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HENDERSONVILLE WEATHER

Nelson retires to mountain getaway




Marty and Steve Nelson at their new home in Wyoming. SUBMITTED

Marty and Steve Nelson at their new home in Wyoming. SUBMITTED

Marty Nelson ran for the office of Sumner County Trustee back in 2006, won the election, and served in that position for three terms (12 years).  Nelson decided to retire recently – her last day of work as trustee was Aug. 31, which was the end of the term. 

The next day, she and her husband, Steve, were on their way to Wyoming to start a new exciting chapter of their lives. 

“I really wasn’t going to retire, but then I visited a close college friend in Wyoming.  I have rheumatoid arthritis and noticed that I felt better while I was there.  I was getting ready to have my ankle replaced and I called my husband and told him that I didn’t feel as bad out there,” Nelson said. 

She was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis around 15-20 years ago.  It was progressive and slow, but she had both shoulders and an ankle replaced.   

“When I’m in Tennessee, on a scale of 1-10, my pain is usually 5-7, which is pretty hard.  When I’m in Wyoming, the highest it has really gotten is 3, maybe 4.  But a lot of times I don’t have any pain at all,” Nelson said.

She jokingly told her husband she was ready to move because she felt so much better.  But her children and grandchildren live here in the area and she sure didn’t want to leave them and she absolutely loved her job.

“The ladies that work there are all real close.  A lot of the trustees only do the management, but during tax season I wanted to run the counter so I could see and talk to everybody.  That’s one of the reasons I wasn’t going to retire,” Nelson said.

But her husband, a retired pastor, started doing some research on her illness and the affects climate can have on RA.  He found that the higher elevation causes your blood to make more red blood cells. 

“We decided we better pray about what we were going to do.  We prayed about it for a couple of months and all the signs said we needed to move out there.  But I kept saying what about the children and our grandbabies, and you know God was telling me I needed to go out there because I’ve already had to have 11 arthritis surgeries,” Nelson said. 

So in August of 2017 they went out to look at a house and went ahead and bought it the next month.  She came back and told her chief deputy and staff that she was going to be retiring, and she did just that a year later.  Her chief deputy, Cindy Williams, ran for the office and won. 

“We moved on out here and just love it. It’s so different.  Our little town is called Star Valley Ranch.  It was originally just a subdivision out in the county.  Where we live is about a 30-mile valley between two sets of mountains – almost at the Idaho border and about an hour south of Jackson Hole.

“There’s way more people in Gallatin than in that 30-mile valley.  There are no street lights.  The closest Walmart is an hour and a half away in Idaho Falls and the closest McDonalds is an hour away,” Nelson said.

The closest town to them is a little place called Thane with a population of about 310 people.  It has a little grocery store for necessities.  There aren’t a lot of restaurants and the businesses that are there are mostly mom and pop style places.

Steve took the first big load of their belongings back in January. 

“We bought an RV right before we left and pulled a small U-Haul trailer and just took our time,” Nelson added.

The hardest part of the move seems to be missing their family, of course.

“Our son and his wife have one daughter and my husband has pined for that child.  Our daughter and I are very close and she’s pregnant – due the middle of January.  We’re coming back for Christmas and will stay till the baby is born.  We do Facetime with them so it’s going to be okay,” Nelson said.  

Luckily, the Nelsons aren’t out there alone.  Her close friend from college lives only five miles away.  They’ve been in Wyoming about three years after following their only child there who had moved. 

“We went to Memphis State together and just remained close friends,” Nelson said.

And as you can imagine, the scenic views out there and wildlife are beyond description.  They’ve even seen bison walking down the middle of the road so close you could reach out and touch them.

“Our little house backs up to Bridger National Forest.  My husband can lay in bed and watch the deer up on the mountain.  It’s gorgeous.  It’s a completely different life.  There’s no traffic unless you go to Idaho Falls or Jackson Hole,” Nelson said. 

When asked about braving a winter in Wyoming, she said, “If it gets to be February and we are sick of staying inside and not being able to get out and do what we want to do, we’ll just hook up the RV and go to Arizona.  We’re not bound. I have a little miniature schnauzer who goes with us.”

Nelson said she’s excited to be starting this new adventure.  One of the things she’s going to do is take advantage of the golf course next door to their home. 

“I’m going to learn how to play golf – that’s on my bucket list,” she said.

“I retired and moved far, far away and I don’t get to see my kids and family, but it’s exciting.  I feel like I’m on vacation all the time.  It’s like I’ve gone to the mountains on a vacation that’s never going to end.”

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