Though we are still on the road, living our wild little ramblin’ lives, it’s been a year of big changes. Some, like my mom’s death, have been unmooring– sad and complex and… well, I’m still working through it. Others changes have been exciting: Our youngest graduated from college this year! We spent a few weeks in Montreal celebrating this milestone with the family.
And of course, there is the bus.
She is BLUE now, thanks to a wonderful Rhino-Liner paint job we got in Albuquerque. And…. she (maybe) has a name! We’re share that in our next post, promise!
More importantly, WE have a name, a new one. This week, we retired the name “Crazy Brave Adventure.” After four years under that moniker, it feels a little strange… but right too.
Back when we rid ourselves of 24 years worth of stuff, and moved into our beloved, low top econoline van, Stevan, with our also beloved (and large) dog, Milo, and no real plan, we WERE a little crazy…. And brave. It was a time for big leaps into the unknown. We were feeling “cuspy” and ready, and we had no idea how long we’d be living the nomad life… or even if we’d like the nomad life. Crazy Brave Adventure” really fit back then.
Four years later, we’ve learned a few things. We know we love this lifestyle and that we can live a low-frills, seat-of-our-pants kind of existence indefinitely– happily. We are hoping to range a little further out in the coming years, but house life? Nah!
When we finished our bus build and got back on the road, we knew what we were getting into, more or less. And it turns out our little shuttle bus home is all that and more. Nowadays, it feels almost ordinary for us to live this way: camping in wild (and not so wild) places, living a low-frills lifestyle, planning our drives the morning of with few long term plans and no bathroom (!) We still don’t have air conditioning or heat. But we DO have a toaster, so we no longer have to give up toast.
I guess it’s still a little crazy and brave… but it’s also just how we live now. And we plan to keep at it until we don’t want to anymore. Seems like that could be a long, long time!
Ever since we’ve been back on the road — back to “normal life”, more or less — we’ve felt the need for a new name.
Our old name felt like a coat we’d outgrown, or a skin we’d started to shed (love those snake metaphors!). But it took us a while to settle on a new one… until we were inspired by our little blue bus.
It started out as a accident. Say “Blue Bus” fast a few times and you’ll see what I mean. All of a sudden we had a “Blus.” She is such a happy blue these days, we feel a little buoyant driving around, Blusfull even.
In short, we have been feeling really Blussed lately.
We’ve successfully slowed our travels, a long term goal that was much more challenging in Stevan. More power, more water, more space.
We’re lazing in the super comfy confines of our Blus. Or, as our friend Darren, the Feral Hippie Nomad, says “Our Blus is our Bliss”.
Are we crazy and brave? Maybe. But these days, we’re just living our lives, roaming around and following our Blus… also taking a bunch of goofy pictures trying to get that one good selfie.
*We will be changing our website title, but not the URL so we’ll still be crazybraveadventure.com
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