My momma told me, “Don’t fall in love with a hairy legged guitar player,” and what did I do?
Ten years ago today, Robert and I met at the Lucky 7 in Springfield, MO. Little did I realize how significant our meeting would really be!
We formed a true friendship, never really admitting that we were actually “dating.” Both of us, being married before, were convinced we would never take that road again. We began to form our philosophy…
Life is too short… so do what you love,
be with people who make you happy,
live simply, try new things, and SMILE!
One thing we found that really bonds us is the love of seeing and experiencing new things. We realized this on our first road trip together in May 2005 to Memphis in May Music Festival. This was a week long trip and the first time that we spent so much time together. In reality, a trip like that early on in knowing each other could either make or break a relationship. With traffic jams, a near miss collision, TONS of people, soaked from the rain, and getting lost…you’d think we’d be at each other’s throat. Nope! It was the complete opposite. That music festival, even with the little hiccups, had so many great moments I can’t even begin to list them.
Fast forward to 2008, when I was promoted in my job and asked to move to Florida, Robert asked if he could go. Really, what was there to lose? We weren’t married and if it didn’t work out then all he had to do was move back to Missouri.
Once in Florida, we took every moment we could to “play tourist” taking little day trips to as many nooks and crannies of the state we could. We got into geocaching and that sometimes took us to places we would have never discovered otherwise.
We then decided to go on the adventure that we thought we’d NEVER do again. On March 2, 2010 (3-2-1-0, a count-down, so I could remember), we were married in a simply ceremony at the Pineallas County Clerk’s office. We quietly made our announcement by changing my last name on Facebook.
When Megan moved back to Missouri after her high school graduation, Robert and I decided that it was time for our next adventure. In 2011, we practically sold everything we had and moved into a 38’ motor home. At the time, I needed to be in different parts of the country for weeks at a time for my job. Why fly back and forth when we could just take up temporary residence in our house on wheels?
What a liberating experience to get rid of so much “stuff” that was cluttering up our lives. We began posting to our travel blog where we’ve documented our adventures from Colorado in February, contending with frozen water lines to Alabama with 100+ degree weather and a broken refrigerator. We took the opportunity to drive up the eastern coast visiting the Outer Banks of South Carolina, to Vermont, over to Niagara Falls, then to Chicago before landing back in Missouri in 2012 where we decided to establish our own business, Scrivener Solutions.
Missouri is where our family is and where we’ll always come back to, but our travels are called Been There Doing That and we still have a lot of doing left. Our business is designed to be done from anywhere; we’d like to just change the scenery out our front door once in a while!
I’m glad that Robert asked me to dance that night at the Lucky 7. I have grown as a person and feel that I wouldn’t have ever gotten out of my box of “corporate world” without him.
Look at us now, ten years later, outlasting the Lucky 7 and momma saying, “I’m so glad you fell in love with that hairy legged guitar player!”
