Roxanne’s Story

Today I sit here trying to figure out what to write my next blog post about for the website but can’t seem to find the right words or topic. Instead of writing about the next place you should travel to, I thought I could tell you about who I am as a person so that you may get to know me. The obvious titles include mom, daughter, employee, and traveler, but there is much more to me than that, even though some days it does not feel that way. There are many things that shape a person differently in unique ways that make you who you are. Figuring out who you are can be a journey all in itself, so it would make sense for me to tell you about my own journey so far. What I want for you to take away from this is that at the end of the day, I am human like everyone else. We are all trying to find our purpose in this ever-turning world that we live in. Sometimes the path is bumpy, sometimes it is curvy and uphill, and other times on the rare occasion, it is smooth and straightforward. Life is wonderful, messy, confusing, chaotic, and beautiful all at once. We all have hopes, fears, and dreams but the only person that can control you is you. How you decide to walk through your time on Earth is completely up to you. I would like to share my time with you and hope that you will be a part of it, while also finding your own joy within yourself.

Hi! My name is Roxanne, and I was born in Spokane, Washington on March 22nd. I grew up military and moved around a lot. My dad, Ron, started out in the Air Force as a survival instructor and would later join the Army so that he could fly cobra and Apache helicopters. My mom, Jody was a stay-at-home mom and would later say that she is a retired military housewife. I have one brother whose name is Ryan who is almost two years younger than me and lives in Nashville. Apart from being in a military family, I had a pretty traditional upbringing. We just tend to move to different places and go to many different schools. Ryan is much more book smart than me, and I have more common sense and street smarts than he does. So we balance each other out well. Ryan is the only person I know that can get a ticket from the German police for riding down the wrong side of the sidewalk on a bicycle.

When I was 19, I moved to Phoenix, Arizona from Tennessee to attend massage school. I absolutely loved this time of my life and made many great memories. At 21 years old, I would have my daughter Hailie and 19 months later have my son, Clayton. Their dad and I would be married only three years and divorce when Clayton was just two years old. I moved to Heidelberg, Germany where my dad was stationed and got a job at the University of Maryland European Division. During this time, I would attempt to heal. I thought I was happy, but looking back, I was miserable, even though I loved Germany and at times consider it a second home. I love the culture and the people. I love the history and the stories. I love that it is not consumed by consumerism and that it is not commercialized like it is here in the States. The atmosphere there is different, and even though I can’t quite explain it, I felt at home there more so than here in America. I may have been miserable in my job and living with my parents, but the country itself still gives me joy when I think about my time in Germany.

A few years later, I moved back to the U.S. and moved around a bit trying to figure out where to land. I went to Iowa, Arizona, and Missouri. In 2014, I moved back to Missouri for good because my dad kept asking me to. He offered to send me back to school and even bought me a small house in a small town called Linn. My dad had retired from the military and was flying medivac helicopters for the St. Louis hospitals. In March 2015, his helicopter would crash outside one of the hospitals into an empty parking lot. Thankfully nobody was in the aircraft with him when he crashed. He had refueled and went to pick up his crew after attending one of the patients that had been dropped off and a gust of wind came through and spun the helicopter out of control. I was gone away on a girls’ trip when I received a phone call from the police officer that was with my mom who told me what happened and that I needed to head home. That was the longest drive of my life, and I wasn’t the one driving. All I remember was thinking was, “can we please go faster?” My friend went practically below the speed limit the whole way! To this day, I drive my own vehicle everywhere.

My dad has now been gone for seven years, and I live in Jefferson City, Missouri with my two children. They are now 14 and 16 years old. Over the years my family and I have been able to have some amazing adventures because my dad made sure that my mom would be well looked after in case anything happened to him. Since his death, my family has been to Venice, Croatia, Slovenia, Spain, the Pyrenees in the Basque Country, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Fiji, Canada, and two cruises. We actually had just gotten back from Fiji in January 2020 right before COVID hit the world. We haven’t been out of the United States since then, but there is so much to see and do here that it has been worth not having to fly over an ocean! We have traveled around the US as well and the last place we went to was Wyoming. I have written a blog about it and have an eBook about it too! Check it out here!

If you have made it this far into the article, Thank you!!! I will be sharing more of my life and travels as the weeks go by and look forward to you coming along on our journey! I want to share more than just our travels, but our everyday lives, because that is the wildest adventure that any one person can go on.