A Life of Travel
The entire world seems to have hit the pause button right now and travel is far from most people’s minds. For us travel is engrained into our daily life and something we think about almost every day. Since our last blog posted on March 15th we watched the lights of Las Vegas go dark all around us after Nevada ‘closed’ on Tuesday, March 17th. We left our timeshare at the end of the week after staying inside for three days, drove through Utah, Wyoming, South and North Dakota and arrived in Winnipeg where we are in isolation at Momma Knight’s. (Mom had to put herself into isolation for us to stay and we thank her for that!).

US Travel
Our drive through the US was uneventful. We felt very safe staying along the way with our favourite hotel chain (Marriott). Most nights there were between 4 and 20 rooms rented in the entire hotels. The staff was extremely friendly and helpful finding dinner delivery and the rooms were disinfected to the point of smelling like bleach. That did not stop us from wiping down every surface, door handle and remote control as soon as we entered with our own disinfectant.

Side note: Luckily 4 years ago when we started our first Location Independent road trip we stocked the car emergency kit with a large spray bottle of germ killer, a roll of paper towels, an entire box of disinfecting wet wipes and 2 bottles of hand sanitizer. These items sat in the car for 4 years but who knew that at some very ‘bizarro world’ point in time they would become like ‘gold’ and help us get back to Canada safely.

Crossing the border into Canada was eerie to say the least. the crossing at Emerson is never as busy as Peace Arch in Vancouver but on the day we crossed all lanes were closed and there was not another car in sight. We pulled up to the first closed lane and stopped while a Customs Officer walked over from the building donning a pair of rubber gloves. We were mildly concerned about getting 100 questions (which are sometime difficult for us to explain) but after a quick look at our Nexus cards and a full run down of the quarantine rules we were on our way.

Bonus: We did not have to pay duty on the extra alcohol we were carrying due to crossing the border almost a month early. The Old Fashioned made with Bourbon that cost less that half the Canadian price tastes even better 😉

Figuring It Out
We have been in Winnipeg since Wednesday and have had time to make calls to clients, catch up on some work projects and of course cook. (What else do you expect at Momma’s house?) Some of our golf course clients remain open, others have opened and closed and a few have not made it to their typical opening day yet but we are using the time to make sure that they are all set up and ready to communicate ‘loudly’ when the time comes.

Now that we’ve made it to Saturday there will be some weekend discussions about what comes next for our travels. We have two long-stay (6-8 week) VRBO’s booked for the summer, the first one starting May 1.

These still make sense for us, even if we need to isolate at each location. The question is what will we be doing before? after? and in-between?

What will our 4-year anniversary of being location independent look like?

 

We, Jeff and Tara Ciecko of CK Golf write two blogs, one is our 19th Hole Blog where we share personal experiences and the other an Industry Blog where we comment on general business and internet marketing best practices, sales strategies and give golf industry related opinions. We have owned CK Golf  for 11 years and provide business services to the golf and other industries. As of July 31, 2016 our life and our business became ‘location independent’. Our 19th Hole Blog is about the places we visit and the things we do. If you have any questions or comments, or happen to be in the same location as us please reach out and contact us anytime.

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