highs and lows

One year ago today Deron worked his last day at UPS, and we put our house on the market and set #nomadlife into motion.

But TBH, this hasn’t been the best week.

By the end of last Friday the mechanic thought he knew what the problem was with our coach, but wanted to run a few more tests Monday morning. So we checked out of Days Inn at 11am, spent a hot day killing time in the air conditioned car until 3pm when we could check in to La Quinta. Thankfully it is SO MUCH BETTER, definitely worth the wait!

Actually, the room we’re in this time is even better than the last time we were in this hotel. So that’s a happy thing.

But in unhappy news, when we finally touched base with the service manager Monday evening (after not hearing from him all day), we discovered the mechanic had called in sick. NOOOOOO!!

Tuesday wasn’t much better – the mechanic called in late, and didn’t arrive until after noon. And word at the end of Tuesday was he was still struggling to diagnose the problem. The service manager assured us he was going to assign him a helper on Wednesday so they could get to the bottom of it.

Thursday we got the devasting blow – we definitely need a new engine block, or a whole new engine, because when the San Diego mechanics rebuilt the current engine, they honed out the cylinder too much and oil is leaking through.

The cherry on top of the week was when Deron got a call from our San Diego storage facility that during their “daily” lock check, they noticed our padlock was on the latch, but the latch wasn’t locked. The last time we were there (in mid-March!) Deron must have locked the padlock with the latch open. So we spent a good part of one day driving around to different locksmiths to try to make a copy of our San Diego storage key.

(Backstory – when we were visiting the Christensens in Chino Valley back in November, I lost my little key ring with the spare keys to the Honda and the storage unit. I retraced my steps and looked in all the vehicles I’d ridden in, but never found it.)

After several unsuccessful attempts at finding a locksmith with the right key blank, we finally ended up mailing our only key to our good friend Jeff in San Diego, and also ordering a new lock (with 3 keys) to be sent to him. He graciously agreed to switch out the lock and mail us the new lock’s keys. However, when Jeff got to the storage unit, he discovered we’d sent the wrong key (UGH!) so he couldn’t replace the lock yet, and when we saw the pics he sent us, it was apparent that things are missing.

Other than a TV, an Xbox and some luggage, we can’t really pinpoint what was taken, but the thought of someone rifling through our stuff and feeling free to take what he (or she) wanted makes us feel sick to our stomachs.

Needless to say, we’re struggling to process all of this without anger and despair. Once the initial dismay passed, and we both were ministered to by dear friends, we took a deep breath and talked about all the ways we’re blessed, all the beyond-our-expectations adventures we’ve already enjoyed, and about our faith that God is still present and very aware of our circumstances, and that He’s still working things together for our good, even if we can’t see it. (When we were praying one night, Deron said something about how God will astonish us with the way things work out for our good. I LOVE that!!)

Other than moving to a much nicer room, the only other fun adventure of the week was trying to discover what type of animal was making the snorting/chuffing/groaning noises one night in the woods behind the hotel. After hearing Sylvia’s stories about all the bear encounters she had in Gatlinburg last week, we didn’t want to investigate too closely. IDK if bears roam this area, but I wasn’t super interested in finding out. So the mystery remains unsolved.

In conclusion, sorry for the mostly downer post, but in real life (even “living the dream #nomadlife”), bad things happen. We’re hoping that this last (big) repair is the last for a long time, and that we can come to some satisfactory agreement with the San Diego mechanics, in which they take some (or all) of the financial burden off of us.

In the meantime, we covet your prayers for our marriage, our journey, our emotions, and our relationship with the Lord.

we really have been blessed – so so so much beauty & so much fun!