The little camper that couldn't....

We bought our 21 foot 1986 Toyota Camper last March.  Took her across the country to Palm Springs, California, stopping in Las Vegas, Grand Canyon and San Antonio Texas along the way.  There were 4 of us.  It was an amazing trip.  Fast and a little tight, er cozy.  There was no thought of it not working for a 3 month trip since we had such a great time in a quick 11 day trip.  Those optimistic thoughts lasted for 23 days of our trip. 

As I mentioned in the first post, my husbands sister Tina was traveling with us.  She is a wonderful person, sweet, caring, unselfish and a terrific 2nd mom to Gabe.  Unlike Joe and I, Tina is working remotely for her job.  Which means she has a mobile office.  With all of the fixings.  She is very organized and doesn't ask for anything as she sits cramped at the dinette table with files and wires floating around her.  Unfortunately the space isn't going to work for her.  So we had to make a choice.  Tina or the Toyota Camper.  Did I mention the Toyota got 15 miles per gallon on our last trip????

We left Virginia on a Saturday and were sitting in Venice Florida Monday morning, inspecting our next purchase.  A 39 foot 1996 American Dream Diesel Coach.  After looking at other options on our trip south, we had made the decision that this was the Coach for us.  Tina could spread out and do all of her work, each of us had our own separate sleeping area and we could actually take a shower in the bathroom with out having to straddle the toliet!  It took us a week to make all the changes, repacking, registering and tinkering with some issues that came up.  Issues that made Joe's Italian temper kick in and turn his head red.  Issues that caused us to stay parked at a campground for longer than we wanted, making several trips to Home Depot, Lowes, Tractor Supply and Walmart.  But knock on wood we were all set to start our journey.  Exactly 1 month after we were supposed to.

On a bright and sunny Saturday morning we were once again headed north out of Florida.  It took us 2 days, between storms, to put our feet in Alabama.  We had made it to our first state on our to do list.  A visit to the USS Alabama.  Between my history buff husband and son, it was an exciting moment. 

The first step is always the hardest....

We listed our house and sold it within 3 months.  We were very lucky.  Or maybe it just meant to that we were on the path we were supposed to be on. After giving our notices to our respective jobs........

We spent the last week before closing packing up the house...........

Moving everything into 2 storage units..............




                                                                                       





We had said our goodbyes to all of our friends as well.





That was one of the hardest parts of this journey.  We weren't just leaving our house and home of 8 years but also all of the wonderful people we had met along the way, each one effecting our lives in very different ways.  Giving up everything that was comfortable to us, the normalcy of life and the day to day routine in order for us to re connect as a family was something we had to do.  That last week besides the emotional rollarcoaster we were all on, the weather decided to not cooperate.  It poured everyday.

We were all miserable and tired.  Moving is one of the hardest things I think you can do.  Add in horrible weather, it can't get much worse.  Soaked through to our bones we managed to get the house empty, storage unit full and all of the papers signed on the day of closing.  As we pulled away from Port St. Lucie in our 21 ft Toyota Camper, the sun came out.  A good sign for what was to come!

Our plans were open.  We were headed to the Pan Handle of Florida, walk on the white sandy beaches of Destin for a day or two, then head to New Orleans for some world famous Beignets.  Oh and of course some history lessons, paying a visit to the WWII museum and St. Louis Cathedral (the oldest cathedral in the United States).  

That night we ended up on Amelia Island in Northern Florida.  It was in the opposite direction we were headed but we had no set plans and we decided to stop for a day of antique shopping and hitting the local farmers market in the morning.  The weather was perfect.

                                                    

A quick call to my Aunt in Beaufort, SC., had us heading to see her and my cousin who was visiting from England.  It was a quick change of plans, didn't even have to think hard about it.  Yes we were supposed to be in the Pan Handle of Florida, heading to the USS Alabama for a tour, but plans change.  We were going to learn to just roll with it.


     

We prepared to our dinner to eat outside on the back deck.....

 

 And then the storm clouds started to roll in.....

 

  We ate rather quickly!

 

There must of been a reason behind the changes.  A guiding hand.  After spending 2 days with my Aunt and Cousin I received a call from my sister Sheri that our mom was in the Hospital, not getting the care she needs and we needed to be there.  My mom lives in South Western Virginia.  We were only 8 hours from were she lived.  We left and headed up to Roanoke where she was in the hospital.  She was mis-diagnosed, overloaded with fluid sending her into Congestive Heart Failure.  She was an hour away from her home at the hospital.  The Doctors weren't talking to each other, much less to us.



         Mom in the hospital with all of her daughters

Ready to go home.  I just wanted to put her in my pocket and sneak her out of there.

When mom was cleared to travel, Joe, Gabe, myself, Tina, Sheri and my neice Julia, all packed her up and moved her to Connecticut. 3 of her children lived there, all with in 20 minutes of each other. We all knew it was the best decision for her, health wise. But asking someone to leave the last home they had with their husband of 45 years, to walk away from everything that she was familiar with and comfortable in, to move back to where she had left just 7 years prior was difficult. There was no choice. She couldn't continue to live on her own in her health condition. She needed someone there to make sure she went to the Doctors, to double check she had the right medication, that she was taking her medication, what her blood pressure was, is she eating enough, drinking enough, all things that unfortunately she couldn't continue to do on her own in her current health situation. The plan is to have her move into her own inlaw suite at my baby sister Dawn's house. It may take a few months to get all the puzzle pieces together to have her settled in her own place again, close to almost all of her children but still able to close and lock the door when she wants to:) 

 

Gabe saying goodbye to his friends from the lake.

21 days from when we arrived into Virginia, we were back in our little Toyota RV and headed south.

This journey we are on is life changing.  We have no set plans, we are just going along our path, living each day as it comes.  Don't get me wrong.  We know that we are headed to Texas then up through New Mexico and Arizona on up to Montana and then back across the top of the country with visits along the way to various Monuments and Parks.  But nothing is set in stone as we are coming to find out.

It is about waking up each morning and being grateful to have that day and the life that we are living.  Thankful that we are together, healthy and able to take this time to do what we are doing.  About life lessons for my son Gabe.  What better life lesson than helping his grandmother for those 3 weeks.  Seeing her get the medical help she needed.  And sadly watch her leave the last place she lived with his grandfather, something she never wanted to do and moving back to a state that she said she never would live in again.  Watching her make the decision to live with one of her children when she swore she never would. 

I started this blog to document our 3 month trip across the country.  I am hoping to include pictures and stories of our visits to various places.  But is is also a log of how our lives are changing and what lessons we are learning.  Something I hope will stay with my son as he gets older and starts his own life.  Something I know will forever stay with me.  

 

 

 Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia.....Cool Shirts?

 

A little background on how our journey started........

Have you ever felt as if life was passing you by?  That if you could just stop the clock, slow down and be able to live each day without checking your email at least 20 times, or facebook, or running errands, returning a book to the library, the grocery store for that one forgotten item, fielding phone calls with the Cable TV or Insurance Company, making dinner, doing laundry, going to work, dealing with your child's puberty......ok maybe that was to much information to share. You get the picture.

Life tends to get so complicated that you forget what is important.  The people you love growing older, the laughter of your child reading a book, going out with your girlfriends to a movie, alone time with your husband.  To be able to live life with little regrets and to make a lifetime of memories with those you love.  Life can be changed at any time.  All those carefully laid plans that we make, saving for vacation, working over time to complete the task, putting of that yearly physical.  Someday.  Someday.  Someday.  When will that someday be?  And what will you have missed in the meantime?

After watching my 18 yr old nephew, my baby sisters only child, take his last breath in December after a long illness and losing my dad at the young age of 65 yrs old to cancer, my priorities started to change.

Watching my husband leave for work each week and be gone for days at a time when my growing son needed him, as did I, it made me think, what are we doing and where are our lives headed?  What is the point of having a family when you don't see each other and aren't involved in each others daily life?  Life can be taken away from you at a moments notice, it was time to take control of our lives and prioritize.

In January I sat with my husband Joe and we made a decision to sell our beautiful Florida house with all the bells and whistles, to quit our jobs and to take off for a few months, to not only explore our beautiful country around us, but to also strengthen our family and go back to the basics.  I have homeschooled our son, Gabe, for the last 5 years, what better life lesson could there be for a growing 13 yr old boy?  My husbands baby sister Tina decided to throw caution to the wind and join us.  I decided to start a blog of our journey across the United States and what we find along the way.  I hope you stop in and see how we are doing.  For better or for worse, till death do us part.  Which after 3 months in a 21 foot Toyota Camper, may be sooner than you think:)