Connections & Colorado Housesit

Dave and Yuki in the backyard.

We've been housesitting for a decade now. And I'm still amazed when we drop into someone's life and quickly become intimates. 

To launch our eight-month, multi-country trip, we flew from Baja to Denver. That night over dinner, the homeowners--a couple in their early 30s--mentioned that she's Belgian and he's from Indiana. I couldn't help but ask how they met. It turned out to be a story about how traveling and meeting people from other worlds can profoundly change you.

She grew up in the Congo, and then in high school went on a study abroad to Indiana. He'd spent his whole life in the small-town Midwest and had lost a number of friends to opioid overdoses. His father was in prison for making meth to support his coke habit, and his mother was an alcoholic. 

He said he quietly watched everyone around him succumb to substances, knowing he wanted his life to be different. And then he met this European girl who'd grown up in Africa--and the windows of possibility blew wide open. After graduating, they spent time working in Morocco and traveling. He said if he'd never met her, he'd probably still be suffocated in that small town.

Barr State Park in Brighton, Colorado

And now they were married and headed to Belgium, taking along some of his family members who'd never been out of the U.S. That's why they needed us to come care for their house and sweet dog, Yuki.

I liked their little house in a quiet working-class neighborhood. There was a place to sit and read, a table for playing games and writing, a well-stocked kitchen, a comfortable bed, and a nearby grocery store. We are traveling with only carry-ons, and I relish the light touch of having plenty in a small package.

I was happy they let us use their Subaru because every day I opened the hatchback for Yuki to jump in, and then drove eight miles to a dog park surrounding a lake. He romped off leash while I walked loops around the lake. He would have made a great search-and-rescue dog because he'd splash in the water and emerge with a ball, a Frisbee, and once even a doll head. A few times we also took him to Barr State Park, an expansive marsh land inhabited by deer, egrets, and other water fowl.

Back at home, he'd hang out on his pillow, silently watching birds and passersby out the window. I'd never met such a quiet dog. (Later, the homeowners would tell me that clearly Yuki missed us because he seemed depressed for a few days when they returned. I missed him, too. It's hard not to get attached to some of the pets we care for, and saying goodbye sucks.)

Big love at Red Rocks!

Dave and I had chosen the Denver area to launch our trip because a group of our friends were descending for three nights of String Cheese Incident shows at Red Rocks. Several of these friends had come to Baja six months earlier for a music festival. As we danced beneath the towering sandstone formations, I thought about how over the years, we've collided with friends worldwide.

Kevin and I taught in China. We met up in Colorado with his new wife, Nadia.

This has turned out to be a theme of our trip, as we've met up with friends new and old--human and dog--sometimes in astonishing ways. I'll share some of those stories in my next entry about six weeks of taking trains and housesitting all over the UK.

If you're interested in our life of housesitting, travel and living in Mexico, check out my books Wanderland: Living the Traveling Life and Call It Wonder: An Odyssey of Love, Sex, Spirit & Travel.