I know, I know.  The same question keeps hurling at me day after day: Do you even work?  

Well, no.  Not currently.  I’m sure I will again.  And honestly, I would love to.  I like to work. A lot.  But right now, my focus is on working on getting a few other things in life straightened out.  Like where in the sam hell we will put down roots, find a little home, and unpack our friggin’ suitcases that have been our too-long, too-much-crowded-and-disorganized-home for several months now.

So, starting tomorrow, Rick and I will embark on a road trip lasting several weeks to tour all the spots we might just want to plop ourselves indefinitely – a la the movie “Away We Go.”  The hope, of course, being that come the end of our trip we will have a bit of clarity around our lifestyle aspirations.

Most notably, the biggest concern (aside from employment – but related) is whether we want to go rural or urban.  We both tend to lean towards rural, but the kicker is that it’s hard to live in a rural environment and work a traditional job.  Not that we have to have traditional employment, but it has been our way so far and it’s treated us well.

Well, enough of the mucking about our motives and dreams.  On to the details.  This will be a tour of the West en masse – with the exception of California.  I don’t really see us there.  But there are some job possibilities there that I’m lukewarm about; I just don’t feel like driving there at this point.

A rough itinerary with the caveat that it may be entirely shuffled if interviews intervene:

Minneapolis – Jackson Hole – Helena – Bozeman – Missoula – Seattle – Portland – Boise – Salt Lake – Colorado Mountains – Denver – Milwaukee.

Yeah.  There are a few good spots in there (like all of ’em!).

We will be checking out what each city has to offer and comparing (spreadsheet in hand) the plusses and minuses of each.  The frontrunner has long been Seattle, however we have our eyes and hearts set on the idea of a more quaint existence, which means that Montana, Idaho, and the mountains in Colorado all are definitely in the running.  It’s going to be interesting.  But at the very least, if we don’t come away from the trip with a definitive answer, we will at least have had a pretty badass road trip (hopefully including some skiing, lots of running, some yoga studio testing, and a fair amount of eating…)

So there it is.  Should we be in your neck of the woods, please let us know.  We have horribly out of date contact information for most of our friends.  And we like friends, and local knowledge of places, and food recommendations, and home-baked pie and apple cider, and beer… just saying.

Bon voyage!