The Road to Nowhere... Again

What seems like a lifetime ago, we were just starting out. We had two children, ages 2 and 6. The state was in a recession. Making ends meet was tough. Mick went back to school and I took a full-time teaching job. But then everything changed and my husband was offered a teaching job in the tiny town of Grouse Creek--the very town where he began his life, the town where his father had grown up and had spent much of his life cattle ranching. When my husband took the teaching job, it was a dream come true for him. But I had just signed a full-time teaching job and wasn't sure what the next year would bring, so I stayed with our youngest in our house that we had built just two years before. My husband took the oldest child so he could be one of his 25 students in the two room school, grades K-10. We met on the weekends.

After the hardest year of my life, I was more than ready to give up the teaching job and join the other half of my family. I taught part-time and we had a great few years more of teaching. And even though there were some adjustments, we blended well into the ranching town. The town is 70 miles to the nearest real grocery store and most of the road is gravel. Flat tires and breakdowns are common with so many miles of constant travel. Still, there's no place like it or as the Grouse Creek sign says, "A Place Like No Other."

Mick is now nearing the end of his career. Needing a change, when the job came open again, we decided to go for it. We had a great experience 25 years ago, and hope to have another great experience. Times have changed even for the tiny town, in that they have become even tinier. Now Mick will only have 7 kids. And so there isn't a job for me, but I can take my computer and hope to be inspired to write another novel. The town inspired three novels which are set there: "A Question of Trust" False Pretenses" and "Sun Tunnels and Secrets."  They are all still available on Amazon. We will live in the family house again--the house right behind the school. And no we aren't moving. We'll be back and forth a lot. Our house will be lived in, so it won't be empty and will be taken care of. We welcome friends and family to visit this unique place.