I’m not originally from Oklahoma.
I grew up in Los Angeles, California.
I cringe typing this, hoping that my fellow ‘Oklahomies’ will stay around to hear my story:
Though I grew up in one of the biggest cities in the world, I always dreamed of having a little farm to raise a family on. (Nintendo’s Harvest Moon can be thanked for that very specific childhood aspiration.) Obviously, Los Angeles is not known for its impressive farmland.
So, I always knew, somewhere deep down, that I would have to move from my hometown. I never expected how I would move away from California, though.
Once upon a time, a girl and a boy fell in love . . .
Jokes aside, my husband and I met in 7th grade. We dated for the better part of a year, and—as many young couples do—we broke up right before going into our freshman year of high school.
Ten years later, we found ourselves with not only a cute love story, but a beautiful blended family.
However, it’s really hard to raise a family in Los Angeles. Nearly impossible, if you ask me. My husband and I struggled financially as parents while we lived in the heart of the San Fernando Valley. We lived in a small apartment with a host of issues, and eventually, we began to daydream of what it would be like to travel away from the city, maybe even “live tiny” for a while.
And before you could even say, “where are you gonna’ park it?” we bought ourselves a fully renovated and restored 1963 vintage Airstream and decided to live in it full-time.
Did I mention it was capable of going off-grid?
Yeah, we went all out . . .
. . . and learned the hard way that there are a lot of regulations for renting as an RV trailer owner, especially when that RV happens to be over 15 years old.
Oops.
Well, fast forward through the hard parts of that whole chapter, and we learned about volunteer park hosting for National Parks and State Parks. By April 2019, Conor (my husband) and I had officially moved from Los Angeles to Northern California and hired on as volunteer park hosts for Butano State Park.
We loved every minute of living in “our forest” (as we still call it to this day!).
Sadly, fate knew our family was still living unsustainably and made some executive decisions for us.
Conor and I had started our journey as a family of three in the trailer in January 2018, and by June of 2020, we were a family of five. With two dogs. Living inside a space that equated to less than 200 square feet of living space.
We had most definitely outgrown our home.
So, fast forward through another sad chapter in our lives (the CZU Lightning Complex Fire), and my husband and I decided to make the bold decision to move from California to Oklahoma.
Did I mention this was during the height of the pandemic? Yes, girl—you read that right: late September 2020.
With three kids in tow, it was a wild time to move across the country.
I had never been to Oklahoma prior to my decision to move here. I was truly naive about what to expect, except for the tornadoes.
It was a scary time, putting my full faith into this cross-country move and hoping for the best.
Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket, am I right?
But I’ll be completely honest with you: moving to Oklahoma became the best decision our family could have ever made.
Though we had finally settled into a groove of managing a family of five living in our vintage Airstream, the fires erupting pulled the rug from underneath us, and we had to start over from square one.
But, despite almost losing it all, because we moved to Oklahoma, we were able to afford renting a house.
Not an apartment.
Not a space for our RV—but a house.
The cost of living became one of the biggest surprises.
I had grown accustomed to paying $6/gallon for gas in California before 2020, and when we moved here to Oklahoma, gas prices were as low as $2/gallon.
I hadn’t seen gas prices that low since 2001!
I’ve been able to provide for my family with so much more ease since moving here. There are so many opportunities for careers and homeownership that I never experienced back in California.
I’ve also realized how family-friendly Oklahoma is; between all the different parks and family-friendly locations to visit, there’s no end to the adventures for us!
I’ve been given a glimmer of hope for the future since moving to Oklahoma, like I haven’t had in years.
I have no other way to put it: The American Dream is still alive and well in OKC.
