Travel

My husband had spent there years as a Special Forces Medic during Vietnam.

He got out and worked every other semester to make his way through university.
Nine years later he rejoined the Army as an adjutant.
We met in Germany.
I was a teacher in the DoDDS school system.

For the next sixteen years we lived in three countries: Hong Kong, Germany and Saudi. We also lived in six different states: Virginia, Indiana, Kansas, California, Hawaii and Arizona.

We both LOVED to travel and we paid for it through me teaching everyplace we lived.
We lived with "Big Blue" always packed. Handles, rollers on the long bottom. 70 lbs.


By the time he retired, we had traveled to many different countries and states.

Our last "tour" we were not in a good spot.
We returned to my home area of Arizona and dug in.

My career restarted and travel was a big part of that.
My job took me into 700 schools in 49 states. Whirl wind for sure.
He stayed home. Kids grew up. Parents passed away.

The journey took us out of Arizona, back to Kansas.
He went back to work in notifications (it was a war) and I went back to the classroom.
Big blue was permanently unpacked.

Then our oldest married, had children and moved, East.
Our youngest joined the Army. We gave him Big Blue.
Three years ago we moved here.

Long story short. We have not been out of the US, in any way, for twenty something years.

When we decided that we had to get past our PTSD, we had to wait for:
 the "kids" to settle,
Safety in the country's foreign policy,
and a place we both really wanted to go.