A Series of Fortunate Events
2018-2019
The Before Times
Wondering if staying in the rat race and constantly wanting “more” was right for us, we began to look at land out west and ask ourself some important questions. How much acreage would work? What kind of house would we live in? If your neighbor decides to set off fireworks, how far away do you have to be before it won’t scare your dogs?
The Florida House
Instead of buying land out west, we bought a fixer-upper closer to Brian’s job to shorten his commute. While we knew we’d have to put in work, we weren’t exactly prepared for just how much work needed to be done, and how much we’d learn along the way. It ended up setting us up perfectly for thinking, “Hey, maybe we can build our own house…”
2019-2021
Summer 2021
On The Hunt
With enough gumption to chase the dream and only 60% of the plan laid out, we started looking for land! We brainstormed building a tiny house or buying an Airstream to live in during the build, but settled on a little more space right from the get go.
We flew out to Colorado a couple of times, trying to find a place that feels like home. In May, we drove up and down the Front Range, exploring Colorado Springs all the way up to Estes Park. While the area around Rocky Mountain State Park was stunning, it wasn’t the right fit.
In August, we explored Park County and met with a land broker to see what our budget could get us. With land being snatched up left and right, we decided not to put in any offers. But we could tell that we were getting closer.
After a search for counties that allow for living in a tiny house permanently, we stumbled upon Custer County, south of Colorado Springs. In September, we met with another land broker and put in an offer on 35 acres!
It’s All Ours!
On November 5, 2021, we purchased 35 acres in Westcliffe, Colorado! It took several weeks of inspections, appraisals, and getting everything organized to get to this moment.
While 35 acres sounds like a lot, it is 35 acres of raw land. No utilities, no trees, just miles of mountain vistas. It’s a great blank slate for building our dream house and designing a functional homestead.
November 2021
January 2022
“Mobile Home”
We kicked off the new year by solidifying our plans to live temporarily in a travel trailer after selling our house and while we’re building our homestead in Colorado. We decided to go with a 2022 Jayco White Hawk 27RB as it will best fit our needs (#WFH, two dogs, storage for living full-time).
The Big Move
On June 21st, Brian went into work at MacDill Air Force Base for the last time. A week later, we packed up the RV and began the huge adventure of our cross-country relocation road trip. We traveled from Tampa to Tulsa to visit Brian’s family. Then we headed to Taos, New Mexico for a week, a place we’ve always wanted to visit before making it to Westcliffe, Colorado on July 11th.
June 27, 2022
August 2022
Utilities Installed!
While we stayed in an RV park for our first two months in Westcliffe, we got our driveway excavated, septic system installed, water cistern system set up, and our solar array up and running. It was a very busy month! We also officially became Colorado residents (CELEBRATE).
The Great Winter Migration
With the solar system finally up and running, high winds delayed the start of the home’s foundation. With safety becoming an issue, we decided to embark on a six-month full-time traveling adventure across the southwest: Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Oklahoma, and Nevada. Experiencing new places was a major driver but it also gave us the time to finalize our building plans and prepare for Spring 2023 fully recharged.
11.2022-
4.2023
You might be wondering how we got here. With that, we have
The Whole Story.
It all started…
Brian and Chelsea (that’s us!) met in 2016, married in 2018 (for tax purposes), thought briefly about buying land to retire on in our old age in Colorado in 2019, and got stuck in quarantine in Florida in 2020.
Like many people who were faced with large swaths of time to consider their life choices, we spent most of our quarantine lamenting not buying land in Colorado before the quarantine, as all the land in the mountains near Denver and the ski resorts was snatched up faster than toilet paper sold out. Why hadn’t we just done it?, we asked ourselves.
So we went back to the drawing board. Did we really need to wait 40 years to retire to live the kind of life that we wanted to live? What parts of our lives did we miss from the Before Times and what were we happy to leave behind? Little by little, we put together the future vision: Our Dream Life.
But we couldn’t just take action. Brian’s contract with the Air Force wouldn’t end until the summer of 2022, so we had a year and a half to come up with a plan. We discovered other people on YouTube that were doing something similar to what we were envisioning. We had examples to follow, we had a path forward!
Moving Forward
The first step was to get our house in Florida ready to sell for top dollar to kickstart our life in the mountains. Renovating our 1947 bungalow was the perfect sandbox for Brian to learn valuable construction experience. We started to think of names for our journey.
Line Up The Stars comes from the active form of the phrase “waiting for the stars to align.” By moving our retirement dreams up much earlier in our lives, we decided to do more than just wait around for the stars to do their thing. We’re lining up our own stars to make our dreams happen.
And we’re documenting our story so that we can look back on this one day and laugh about that chaotic time in our lives when we moved halfway across the country, bought land, set up off-grid, and started building our own house.
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