Some of you may be wondering where we have disappeared to, seeing as how I haven’t published a blog post in three long months. There’s no good excuse – I’ve had the time, so don’t have a good reason as to why I haven’t written anything new this year. Maybe you’re wondering if we are still in the middle of Vietnam, as my last post may indicate? Rest assured, I have been writing a lot lately and will be resuming semi-regular blog posts yet again. Since I am so far behind (about ten months behind, if you can believe that), I thought a life update would be in order before I finally finish telling you about the rest of our travels.

Where Have We Been?

Vietnam was the last country in our world travels and after a couple of long travel days, we finally ended up in our hometown of Bay City, MI for a month (June and July of last year). Catching up with family and friends, sharing thousands of pictures and videos, and telling countless stories of our adventures took up most of our time. After regrouping and repacking, we hit the road to spend time with Jon’s family in Huntsville, AL; Branson, MO; and Waurika, OK. Yet again, we stuffed ourselves full of home-cooked meals and adored the time with family.

For three months last fall, we found ourselves volunteering for the National Park Service at Dinosaur National Monument. This park straddles the border between northwestern Colorado and northeastern Utah. Jon and I spent our time living in a log cabin, off-grid and a two-hour drive from the nearest grocery store. Stationed at Echo Park, on the Colorado side of the park, we were Campground Hosts during August, September, and October. Dinosaur is a wonderful place, not somewhere many people outside of the area have heard about, so I can’t wait to introduce you all to this beautiful park.

After our campground closed in late October, we packed up our car and made our way south to Truth or Consequences, NM. This is where we have been living since then, although I did take a few weeks to fly to Europe in February and March. That trip was all about visiting with family and friends – my sister in Paris, adopted aunt in Offenburg, and high school friend in Magdeburg. I got my fill of French and German food and managed to sneak in a little bit of sightseeing along the way.

Fall was a beautiful time at Dinosaur; this view is from our front porch.

Where Are We Now?

Truth or Consequences, or TorC as it is known locally, is a small town of about 6,000 residents (which includes the surrounding areas) in south-central New Mexico. Jon’s dad purchased a house outside of town many years ago and it is now open to any family who wants to use it. Since we needed somewhere to go after our time in Dinosaur, we jumped at the chance to base ourselves here for the winter while we regrouped and figured out our next steps. We are extremely lucky to have the house to live in this year, as it has given us a comfortable and inexpensive home while we plan our next steps.

While here, Jon is working overnight at Walmart, situated on the other side of town. It’s not the most glamorous job, but there aren’t many options here for temporary work. I spend my days reading, cooking, going for walks on the property, and planning for the next phase of our life. I’ve also been volunteering with a non-profit organization called MainStreet, which works to revitalize and promote the small downtown of TorC.

Our house in TorC is on a hill, so we have views like this from every side.

Where Are We Going?

While we are very happy and fortunate to have somewhere to live and work right now, we have primarily used our time here as a staging area while we prepare for our next adventure. We have applied for and been invited to the Peace Corps, although we are not yet officially accepted. I’ll write about the process in greater detail once I catch up on my blog, but here is the short story. We applied to join the Peace Corps while still in Asia, close to a year ago. We were first interviewed for positions in Namibia, but were not invited due to the competitiveness of the program and limited space available for couples. In December, we reapplied and in late February, we were invited to go to Morocco as Youth Development volunteers.

Right now, we are at the end all the paperwork necessary for the next step of the process. After six dentist appointments, four doctor’s appointments, three trips to have blood drawn for lab work, one trip to the police station to be fingerprinted, and one trip to the post office to submit applications for new passports, we are nearly finished with this stage. Upon submission of all the paperwork that accompanies these appointments, we wait to find out if we have been legally and medically cleared before being officially accepted into the Peace Corps. Assuming all goes well, we will be leaving Michigan on September 10 and will spend the next 27 months living and working in Morocco.

Fingerprints completed!

What’s Next on the Blog?

I have enjoyed writing about our travels and have never wanted to be a blog that leaves people hanging at the end of a trip. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, I have been writing a lot lately and have almost all the articles completed about the end of our international travels. I’ll start publishing those next week, so that you can finally hear about the time we went crazy in Da Lat or followed Eiffel’s trail to a post office in Ho Chi Minh City. I will also have a few summary/round-up articles so that you can hear our thoughts and opinions on our international trip as a whole, finding out about our top three favorite meals and just how many times we got sick on the road.

Once the international part of the trip is wrapped up on the blog, I’ll finally be able to talk about our time at Dinosaur. Living and volunteering in a small, off-grid location was the complete opposite of our jet-setting adventures, but we embraced the quiet and thoroughly enjoyed our time in such a breathtaking location. Dare I say, I think this was Jon’s favorite part of all the travels and adventures that we’ve had over the past couple years. It was the perfect place for us to relax and regroup, the ideal interim between our international travels and settling in New Mexico for the winter.

I plan on sharing stories of my trip to Europe in February/March, like the must-try foods in France and Germany and some of the lesser-visited attractions where you can avoid the crowds. I’ll also introduce TorC to you, a small, artsy town in southern New Mexico surrounded by chili peppers and pecan trees. Then, once I am all caught up, I’ll start describing our process of joining the Peace Corps and everything that entails.

I am excited to resume writing and publishing on my blog, and hopefully my loyal followers (Hi Nancy, Theresa, and Uncle Terry!) will still be interested in hearing about our adventures. For now, I will finish this life update by wishing you all a warm and cozy weekend!

Not a bad view while I work on the blog!