Dawn (pictured left) is our pet sitter from Atlanta during our trip.
So, our pets are the kids in the family. We have two Maine Coon cats and one “we have no idea” dog who we adopted two years ago.
They are the limiting factor for us to travel and we are one of those crazy couples who hardly ever travel together because somebody has to be there to take care of the animals.
But I was determined that this year would be the year we would go away together, without the pets, and without any family involved in our travels. We love our family but traveling for family visits is not the same as traveling to explore new places - just us.
So I promised Doug I would find someone who could stay at our house and take care of “the kids”. We had spent 18 months house sitting a few years ago in various places after we sold our house. It was a travel adventure and we traded housesitting and pet sitting for the opportunity to explore a few places a few weeks or months at a time.
We did that by using a couple of websites matching homeowners with house sitters who have background checks and references and so I decided to post our house sit on one of them: housecarers.com.
I was shocked that we immediately had 6 people apply to housesit for us almost immediately. We live near Glacier but it’s still rather remote. Some wrote long letters gushing about how much they wanted the job!
After talking to 3 of them we offered it to Dawn (pictured above) who traveled from Atlanta to be with our pets for the next two weeks. She is a kindred spirit and already a close friend. We were amazed by how much we have in common.
She has been here the last few days getting to know our pets and property and I feel completely at peace knowing she’ll take great care of everything while we’re gone.
And I love the karma of offering something to someone that we once received and hopefully giving her an incredible travel experience visiting Glacier while we’re in Shetland.
All is well and getting better!