How we started this crazy adventure

Buying a camping trailer is one of the most impulsive things Jordan and I have ever done as a married couple.

We are your typical American suburban family. We don’t make too much noise. We don’t live too outside the bounds. We go to work, go to school, eat dinner as a family, take our kids to their extracurricular activities. Our life was great, but there was nothing about us that screamed – ADVENTURERS! However, our sense of adventure was awakened in the fall of 2019. Jordan’s company told us we would be moving to Angola in the spring of 2020. We had made plans, been immunized, did an ungodly amount of paperwork and were genuinely excited to live in a foreign country and travel internationally. I had even planned to spend my 40th birthday celebrating in Paris and was browsing AirBnbs online. Then March 2020 rolled around. Covid – 19 turned everything on its head and our move was postponed.

We are told we will still be moving to Angola, but I couldn’t even begin to tell you when that will happen. It has been challenging going from a mindset of “We are going to travel the world,” to “Stay in your house and don’t socialize.” I realized I was excited to go do something new. Something different. I wanted an adventure!

When it became clear, after much back and forth, that we were going to enroll our kids in their district’s virtual learning program for at least a short period of time this fall, we were, like every other parent, exhausted. I was sitting at our dining room table thinking of all four of us in this house day in and day out and it occurred to me – we don’t have to BE in this house if everyone is doing their work online. I half-jokingly said to Jordan, “We should just sell the house and cars and buy an RV. We can travel in it while you work and I home-school the kids until Chevron gives us the green light to move.” Jordan’s face look stricken. I wasn’t sure if his expression stemmed from the idea of selling most of what we owned and hitting the road or if because the idea came from me, his wife who is always claiming to want stability. In any case, it was immediately apparent that we would not be doing that particular journey. About 45 minutes later, I said, “Wait, we don’t have to do this indefinitely. Let’s just go for 8 weeks. At least we can go see some stuff while we are doing school and work online.” I floated that idea by him and while he didn’t jump on board immediately, I could tell he was considering it.

Later that night after a few cursory internet searches for RV’s (we really had no idea what we were looking for) and some back of the envelope math (we also had no idea how much this endeavor would end up costing), we decided we were serious about traveling for eight weeks. This was on a Wednesday night and by Saturday afternoon we had put a deposit down on a trailer. Moving that fast on an idea is outside Jordan’s comfort zone, so I want to give him credit for going along with me. And I’m glad we did move that fast because RVs are flying off the shelves. We are actually on our second deposit on our second trailer, but more about that in my next blog post.