we want it. Mostly, though, we stay at home and enjoy the relaxed pace with our ever-growing zoo. It feels good to not be racing around so much. It feels nice to just be, you know? Getting Rid of Bigfoot Aside from the culture shock, Kim and I faced another problem upon our return. We no longer needed a motorhome. It was time to sell our loyal companion. For some reason, we thought selling the RV would be simple. It wasnt. From the time we started the process which was eight or nine months after returning home it took a year to actually get rid of Bigfoot. We started by listing the rig on both Craigslist and RV Trader. Plus, I created a sales page that contained more information than we could fit in a normal advertisement. We waited. And waited. And waited. Nobody seemed interested. Maybe were asking too much, Kim suggested after a few months with zero responses. We had purchased the RV for $38,000, remember, and then spent nearly $8000 to replace the engine. By our reckoning, we had a $46,000 vehicle on our hands (and wed made other upgrades too!) so we wanted $40,000 in return. Nobody wanted to pay $40,000. We lowered the price to $38,000. As a result, we received a few email inquiries, but nobody came out to see the RV in person. We lowered the price to $35,000. We got more email inquiries, but still nobody wanted to view it. When we lowered the price to $32,000, we finally got a reasonable number of responses and had a few people come out to take a look at the motorhome. We also learned that the price wasnt the only thing holding people back. To us, the fact that Bigfoot had a new engine was a selling point. Turns out, thats a red flag to a lot of people. Their reasoning is that if the engine went out once, itll go out again. This baffles me, but thats what people were telling us. Weve got to get rid of that thing, Kim said last Christmas. I know, I said. Its an albatross. Lets lower the price to $30,000. After we lowered the price to $30,000, we immediately had buyers interested. We were flooded with email. One guy drove out right away to look at the RV. I cant have money for you until Monday, he told us. Will you hold it for me? Given our inability to sell the thing, you might think wed take him up on his offer. But we didnt. The next day, a couple drove seven hours from Sandpoint, Idaho to look at the motorhome. Weve been looking all over for a Bigfoot! they told us. After several hours of inspecting the rig, they made us an offer: $28,000. We accepted. After three years of ownership, we were rid of the RV. The Great Reckoning So, this is a money blog. The most important question to answer is: How much did this trip cost us? Great question. We dont have a precise answer, but Ill share as many numbers as I can so that you can decide whether a trip like this would be worth it for your family. Because Im a money nerd, I keep detailed stats on most of my life. The RV trip is no different. I have a spreadsheet with detailed trip info, and I published trip stats at my travel blog. Here are some highlights: During 283 days on the road, we spent 371.3 hours (15.5 days total!) driving the RV across the U.S. We put 17,250 miles on the motorhome and 17,718 miles on the Mini Cooper. Thats a total of 34,968 miles driven about 1.5 times the circumference of the Earth! Between the two vehicles, we drove an average of 120 miles per day.Everyone wonders about fuel efficiency in an RV. Well, it sucks. We had hoped to average 10 miles per gallon; we got 7.7. (No, replacing the engine didnt make things better.) The motorhome consumed 2202.6 gallons of fuel at an average price of $2.48 per gallon. It cost us 32 cents per mile to drive that beast and thats only counting gasoline.On the first leg of the trip, we spent a total of $17,137.07 for budgeted daily items. Fuel and routine maintenance for the motorhome and car ate up a third of that budget. Food (both groceries and restaurants) consumed another third. We spent $3086 on lodging, which works out to $16.24 per night. The remaining $2000 was spent on alcohol, fun, and miscellaneous expenses. (Our stats for the return leg werent as detailed.)About two-thirds of our nights were spent in campgrounds or RV parks. We drycamped 19% of the time on the way east (but not once on the way home). We spent 18% of our nights in somebodys home or driveway. We visited 38 states. We spent the most time in California (33 nights) and Colorado (25 nights). We loved them all.Arizona and West Virginia were the two most beautiful states we saw on our trip, although the area around Jackson, Wyoming was probably the single prettiest place. Charleston, South Carolina and Lafayette, Louisiana had the best food (the Midwest had the worst) and Ommegang Brewery in Cooperstown, New York had the best beer. The worst drivers? Orlando, Savannah, and especially Nashville. To me, the most important numbers is what Id call our base costs. These are the combination of gas and lodging, the costs for keeping the RV in action. During the first leg of our trip, our base costs were $35.09 per day (with an overall cost of $90.20 per day). During the second leg, our base costs were $41.25 per day (and I didnt keep track of total costs). How much you would spend beyond these base costs is, well, up to you. Obviously, we were spending an extra $50 to $60 per day, or about $25 to $30 per person. This includes food and fun but it does not include the cost of the RV and/or maintenance. (Our net cost for the RV was $10,000 $38,000 purchase price, $28,000 sale price plus the $7751.39 for engine replacement.) And dont forget that we spent about $2000 to furnish the RV before setting out, plus had to make miscellaneous repairs. My guess (and this is only a guess) is that our total cost for for the RV trip outside daily expenses was $23,500. This equates to about $80 per day. If you add this to our ongoing daily expenses, you get a total of $170 per day. Lets round that to $175 per day. [Note that these are corrected numbers. My original calculation of daily cost forgot the engine repair. Oops.] All told, to live like we did on the road which was living well it cost about $180 per day (or about $5400 per month) for two people. Im sure it can be done for less. And we met tons of people who spend much more. I realize that not everyone can afford this sort of adventure. Nor do many people have the ability to pick up and leave their lives for six or twelve or eighteen months. In other words, this isnt the sort of trip that everyone has the time and money to make happen. But for those who do have the resources, exploring the United States by motorhome can be relatively affordable especially if your engine doesnt need to be replaced! On the Road Again? Heres the thing: Our story is not unique. Theres this idea that RVing is only for old people with more time and money than sense. Sure, there are plenty of retired couples out there in brand-new $200,000 luxury motorhomes, but there are also a surprising number of younger couples on the road full time including couples with kids! Everyone we talked to reported the same thing: If youre careful, its perfectly possible to live large in a motorhome on a modest budget. There are plenty of awesome side-effects too. The trip strengthened my relationship with Kim. (If you can make things work in 245 square feet, you can certainly do it in a larger space!) It taught us that we need far less Stuff to live than we thought. The best side effect of all? Realizing just how awesome everybody is. Im not joking. The media has whipped us into a state of hysteria in this country. The Left hates the Right. The Right hates the Left. Nobody talks or takes time to understand the other side. Thats bullshit, to be honest. During our fifteen months away from Portland, we had two bad experiences and they werent even that bad. (Maybe the people were just having off days?) Universally, everybody was friendly and polite and fun. This morning, as I was finishing this article, Kim and I got to talking. Wouldnt it be fun to do a trip like that again? she asked. Maybe we should buy another RV. Haha. Maybe. I told her we should put it off until next year. Our adventure across the U.S. truly was the trip of a lifetime. What are you waiting for? If you too have always dreamed of an epic cross-country roadtrip, get cracking. Draw up a plan. Save your money. Make it happen. Shares 352 https://www.getrichslowly.org/us-by-rv/

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[2/27/2015 9:48:23 AM] Evan: sup [2/27/2015 11:23:51 AM] YV??~: (So I was not ignoring this i just only ever wake up around 12 and i never change my status because i dont plan when i go to sleep. just felt like i needed to explain i was not ignoring this) [2/27/2015 3:28:38 PM] Evan: I kinda figured. heh [2/27/2015 3:29:23 PM] YV??~: so you wanted something? [2/27/2015 3:30:49 PM] Evan: Haha not particularly. It's going to sound pretty random, but I actually wanted to ask you a question. [2/27/2015 3:31:01 PM] YV??~: Ok [2/27/2015 3:32:21 PM] Evan: Cause I'm curious, and I can't remember if I ever asked. [2/27/2015 3:32:30 PM] Evan: Heh. Sorry if this is too personal, but [2/27/2015 3:32:45 PM] Evan: Why do you consider yourself a terrible person? [2/27/2015 3:42:39 PM] YV??~: Oh. Well you are in luck because i accidentally did a lot of terribly depression introspection earlier this week and have just the answer for that. From what i can put together from my somewhat incoprehansible whining. I've gotten through a lot of my life manipulating people through lying and gaining their pity all for my own gain...and probably will continue to. I tend to not do ANYTHING in every situation that would be optimal for working. I am able to somehow make people angry just by expressing emotion. and even when i find things i could fix i never try to change anything. [2/27/2015 3:42:54 PM] YV??~: just a short list of some of the things [2/27/2015 3:43:57 PM] Evan: I see. [2/27/2015 3:44:13 PM] Evan: It sounds to me like you're a human. [2/27/2015 3:46:21 PM] YV??~: Ehhh. I mean im not gonna tell people what they can think but i dont have to share anyone opinion [2/27/2015 3:47:23 PM] Evan: Haha, fair enough. I'll spare you the optimistic bullshit. [2/27/2015 3:47:28 PM] Evan: Why don't you change anything? [2/27/2015 3:48:51 PM] YV??~: That takes time. and effort im too lazy to put out. Ive tried to fix some things but i forget like a week later and stop trying [2/27/2015 3:49:40 PM] Evan: Do you not actually want to? [2/27/2015 3:52:05 PM] YV??~: Honestly, hell if I care anymore. I'm trash and thats that, Im not really worth the time or effort. [2/27/2015 3:52:29 PM] Evan: Not even your own? [2/27/2015 3:54:23 PM] YV??~: Im not really worth pretty much anything for anyone. Even thinking deeper about myself makes me feel like that was just a waste of time. [2/27/2015 3:54:49 PM] Evan: What do you do, then? [2/27/2015 3:55:50 PM] YV??~: Weh, theres a reason I have so many OCs and roughly 12 titles to my name with 6 running congruently at various stages of development. [2/27/2015 3:56:27 PM] Evan: Why do you make art and tell stories? [2/27/2015 4:01:07 PM] YV??~: I dont really have any other people around, and I dont really move from one spot like 22+ hours of the day so I gotta have somewhere to go, and someone to be. Even before I ended up like i am now barely leaving the house, I didnt have more than like 1 friend ever so those were my friends. I ended up picking up drawing from my sister seeing her do it because i thought itd be a good way to be able to really see these characters [2/27/2015 4:03:03 PM] Evan: Why do you animate them? [2/27/2015 4:06:56 PM] YV??~: Ive always been able to make up stories but when i create them i dont think of it as words, as a story would be if i wrote it down, I actually see the story's progression moving. When I create a story and characters I see them move and create the story themselves with small things i put in, and I hear them actually say what they have to say. out of all mediums of visual story-telling, animation is the closest to the original "being" of the story. [2/27/2015 4:07:38 PM] Evan: Why do you share them? [2/27/2015 4:10:20 PM] YV??~: I do that with pretty much any work i finish. Like "here i made this, heres proof it exists." Basically so i have something to show for myself, that i do have the ability to make things. [2/27/2015 4:12:29 PM] Evan: Does it make you proud? [2/27/2015 4:15:32 PM] YV??~: euuhhh...Proud? No. Satisfied with actually being able to have a finished product of some kind, even if its less than the original plan, is a little more like it. Even if I hate it later because there are things that could have been done better if given the time, its still better than nothing. And even then usually the ones i hate the most give other people the most enjoyment. [2/27/2015 4:17:22 PM] Evan: Do you make things that you hate? [2/27/2015 4:20:59 PM] YV??~: Oh yeah. Serious things that just went wrong early on and i was unable to fix, and joke things that ive put too much effort into that got too big compared to real work. I usually dont hate projects though. Even when I feel like theyre going no where and i retire the idea completely i dont usually hate those. Mostly art and animations, actual stories are different. [2/27/2015 4:28:05 PM] Evan: Does art make you happy? [2/27/2015 4:32:56 PM] YV??~: Not usually while im in the process of making it, im mostly just mind set on what it SHOULD look like. But stepping back to look at everything come together and finally become something finished usually is satisfying at the least. Some i never look at after that final moment of its creation, but some im really happy with the way it came out and end up looking at it over and over. So I suppose once the peice is made it does, in a way. [2/27/2015 4:34:34 PM] Evan: Are you proud when your art makes others happy? [2/27/2015 4:36:44 PM] YV??~: Well, i mean, i guess its nice when other people can find enjoyment out of something ive done. [2/27/2015 4:37:13 PM] Evan: Do you like making people happy? [2/27/2015 4:39:21 PM] YV??~: depends, usually i try not to sacrifice too much for other people, but sometimes i can be generous with somethings. really it depends on how I feel pretty much. [2/27/2015 4:41:55 PM] Evan: What makes you happy? [2/27/2015 4:47:07 PM] YV??~: I dont know, I tend to spend most of the day in a neutral 'emotionless' state, and most of the time any emotions I do have are very miniscule that I dont usually remember them. Though I enjoy being in the presence of other people, even without participating, people tend to ignore me 90% of the time. Thats a question that im not sure has a real answer [2/27/2015 4:50:26 PM] Evan: Do you have a dream? [2/27/2015 4:53:07 PM] YV??~: I try not to make solid plans more than 3 years in advance, so im not really sure. There's not a whole lot, at this point, that I could really accomplish by 2018, who can even say I'll still be alive by then. [2/27/2015 4:54:04 PM] Evan: But is there something you would want to do? [2/27/2015 4:58:05 PM] YV??~: Usually I just put goals on my characters, and I just exist to help them get there. I dont really see it so much as my life and things I want to do. Really the only thing id regret in dying is not that im stuck nowhere and im not going anywhere, but my characters not fufilling their roles and reaching THEIR closure. [2/27/2015 4:59:23 PM] Evan: Is there anything else that you do? [2/27/2015 5:02:50 PM] YV??~: All of my hobbies relate with art and story-telling in someway. Voice acting, singing, creating costumes and clothing. pretty much all of it is art and in some way has a story behind it. [2/27/2015 5:06:28 PM] Evan: What do you want to be better at? [2/27/2015 5:09:51 PM] YV??~: wehh..I dont know, theres a lot of things i could be better at and somethings i should be, but...im not really sure. [2/27/2015 5:22:15 PM] Evan: What do you think you're best at? [2/27/2015 5:28:41 PM] YV??~: Ive practiced various methods of drawing for years but, even though i just picked up sewing as a craft 3 years ago im better at that than i was with drawing early on. Everything else has taken since around middle school to get to a good level where i can still do it comparatively quickly, where sewing only took a year to get to that point. Overall for me it went from a beginner level to at least moderately experienced much faster than everything else. [2/27/2015 5:38:07 PM] Evan: What's your favorite thing to do? [2/27/2015 5:41:19 PM] YV??~: I dont know. Usually if im bored, and not too fed up with holding a pencil, i end up idly drawing....Its really like the only thing I do. [2/27/2015 5:50:40 PM] Evan: What inspires you? [2/27/2015 5:53:13 PM] YV??~: Usually things just pop into mind on their own. Sometimes they happen while im listening to, or watching something. [2/27/2015 5:53:40 PM] Evan: What sorts of things do you watch and listen to? [2/27/2015 5:57:06 PM] YV??~: Usually I put on miscellaneous gameplay footage or lets plays, and i pretty much switch between that and music. [2/27/2015 5:57:49 PM] Evan: What kind of music? [2/27/2015 6:00:23 PM] YV??~: It usually depends what i feel like. somedays its lighter faster stuff, somedays its heavier stuff. Somedays a combination of both, sometimes i just let my music shuffle and play in whatever order. [2/27/2015 6:02:12 PM] Evan:  Is music important to you? [2/27/2015 6:05:52 PM] YV??~: I guess....I mean some ideas wouldnt have happened without certain songs, and some projects probably wouldnt exist. [2/27/2015 6:07:53 PM] Evan: What's your favorite project? [2/27/2015 6:10:21 PM] YV??~: Honestly, there isnt a lot of public information on Mahito but ive been working with it for 2 years, and it was actually the first thing I envisioned myself actually animating. [2/27/2015 6:11:00 PM] Evan: What's Mahito? [2/27/2015 6:22:17 PM] YV??~: Its something I came up with one day, I guess the best way to describe its themes in short would be Madoka-esque even though i came up with the basics including designs before i even watched it. I guess one could say its very "magical girl" though it is not a straight female cast. It follows a team of 6 highschool students, their leader being a socially withdrawn, sucidal girl whos only real support are her brother and his best friend. These 6 people are given powers and forced into a battle thats been going on for centuries, for supremacy within a group of supernatural beings known to the humans involved as "gods." Many of these gods have no regard for the people they force to fight so long as they are able to take surpremacy in someway, since they are unable to kill each other or be killed. The team has to fight both other human fighters and "monsters", that are the remains of humans who tried to rebel against their "god", which live beyond a barrier and can threaten to destroy inncent human life. At first they look at it as their chance to help people, but eventually their powers become a burden. [2/27/2015 6:24:26 PM] Evan: That sounds really interesting. How much have you done with it? [2/27/2015 6:29:45 PM] YV??~: So far I have designs and short biographies for the main cast. As well as designs for a few of the mosters they will face, and bios for a few minor characters that still have some influence on a part of the plot. A lot of what i have written besides characters is mostly world building, information on the roles and powers each member of a 6 man team can have. Descriptions of the basic behaviors of monsters on different intelligence levels. I plan to have all the designs done at the end of this year, and the timeline for the plot fully written in detail at the end of 2016. [2/27/2015 6:33:31 PM] Evan: Cool. O: I assume it's also going to be an animation? When do you think you'll start making it? [2/27/2015 6:38:45 PM] YV??~: Ive been saying since around last year or so itll come out in 2018. It was the first thing I considered animating seriously, things before that where like that would be cool, or this scene could be animated. But this, i decided, this was going to be fully animated, i tried to start it out in a static format just to get things laid out to be adapted into an animation, but it never worked. While 2018 may be a little too ambitious, this is going to be nothing but animated [2/27/2015 6:44:46 PM] Evan: I see. [2/27/2015 6:46:57 PM] YV??~: yeh

#said evan to vriska

[knight-gwaine]

i keep talkin bout you bc youre my only real way of measuring my progress. you were the best and worst. yesterday or honestly whenever, i made posts along the lines of some shit like you suck ass, which ya do, but if you got your life together we could be friends or sum. but i mean. that’s a concept. what i’m realising is that every day, i’m getting further away from you. and that is a GOD DAMN BLESSING. i say all these nice things but thats for the fake fun and great version of you that exists in my head as just a comforting thought when i feel like thinking about love. but damn, i keep forgetting until i really think about it that, i literally am so fucking happy to be away. i am so happy we never have to be friends again and talk and shit. because you /seem/ cool, especially when we barely talk but if i had to actually deal with you. id rather punch myself in the god damn face. also wow it sucks that id still be down for your dick bc you be lookin like a god damn mess like eww??? i barely /actually/ see you and then when i do i realise oh yeah this b for real aint shit. like i wonder what he is actually getting done w his life. and okay, any progress is great. like if you on your own are trying. great. thats fantastic like im proud of you. everyobe works at their own pace. but in terms of me being friends w you. nah b, you lame as fuck. i aint got time for that. i have been meeting waaayy too many incredible peoole this year and have done waaay to many incredible things to be settlin for someone like you. idk dude. i see you. i hear things about you. i see the shit you do and say and i know you cant judge someone really unless you really get to know em or whatever but sometimes peoples social media and their friends can say a looooottt about them. a lot. and i do not. ever. wanna. fuck. w. you. HEEELLL NOOO.

as much as i wish for myself to never speak of you again and all that. i dont think thats going to happen for a long time. three years is a long time. even if this one seems to have lasted forever, three years is longer. and thinking back on all of it helps me realise how much ive progressed. and how much i keep progressing every day. i literally can only remember one. one. bad day. through this whole year. only one. maybe two? i remember one bad moment? but ive only ever had one bad day.

it is such a feeling. to finally. be free. all my emotions are controlled by me. i never feel depressed and alone on a cloudy quiet sunday. i never feel dreary when its pouring rain out. i never feel affected by the mundane weather. because i have done so much and i honestly will never stop. because what is the point in not trying to have fun and live your best life every moment of your life? fr that one song by anderson paak, i aint never comin down. i spent too much time bein scared and believing i was incapable and antisocial and no one likes me or whatever. but how do people get rid of their fears? you go out and face it. i feel like i can do almost anything now, im not gonna lie. like, if i really want to. because thats genuinely all it takes. if you WANT to do something, you will find a way to do it. so you will succeed. if you WANT to, even if theres everything stopping you, you find a way around it. once you realise that, nothing fucking stops you. i say this same old stuff over and over again but it just took me so long to learn and you hear about it but you never believe it. i still am amazed every day by how my life is now.

i have met some of the most phenomenal and successful people this year. i never would’ve thought first of all that they would even like me or want to talk to me but you would be damn well surprised by people’s kindness. growing up sheltered and being called annoying, dumb, and all other things, you end up believeing no one will like you its just automatic. this year, got to become friends with my favourite people that i always wanted to hang out with. i got to befriend amazing artists and photographers that are huge in my town. everyone who meets me automatically wants to be my friend. even strangers?? random people that sit next to me in class. doing leads you to meet people. and meeting people leads you to doing. its a fantastic cycle if you think about it. life is never boring. i appreciate all the small little things in my life so much more now. everything. if you arent happy with your life, find a way to make yourself happy. you arent stuck unless you give up and stop trying to change yourself. these. are the reasons why i wouldnt want you back in my life. my life is too phenomenal now. my life is too fantastic for you to be in you wouldnt fit. plus, i think im way too positive for you now. and i unapologetically love myself and every aspect of who i am now and i am constantly working on bettering me that i feel like itd just be too much? id be obnoxious to you i feel like?? and youd be boring. you would be boring. i like your interests. i love hearing what you have to say about music and movies and weird random facts but. i also dont trust you to be a good person. after all that you did too, nah. i dont need that negativity. it would be outrageous for me to believe we are connected in anyway. i hope. i mean this in all honesty with my whole being. i hope youre happy w your girl or whateva bc i want you outta mine. she better be takin fuckin care of your dumbass though i stg. i dont care when my boys get w other girls as long as i know their taken care of. vasya when he got w chelsea? immediately got over my crush for him and was happy af bc she was better than me. max, if he gets w anyone aside from cheyenne i will beat his ass. that b better fuckin be pushing you to strive for the best. she better be pushin you to realise your worth and what youre capable of and pushin you to try new things because LIFE IS TOO FUN TO NOT GO OUT AND HAVE FUN. COOK SHIT TOGETHER. GO HIKE. GO DANCE. DO SHIT. GROW UP. THINK SMART.

i fr dont know what the point of this post is im really out here just writin whatever comes to mind. bc one day i’m gonna go back through all my personal posts and ill remember how my life was rn and ill be like damn. that shit was sick as fuck. life was lit as fuck. tbh i think i was just really shook by that photo of you. ive been writing gay shit bout you for a while and then i saw that and i was like OH FUCK ABORT MISSION THAT B UGLY AS HELL AND HAS NO LIFE BACK OUT BACK OUT and now im here. straight shook. yeah. i dont want you in my life. my life is way better without you. i really am an unstoppable force right now. school is a motherfuckin one. friends are fucking precious and successful amazing wholesome human beings that are also out here doin the motherfuckin most im so proud i love all my friends we are all such successful people with amazing futures ahead of us god im so proud im 😭😭😭 we really out here chasin our dreams n shit. aND SUCCEEDIN. and money situation is L I T. ya baby’s got a fine ass mercedes w the best dad in the world getting me AUTOSTART for this cold winter???? ya baby be workin out and doin yoga everyday, abs comin in HOT. ya gurl developin as an artist with her dream school hittin her the FUCK up for her portfolio?? i am a for real artist now but i refuse to realise my big stuff. only sketches for now, dear world. the public eye doesnt need to see me as an artist yet. no. because they always will bc its always me. but no. i gotta act chill. this isnt the artist years of your life yet. you aint settled down yet no. now is time for fun, life, school, that grind 😤😤, and ecology. BE THAT SICK ASS SCIENTIST BITCH. BE SMART AS FUCK AND SAVE THE EARTH.

2017 got three more months left. i already know that im gonna have the funnest fucking time. fam is leavin for xmas and my sister’s moving out?? ff got house parties like wild?? EVERY MONTH??? northern lights are comin out??? you dont have to wake up early for school so you can go chase them??? A N D YOU HAVE A BUNCHA FRIENDS NOW TO GO WITH??? AND WINTER IS COMING SO THERES GONNA BE MORE EVENTS INSIDE TO GO TO??? AND MEET PEOPLE?? AND YA GETTIN MORE HIGHER PAYING JOBS WITH HELLA TIPS??? YES. i said i was gonna make 2017 my bitch. boy the fuck did i and i am gonna end it with a muthafuckin bang.

#personal #way to hype myself up for the rest of the day

[topsolarpanels]

Know Your Enemy: Celebrating 50 Years of the Forever War

Robert Sammelin

No one drank more than the scientist. Every night, after whatever patriotic black-tie gala marriage played props at, he could be found at the hotel bar, trying to extract existential meaning from a banana colada. It was an odd drinking of option for such a serious human, but only once did he respond to our interrogations about it.

It pleases the nerve fibers, he said, all baritone to his voice, before disappearing into the chilled yellow muck again. We were in New Tulsa, debriefing after a grueling dinner with a bunch of white-haired solar energy exec. Wed been on the road for months, and morale used to go the way of the glacier. I ordered a round for the table, and we toasted to the hustle. Heroes of the nation, peddling war bonds by day, drinking like froufrous by night. Our drill instructor would not have been proud.

Maybe it wasnt New Tulsa. Maybe itd been in Charlotte after the fund-raiser with the nanofinance douchebags. Anyhow.

There were 11 of us on the bond drive, 12 if you included the JngerBot. The Forever War had just entered its sixth decade, and our politicians didnt pretend they were going to end it anymore, even during elections. They couldnt. Wed tried everything: nation-building, nation-destroying, sending terrorists and their families to the Mars penal colony, sending the rebel Young Siberians to actual Siberia. Nothing had worked. We were at war because we always had been. We were at war because we always would be. We were at war because we were at war.

Matt Gallagher

About

Matt Gallagher is the author of the novel Youngblood and the Iraq memoir Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War.

The government decided to celebrate the Forever Wars golden anniversary with loud, shiny bombast. We were part of that bombast. AMERICAS HEROES, TOGETHER AT LAST, ran the tagline. We were like a roving assortment act, but without name recognition or singing or sex appeal. Without anything, truly. Just pasts wiped clean with the antiseptic of narrative. So we stood there and smiled and waved while other people told our tales to the crowds. The crowd cheered. We waved again.

After the coladas, I settled the tab and excused myself. The younger veterinarians night was just beginning, but mine was nearing its end. In the queue for the teleporter to the rooms, a human about my age waited behind me. He wore a rumpled dress shirt and an overlong tie-in and a goatee on the brink of coherence.

He was looking everywhere but my hoverchair. People with legs always do that. It reminds me of the route some men used to try very hard not to look at my cleavage when I was younger. The endeavor simply underlines the fixation.

Thank you, he said. For what you did.

Thank you for your supporting, I told, a answer as hollow as it was practiced. He mustve been at the event earlier.

Cancan I tell you something?

Sure, I told. Women in military uniforms have this impact on men in dress shirts, for some reason. If youd like to.

I wanted to be a recon marine when I was a kid. He said it like it was a church confession, something hidden away in the lost rifts of his soul for decades. Did the recon workout at the gym for years, he continued. Stupid, I know.

I nodded, both because it was stupid and because I knew.

Youre a bona fide hero. The men segue was as graceful as a startled dog, but it was late. That scientist, though. Hes killing people. And not only the enemy.

I thought about “the mens” words. They were true enough. So what would you do? I asked. If you were him.

Me? The man stroked his goatee. I wouldnt even know.

Pragmatically, I told. Youre the scientist. You live in this country. The wars happening. You can perhaps aim it or not. Either style, people succumb. What do you do?

II object to the question. And to the idea. Im not him. The human voice had a quiver to it now. Not an angry quiver, either. A frightened one. I was just sayingI dont think its right. Thats all.

OK, I said. Night. It was my turning at the teleporter. I get in and went to my room. I didnt begrudge the man his opting out. We all had in some manner. Even us.

Especially us.

The Federals had discovered me at my sisters, on the porch, scrolling through a holopad article about the rabid lemur thatd killed Justin Bieber Jr. Furious George Howls With Delight! read the headline. Its always spooky when sons succumb the same way their fathers did. The past comprehend us all, eventually. Even Biebers.

I was on my seventh year of an indefinite visit, still sleeping in a bare guest room. A potted flower or framed scene would have felt like marks of permanence, somehow. Id been living in increments since high school and wasnt about to stop simply because I couldnt figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

Theywell, welived at the top of a windy mound in a suburbium of a suburbium, wedged between a stand of wild honeysuckle and a pond shaped like a swollen snout. It was green and quiet. The kind of place where big flags hung from porches with humility. I taught painting at the community center and took my nieces to soccer practice and spend my Saturday nights at the one townie bar that served ros.

The life didnt induce me happy or anything, but it could have. Maybe should have.

There were three of them. They all wore jeans and plaid shirts of differing blandness. Id have expected suits and black sunglasses, but the decay effects of after-empire were reaching and vast.

Chief Warrant Officer Valerie Speer? one said. Well, asked. I didnt look my part, either. Female veterinarians tend to cut a certain mold. A liter-sized gremlin in a gardening hat wasnt it.

They told me about the bond drive. About how it would inspire patriotism again in the hearts and minds of the person or persons. About how it would get everyday citizens invested in the wars again.( Like they ever were. I knew the history .) About how the governmental forces needed the money, how 50 years of blowing up things in strange, faraway places had taken its toll on the budget, especially since the geothermal insurgency in Blue Russia began eating away at Uncle sam foreign trade.

About how the bond drive needed a woman on it, because they had an old guy, a blexican, a mexipino, and a robot, and showing that heroes were as diverse as the country mattered.

I laughed. A female. I danced my metal fingers through the air. In the right sun my prosthetics could look like flesh. We werent in it. Thats why you need me.

That made the two men in jeans and plaid look down at the ground, but the woman Fed just stared at me.

Youre Valerie Speer, she said. The tone in her voice sounded so earnest it snapped. Do you know what you mean to my generation of status of women? I joined the agency because of you.

She was lying about that, I was almost sure. But shed appealed to my pride. I danced my fingers through the air again and took in all the green, all the quiet. Seven years here. Seven years that had induced me soft. Did people my age go on escapades anymore?

I requested information about financial compensation.

Heres the thing about being labeled a war hero: You either love it or hate it. Theres little space for mixed impressions. Take the scientist. Invented a drone mosquito that gives people the runs, sold it to the military, and stopped the Arabican conflict practically overnight. You cant fire a rifle when youre crapping out your brains. But some of the mosquitoes werent as specific as billed. During strafes, they bit foes and civilians alike. Which wouldnt have mattered much had we been fighting in the developed world. We werent, though. Outbreaks of dysentery and super-cholera followed, and the last UN estimate I watched numbered deaths in the tens of thousands.

The bond drive needed a woman on it. They already had an old guy, a blexican, a mexipino, and a robot.

The scientist had ended a war all with his mind. Yet the only thing he wanted in the world was to return to his lab, to his anonymity, and forget any of it ever happened.

The JngerBot seemed to resent the attention for other reasons. It didnt know what to induce of people, and truth be told, people didnt know what to attain of it. They could handle robots, had been dealing with them all their lives. Even the rough-and-tumble behaviour of a regular InfantryBot could be explained away. But an elite InfantryBot 5000 upgraded with the transcendental heroism and philosophical musings of decorated German World War I soldier Ernst Jnger? That caused some issues.

The anarch wages his own wars, the JngerBot said at a fund-raiser to a journalist whod would like to know whether it missed battle. Even when marching in rank and file.

Before a boxing prizefight, the JngerBot felt it necessary to remind the crowd what was what. Furrow opposing is the bloodiest, wildest, most brutal of all, it said to 70,000 drunk revelers in Vegas. Of all the wars exciting moments , none is so powerful as the session of two cyclone troop leaders between narrow trench walls. Theres no compassion there , no going back. The blood speaks from a shrill exclaim of recognition that tears itself from ones breast like a nightmare.

And then there were the children.

It told a 10 -year old with a JngerBot poster on his wall that killing an adversary would be a finer tribute. And when a bank presidents “girls ” pointed to us and asked if we were heroes, the JngerBot objected as only it could TAGEND

Heroes deeds and heroes graves, it said. Old and new you here may assure. How the Empire was created. How the Empire was preserved. It paused. We sought the death of heroes. There is no lovelier demise in the world.

The little girls face paled to glass as her father resulted her away. We all laughed about it , no one harder or longer than Dizzy. Dizzy was a walking, talking debate for breeding the remaining cis-males out of the gene pool, if only he hadnt been so pretty. Drone pilots. They think theyre so starfish because they can laser insurrectionists dead from space. And Dizzy was an superstar. He adored every minute of the bond drive, “members attention”, the parties, the hoverfloat rides, the certain type of female patriot who wanted to see the view from his hotel balcony. Beats going back to Pueblo and coaching CrossFit, hed tell, before unleashing that smile of full, fluoride shine. God, he could charm the sorcery underwear off a Mormon.

Would try, at least.

Hed earned the Silver Star in the Iraq war. Well, the Iraq war before the last one. Maybe it was three Iraq wars ago.

Dizzy and the younger vets on the bond drive are always privateersmercenaries if youre the protest, virtual-petition kind. WarriorCorps and Foreign Legion Inc. and Armed Humanitarianism Limited and the like. I was hybrid: part contractor but also part national military, before that ran extinct during the Whig Revolt of 36. Merely Emo Carlos was old enough to have been GI from beginning to end. Hed earned the Silver Star in the Iraq war. Well, the Iraq war before the last one. Perhaps it was three Iraq wars ago. Anyhow. We asked Emo Carlos about it over sushi, after a parade in Cleveland.

Jumped on a grenade at a checkpoint, he told, defining down his chopsticks with a shrug. Didnt go off.

We hollered and banged the table just because we could. Itd been a couple decades since anything but a bot had been close enough to a grenade to do anything like that. Even the JngerBot conveyed its admiration.

Defective? I asked.

Emo Carlos nodded. One in a million, they said.

What happened then? Dizzy asked.

The creases in Emo Carlos forehead folded into one another like papier-mch. He usually never talked about anything but drumming for his old-man punk band. Theyd served together back in the day and were known across the greater Rochester area as the Infidels. Geriatric humor.

Stood up, he said. Dusted off. Looked down. Realise Id pissed myself.

We hollered and banged the table all over again.

An elderly couple came over to us subsequently. Theyd overheard our conversation and wanted to say thank you. They said they had two grandsons in privateer training.

I know our thanks is a small thing, the spouse said. He and his wife looked so cute in their nice old-people clothes, khakis and sweaters and thick-rimmed glasses. They looked like other peoples grandparents always look. But sometimes its all those of us here can offer.

The wife nodded. Were all involved, she told. We believe that. As taxpayers, as citizens, thats how it is. Were with you.

We thanked them for thanking us and they left the restaurant.

What did she mean, Were all involved? Dizzy asked. No theyre not.

There were echoes of agreement and deliberation over what the old woman had meant, and not just about the word involved . Also about the word we .

Yo, Emo Carlos told. The table hushed. Theyre from my hour. When wars had objectives. When citizens tried to keep up. America used to be young. Thats what she meant.

Then say that, Dizzy told. Taxes? Who the fucking cares.

Emo Carlos shook his head again. He was trying to clear himself of frustrations, either with himself or with us. Then he pointed at me. Sent her to the damn moon. Supposed to save us all, putting the wars up there. Preserve the land and resources, remove civilian demises. Be tidy and simple. That was the plan.

And no one ever went back, Dizzy told. The game changed.

Well. Emo Carlos giggled. Military lesson numero uno, son, he said. No plan survives first contact.

The rest of us chuckled along with the old wisdom. Everyone but the scientist, who sat off by himself in the corner. He looked up at us with something between sadness and ferocity. It was hard to decide which.

Tidy and simple, he said. I like that.

When my nieces turn 12 and gain access to FreedomNet, they will find these three paragraphs about their aunt, etched into the digital histories forever and ever TAGEND Valerie Jade Speer( born May 2, 2011) was a chief warrant officer( air) and assault pilot in the United States Army and later the privateer organization Star Spangled Security. She was awarded the Star of Valor in 2042 for her actions during the Battle on the Moon, of which she was the only survivor . Deployed to the moon as part of the NATO coalition during the course of its South Seas dispute, Speer flew a Flying Yeager fusion helocraft during the battle, destroying five Chinese Federation space-helos and two Young Siberian cosmo-planes. Struck by an enemy dwarf ballistic, Speer crash-landed into the Titius Crater. She was thus sheltered from the amaze thermonuclear strike carried out by the Young Siberians that killed all other fighters and blew the hole in the moon now known as Putins Smile . Initially presumed dead, Speer was found during NATO recovery operations two days after the end of the combat. She lost three extremities, suffered burns over much of her body, and survived over 90 surgeries. President Natasha Obama told Speers life and narrative are a testament to the American spirit at her Star of Valor ceremony at the White House .

Words can be funny beasts. Her actions suggest some sort of agency, even control. Destroy is such a clean term for such messiness. Struck by defied my memory of it. Same with crash-landed.

Less so with lost. And suffered.

Testament. As if enduring were a selection. I did what anyone would have. There are no atheists in moon craters. And there are no fatalists in survivor wards of one.

I was thinking about that ward as I zipped up my suitcase in my sisters guest room for the bond drive. Thinking about the long stills of quiet during the nights. Guessing about being “ve called the” Burn by nurses who guessed I couldnt hear them. Supposing about the full-thickness graft done without anesthesia.

You sure about this, Val? My sister stood in the doorway. Her posture betrayed opposition. She was four years older and had always asked me questions that she already had answers for. You have options.

Shed said the same years prior, before Id left for the moon.

I am, I told both times, even though I wasnt both days. Id always detected power and resolve in ambiguity, though. Most people werent like that. My sister, for one.

Youve done more than your share, she continued, moving to the bed and putting her arm around my shoulder. So much more. I leaned my head into her and tried to hold in some of the familial warmth. Id miss it, I knew. Only sisters and nieces hug people like me. I dont think its right.

I smiled at that.

Its not, I told. But. If not me, then who?

Even running can be its own form of opting out. I didnt know that the first time. But I did the second. The last night in the guest room, as I tossed and turned in bed, I thought about that. Then I thought about the survivor ward again. And the long stills of quiet during the nights. And being “ve called the” Burn. And the graft.

Somewhere between Omaha and Tesla City, I began to realize just how different the younger vets were. It wasnt simply that they were privateers, either, or that they called adversary combatants pixels as an insult. Dizzy and his crew, they crowed about their service. Owned their superiority, then basked in it.

Do soldiers think theyre better than citizens? Of course. It has nothing to do with what did or didnt happen in their service, either. It has to do with the very notion of joining up. Americas been at war since before most of us were born. We joined because we wanted to go. Wed been told we were special from day one of boot camp, doing something the rest of our nation couldnt. Or worse, wouldnt. Too fat. Too selfish. Too lazy. Which made the realization after we got out that citizens think were beneath them all the more shocking. If theyre fat, selfish, and lazy, then whats worse than that?

We werent supposed to say any of that, though. My generation didnt, at least. We were taught that part of our service was biding quiet about it. To rise above, because thats what Jesus and George Washington and Beyonc wouldve wanted.

Thats what I did. Or tried to, at the least. Let the citizenry think what it wants, ran the logic. All part of being a republic.

Maybe we had it incorrect, though.

I wondered about that the night the protester confronted us. We were in Washington for a gala. Ordinarily “were in” ushered in through side or back door for events, but the organizers of this one had us walking in on a red carpet, through a galaxy of flashing lightings and holographic cameras.

Finally, Dizzy told, pausing to adjust his bow affiliation and lick his front teeth. The treatment we deserve.

Why the protester chose the JngerBot to cream-pie, Ill never know. By the time the uproar had reached my ears and Id floated around in my chair, the JngerBot had the young man by the throat. Request order to remove home-front adversary, it said, which was funny, and then not.

We got the young man free of the JngerBots prongs. He was reed-thin and had thick brown curls with eyes as dark and mad as the moon. I didnt know what to think about him or his pie. People didnt protest war in person anymore. It wasnt sane behavior.

Youre not heroes, he told. His terms were shaky. Its never easy coming face to face with people youve demonized. Or cockpit to cockpit. Youre tools of empire. Fuck you. Fuck all of you.

The cameras along the walkway started popping off like mortars. We all only stood there, waiting out his denunciation, because we were there to be seen and applauded , nothing else. His anger dazed me, and the others too. Not Dizzy, though.

Get bent, joker, Dizzy told, intersecting his arms for the cameras. War is bad? No shit. But it wont go forth just cause we want it to. Last month, two brigades from the same base get deployed. One goes to Kurd Mountain, saves those households from the horde. The other goes to Blue Russia, blows up some insurrectionists. Ones a humanitarian mission. The others combat. Both involve destruction.

Id never heard Dizzy speak with eloquence and passion before. He was good, and he knew it. He pressed on.

This JngerBot is a goddamn national gem. I dont know what brought you here tonight, and I dont dedicate a single fucking. We went so you dont “re going to have to”. Suck my hero balls.

The arrogance. The entitlement. The narrowness of thought. I loved it all, and I wasnt the only one. The red carpet explosion with applause. Dizzy even took a bow. But the acclaim wasnt universal.

After the protester had been escorted away and wed run inside for the gala, the scientist saw Dizzy. Dont do that again, he said. He loomed over the younger human like an angry parent. That guy is not your adversary. Neither is anyone else youve met on this stupid tour.

He aint a friend. Dizzy was trying to sound unbothered, and he leaned back in his chair and set his feet on the table. So what is he?

Only morons speak in absolutes, the scientist said.

Dizzy changed tactics. You know what he likely thinks about you? he asked. What all these people say when they think we cant hear? I had a woman tell me she didnt think we were whole human beings. Fuck her, and fuck that protester. Fuck all of them.

I wondered what the answers were to Dizzys questionwhat did people say about us? When they thought about us at all. Beyond the pomp and rite of the bond drive, we werent anything, I supposed. Just ciphers with tales people believed in, or didnt believe in, even before they heard them.

So. What. The scientists voice turned to iron as he responded to Dizzy. Thats the job. We have consequences.

Dizzy opened his mouth, but the scientist cut him off. You did . You did when you didnt “re going to have to”. Thats enough. It has to be. Then he stormed off, presumably for the hotel bar.

The scientist opted out that night. The rest of us did too, by doing the job. We stood there and smiled and waved while other people told our stories to the crowds. The crowd cheered. We waved again.

We walked back to the hotel as a group after the jamboree. We stopped in a park with green lawns and a marble fountain and joked about the protester, giggled about the scientist. The scientist had been right, but so what? What did being right have to do with anything? Dizzy had regained whatever force-out it was that sustained him and began chatting up a pair of young women who considered themselves patriots. I watched it all and thought about the ward and then my sisters home. The JngerBot came up beside me.

You managed that pie well, I told it. It didnt say anything, so I continued. Waiting for an order, I mean.

Here is our kingdom, the best use of monarchies, the best republic, the JngerBot told. Here is our garden, our happiness.

What a random thing to tell, I thought. Even for a robot. But subsequently, after considering it more, I decided otherwise.

The Fiction Issue

Tales From an Uncertain Future

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Exploring the U.S. by RV: The price of adventure

Shares 348 Two years ago today, Kim and I returned to Portland after fifteen months traveling the United States in an RV. Believe it or not, Ive never published an article about the trip and how much it cost. Although we kept a travel blog for most of the adventure (including a page that documented our expenses), Ive never gathered everything into one place. Until now. Today, I want to share just how much we spent on the journey and some of our favorite stops along the way. It seems like the perfect post to celebrate the start of summer, dont you think?

The Lure of Adventure All my life, Ive wanted to take a roadtrip across the United States. When I was young, I was lured by the adventure. I wanted to climb mountains, swim rivers, and explore canyons. The older I got, the more fascinated I became by the countrys regional differences. The U.S. is huge, a fact that most foreign visitors forget. Most American citizens dont even realize how big the country is. I wanted to see and experience it all. Although Ive dreamed of a cross-country roadtrip, its never been practical. As a boy, my family was poor. My parents didnt have money for something like this. As a young adult, I couldnt afford it either. For a long time, I was deep in debt. Besides, where would I find the time? I had to work! To top things off, my wife had zero interest in driving cross country. But in my forties, a curious set of circumstances came together to move my epic roadtrip from dream to reality. One day in early 2014, my girlfriend Kim asked me out of the blue, What do you think about taking a cross-country roadtrip? What did I think? Hell yeah! is what I thought Making a Plan As Kim and I began to discuss this adventure, our biggest concern was money. As a financial writer, Im acutely aware that every dollar I spend today is roughly equivalent to seven dollars I could have in retirement. Every day, I preach the power of saving. I wanted to keep our trip as cost-effective as possible. (Besides, Kim would have to quit her job as a dental hygienist in order to travel a huge financial sacrifice.) My goal was to keep our costs under $50 per person per day. In fact, I had high hopes we could do the trip for $33 per person per day (for a total of $24,000). But the U.S. is expensive. How could Kim and I make this happen? From the start, we knew hotels were out. Even cheap lodging would be far too expensive for us to stay within budget. Personally, I liked the idea of bicycling across the country like my friends Dakota and Chelsea have done. Kim wasnt keen on the idea. (Nor was she willing to make the trip by motorcycle despite being a die-hard Harley girl.) After a lot of research, and after talking with Chris and Cherie from Technomadia, I came to a conclusion: The best balance of cost and comfort would come from crossing the country in an RV. With this bare outline of a plan, the true trip prep began. Searching for Bigfoot After deciding to travel by RV, there were more questions to answer. Neither of us had experience with recreational vehicles. Among other things, we needed to figure out: Should we buy a truck and a trailer?Would it be better to buy a motorhome and tow my 2004 Mini Cooper?What about new or used? With used, you never know what youre getting. But a new RV costs $80,000 or more and loses value quickly.How much space did we need? What kinds of amenities? After crunching the numbers, there was an obvious best choice for us. If we bought a used motorhome, we could tow a car we already owned while (we hoped) avoiding a big hit from depreciation. In fact, if we were diligent every step of the way, it might even be possible to resell our RV after the trip and recoup most of what wed paid for it! We spent the autumn of 2014 patiently sifting through Craigslist ads for used motorhomes. We visited dealerships. We attended the local RV Expo. We walked through dozens of models searching for the right fit. Some were too long. Some were too short. Some were too fancy. Many were run-down and in a state of disrepair. Finally, in early January 2015, we found the perfect rig: a 2005 Bigfoot 30MH29RQ. (Translation: A 29-foot motorhome with a queen bed in the rear.) The owner wanted $38,000 for it a fair price. He wouldnt budge when I tried to negotiate, but I was okay with that. My research revealed he was actually selling a slightly better model, one worth a few thousand dollars more than he was asking. We bought it. [embedded content] Over the next two months, Kim and I prepped Bigfoot for departure. We spent $2000 making minor repairs and installing a towbar on the Mini Cooper. We cleaned the motorhome from top to bottom. We took weekend test trips to RV parks around Oregon and Washington. When all was said and done, wed invested $40,000 to get our caravan ready for the road. Into the West Kim and I left Portland on the morning of 25 March 2015, my forty-sixth birthday. We sped through Oregon we love the state, but were both familiar with it and entered northern California. We spent our first week on the road exploring the Redwoods and weaving through wine country.

Along the way, we got a crash course in driving a motorhome. Near Cloverdale, California we took a wrong turn onto a cliff-side gravel road. We stopped immediately. Good thing, too. Turns out a week earlier some other poor soul had driven his RV over the side of the cliff. East of Sacramento, we took another wrong turn and found ourselves driving down a narrow dike road during rush hour while high winds buffeted the RV. Very scary. At times we felt like Lucy and Desi in The Long, Long Trailer, but after a couple of weeks Kim and I had learned how to handle our motorhome, both on the road and off. [embedded content] Early in the trip, our expenses were out of sight. We ate out too often. We bought too much wine. We did too many touristy things without searching for discounts. We rationalized that since we were visiting all of these new places (and might never return), we might as well pay to experience them to the fullest. This was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, after all. The problem, of course, was that lots of fun costs lots of money. Ten days into the trip, our average spending was over $120 per day (or over $60 per person per day) almost twice what wed hoped to spend. Yikes! We tightened the purse strings. We stopped eating out so much and cooked in the motorhome. (We cook a lot at home normally, so this wasnt a tough transition.) We bought a National Parks pass, perhaps the best purchase of our entire trip. (For an $80 one-time fee, you get one year of unlimited access to all sorts of government-owned sites.) We learned to entertain ourselves at night with books and boardgames and a hard drive filled with old movies and an iPad filled with comic books.

During our 33 days in California, we marveled at the states vast variety of terrain. We drove through forests and deserts, skirted ocean cliffsides and walked across mountain streams. We hated L.A. traffic not recommended when youre in a motorhome towing a car but enjoyed almost everything else.

We loved Arizona even more. Maybe we had low expectations, but we were blown away by the magnificent scenery of the Grand Canyon state. For nineteen days, we basked in the warm spring sun and admired the colorful rock formations.

It was in Arizona that we discovered the joys of drycamping (or boondocking). For the first seven weeks of our trip, we mostly stayed in RV parks and campgrounds. At $20 to $50 per night (with the average park costs around $35), lodging was our biggest expense by far. Drycamping costs nothing. All you do is find a spot where you can legally park for the night National Forest land, a friends driveway, certain businesses and casinos and set up camp. You dont have access to electricity or fresh water, but thats okay. The beauty of an RV is that its self-contained. (Our Bigfoot had a generator for electricity and a 63-gallon freshwater tank.)

After boondocking only once during our first 50 days on the road, we managed to live off the grid for 33 of the next 80 nights. Once we began pinching pennies, our travel costs plummeted. We werent spending $120 per day anymore. Our average daily spending fell to $50, which lowered the trip average to about $80 per day. A Costly Repair With all this frugality, did we feel like we were depriving ourselves? Not at all! As we made our way from Arizona to Utah to Colorado, we found we could still afford wine and an occasional restaurant meal. Plus, we were paying to do a lot of touristy things, such as soak in the hot springs in Ouray and ride the narrow-gauge train from Durango to Silverton. At the end of May, we stopped for a week to visit family and friends near Denver. During this break, our RV costs dropped to zero no fuel or lodging expenses while we stayed with Kims mother and hung out with Mr. Money Mustache which allowed us to spend a little more on fun. Good thing too because Fort Collins has a great beer scene.

We hit the road again in early June, making our way into Wyoming to visit Yellowstone and the Tetons. We zipped over to Idaho to spend time with Kims father in Sun Valley. From there, we drove north into Montana to lounge around Flathead Lake and explore Glacier National Park. Costs stayed low as we crossed Montana to enter the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota.

After celebrating Independence Day in Deadwood, our average daily spending for the trip was about $84. We felt good about that number. Itd be nice if it were lower, but $42 per day per person seemed reasonable. At that rate, the trip would cost us $30,000 for the entire year. On July 8th, the tenor of our trip changed. So did our costs. We were cruising across the vast emptiness of central South Dakota when the motorhomes engine overheated. We pulled off to give it a rest. The oil level looked fine, but I added more just in case. It didnt help. An hour down the highway, the engine seized up completely. Turns out Bigfoot had spun a bearing and the engine was toast. (Also turns out that spun bearings are not uncommon with this particular engine.)

Unfortunately, we were in the middle of nowhere. The nearest town was Plankinton, South Dakota (population 707). Fortunately, the folks in Plankinton were friendly. The owners of the local garage diagnosed the problem and ordered parts. Meanwhile, we got to know the owners of the only RV park in town. We spent ten days drinking beer with Plankintonians while exploring nearby attractions such as the Corn Palace and the real-life homestead of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

In the end, the engine repair cost $7751.39. Ouch! We did not count this against our daily trip budget but instead factored it into our overhead, much like we had with the purchase price of the RV. (You might choose to account for it differently.) The Expensive East When the new engine was ready, we waved good-bye to our new friends in Plankinton. We drove through Minnesota to Wisconsin, where we spent a week in the Great North Woods. (At the recommendation of world traveler Gary Arndt, whom we had lunch with near Milwaukee, we took a boat ride out to view the amazing Apostle Islands.)

After eating our fill of Wisconsin cheese, we crossed into Michigans upper peninsula and then drove south to Indianas Amish country, where we rested for a week. (We also took the time to dart into Chicago for an overnight trip.) From there, we moved to Indianapolis and Cincinnati. As we made our way east, we noticed some interesting changes. First, there were fewer opportunities for boondocking. Theres less government-owned land in the East than there is in the West. (The western U.S. is largely government land, which means lots of places to camp for free.)Second, while gasoline prices were lower in the east, everything else was more expensive. RV parks were more expensive. Groceries were more expensive. Beer and wine were more expensive. Restaurants, especially, were more expensive. Our average daily spending started to creep upward. By the time we reached Ohio in mid-August, we were shelling out $120 per day again. After 150 days on the road, the average for the entire trip was $93.48 per day (or $46.74 per person). By this point it was clear that we couldnt spend a year on the road for our initial $24,000 budget. (You might, but we couldnt. Not while enjoying the lifestyle we wanted.) Even $30,000 for the year seemed unlikely. We revised our budget upward to $36,000 (or about $50 per person per day) not counting the expensive engine repair. We had plenty in savings, so we could afford to stretch some, but we still wanted to spend as little as possible. From Cincinnati, we traveled to beautiful West Virginia, then north to Cleveland. After that, we hopped over to Niagara Falls, where we camped for a few days at a winery. (We helped bottle brandy and bought a few bottles of wine in exchange for firewood and a place to park.)

Stopping in Savannah During September, we sort of lost our steam. The enthusiasm wed had at the start of the trip petered out. Instead of exploring Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and North Carolina, we holed up in the RV and worked. It might sound crazy, but we missed being productive and making money! Being hermits saved us money, of course, but we felt like we were wasting an opportunity. After much discussion, we decided to take a break. We spent a week driving around the eastern seaboard, looking for a place to park for the winter. We fell in love with Savannah, Georgia, so we rented a condo and put the RV in storage. For six months, we lived a relatively normal life. Kim found full-time work as a dental hygienist, and I launched Money Boss (which Ive been folding into Get Rich Slowly since re-purchasing this site).

Our six months in Savannah were interesting. I had never lived outside of Oregon, so I suffered some culture shock. I always say that Im relatively conservative for the Portland area but that still makes me pretty liberal for anywhere in the southeastern U.S.! While in Savannah, we didnt just work. We made sure to have some fun too. Over Christmas, we flew to New York City for a long weekend, where we got to hang out with some of our favorite money bloggers. In February, we took a couple of weeks to tour the state of Florida, from Jacksonville to Tampa to Miami to Key West to the Kennedy Space Center.

Important note: By this time nearly one year into our trip Kim and I had both started packing on the pounds. Sad but true. We were eating great food and drinking great beer everywhere we went, and we were out of our exercise routine. Not good. After returning from Florida, we began planning for our return trip to Potland. It had taken us six months to make it from the Pacific to Atlanta. It seamed reasonable to budget the same amount of time for heading home. Old Pros If this were a travel blog, Id cover the return trip in depth. A lot of fun stuff happened during our final three months on the road. But this is a money blog, and Im trying to focus this article on the financial side of our journey. As a result, Im going to gloss over a lot. Financially, not much exciting happened. From the start, the return leg felt different. For one thing, we were old pros at the whole RVing thing by this point. At the start of the trip, everything had been new and exciting and even a little scary. A year later, however, Kim and I had things down to a science. We were no longer freaked out by little problems. On our first day back on the road, one of our headlights went out. No problem! Kim promptly repaired it.

The return trip felt different too because we spent less time with friends and family. While we did stop to see people along the way, we didnt have nearly as many contacts in southern states as we had in the north. Also, we spent much more time in state parks during the drive home. Traveling east, our camping spots had been varied. Sometimes, we parked in driveways of friends or family. Other times, we did drycamping on Forest Service land. Many of our campsites were located in Thousand Trails parks, which means they were essentially free. (Kim had access to an annual pass through her father.) But these options were few and far between in the Southeast, so we learned to love state parks, which are cheap and plentiful all over the United States. (State parks can get busy on holiday weekends, but otherwise are nearly empty especially midweek.) Finally, we changed the pace of our travel. On the outbound leg, we moved camp every two or three days. (We moved every 2.84 days, to be precise.) But going home, we intentionally slowed down. We tried to say four or five days in each location. (Until we picked up our puppy in Oklahoma about which, more in a moment we moved every 4.25 days.) In short, we stayed in each location nearly twice as long on our way west as we had on our way east. The Journey Home We had intended to spend six months driving home, just as wed spent six months getting to Savannah. That was the plan. We knew that our first two months would be spent carving an S through the southeastern United States. And, surprisingly enough, those two months went as we thought they would. We left Savannah at the end of March and drove to Asheville, North Carolina. (This town is like a training ground for hipster who arent ready for the West Coast, I observed.) We visited Dollywood and Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Eastern Tennessee. We dallied a few days in Nashville home to the worst drivers we encountered on the entire trip (no joke!) where we had a lot of fun immersing ourselves in country music culture. I was pleased to see the Taylor Swift exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame!

One of our favorite stops on the entire trip came in Lexington, Kentucky. For one, we got to hang out with friends for the first time in months. More than that, northern Kentucky is beautiful, filled with rolling green hills and horse pastures. Kim and I spent our fourth anniversary as a couple watching the races at Keeneland. And, of course, we sampled the Bourbon trail. [embedded content] From Kentucky, we drove west to St. Louis, then to central Missouri. My grandmother was born near Lake of the Ozarks, so I spent my time there trying to imagine what it must have been like for her as a girl 100 years ago. (By the way, did you know that the Ozark Mountains are the opposite of most mountains? Most mountains are formed when land thrusts up from the Earths crust. The Ozarks were formed by erosion when the vast inland sea that once occupied the space between the Rockies and the Appalachians drained away.) Our next stop was special. In late April 2016, we drove into northeast Oklahoma to visit my cousin Gwen and her family. She and her husband Henry moved from Oregon many years ago, and they now own a 100-acre creek hollow outside Tahlequah, Oklahoma. (Tahlequah has two claims to fame. First, its the endpoint of the Trail of Tears. Second, its the setting for Where the Red Fern Grows. In fact, one scene in the book takes place on my cousins property!)

From Tahlequah, we doubled back on ourselves, turning east. This part of our trip was educational, to say the least. We got to see some of the poorer parts of the country. We spent a couple of nights in beautiful Hot Springs, Arkansas, for instance. Hot Springs was once a booming resort town, popular with tourists from the East Coast. Today, the downtown area is a hollow core of what it once was (although there are a lot of people doing their best to save it). Memphis was even worse. Kim and I spent several days in the Memphis area, driving down into Mississippi to travel the Blues Highway. This part of the U.S. is poor. Its infrastructure roads and services and so on is falling apart. It was shocking. (About a month after we drove the Blues Highway, we stayed a few days in Natchez, Mississippi, a few hundred miles south. Conditions in that region were even worse.) Our eastward extent ended in Huntsville, Alabama, where we enjoyed spending time with my college roommate and his boyfriend. From there, we headed south to the Gulf of Mexico, which we followed from Gulf Shores, Alabama to New Orleans.

Kim and I loved southern Louisiana. The culture is distinct. The people are friendly. The food is amazing. It was here that we realized our favorite parts of the United States are those that retain a distinct character. You see, much of the U.S. has become homogenized. Indianpolis could be Orlando could be Sacramento could be Cleveland. No knock on any of these cities, but theres a sameness about them despite the unique aspects of each of them. Cities like Miami and New York and New Orleans, however, feel very different. Theyre unique. They have a unique culture, and they cling to it in the face of pressure to conform. As a result, theyre the most fun places to visit. (In each case, we believe this is because the population of these places is so diverse.) Our leg across the Mississippi to Houston was interesting. And frustrating. It was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend 2016, and the heavens opened up. It rained and rained and rained. Texas isnt equipped to handle so much rain. There was flooding everywhere, and roads became impassable. What ought to have been a five-hour drive to our campground turned into eight or nine hours of struggling to get where we wanted to go. We had to change plans and camp at the first place we could find with open space.

As you know, Texas is h-u-g-e. I mentioned earlier that the United States is larger than most folks realize. Well, Texas is too. During our nearly two weeks there, we visited Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas. Even with all of that driving, we barely scratched the surface of the state. The Home Stretch At this point, we were just over two months into our planned six-month return trip. We had planned to head toward west Texas, then revisit some of our favorite western spots from the previous year. That plan changed when: The couple who had been watching our condo in Portland found a home of their own. The extended housesitting gig worked out well for them because they were between places. It gave them time to be patient and purchase the perfect house. But once they found it, they were eager to leave. (And understandably so.) As a result, we needed to return to Portland sooner than anticipated.We got a dog. When wed stopped in Tahlequah, Oklahoma in late April, Kim fell in love with a litter of puppies. Can we take one home? she asked. At the time, I argued against it. But over the next few weeks, she whittled down my defenses. By the time we reached Dallas just a few hours from Tahlequah I agreed we could get a dog. So, after our time in Dallas, we returned to the 100-acre creek hollow where my cousin lives. We picked out our puppy (which we named Tahlequah, naturally) and spent a few days getting her used to the RV. When we felt like she was ready, we hit the road making a bee-line directly for home.

But even when youre trying to make tracks in an RV, things still take time. Despite the fact that we were rushing the last part of the trip, it took us three weeks to get from northeastern Oklahoma to northwestern Oregon. We spent our first two nights with the puppy in tiny Kingman, Kansas. There, we enjoyed one of our favorite campsites: An entire country fairground where we were the only guests. We had the run of the place, which was awesome because we could get the puppy used to us and we could get used to her. Plus, the fairground was cheap cheap cheap. Note: By the way, we found this location with our copy of the book Free and Low-Cost Campgrounds, which was a godsend on the trip. Although were all accustomed to great cell service in cities, the reality is that most of the U.S. has shitty coverage. Theres just no need for it in sparsely populated areas, and most of the U.S. is sparsely populated. (This fact surprised me, by the way. For some reason, I thought the reality was population density but the opposite is true.) As a result, when youre doing an extended road trip, you need important info in print format.

From Kansas, we drove through the most barren stretch of our entire trip eastern Colorado to visit Kims mother in Fort Collins (and to see our pal Mr. Money Mustache once more). Then we burned rubber (literallytwo of the RV tires started to fall apart!) to make it to her father outside Boise. We spent the last two days of the trip visiting my brother in central Oregon, then on 29 June 2016, we pulled into Portland. At long last, we were home.

Culture Shock at Home Once Kim and I returned home, we experienced unexpected culture shock. After fifteen months of what was essentially an extended holiday (despite the fact we both worked in Savannah), normal life feltwell, normal life felt crazy. We were overwhelmed by the busy-ness of it all: the pace, the scheduling, all of the requests for time and attention. Why is this so tough for us? I asked after a couple of weeks at home. I dont know, Kim said. But it sucks. She was right. It did suck. About that time, I read Guardians of Being, a short book that mixes the philosophy of Eckhart Tolle with the animal art of Patrick McDonnell (from Mutts). Tolle, of course, is best known for his massive bestseller, The Power of Now, which encourages readers to get out of their heads and be more present in the moment. I was struck by this quote from Guardians: Most of us live in a world of mental abstraction, conceptualization, and image making a world of thought. We are immersed in a continuous stream of mental noiseWe get lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating lost in a maze of complexity and a world of problems. While we were on the road, Kim and I lived in the Now. We were always present in the moment. We might have vague plans for where we wanted to be in a few days or a few weeks, but mostly we made things up as we went along. Where do you want to go next? Kim might ask, and then wed pick a spot. Where should we camp tonight? I might ask as we drove to the new town, and Kim would find a campground. What should we do for dinner? Should we visit that park? This site is awesome lets stay a few more nights. Nearly everything we did was spontaneous. We had no plans or commitments and it was wonderful. But back home, even without jobs to go to and few plans, the pace of modern life was staggering. We were always doing something with somebody. We scheduled appointments and anticipated commitments. We had to-do lists. We went to the gym three mornings a week, took the puppy to puppy classes, agreed to help colleagues, and so on. There was so much going on that there was never a chance to simply be present in the Here and Now. We had no margin in our lives. And the stuff! There was so much stuff! We had few possessions in the motorhome; we didnt miss what we did not have. At home, even though we had less than many folks, we were surrounded by tons of stuff. Tons of stuff! So many books! So many clothes! So many dishes! So much in every closet and cupboard. Kim and I were overwhelmed because we made a sudden transition from doing and having very little to doing and having a lot. All of the stuff and commitments comes with mental baggage. It takes brainwidth. Even after we had settled down, we found it tough to resume normal life. Kim went back to work four days a week as a dental hygienist. I resumed writing and giving speaking gigs. We did our best to return to our old lifebut it all felt wrong, like old clothes that no longer fit. So, we bought a place in the country. We have access to the city when we want it. Mostly, though, we stay at home and enjoy the relaxed pace with our ever-growing zoo. It feels good to not be racing around so much. It feels nice to just be, you know?

Getting Rid of Bigfoot Aside from the culture shock, Kim and I faced another problem upon our return. We no longer needed a motorhome. It was time to sell our loyal companion. For some reason, we thought selling the RV would be simple. It wasnt. From the time we started the process which was eight or nine months after returning home it took a year to actually get rid of Bigfoot. We started by listing the rig on both Craigslist and RV Trader. Plus, I created a sales page that contained more information than we could fit in a normal advertisement. We waited. And waited. And waited. Nobody seemed interested. Maybe were asking too much, Kim suggested after a few months with zero responses. We had purchased the RV for $38,000, remember, and then spent nearly $8000 to replace the engine. By our reckoning, we had a $46,000 vehicle on our hands (and wed made other upgrades too!) so we wanted $40,000 in return. Nobody wanted to pay $40,000. We lowered the price to $38,000. As a result, we received a few email inquiries, but nobody came out to see the RV in person. We lowered the price to $35,000. We got more email inquiries, but still nobody wanted to view it. When we lowered the price to $32,000, we finally got a reasonable number of responses and had a few people come out to take a look at the motorhome. We also learned that the price wasnt the only thing holding people back. To us, the fact that Bigfoot had a new engine was a selling point. Turns out, thats a red flag to a lot of people. Their reasoning is that if the engine went out once, itll go out again. This baffles me, but thats what people were telling us. Weve got to get rid of that thing, Kim said last Christmas. I know, I said. Its an albatross. Lets lower the price to $30,000. After we lowered the price to $30,000, we immediately had buyers interested. We were flooded with email. One guy drove out right away to look at the RV. I cant have money for you until Monday, he told us. Will you hold it for me? Given our inability to sell the thing, you might think wed take him up on his offer. But we didnt. The next day, a couple drove seven hours from Sandpoint, Idaho to look at the motorhome. Weve been looking all over for a Bigfoot! they told us. After several hours of inspecting the rig, they made us an offer: $28,000. We accepted. After three years of ownership, we were rid of the RV. The Great Reckoning So, this is a money blog. The most important question to answer is: How much did this trip cost us? Great question. We dont have a precise answer, but Ill share as many numbers as I can so that you can decide whether a trip like this would be worth it for your family.

Because Im a money nerd, I keep detailed stats on most of my life. The RV trip is no different. I have a spreadsheet with detailed trip info, and I published trip stats at my travel blog. Here are some highlights: During 283 days on the road, we spent 371.3 hours (15.5 days total!) driving the RV across the U.S. We put 17,250 miles on the motorhome and 17,718 miles on the Mini Cooper. Thats a total of 34,968 miles driven about 1.5 times the circumference of the Earth! Between the two vehicles, we drove an average of 120 miles per day.Everyone wonders about fuel efficiency in an RV. Well, it sucks. We had hoped to average 10 miles per gallon; we got 7.7. (No, replacing the engine didnt make things better.) The motorhome consumed 2202.6 gallons of fuel at an average price of $2.48 per gallon. It cost us 32 cents per mile to drive that beast and thats only counting gasoline.On the first leg of the trip, we spent a total of $17,137.07 for budgeted daily items. Fuel and routine maintenance for the motorhome and car ate up a third of that budget. Food (both groceries and restaurants) consumed another third. We spent $3086 on lodging, which works out to $16.24 per night. The remaining $2000 was spent on alcohol, fun, and miscellaneous expenses. (Our stats for the return leg werent as detailed.)About two-thirds of our nights were spent in campgrounds or RV parks. We drycamped 19% of the time on the way east (but not once on the way home). We spent 18% of our nights in somebodys home or driveway. We visited 38 states. We spent the most time in California (33 nights) and Colorado (25 nights). We loved them all.Arizona and West Virginia were the two most beautiful states we saw on our trip, although the area around Jackson, Wyoming was probably the single prettiest place. Charleston, South Carolina and Lafayette, Louisiana had the best food (the Midwest had the worst) and Ommegang Brewery in Cooperstown, New York had the best beer. The worst drivers? Orlando, Savannah, and especially Nashville. To me, the most important numbers is what Id call our base costs. These are the combination of gas and lodging, the costs for keeping the RV in action. During the first leg of our trip, our base costs were $35.09 per day (with an overall cost of $90.20 per day). During the second leg, our base costs were $41.25 per day (and I didnt keep track of total costs). How much you would spend beyond these base costs is, well, up to you. Obviously, we were spending an extra $50 to $60 per day, or about $25 to $30 per person. This includes food and fun but it does not include the cost of the RV and/or maintenance. (Our net cost for the RV was $10,000 $38,000 purchase price, $28,000 sale price plus the $7751.39 for engine replacement.) And dont forget that we spent about $2000 to furnish the RV before setting out, plus had to make miscellaneous repairs. My guess (and this is only a guess) is that our total cost for for the RV trip outside daily expenses was $23,500. This equates to about $80 per day. If you add this to our ongoing daily expenses, you get a total of $170 per day. Lets round that to $175 per day. [Note that these are corrected numbers. My original calculation of daily cost forgot the engine repair. Oops.] All told, to live like we did on the road which was living well it cost about $180 per day (or about $5400 per month) for two people. Im sure it can be done for less. And we met tons of people who spend much more. I realize that not everyone can afford this sort of adventure. Nor do many people have the ability to pick up and leave their lives for six or twelve or eighteen months. In other words, this isnt the sort of trip that everyone has the time and money to make happen. But for those who do have the resources, exploring the United States by motorhome can be relatively affordable especially if your engine doesnt need to be replaced!

On the Road Again? Heres the thing: Our story is not unique. Theres this idea that RVing is only for old people with more time and money than sense. Sure, there are plenty of retired couples out there in brand-new $200,000 luxury motorhomes, but there are also a surprising number of younger couples on the road full time including couples with kids! Everyone we talked to reported the same thing: If youre careful, its perfectly possible to live large in a motorhome on a modest budget. There are plenty of awesome side-effects too. The trip strengthened my relationship with Kim. (If you can make things work in 245 square feet, you can certainly do it in a larger space!) It taught us that we need far less Stuff to live than we thought. The best side effect of all? Realizing just how awesome everybody is. Im not joking. The media has whipped us into a state of hysteria in this country. The Left hates the Right. The Right hates the Left. Nobody talks or takes time to understand the other side. Thats bullshit, to be honest. During our fifteen months away from Portland, we had two bad experiences and they werent even that bad. (Maybe the people were just having off days?) Universally, everybody was friendly and polite and fun. This morning, as I was finishing this article, Kim and I got to talking. Wouldnt it be fun to do a trip like that again? she asked. Maybe we should buy another RV. Haha. Maybe. I told her we should put it off until next year. Our adventure across the U.S. truly was the trip of a lifetime. What are you waiting for? If you too have always dreamed of an epic cross-country roadtrip, get cracking. Draw up a plan. Save your money. Make it happen.

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