Going Out West
From Georgia out to Utah, Yellowstone and Beyond
DAY 1
Away we go! Utah here we come! 4 children, 7 chickens, 1 dog and a great co-pilot Eva. First stop, Paw Paw in Georgia. #18summers #imightbecrazy
DAY 3
Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore! Well… we might be. Most of the time I have no idea what state we’re in, just that we’re headed West and having fun! We’ve been so full on in our “adventure van” as Maggie calls it. Time with Paw Paw, Atlanta Aquarium, St. Louis zoo, panning for minerals outside 135-foot underground caverns, seeing our first gopher ever (SO stinking cute!), driving all 31 feet through major cities full of great architecture catching lightning bugs at midnight in a cow pasture, lots of laughs during the late night grocery runs — lots of goodness. And then… the not so goodness… the RV that can’t get over 45 climbing a mountain, leaks profusely from multiple areas when it rains and OH BOY has it rained. Rained so much that we had to evacuate a campground at 3am from eminent flash floods. What?!? Yes. We picked up a new ride late yesterday and are now making serious tracks. I’m tired, super tired. And there’s no coffee in middle America, incase you were wondering. Although so tired, I am so blessed and soaking in each moment. #18summers #imnotmissingout
DAY 5
Date night & The Dead Show. A throwback to over 25 years of concerts with friends, my wife and I’s 2nd date. We made a promise that we’d never stop going to see live music together. Glad we’re keeping it! Little Sammy (Samson) was all smiles but they didn’t play his song #18Summers #showyourwork #datenight #liveMusic
DAY 8
Awesome first day of our Powder Mountain Family Board Meeting retreat! Team building, archery tag, the incredible Dr. Shafali, kids’ dreaming room and Maggie led her first yoga class. We’re making memories and not missing the important lessons. So grateful for the families joining us here.#18summers
DAY 10
We’ve now been on the road for over a week. I only managed one post! Ack! Hands full. All. The. Time.
After the flash floods and underground caverns I bet you think we couldn’t possibly find more excitement. Wrong, of course. Day 3 started fairly uneventful as we made our way to the St Louis Zoo. Driving through the big city was incredible with the children. The zoo grounds were lovely and very easy to navigate with the whole crew. We decided to make our way a little below Cheyenne for the night, which would be about 3 hours. Our big afternoon adventure included corn fields, giant thistle and Walmart in Nebraska- jealous, I know. Maggie just can’t believe the size of the “gardens”.
So, as mentioned, we start toward our 3 final hours of the day to end below Cheyenne, WY. At about midnight, we finally find the campground we’ve already called and paid for. We pass it twice because we just can’t believe THIS is where we’re supposed to stay the night. It looked abandoned and was attached to an even creepier motel. We all agreed NO — GPS on to Cheyenne it is! Well, Siri is not my friend at the point in which she sends us down a dirt road to get back on to the interstate. We’re a little creeped out. That feeling intensifies as we end the dirt road at a cemetery. Yup. Around 1am, dark, creepy motel (remember), just too much creep for us. We make it to the highway and commit to another hour to Cheyenne. About 10 miles from our stop the RV catches on fire. We thought it was at least. Awful burning smell. We wake all the children to look for the fire because, well, no way we’re stopping after motel, cemetery, 2am etc… we decide to keep going and ended safely in Cheyenne.
Now 3am, we’re all delirious and someone forgets to close the poop chute thing before trying to attach to the septic at the campground. Insert poop fight at 3am. We all laughed SO hard. Around 4am I finally discover the burning smell was our floor heater and we would not be burning to death or poisoned by CO2 (my other irrational concern) in the middle of the night.
Our final leg of the trip was to be from Cheyenne to Powder Mountain Utah. A 6 hour day – woohoo! Again, Siri, not my friend. Our 6 hours turned to 8 when Siri realized our time zone difference. Ouch. And I had a hot date planned for 7pm. We were road warriors. The children were incredible. And we made it just in time for the Grateful Dead concert in the mountains under a full moon. This is living! And loving! #18summers #justdoit #dontmissamoment
DAY 13
Over 20 years ago I saw my first grizzly bear in the wild. I swore someday I’d take my family into the back country to experience the same magic. We struck gold on our private tour today with Verlin the bear whisperer in Teton National Forest. A momma grizzly and her 2 cubs. A day to remember. – Jim #18summers
DAY 14
We started to head further North on Tuesday morning after our Family Board Meetings retreat (it was awesome!). Siri, once again a total louse, mislead us with an attractive 4 hour drive to Jackson Hole Wyoming. 6.5 hours later we decide to take the long(er) way around and NOT risk our lives by driving over the Teton Pass at 11,000ft in pitch black midnight. Safely arriving at the campsite (at midnight, remember?), the board says “NO VACANCY”. Jim falls asleep literally on the wheel while I try to figure out where we will park for the night. The closest available campsite is 149 miles back. Luckily, the operators of this amazing campground found us a spot. The next morning on the way to grab bagels the RV is shaking and making awful noises. This is already our second unit- remember the flooding?!? Long story short, we’ve been homeless the last 3 nights. The wonderful people at the campground put us up for the first 2 nights in a sweet cabin and last night we had to find another place (they were all sold out Friday). The only place that would take 6 of us and our dog was a stinky, dirty Motel/cabin situation. We ate Thai food on the floor and drank wine from plastic cups. After hours and hours on the phone with Cruise America – NEVER USE THEM – we now have our 3rd RV in 14 days. In spite of all of this craziness we threw cares to the wind and spent the entire day in the Teton forest. We saw a mama grizzly bear and her 2 cubs, ate a picnic in the rain, made a lot of new friends and created more memories than I could’ve planned for.
We’ve talked a lot the last few days about “looking for the helpers” in times like these and to respond instead of react when things are uncomfortable — both words or situations.
Thanks to our pals, Jen & Phil Randazzo (American Dream is an incredible organization) all of these moments have been caught on GoPro.
We will be fishing and hiking around here a few more days then up further to Glacier National. Alden wants to learn fly fishing and Jim can’t wait to share the beautiful sky with us. After that we’ll start heading through South Dakota, to Mt. Rushmore and then Kentucky. Some great friends and sights along the way!
DAY 19
My man making deals from the Montana Walmart parking lot. No shower, no shave: no problem! I’ve been in more Walmarts the last 3 weeks than in the last 8 years. We’ll do a full trip update this evening. Been out of service and fully engaged the past 2 days getting to our most northern point for the trip — Glacier National. Thankful to live life just the way we want: engaged, inspired and grateful. #18summers
DAY 20
10 second clip of pure joy. Sammy Smile’s first summer solstice festival, Big Sky, Montana.
DAY 21
Yellowstone was amazing and we all loved it. A bit crowded and over commercialized but we enjoyed the 2 days we spent there. Enjoyed, other than the one night our campsite with full hookups was accidentally given to the wrong person and we had no electricity and froze in the 32 degree weather.
The boys have read 6 books each in the last 48 hours. Tonight they cooked our dinner (hotdogs, cauliflower, broccoli, corn and smores) over the campfire. Alden is learning all about freshwater fishing and will have a chance to try fly fishing on Sunday. He’s also been our resident filmmaker, documenting each moment of the trip via GoPro.
Maggie picked out her first bike AND fishing pole — loving both! She’s also been practicing picking up and laying down Sammy (gently).
Leland has emotionally grown: he’s faced some fears by jumping off a high dive, he mentored younger children in corn hole (an all afternoon event in patience), he’s stepped up as my laundry helper and plays tirelessly with Maggie (another event in patience).
I think Jim and I both are finally decompressing after all the instability of switching RVs twice in 2.5 weeks.
We’ve enjoyed skipping stones, picnics, fires, lots of laughs multiple ice cream stands and incredible stargazing. We’ve seen a ton of buffalo, and some elk, deer, bears, marmots and groundhogs.
We’ve eaten elk and buffalo. Drank water from a pipe straight out of the side of a mountain and driven through a mountain pass in heavy snow (my bad). I was homesick while writing the last post, this one I’m reflecting on how I could do this another 4 weeks.
#18summers #dontblink
DAY 25
Heading South – South Dakota! 11 hours complete of our 42 hour trip home. We spent the last of the week in Glacier National, Montana & along the Canada border. The most beautiful and wild place I’ve seen yet. The stars are incredible. If you’ve yet to explore this area of our country, I highly recommend it. We saw lots of wildlife on our late night adventure drives hunting bear. Jim is obsessed with bears (and mountain lions, really, but mostly bears). And he believes in bear spray. Apparently a lot of folks believe in bear spray because it is the #1 sold product in all of Montana (I actually just made that up). Either way, I may need your help spreading the word about my new business venture when I return home — Shark Spray.
One interesting thing I never knew about this region is the intense amount of time the sun stays up. My children usually go to bed when the sun does and wake up when the sun does. In Montana, that makes for an 11 pm bedtime. Mind you, when we return home, this will translate into a 1 am bedtime. Oh. My. Goodness. These long days allow lots of exploration time. Tonight we’ll see Mt. Rushmore after our day of UTVing through the Black Hills. The teachable moments have been innumerable. We’ve seen various weather patterns and experienced storms we never have before. We’ve seen new constellations and even milky way dust (I think). Talks on why the Native American reservations are in poverty. How a town becomes a “ghost town.” Animal migration, reproduction, hunting laws and lots of first person encounters. We’ve also had the opportunity to be real and raw with one another. Falling apart and coming back together. Next stop, 19 more hours to Kentucky!
#18summers #ploughshare #happycampers
DAY 32
This post is about 4 days late so I’ll just pretend like we’re entering Kentucky opposed to leaving it. We spent 2 days in South Dakota with Uncle Chris doing all sorts of fun stuff from jumping on a giant air pillow, to water slides, panning for gold (we’d starve if we had to make a living from it), campfire stories and even Mt Rushmore at night. Hearing the ideals of our country through the quotes of 4 influential men was moving. Watching my children not only experience the giantess of our geography but also the vastness of our history over the last 5 weeks has been invaluable. Standing there in awe I just couldn’t imagine the amount of people showing up daily, climbing high on the mountainside to work on the masterpiece I was witnessing. The monument also boasts the best ice cream, original Jefferson recipe.
We’ve had some great QT with people in our life this trip. People a little off the beaten path. Not family God gave us, but family we have chosen. It’s been a really nice surprise to see that we have “family” everywhere we go.
The decompression of being away from all usual comforts and familiarity has been incredible. The simplification beforehand and during will carry through no doubt. When we decided on this trip we decided to rent our home on VRBO to off-set some costs and teach the boys about using resources available. Alden and Leland were involved in preparing the house and animals as well as the numbers. All pets had to be temporarily housed by friends or boarding, the house had to be “rental ready” and it all had to make financial sense. Leland was hesitant to have a stranger sleep in his bed but lightened right up when he learned that 3 nights rent paid for his beloved boxer’s camp for the month.
The financial lessons kept presenting themselves. We miss our creature comforts of heat/ac, cooking in an oven, baths, using the restroom without 4 people commenting on how they can all smell you… and so on. But I love the acceptance for one another that we’ve reached. The fact that no one really comments anymore when someone does stink up the whole 100sq ft from using the bathroom. Or that Jim climbs into a (tiny) bed at night and says “I love being together” (truth be told I was debating elbowing him in the eye while he slept — because, well, driving — until his sweet reflection). Or that we’ve had space to think and appreciate all around us but especially US.
We’ve slept in parking lots and eaten gas station meals (neither more than once — maybe twice — but we have officially done it).
I need a mani/pedi like a troll and I can’t wait for date night when we get back home. But, for now, Kentucky and the house on The Hill! #18summers#thehill #crazylove
Side note — an article on Mt Rushmore from a Native American POV http://www.lakotacountrytimes.com/news/2008-06-12/tim_giago/018.html
WE MADE IT HOME!
12 loads of laundry so far. We’ve been home 30 hours. It was surreal as we pulled back up to the house. I cried, so overwhelmed with the feelings and adventures with my family over the last 30 something days. An incredible gift for all of us to see our country and each other. Saddened that is over. Regretful I didn’t “do it better”, which is such a useless thought — mom guilt.
Our last adventure was in the blue hills of Kentucky. On the way we stopped in Kansas City for BBQ because one MUST eat BBQ if ever driving through Kansas City. The kids humored us but didn’t understand why “if it’s the best BBQ place, why are there bars on the windows?!?”. Yeah, well, good BBQ. Shortly after lunch we began smelling something awful. We all blamed each other but couldn’t figure out where the smell was coming from. Long story short, we realized someone had accidentally turned on the propane on the stove and it was leaking into the RV. We evacuated on the side of the road until it aired out and dr google convinced us we weren’t going to have lifelong effects from the 5 minutes of intense inhaling trying to find the culprit. Jim wouldn’t let us cook for the remainder of the trip.
We didn’t realize that we would be crossing 2 time zones on the way to our host so our 3 pm arrival turned into 5 pm. Perfect time for more BBQ! We had 6 dogs and 6 children having the best time playing together. Long talks with homemade wine watching the sunset and fireflies with lots of space to roam. This stop was more like luxury than camping. The showers were amazing! It was great to hear the boys appreciate the shower so much.
The small things. I think there’s a quote that says something like “one day you’ll realize the small things were actually the big things.” I wish I could bottle up all the moments. These tiny people are incredible and so is my husband. Well worn now, they trusted me with this crazy trip. I feel different. Good different. – Jamie
#18summers #familyboardmeetings
