The last time I sat down to write about traveling was when I was in my 20’s in Italy with my new husband. Now, I am in my late 30’s, a few more wrinkles and a few more children and I am sitting in my beloved Delaware home ready to embark on the craziest trip I will most likely ever take in my life.
Greg and I have the wonderful chance to attend his cousin’s wedding just outside of Yosemite in California and what better way to do it than by driving, or so Greg has convinced me. We have rented a 25 foot RV off of RV Share, a website where people can rent out their private RV’s and will be setting out on this journey June 23 from Kensington, Md.
We have given ourselves 9 days to get there with a few stops to see family in St. Louis and a two night stay in Colorado Springs and Zion National Park. We are also going to the Garden of the Gods, Arches National Park, possibly Bryce Canyon and a jaunt through Sin City to see what it’s all about. Our way home takes us up to Lake Tahoe, a bucket list spot for our kids, and stops in The Tetons, Badlands, and of course our kids want to stop at the Antique Archaeology store in Davenport, Iowa. It’s one of their favorite shows to watch. We have most campsites planned and booked until the very last three days of the trip where I am letting go and letting God take the wheel. I am a big planner so not having a place to stay freaks me out a little but I am sure at that point in the trip I will be happy with anything.
Almost everyone in our family is excited for our trip but our 11year old daughter is a complete beach bum like her Mom and is dragging her feet every step of the way. Our son turns 9 on the 20th of June and is pretending that this whole trip is his birthday present. What better way to celebrate than a cross country trip with memories that will last a lifetime? We also have a 6 year old daughter that sticks to Greg and I like glue so she is just happy to go wherever we go but she is generally excited. Let’s hope that excitement sticks for the duration of the trip as she can get very homesick for her bed.
I started my own business of home organizing this past year which went surprisingly well and I have been tasked with setting up the whole RV, buying all the things we will need, and figuring out the logistics of life on the road for 20 days. Greg is a master at anything map and driving oriented. He has planned all of the campsites and coordinated stays at a few airbnb’s along the way and I am sure he will come up with some really fun activities to do at all the locations. He is a very confident driver and speedy as well so I can guarantee some of our drives won’t be as long as we intend.
If you know us and we mentioned this trip in the past year you probably fell out of your chair laughing at the idea that we were going camping. We have never camped before and will be the first to admit we really like all the amenities of a nice place to stay. Let’s be honest, we aren’t really camping. We are glamping! We have a toilet, shower, kitchenette, beds, and AC. We do have to do a little work to fill up the water tanks and empty the sewage every few days but it’s totally something we can do.
Since we aren’t “campers” we decided to rent the exact same RV this past spring and give it a little test run. We decided on Williamsburg, Va as our destination, pulled the kids out of school on a Friday and set out for Virginia. We picked the RV up in Stafford where it is located and headed out with little idea of what we were doing. We had printed instructions with diagrams and were confident we couldn’t mess up. We also gave our whole family a lot of Grace as we embarked on this journey. So, when Maggie said her tummy hurt from being carsick, 20 minutes in, I laid down with her sharing my airpods and we had the best jam session. A memory neither of us have forgotten and a moment full of Grace.
We not only survived our trip to Williamsburg but loved it! We challenged ourselves in ways we thought we never would. We took our kids to Jamestown and the historical sites, Busch Gardens, a small beach so they could get their gills wet, and we had a blast.
Now as I panic over whether or not we have enough underwear packed, the right kinds of shoes, how to make coffee every morning, clothes appropriate for the weather, I have finally come to a place of Grace where nothing matters as long as we are together and some prayers that everything goes smoothly.
I am still trying to squeak every moment of sandy, sunny beach time before we leave but I am pretty confident this will be a trip talked about for the ages. Follow along via my instagram at https://www.instagram.com/maureenie702/ and https://www.instagram.com/mhyrr/ as we post pictures of our adventures. I also plan to find some time to write about our days as we bump along the road. Send your email so I can add it to a list for ALL the updates. 😀
Pray for us and our sanity and some awesome weather as we travel.