Well, Bitchsticks. For as ready as I am to get the hell outta town, seems town ain’t ready to throw me out quite yet. I took a hard curveball to the face in my planning, leaving me in a right pickle, far as heading out ASAP goes.

While my kiddos are stripping most of my possessions from my place- I mean, duh, that’s what kids do, right?? – what was left, was not going to be moved at all- and my apartment was to remain sparsely decorated and with minimal furniture for my friend who was planning to move in through the end of the lease. Now, however, I need to begin entirely purging my apartment- a task I was not readily planning to do until a quick return visit home in May.

Oh, the problems of a “first worlder”. 

Plans change. But my intentions here haven’t any. While I may have no choice but to leave a few weeks later, I’m still up to roam and adventure with Trixie outside of Maxwell’s, Aloha, Beaverton, Portland, and Oregon. And so that is where my focus lies- on the devising of Trippin’ with Trixie – considering, planning, visualizing and executing this project while rolling with the punches and adapting to the changes as they come to me.  

To date, this is the first real challenge in my trip and the planning of it – and I can’t imagine it will be the last. In fact, I expect I’ll have some that will be much more difficult to handle than this one alone. But that doesn’t scare me. It doesn’t stop me from plotting backroads to explore, or pinning points on maps, or keeping friends in other cities at the ready for a visit.  

Because this? This crazy plan? The one I’m slowly carving out for myself and my oblivious partner Trixie? The one I am both confidently and apprehensively throwing into motion? Yeah, it’s a thing. It’s for real. And although my timeline has skewed just a tad, we’re still Adventurers, ready to head out adventuring.

In that, I’m planning to put Wilma my Mini Cooper into sports drive, revving her up real good, and speeding on down the road with Trix in search of some entertaining and meaningful life stories. And that, my friends, is called a Greenlight.