Life On The High Way

Today was the kind of day I dreamed about when we planned this trip.

We woke up to a beautiful landscape and crisp 42 degrees. I let the kids sleep in and miss their morning Zoom calls (I emailed the teachers) since we got in to our campsite so late. We have been very careful in planning this trip that we aren’t traveling late on school nights, but then Tucumcari happened and missing this morning Zooms was more of the fall out from that disaster. Also, since we are now on mountain time, their zoom calls start at 6:45. That’s pretty early, but the upside is they are done with school early, too!

Jordan was able to work without too many distractions, although I should probably let him weigh in on that. The kids and I did their virtual learning outside and it was awesome! If you had asked me the day before how virtual schooling went I would have said terrible. Today was a good day. We will see what tomorrow holds. During “recess” the kids got to play on their own. They created a “base” about 100 yards from our RV where I can see them clearly. Playing outside without the interference of adults is so good for them. They get along better, work together, and it is evident that a little freedom to roam is good for my kids.

It’s kind of lame, but I was thrilled that I was able to get a ton of laundry done. We don’t have a washer or dryer in the RV so have to use whatever the campground has. The laundry facilities are nearby so it was easy for me to go throw a load in and then come back to help the kids with school. It was nice to have clean sheets and towels.

After school and work, we headed to Great Sand Dunes National Park. We got a later start than we wanted so decided to put off sand sledding one day and just check the place out. It is incredible! The dunes are so vast! Jordan’s mom gave the kids money for souvenirs so we stopped at the gift shop before heading to the dunes. You shopped outside the store. All merchandise was shown in the window and you spoke to a man behind plexi glass to place your order. To my surprise, both kids bought children binoculars. Hudson immediately put his around his neck and said, “Let’s go! Adventure awaits!” And it did!

We walked into the dunes and were amazed by the size of them! Hudson wanted to hike to the top, but we didn’t have time and were unsure of the kids stamina. As we climbed up Lucy said, “My muscles are going to get bigger. I’m getting stronger.” I love how she sees something that is challenging as an opportunity to grow! So many people could take a lesson from her, including me. The kids did great! It was only at the very end Lucy asked if I could carry her. I didn’t. We are looking forward to going back and sledding tomorrow!

We came home very sandy and had the kids take showers immediately. There is still a ton of sand I need to sweep out of our little home! We ate dinner outside and put the kids to bed. All in all it was good day for them and as cliche as it is, it made me happy seeing my kids so happy. I, personally, was looking forward to taking a hot shower and washing my hair, but for some reason there was no water pressure when you turned the water to hot. So at 9 pm Jordan headed to Walmart to get a part to flush the hot water heater. As Jordan said, “You have to be somewhat handy to own an RV.” Fortunately, Jordan is handy and about 10:30 pm had fixed the problem. I’m really looking forward to washing my hair tomorrow!

I know not everyday will be like today, but I’m thankful we finally had a day that went somewhat according to plan and was a lot of fun!

Until next time…

Sarah

Today was a low-key day. The kids had school and Jordan worked from the travel trailer until we left for Colorado! Yes, we traveled out of the state of Texas and didn’t come back!

Hudson had a long day of zoom calls. He is not fond of Zooms and his attitude takes a nose dive when he has a big chunk of them in a row. It’s hard on all of us. This picture of Lucy sums up our day of virtual schooling today! Not everyday is like this, but we definitely have our ups and downs.

We left Amarillo around 3:30 pm and had to stop in Tucumcari to pick up the RV back up camera we left in the tow truck. When we started slowing down, Lucy asked “where are we?” I said, “Tucumcari,” to which she exclaimed “and we are stopping?!?” To say that little town in New Mexico left an impression on all of us is understatement!

We arrived in Alamosa, CO around 10 pm and by the time we were set up it was roughly 10:30 pm MT, which felt like 11:30 pm to us. We were tired, but back on schedule. It was a long drive, but we were thankful it was uneventful!

We are looking forward to some fun tomorrow!

Until next time…

Sarah

Before I go into today, let me recap night five really quick. Once Angelo dropped us off and we were safe and sound in our travel trailer Jordan realized he had left his phone in the tow truck (Side note: I’m thinking of giving it a name. If you have any suggestions, send them my way). In his defense, it was late, we were unloading kids, car seats, water bottles, and trying to set up the trailer so there was a lot going on. Angelo, the sweet man who I will forever be grateful for, stopped back by the RV park after he towed the Chevy to the dealership for us to give Jordan his phone! There are good people in the world!

We thought the night was going to calm down, until Jordan also realized we left the fairly expensive RV back up camera in the tow truck as well. We called All-Rite Towing, the best tow truck company as far as I’m concerned, and we are picking the camera up on our way out of town. I’m a little uneasy about actually having a vehicle stop in Tucumcari again, but we need that back up camera.

We all went to bed and an hour later Lucy woke up wailing that her throat hurt. She was screaming she needed to see her doctor. When I explained Dr. Scott was in Sugar Land, she exclaimed, “Then find one in Amarillo!” I, of course, immediately decided she had covid, that the rest of us were going to get it, and we were all just going to have to quarantine in this travel trailer in Amarillo indefinitely. After I took a deep breath, I remembered she spent most of the day on the side of a dusty road. While Hudson and I are the main allergy sufferers in our family, she can have them from time to time. She asked me to sleep with her so we curled up in the reclining chair and “slept.” It was the worst night of sleep I had in a very long time, but at one point when I moved to try to sleep a bit better, she said “Mom, I like your hand on mine. It makes me feel safe. Can you leave it there?” So, of course I did. Physical touch is definitely her love language.

This morning she woke up totally fine. No scratchy throat. I, on the other hand, can tell I’m months from 40 as I spent a good ten minutes trying to stretch out my back from sleeping in a chair. I woke the kids up, fed them a completely processed kolache from HEB, and set them up for virtual schooling. They logged on right on time! We are getting better at virtual schooling. My goal is to help Hudson be more independent and responsible for logging on to his zoom calls and printing his own documents so I can have time to work with Lucy. He is a whiz at tech stuff, like his dad, and is catching on quickly.

The kids and I never left the RV park today. It was actually really nice to just have a “regular” day. They loved playing in a big open space in the back of the park. I had all the windows open and could watch them play. It was evident they loved having some freedom and it was beneficial for their overall attitudes which I appreciated.

While the kids and I managed school, Jordan headed to the local Chevy dealership. Long story short, there is now a 2015 Chevy that will be pulling this trailer the rest of this trip.

This evening, Jordan grilled outside, while they kids played a game they created together. I was inside with the screen door open making our sides. THIS is more like what I thought our trip was going to be like and I hope more evenings like this are headed our way.

Thank you all for the encouraging comments, willingness to help, virtual gift cards, and prayers on our behalf. Today was much better and I am looking forward to much brighter days ahead!

Until next time…

Sarah

Yesterday I said I’m sure during this eight-week journey Jordan and I would have our doubts about the whole endeavor. That day was today after we spent seven hours on the side of the road in Tucumcari, New Mexico. If you haven’t heard about Tucumcari before, it looks like this. If I was scouting to film in a location described as “the middle of nowhere” I would use this exact location.

At about 10:30 mountain time Jordan heard a pop on the truck and within the minute notifications of low coolant and a hot transmission were flashing. We immediately pulled over. I knew it was bad, but I’m glad at that moment I didn’t know how bad it actually was.

We had a local service come out to take a look. We put two gallons of coolant in the truck, and when Jordan turned it over the truck did not sound good. I know zero about diesel engines and I could tell it didn’t sound good, but when I looked at the mechanics face I received confirmation that we were in a bad spot (in so many more ways than one.)

While there is no great time to break down on the side of the road, I would argue a Sunday in the middle of nowhere is maybe the worst time and place. Mechanics aren’t open and tow truck drivers aren’t anxious to drive to Tucumcari to pick up a Chevy truck, a 36 foot travel trailer, 2 adults, 2 children and a small dog. I will save you the boring details of the dozens of calls that were made (thank goodness for those two little bars of cell service!), but at about 5:30 pm MT (a full seven hours after we stopped), Angelo showed up to rescue us. He towed all of us, and both vehicles back to Amarillo – the place we started this morning.

The kids handled this diversion well. I was surprised by how unfazed they were by the whole ordeal. About hour three they started asking what our plan was and by hour six Hudson was seriously doubting our ability to get us out of the situation. He wasn’t the only one.

The truck is at a dealership. We are in an RV park. We are tired. Frustrated. Discouraged. This is the part where I feel like I should say something positive and explain how we will persevere, but man, I’m exhausted and we are just going to sit in the fact that today was terrible.

We have a plan for what comes next, but so little has gone to plan at this point that I’m taking it 10 minutes at a time. This has definitely shaped up to be an adventure.

Until next time…

Sarah

Jordan turns 40 today!! Forty sure sounded old when we got married at 28, but here we are and I have to say, it’s not so bad! Of course, I have another 4 months before I hit that milestone.

We arrived in Amarillo about 12:30 which was nice because we are only here one night. Jordan and I are getting pretty good about tearing down and setting up the RV. It sounds silly, but we are finding our groove and aren’t as intimidated by the process anymore. Checklists help!

Our itinerary changed right before we left and we weren’t planning on stopping in Amarillo so I hadn’t made arrangements to go to Palo Duro Canyon. This morning I called Palo Duro Canyon State Park, but couldn’t purchase day passes because they were sold out. State parks are limiting the number of people allowed in per day due to COVID. So we shifted gears, again, and decided to go to Cadillac Ranch. We told the kids we were going to spray paint cars and Hudson was adamant he wasn’t doing anything illegal. He is going to make a great risk officer someday. Once we assured him it was legal and actually encouraged he was on board.

We bought our spray paint and headed out. The kids loved it until Hudson got spray paint on himself. It was crowded and I was a little taken aback from all the discarded paint cans on the ground (there is a dumpster at the entrance and exit!), but we had fun. We painted a big 40 on a car to celebrate Jordan.

For Jordan’s birthday dinner, we got take out from The Big Texan Steak Ranch. This restaurant is somewhat famous and the advertise a lot on the roads leading into Amarillo. It would have been fun to eat inside, but it was very crowded and we decided to play it safe and eat in our RV. We had a nice bottle of wine Jordan’s mom gave us before the trip and I made a peanut butter pie for dessert. Lucy made Jordan a card. Hudson decided he didn’t want to make a card and instead gave a speech at dinner about what a great dad Jordan is. I wish I would have recorded it, but Hudson wouldn’t have liked that. It was very sweet.

We ended the day watching Raiders of the Lost Arc. Hudson said “This guy looks really familiar.” Jordan replied “You ready for this? Indiana Jones is also Hans Solo.” I think Harrison Ford might just have new fan for life. While we were watching the movie a rainstorm came in and our trailer started rocking! We looked at each other and said “is that the wind?!” Sure enough, it was, but it settled fairly quickly. I wouldn’t want to be in this RV though when major winds came through!

Lest you think the day was all sunshine and rainbows, we are still dealing with sibling squabbles, marital miscommunication, and other individual frustrations. At least once a day a kid exclaims “I wish we never came on this trip!” So far an adult has yet to say it, but in the course of two months I’m sure one of us will have our doubts. All in all though, I think we have adjusted pretty well to living in a much smaller space. I anticipated the transition to be much bumpier. Maybe that’s the trick – low expectations! Tomorrow we finally get out of Texas as we head in to New Mexico.

Until next time…

Sarah

Today we drove to Wichita Falls. We originally were driving to Decatur, but we felt good and decided to go another hour. Regardless of how many times I do it, I’m always amazed how big Texas is when we travel West. Yesterday, I saw an infographic that showed San Diego is closer to El Paso than Houston. The kids keep asking, “Are we still in Texas?!”

The highlight of today was the swimming pool at the RV Park in Wichita Falls. It got up to 108 here! The kids and Jordan swam while I did some laundry. It felt like I was in college again, but I can’t remember if we had to use quarters for the washers and dryers in my dorm. Should I be worried about a coin shortage and doing laundry on the road in laundromats?

The kids are playing well together. For the most part. They are siblings, of course. One silver lining I hope that comes out of 2020 is that my kids forge a stronger bond. They have spent so much time with each other over the past few months since their social lives have been limited. They are very different kids, but I hope they are learning they can count on one another during challenging times.

Tomorrow we drive again. And we will still be in Texas at the end of the day. I think Jordan and the kids will he happy once we are past Amarillo so I will stop singing “Amarillo by morning…”

Side note: There are going to be more pics of Lucy because she is a more willing participant. I’m trying to grab photos of Hudson when I can!

Until next time…

Sarah

Today wasn’t quite as exciting as yesterday. I needed to take the truck window to get fixed so that errand took a big chunk of the day. The kids were over the moon they could stay in the RV with Jordan instead of driving to the mechanic shop with me. The only condition was they couldn’t bug him (too much) while he worked.

The windows were an easy fix and for that I’m grateful. We are borrowing my grandfather’s 15 year old Chevy Silverado 2500 to haul our trailer. When we picked it up it had less than 30,000 miles on it. The truck hasn’t been driven much over the last 2 years so we’ve had to do some minor, well, maybe moderate, tune ups. We are incredibly thankful to my PaPa for letting us borrow his truck. We would have had to buy a truck, which we would have done if necessary, but with a probable move in the next year buying a truck wasn’t desirable. He really helped make this trip possible. I had fun driving it around Waco today listening to Spotify’s 90’s country playlist. What is it about 90s country? I could sing that playlist beginning to end. Those song lyrics are seared into my brain. My day driving around made me think back to when I was in High School and College. I always liked boys who had trucks, but I’m hoping to convince Lucy it’s way more fun to drive trucks on your own instead of waiting for a boy to drive you in his.

When I returned, Hudson had some school work he needed to finish for this week. We tested out our “school table” in the bunkhouse and it worked well. Lucy painted while we were busy with school work. I love her artistic interest and ability.

Hudson and Lucy wanted to go swimming in Lake Waco so we all walked down to the water. Swimming turned into wading in the water a bit, until Lucy stepped on something and we all headed back.

The kids and Jordan played card games while I made dinner and then we all settled in for a movie night. We got about three quarters of the way into the movie before we started having internet issues. Internet connectivity is one of our biggest issues on this adventure. The kids will have to log on to Zooms for school and Jordan has to work. I tell the kids: we aren’t on vacation; we are just living life differently for 8 weeks. We have done our due diligence in booking sites with WiFi, but until we get there we won’t really know how they will work. Jordan has done a great job of researching the tools we need to increase our likelihood of getting internet. I don’t think those are even the right words to use – ha! I’ll have him write a blog post because tech stuff is not my wheelhouse.

Tomorrow night we will be in Decatur as we slowly make our way to Santa Fe.

Until next time…

Sarah

If I had magic ball in March, I would have looked in it, hoping to see this pandemic only lasting a short time, but instead seeing that I should get in to RV sales as soon as possible. Holy moly – dealerships are having an incredibly difficult time keeping RVs in stock! They are going so fast that it took us FOUR trailers before we found one we could actually bring “home.”

Remember this picture? This photo was taken right after we thought we were putting money on this specific trailer, only to be told it had sold 5 minutes before we were able to close the deal. It is also a photo of two very naive adults who assumed that the trailer they had just put a deposit on would actually be completed on August 6th and ship to the dealer.

Short story – that didn’t happen. We got a call on August 6, assuring us that the trailer was going to be completed, but it just needed a furnace which is important since we are heading north! On August 8, we received another call that the factory was shutting down because parts were scarce and the manufacturer couldn’t complete the units. We were annoyed, but had already found another trailer, a Heritage bunkhouse, that had been “completed” on July 31 and was waiting on transport to Houston. Phew, we were back in business. Until we weren’t. They couldn’t give us a specific time frame the trailer would arrive and I was nervous. I had spent hours mapping out our trip, researching which areas had wifi so we could work and do school, and booking campsites many of which included deposits. To cancel and re-plan the entire ordeal was daunting. I was prepared to do it if I had to, but I was really hoping we could locate a trailer that would allow us to leave when we originally had planned.

We located a Jayco on a lot (it was actually there!) and decided this was our back-up’s back-up. The next day, we were told, for the second time, that the Heritage was just missing a few parts, but no need to worry, that it would be here in time for us to leave on our trip on August 28. We decided to not take that chance and instead bought the Jayco. We FINALLY have a trailer.

Buying a trailer is similar to closing on a house. We did a walk-through and then signed a ton of paperwork. We hooked the trailer to the truck and headed out in to Houston rush hour traffic to park it at a RV park near our house. As we were driving off the lot, I looked at Jordan and said, “I can’t believe they just let you drive off with this thing attached! How do they know we can pull this?”

When we arrived at the park and begin hooking up, we found this…

Some people might see these setbacks as omens that we shouldn’t take this trip. I’m looking at them as preparation for being on the road for eight weeks. Mishaps will happen and we will have to adapt. Jordan keeps saying, “If it was all smooth-sailing, it wouldn’t be an adventure.” This is true. I also hope that I’m showing my kids that if you really want to do something (y’all, I really wanted to do this!) you are going to have to persevere sometimes to make it happen. Even if it is something like buying an RV in the middle of a pandemic. Now, I’m off to figure out how to get a tired changed in the middle of an RV park. 

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.