After the special moment of signing, we finally received the keys to our home. A moment that marked the start of a new chapter in our lives. Everything had been well arranged, and buying the house ultimately became a great success—but what we didn’t know… was that a major snowstorm was waiting for us. ❄️

After signing the papers and receiving the keys, we immediately left for the south of Sweden. Normally, you would go back to the house for a moment to celebrate, but with the adrenaline of the approaching snowstorm, we were thinking more practically and just wanted to get home as quickly as possible. A meter of snow was expected in Sweden in the coming days.

We Dutch are not well prepared for this: summer tires, not-very-warm clothing, and above all, limited knowledge of Sweden’s land and nature.

We started the camper again and headed straight south. It had already begun to snow lightly in the city, but with a good—though tense—feeling, we set off, quickly stopping by McDonald’s for a cup of coffee and then straight onto the highway. On the way back, we passed the exit to our house; I felt a proud smile appear on my face. There stood our house.

The first four hours were still fairly manageable in traffic despite the weather. But after about 400 km, it began to get dark, the snowflakes grew bigger and bigger, and it started to become really slippery.

At the next (emergency) stop at a gas station, we immediately got stuck. The camper had no grip on the road anymore, and because of the heavy snowfall, it was quickly buried in snow. At the gas station, we met a man who had driven down from Stockholm. He told us the weather around Stockholm was very bad and that we would be better off taking the inland route via Örebro. What we didn’t know at that moment was that listening to this advice would turn out to be the biggest mistake we made.

After half an hour of hard work, we luckily managed to get the camper out of the snow and were able to continue driving. By then, it was pitch dark, and the snowflakes were even bigger and heavier. We had no choice but to continue, so we did.

After a while, we reached the junction for Stockholm and Örebro, and we decided to follow the advice of the man we had met. Immediately, we found ourselves on Sweden’s back roads, and in severe weather, these roads are only cleared after all other roads are done. A huge mistake on our part! I’ll just leave it at this: I (Kim) had muscle pain in my butt muscle from tensing up so much during the drive… We survived—otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this—but… never again!

Eventually, we found a good place to sleep, where we really needed time to recover from that day. Menno drove the entire 2,000 km, and I am incredibly proud of him. He safely brought us back to the Netherlands the next day (after another 15 hours of driving on day two).

In Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, the roads were clear, and there was no storm.

In the Netherlands, in Maurik (our former hometown), my father was waiting for us. He was there before the purchase, during the purchase, and after the purchase. I am grateful for the love and care he showed us.

With this, a beautiful adventure comes to an end—a wonderful life story and a memory of buying our future. We were standing on the brink of writing our new future.