Rescued By Nova

Chapter 3

It was me and Nova against the world. At least that is how I felt. I couldn’t race out of town just yet. I had some ducks to get in a row first. I needed to get my house in order. I had to make sure everything was ready for it to be sold and nothing would get in the way of that. I was counting on the proceeds from my house to get me through to whatever was next.

In the meantime, I decided it was time for some lifestyle changes. I signed up for “boot camp”. Basically, it was a 4am class with an instructor that took no s**t and tried to see if he could kill you in a 6 week course. It was absolute torture. But I learned that I could do a lot more than I thought I could if I pushed myself to do it. Nova and I started running in the evenings and I was actually enjoying it. I got a gym membership and went daily to work out and lift weights. It was liberating to be working toward a better me for only myself to benefit from it. From the time I started I was already down 26 pounds and felt better than I had in a very long time.

8 weeks after it was listed the house sold and I bought a small travel trailer and Nova and I were ready to hit the road; destinations unknown. Little did we know this was the beginning of our greatest adventure.

We left Oklahoma before sunrise without saying goodbye. I hated goodbyes. My family had spent the last few months trying to talk me out of this at every opportunity. I knew they would, but it still stung that they couldn’t show even a little bit of support. I finally stopped answering their calls and just answered enough texts to let them know I was alive and doing well. But I couldn’t bring myself to talk to them, unless they wanted to offer their support and positive thoughts, but so far that was not happening.

I decided to head East. For no particular reason other than to watch the spectacular sunrise. We took our time and drove nowhere in a hurry. After many hours on the road the first campground that caught my eye we decided to take a chance and stop for the night.

We ended up staying at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee, and it was magnificent. We spent several days hiking and sightseeing. I never thought it would be so freeing, to be in the middle of nowhere, no cell phone service, no people, just me and Nova getting lost in Nature. It was so peaceful, a type of peaceful I had never felt before. I’m not sure what prompted me to move, but it was time to move on. We packed our things back in the car and trailer and I decided we would leave at first light.

I decided to head slightly further south on this next leg of our journey. Our next stop was Sumter National Forest in South Carolina.