My husband and I recently decided to retire early and live a simple life away from big city stress of Las Vegas. It was a year and a half of planning while driving thousands of miles with boots on the ground searching.

We finally found what we thought was the perfect place in his birth state where he grew up. The place we found had everything, including a big tractor, 2 shipping containers, 2 RV'S, water, power, sewer, a bathhouse, 50'x50' landing pad with a 25' high roof. Our place had a lot of acreage and was beautiful with an abundance of wildlife on the Cowlitz River near Packwood, WA.

We spent about $10,000 over hauling and upgrading the power, my husband put in new water lines to extend further on the land. Over the last few months my husband bought all the tools, guns, ammo, equipment such as chainsaws, welders, John Deer riding mower, generators, solar setup, Windmill, a 4x4 Jeep, and much more to improve the land so we could eventually live independently from the grid and only use the grid when necessary. Some of the things we bought were still in boxes and were unused.

My husband and I had done a lot of work setting up, fixing, building, clearing, and improving the land. He even built me a tree house with a hammock looking over the river and set up a pool.

December 12th, 20205 Approximately 8 months after we got there, the rare, unthinkable, and unpredictable happened. A rare flood event caused the river to change course and took out almost everything on our land, including the bathhouse, buildings, water power, RVs, utility trailers, our shipping containers (where most of our stuff was stored), a workshop, and a Jeep.

The cement landing pad split in half, falling into the river along with the roof.

We lost our cat Ghost, who was also our dog's( A Yorkie named Cujo) best friend. We only left with a week's worth of clothing, our cell phones, and 2 computers.

Not only that, now the river runs through the only road (private) that leads to our place.

Our plans for the future and what we will do with any very much appreciated donations.

We would like to do a simple, modest rebuild on higher ground where the floods can't affect us.

1.)Buy some reliable winter transportation.

2.)Replace the necessary personal and household items we lost.

3.)Replace necessary tools and equipment.

4.)We own land on much higher ground across the river off a private drive, where previously access was denied. We need to hire an attorney to fight for access, which should legally be granted now due to the loss of access on the affected side.

5) restore well water, power, sewer, if possible, or set up a proper off-grid living situation, solar, hydro, wind.

6.) Contribute to building a road or bridge to access the land.

7.)Get something to live in and something to store our stuff.

8.) Anything and everything that comes along with basic daily living.