Centennial

Over 100 years that this farm has been in my family. I did not get that gene. Members of my family have been living in the same houses for more than 100 years while I’ve been wandering the globe and moving; living in over 20 apartments, in 11 cities, including 5 countries on three continents

Nope not me. I didn’t get that gene. Apparently my parents and brother didn’t either. He’s racked up his share of apartment in various cities. Mom and dad too. Once married they moved away from the farms and into the city. Well, the suburb, near Detroit. We become the city slickers of the bunch.

We weren’t content to remain there either, though. Every year we took a trip or two in our camper or travel trailer. That’s when I began my lifelong habit of journaling. I even managed to retain all of my original journals throughout my numerous moves.

Basically I was so busy powering through life that it’s not been until now that I’ve been able to actually go through and read them! A couple of our more memorable and life changing trips were coming out to California. They were so life changing in fact, that our family unit of four who didn’t get the centennial gene 🧬 made the decision to move out west. Far from being spontaneous, it was a well thought out, planned undertaking. Which included substantial career moves and implementing future career plans for mom and dad.

Becoming modern pioneers, we embarked upon a three month journey across the United States 🇺🇸 taking in all of the monuments and natural wonders along the way. We refer to it as The ‘76 Odyssey. You can read about it here – in my original journal entries.

Obviously there is nothing centennial about that. Except for the fact that it occurred during the year of Americas bicentennial celebration. Clearly we had inherited the wanderer gene akin to some of our immigrant ancestors from both sides of the family.

From living in our 19 foot Terry trailer traveling with a Siamese Burmese cat 🐈‍⬛ named Nabo the four of us set sail for our future heading out west in two vehicles driven by mom with Cheri as her co-pilot and by dad having Todd at his side. Nabo traveled in the trailer.

Living in San Diego in our early days,

Salzburg Austria 🇦🇹 while attending Northern Illinois University first living with an Austrian family then staying with Luise and Omi after I got kicked out of the family house.

Kosice Slovak Republic after boyfriend said…

Vocklabruck Austria 🇦🇹 while preparing to move to

Shanghai China 🇨🇳