Blog revived for Home School road trip 2022

Lots of life has happened since I last wrote in this blog. Time is flying by and now my kids are in middle school. 

I am so grateful for the life journey we have been on, leading us to this very moment. The houses we’ve bought, businesses we have started, the kids we made! 😊 The hikes, bike rides, lake days, play dates, soccer practices, yard work, schoolwork, meal prepping, work improvements, welding projects, winter snow play, sunny summers by the water. Doing our best to be the best versions of ourselves as partners and parents. Loving each other through the good days and the bad days, progress and setbacks, the highs and the lows. The risks we’ve taken and the trust we have held, to live this adventure we call our life.  

The notion to take this year and live it differently than most years came from a goal we made over twelve years ago. If you look back to one of my first blog posts, back in 2009, I mention this intention. This vision or idea that David and I came up with during a date night while on a trip to Costa Rica. We were young parents to a baby Piper. The boys weren’t in the picture quite yet, but we figured we would have another kiddo(didn't know we would get a two for one special). When we did the math, we figured the “kids” would be in middle school in the year 2020. We thought that would be the perfect year to pull kids out of school and travel the world. 

Turns out the year 2020 was special in a different way and didn’t go as planned, it was a year to remember, nonetheless.   We spent that year in Chelan, homeschooling and working on a major remodel of our cabin. This is another story for another time, for now let’s fast forward to our redo year, this year, as the year to travel with our kids. 

We started the school year at Chelan Middle School, kids played sports, made friends and excelled in their classes. Then we pulled them out at Thanksgiving and got ourselves on a plane headed to Hawaii. This was the next phase of our “travel/homeschool” year. We spent 6 weeks on 4 islands, exploring beaches and enjoying island life. We went to the Big Island, Maui, Molokai and Kauai.

We walked on black lava, went scuba diving with turtles, boogie boarded, soaked up sunsets and sunk our feet in the sand. We thoroughly loved chasing the sun and enjoyed the warm temperatures while evading winter snowstorms back home.  

Too bad I didn’t take the time to revive the blog for that trip but check out my Instagram for some of the highlights. 

Finally…here we are ONE WEEK into our RV road trip adventure. It was a quite a challenge to even get on the road. Deciding what RV trailer to buy, was harder than we thought, but now that we’ve been living the RV life for a whole week, I am happy with our choice. It’s called The Vibe, a 21ft bunkhouse with no slide outs. 

We are rookie trailer owners, with Dave having only pulled a trailer once before when we bought a boat last summer. That trip was fairly traumatizing, since we had two blown out tires on that drive from Bend to Chelan. The number one requirement on this trailer was that it had double axles! 

It’s always hectic trying to leave town and this trip was no exception. As we were packing up the last few items in the trailer, Jett noticed that the kitchen faucet had broken off and an ice cube was sticking out the top. We forgot to leave the heater on and that night, the temperatures had dropped to single digits.🤦‍♀️ Determined to still leave that day, we ended up driving back to the RV dealership we bought the trailer from in Eugene. It ended up being a blessing because we were able to ask the service department about the funky smell that bothered us when we turned on the heater. Turns out there was a small propane leak that they were able to fix right away. We slept in the dealership parking lot for our first night. Nothing spectacular, but an easy place to try out our new rig! 

We decided to head to the Oregon coast for our next stop and found a beautiful campground in Florence. Dave was quickly initiated into trailer driving with the tight curvy roads and he did great. 

The dunes did not disappoint, we spent several hours wondering around and marveling at the vast space filled with so much sand. We had fun running and jumping and staying out of the way of all the ATVs vrooming around. 

Next, we continued down the coast, crossed the California boarder and headed straight to Jedediah Redwoods State Park. We rolled in just before dark and it was pouring rain. The back in parking was very tight, but Dave did it and we ended up with the best spot in the park with very few other campers anywhere close. 

 

We spent two nights in the Redwoods, so we only had one full day to explore. We filled the day with beauty all around us. Starting at the river by our campsite, then driving to a few famous hikes that led us by the giants this area is known for. I think we were all impressed by the awe of how big and tall the redwood trees actually were. Seeing and smelling and just standing next to the trees in the forest was just what we were looking for and why we wanted to take the kids on this trip. It’s one thing to read about and study the stats on the redwood trees and so much more memorable to see it for yourself. Walking around the giant trunks and realizing how enormous they are compared to tree trunks we normally see in forests we’ve walked through before. It is so disheartening to learn that only 5% of the redwood trees remain from the result of past logging practices almost cutting them all down.  Learning about the trees in person is so much more impactful.