Someday arrived!

I've often wondered how great epic novels like Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia, and Les Miserables had their genesis.  In the days of a more oral storytelling tradition, perhaps the spark of an idea from a mother's bedtime story, or fireside tales exchanged by groups of travelers as they camped along the trails. And lots and lots of thinking time in between for ideas to percolate and evolve.

As both a voracious reader and gifted storyteller, my Grandma Schaffer planted many great ideas in my mind as she recounted her favorite stories. One I loved most was about the summer she and her mother traveled coast to coast from New Jersey to California, in part to give her mother some relief in her battle with severe arthritis and also for my grandma to study at UCLA. She talked about how the journey affected her view of herself and her relationship with the people and world around her. She would always say "every school child in America should see how vast and great this country is!" That thought took root in me, and I began nurturing a daydream.

On our way!

Years later, married with my first babies and considering home educating, a friend loaned me a book about different ways and lifestyles of homeschooling. One vignette highlighted a family who lived full time in their RV and studied "roadschool style" while they traveled. That hooked me. I yearned to do that someday. I loved the idea of creating a strong family identity by living simply in a small space. I loved the idea of spreading our wings to explore history where it was made. The idea grew but got tucked away into the "someday" list for a long time.

Imagine trudging through this snowpack in Lewis and Clark's day!

Well someday arrived this last year! Just after the new year in 2019 we started putting action behind our dreams and shopped for a travel trailer. We prayed for direction, read lots of really helpful RV travel blogs, visited dealerships all over Idaho, and scoured the internet until we finally found a good deal on a closeout model in Montana, which we picked up in March. It was a very long but exciting day!  We decided on a Jayco Jayflight 32TSBH, a 32 foot trailer that we could haul with our 2005 Ford Excursion XLT.

On the route home, we discovered an great historical spot in Lolo, Montana: "Traveler's Rest", which claims to be the only archeologically verified campsite of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which was anciently used by Native Americans as a large trading hub. Sadly, we arrived after the visitors center was closed. But since our children are distant descendants of William Clark (through my Dad's line), AND we had just happened to have been studying about Lewis and Clark in history, it was so fun to get out and explore the trails where our adventuresome ancestors had walked! It was fascinating to learn about how archeologists matched evidence from ancient latrines with the journal entries from the expedition. It inspired us to make sure we included daily journaling as part of our upcoming journey. It was a great first adventure with the RV - especially learning how to turn the trailer around in the parking lot!  Nate nailed it! The real nemesis turned out to be gas stations. We learned this the hard way later that night and put a big gash in the side of the brand new trailer. Ouch.

This video was inspired by one of our favorite vlogs - Knorpp and South!

Saved by a water bottle!

The guts of our truck engine

As the sun was starting to set we were climbing up the steep incline of the continental divide, when the engine of our truck started smoking. We had packed things to stay overnight if we needed to, but staying in the middle of nowhere on a steep slope was not what we had in mind.  We pulled over and called our auto insurance company to find out what our options were. Nate did a little more research and decided to just top off the radiator with some water and when that (and time) seemed to calm the fuming engine, we gratefully limped home. We found out later the head gasket had blown and was a ticking time bomb already, so we did the much needed rebuild. Not something we were excited to shell out more $$ for but, we were grateful it all happened before embarking on our big journey. Phew. This makes an exciting story now, but at the time it was a little terrifying! Enough adventure for one day.

Another unexpected discovery was when we pulled into the driveway after midnight only to discover that the trailer was just slightly too tall to fit in our oversized shop. Grrr. We had measured every other dimension except height! It wasn't a huge deal but would have made it a lot more convenient (and warm) to do our renovations inside an insulated building. Why renovations, you ask? Yes, it was a new trailer. But it was totally BROWN. If we were to be spending up to a year in there, I reasoned, a few coats of paint and some more colorful fabric could make a big difference in morale (especially for mom).  And to paint such a small space, no sweat, right?

BEFORE: The dining/living room/kitchen

DURING: The dining/living room/kitchen

The boys loved taking apart and putting together all the hardware.

So we got busy prepping, priming, painting, and sewing our hearts out. The painting was a classic case of 'mission creep' where we started with focusing on just a few spots, but the more I painted the more I wanted to paint (much to Nate's patient chagrin). It took over a month before we were ready to start actually packing the trailer. Hopefully the pictures of before and after below will speak for themselves. It was a full family effort and while we wondered sometimes if it was really going to be worth all that work, we made some good memories along the way. It was great to be working together on something we were so excited about. And something about painting everything white while listening to April General Conference had me dreaming of ways to make this RV like a 'temple on wheels'. I'll need to devote another post to some of the other reasons behind this, but we also were feeling the need for remodeling our family culture. I love the teaching that "only the home can compare with the temple in sacredness". Having physical reminders of this on our journey proved to be a powerful talking and teaching tool, especially as we tried to incorporate visiting as many temples as possible into our itinerary. The vision was starting to take shape!

Next up...the day of embarkation!

Serendipity! We accidentally painted the wrong color for a second coat and were inspired to create clouds in the bunkhouse.

It was great to see kids able to take on a good chunk of the sewing. The new cushions were a really happy finishing touch!