Goodbye New Mexico!

You’re not going to believe this but…

We’re on our way back to South Dakota! We spent five nights in Jemez Springs and I felt significantly better. I was able to cook, do laundry by hand and walk Ramona again. I had more energy and less pain. So why are we heading back already?

Well… boondocking in the Jemez Mountains reminded us just how hard daily life can be when you don’t have access to a power outlet and have to drive 40 minutes just to get water to do laundry and dishes. Not to mention, having to drive 4 hours every time you need groceries! Perhaps worst of all, it reminded us of how impossible it is to get work done without cell service or internet.

If this was just a two week vacation where we could bring everything we need with us and just enjoy nature it would be fantastic. We really love Jemez Springs. But this is daily life we’re talking about!

So, after weighing the pros and cons we decided that life was better on the ranch even with the wildfire smoke. Brett was getting more work done on the ranch even though he had to do all the chores because I was too ill to help.

Going to New Mexico also made us realize that spending the winter in the van will probably still be miserable in the desert. People we met kept telling us how cold it gets. So, it seems that if we want to avoid emergency hotel stays we at least need to try to find a rental that I can tolerate. And if we’re going to be indoors anyway, why not look for something in Rapid City? The air is good there (when smoke isn’t blowing in), we know where to buy things, and we were finally starting to meet new friends.

In the end, we decided that if we want to give ourselves a chance at finding a tolerable indoor living situation we’re going to need to start looking now. Erik Johnson, the mold avoidance pioneer, has said that in his experience about 1 in 12 buildings are clear enough for someone like me.

So we’re heading back with the understanding that I might feel worse for a little while but the fires won’t last forever. Pretty soon the temperatures will start dropping and the smoke will clear. And who knows? Maybe the air will feel a bit better now that the ranchers are no longer painting the house. Let’s hope it does!

By the way, Brett and I made a beautiful PDF of my favorite resources for suffering souls. I created the content and he made it look fancy with his superduper graphic design skills. It’s available for free to my email subscribers. Click here to sign up and receive 5 Resources for the Suffering Soul.