I remember very clearly the night we left our house in February of 2008, eight of us crammed in a Falcon wagon with just what stuff we could fit in. The rest of our belongings were in a storage shed. We had no destination and nowhere to sleep for the night. We drove into the closest town and found a 24 hour motel to stay in for a few nights, until we were able to get a wind-up Jayco caravan and begin our road trip. For eleven year old me, it was the greatest adventure. We went north and hit summer floods, stayed in an expensive caravan park and ate pancakes for breakfast and went swimming in the pool every day. Eventually we discovered "free camping" and then we went west and found freedom, open spaces, and a million stars. After a time we went south again and swam in creeks and played in the dirt and drove up into the mountains where the air was sharp and clean. It was around that time I got Sparkie for my twelfth birthday and I always think that if we hadn't made the choices we did, my perfect girl wouldn't have come into my life. And I needed her so badly. We brought a bus after a year of travelling, and my dad had some short-term jobs here and there but we couldn't seem to stay in one place long. So we kept going. Up and down, and around and around. We had some of our best times on the road. But as I grew older, times grew tougher. And so we started dairy farming again.
Everyone we met, everywhere we went, everything we experienced has led us to this moment. To this place. To who we are now. I wonder how different our life would be if we hadn't spent those years on the road. Everything that happened to us in the last eleven years has made us so much closer as a family and it makes absolute sense to me that after spending so much time living in such close quarters, we would end up working best as a whole team. A unit. We are so used to being together now that it just feels natural to all pitch in on the farm.
Some days I feel like this is it, the end of the journey. The final result of all the struggles we've gone through. I can't tell if it's the truth or not. Some days it feels like it's just another stop along the way.
Whatever this point is, I won't know until later. But I still feel the lure of the open road. The love of a long road trip is something that has never gone away despite our lifestyle changing, although it's always so nice to come back home to the farm afterward. How incredible would it be if next year, Skuggi and I went all the way over to Western Australia to compete in the national agility trial? The next twelve months will be the deciding factor. We need to get Skuggi consistently running clear in trials, get into a higher level, before I attempt such a big venture. I am so excited to start the 2019 trial season, beginning in just eight weeks.
But life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. Living in the moment is hard sometimes when it's not being good to me and the future I see in my mind looks so tempting. But that distant future may never become my reality, while this moment, right now, this is real. A quiet day, listening to music and catching up on social media, with Skuggi asleep in his crate of his own volition and Sparkie snoozing under the desk as always. Whatever tomorrow brings I know I won't be facing it alone.
