On the road to your dreams, you may encounter many confusing signs…
Photo/S McCloud
May 2024: We sold our beautiful Colorado home—the only home my two youngest children had known, a few short miles from their beloved great-grandma’s house—the beautiful grandma who played “zombie” with them at 90 years old and was the best “cooker” my youngest children could imagine.
We weren’t leaving our home to purchase another across town. We were loading our lives into three trailers and lumbered the entire load across the country to start new lives.
We were leaving the overcrowded city full of people we loved but rarely saw. Trading in the chaos of Weld County growth that didn’t seem supported by its infrastructure, we sought windy, less-inhabited roads without non-stop traffic jams and never-ending rush hour. We were searching for a road less traveled, literally and figuratively, and a simpler, less congested life for ourselves and our children.
A last “goodbye” photo of her Colorado home of over 16 years. Photo/S McCloud
We packed up a 20-foot rented trailer, our own 40-foot enclosed trailer, and a 40-foot flatbed trailer, and filled the beds of our trucks to the rim Beverly Hillbillies style. These vessels contained the histories of us before we met, 20+ years of raising 4 children, 3 businesses, 16 years of country living, countless memories of Christmases, birthdays, vacations, theatre productions, volleyball successes, archery equipment, toolboxes rigged with zip ties to stay shut, boxes of remote control trucks and cars, storage containers filled with Matchbox cars—some opened, some not, Saxon’s tools and equipment, an entire “automotive engineer” starter kit filled 1/3 of one of the trailers alone, extra engines, chassis, and other equipment one may need down the road.
We hired a moving company to load our lives into our semi. I stacked boxes in the kitchen filled with items we would need immediately upon arrival like clothes, bathroom necessities, shoes, vitamins, bedding, pots and pans, dog necessities—treats, allergy meds, leashes and collars, and prescriptions. Neatly, they were all marked “LOAD LAST” for easy access during travel and upon arrival. Needless to say, the moving company employees loading our trucks didn’t read my instructions and loaded them first. Unfortunately, we only discovered this mismanagement of necessities after not finding those crucial totes upon our arrival at our beautiful, rolling-hilled, southern property. Hiccup.
A moving hiccup in the making. Photo/S McCloud
Rarely do things “go off without a hitch.” The trick is quick, efficient, and often ingenious problem-solving to turn a possible catastrophe into a slight hiccup. I’m a sucker for big muscles, brains, and chivalry, but my husband’s ability to problem-solve and “MacGyver” the heck out of a bad situation may be his sexiest attribute. This guy once used tweezers, bobby pins, a Ziplock bag, and eyelash glue to temporarily patch a flat tire an hour after we’d put on our only spare. It was a tire hack worthy of a YouTube video.
The exact origin of the phrase “without a hitch” is uncertain. But it’s thought to have originated in the 16th century from the world of horses and carriages. Horses were secured to hitching posts to hinder escape. The successful hitching of the equine to the posts without any tribulations was categorized as “without a hitch”—a success!
“Without a hitch” would not be a phrase used to describe our moving fiasco. Our purchase of the new southern property was contingent upon selling our Colorado home. The sale of that home was contingent upon the sale of three others. Essentially, many ducks had to swim smoothly in a row to make this happen. Closings were set and everything looked good, then out of nowhere one of the ducks started floundering. The last duck experienced financial problems, causing problems to seep upward. Well, the floundering stopped, but that duck straight-up drowned. Hiccup.
Moving companions at rest. Photo/S McCloud
Unsure if we would close in Colorado to buy in Kentucky, but with great faith the sale would go through, we hit the road late in the afternoon of May 22. Our beautiful Colorado home echoed as we closed the front door behind us for the last time.
The next hiccup started hours from home near the Colorado/Nebraska border in the form of a storm the likes we’d never driven through as a family. I was in a moving truck with two of our dogs. Collin and our two youngest kids were in my truck, pulling a trailer. Miles from any shelter, our windshield wipers couldn’t swipe fast enough to offer a reprieve from the relentless sheet of water falling from the sky. We dropped our speed to 35, and the moving truck chugged along obstinately complaining and refusing to fight through the storm. Hiccup.
The night was so dark and the curtain of rain so thick that the road was only visible when lightning struck. The lines on the road had long disappeared, swallowed by the storm. I prayed unceasingly for safe passage, and God answered my prayers with non-stop strikes, lighting our way. Just when I was unsure if I was heading off the road, BOOM another lightning strike and thunderclap illuminated my path.
Over the radio, a local newscaster screeched a staticky alert, barely audible over the driving rain and thunder crackles. He warned everyone in our area to seek shelter. IMMEDIATELY! We were literally driving between two tornadoes. I white-knuckled the steering wheel when I felt the latest onset of hiccups.
The 1934 Kentucky, stone-built, German farmhouse… Photo/S McCloud
We drove like this for over an hour before we stumbled across a one-horse town where we could “hitch” our caravan for the night. Never mind that the stale-cigarette-scented rooms, the stained linens, and the peeling wallpaper with faded pastel watercolor peonies from the 1980s, we were soaking wet, freezing, and grateful for the safety of the rundown Super 8. Upon opening the nightstand, I smiled. A newer version of the NIV Bible in pristine shape served as our reminder that the Big Man was riding with us.
***
The book reminded me that I had been asking for (and until recently, ignoring) signs for guidance. Since 2021, we knew we wanted to move. We spent several trips over the past three years searching for the perfect Tennessee property.
We wanted to open a wedding venue and looked for properties within an hour and a half of a major airport. We hoped for at least 25 acres with an old barn for photos and a livable enough house that would suffice until we could renovate. We fell in love with the area, but no properties fit our criteria. We kept looking for something that “felt right.”
I kept praying for signs. He kept providing them, but I kept ignoring them. We listed our Colorado home over the summer of 2023 but took it off again when the kids returned to school. We re-listed again in January 2024. Begging for direction, I scoured Zillow for Eastern Tennessee listings. In February 2024, we took another trip just north of Nashville to look at properties. Loving nothing, we returned home to a blank drawing board.
We continued searching for properties together when my husband found one he loved. I refused to look at the Kentucky property that had snuck into my Tennessee search. I didn’t even want to see one picture. It was a firm “NO.”
“It’s perfect,” he said. “Just look.”
“Nope. It’s not Tennessee. We agreed on Tennessee, and I’m not starting this over.” The thought of rethinking our destination made me feel like I was drowning in uncertainty. And it also made me want to throw up on his shoes.
I’d never been to Kentucky. Neither of us had. The idea was asinine and reckless. All the research I’d done in picking Tennessee—wasted! Start the process again? HARD PASS!
Over the next two days, that Kentucky property kept popping up on my Tennessee search. On that fateful Wednesday morning in early March, my stubbornness was not so quick to roll out of bed. I opened my search, and there it was—the 1934 Kentucky, stone-built German farmhouse.
To Be Continued…
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