Here it is! Overnights in red, significant stops in blue.

• Distance traveled: 25,007 miles
• Time on the road: 2 years, 15 days (minus 102 days in Winter ’17/’18, which we spent in our Maryland house prior to its sale).
• States visited: 35.  Missed N Dakota, Iowa, Indiana, W Virginia, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, all of New England, and Hawaii / Alaska.  It was never our goal to hit all 50 (or 48), but we did regret missing the Northeast, as it was a casualty of our unexpectedly late start.
• Time West of Rockies vs. Time East of Rockies: 89% / 11% Wow. I knew we had biased our travels to the West, but I didn’t realize it was so lopsided until working out this stat. A good bit of that had to do with opting for the second year and deliberately covering less ground. Much more of it, however, had to do with the expanded version of the feeling we got once we reached the mountains for the first time in August ’17. We’d been doing our best to give the rest of the country equal time in our where-do-we-settle mental space, yet somewhere in Wyoming or Montana or Colorado we looked at each other and said “what are we thinking??” We kept up the struggle to be unbiased, but at that point we “knew.”
• National Parks Visited: 20 (of 61)
• National Park Service Sites Visited: 60+. That’s a lot of Junior Ranger badges!
• Rivers Floated / Rafted: 5.  Snake, Meramec, Animas, Colorado (twice), Deschutes (twice). Wait, no. Make that 4. Didn’t quite do the Snake…
• Oceans swum in: 3.  Pacific, Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico. Stretching a bit… you have to count the Gulf as separate for this, and what we did in the Atlantic was more akin to wading.
• KOAs : 5
• Colorado River Crossings: 4
• Mississippi River Crossings: 3
• Car breakdowns requiring towing: 2
• Motorhome breakdowns requiring towing: 1 (though consensus afterwards was that it didn’t really need to be towed)
• Worst/most difficult driving weather: Strong, gusty crosswinds with rain on two occasions — in Texas and eastern Colorado. Crosswinds are brutal.
• Coldest overnight temperature: 26 in Pinnacles National Park
• Hottest temperature: Low 100s in Moab
• Most difficult road: NF-23 between Randle and Trout River in Washington. See ‘Penultimate.’ This was just dumb.
• Most difficult road, runners up: Highway 1 between Leggett and the Pacific Coast in CA, Highway 190 between Stovepipe Wells (Death Valley) and Panamint Springs in CA. The hot brake smell is unpleasant on multiple axes.
• Highest elevation (in motorhome): 12,183’
• Lowest elevation: -260’
• Amusement parks visited: 4 (Cedar Point, Magic Mountain, Disneyland, Legoland)
• Middle of the night vomit sessions: 3 tops. With three kids, that’s pretty extraordinary. And even more so, every time they managed to go outside first. More than I can say for adult party guests I hosted back in the squadron days.
• Gallons of gas burned:  I do not want to know
• Fast food eaten: none, unless Chipotle and Panera count.  Which they might.  Tried to eat at In-N-Out once but the kids wouldn’t let us.  True story.

If you’re really killing time, check out our Geographical / Chronological Archive above, or click here.

Obviously we get a lot of questions about what we did, and they tend to be variations on the same ones.  In lieu of a summary, I thought I might try to tackle some answers to them officially, as well as throw out some lessons we learned in the process.  Sorry, no pictures here. Actually, scratch that — here’s one of the kids on the day we left and one right near the end.

Whoa.

What was your favorite?  By far this is the most commonly asked question, and I can’t answer it.  I’m not sure any of us can.  Firebolt tends to say Zion, but she’s the only one who commits.  It’s sort of like asking what your favorite song or favorite movie is – it depends.  I can say that I am hard-pressed to come up with any place I really didn’t like (I’ll hit on that next), and that almost everywhere had some aspect of it I really enjoyed.  That sounds like a cop-out answer, but it’s as close to the truth as I can get – it’s difficult to explain.  

When I look back, there are brief scenes that I pick out as highlights, and many of those are tied to seeing one or all of the kids having significant experiences.  Here’s a few… ok maybe more than a few, that stand out:

• The total solar eclipse from the top of Grand Targhee
• Northern Michigan in general, though I think I liked the thumb area of the “mitten” better than the U.P.
• Watching Woodsprite teach herself to ride a bike in Traverse City
• Lake floating in Grand Teton
• Salmon fishing early in the morning with Keeper on the Oregon Coast
• Yellowstone hikes and family bike rides (the first family bike rides we’d ever done)
• Early morning beach agate hunting in northern CA
• Keeper sleeping out in his hammock at Patrick’s Point and Santa Barbara in CA
• The kids (Keeper in particular) conquering fear of boogie boarding
• Night swims and wave catching sessions in Southern CA
• Single Thread.  Twice.
• Rock scrambling with all three kids in Joshua Tree
• Seeing Zion for the first time in the Fall
• A wine-soaked Easter week with dear friends in Phoenix
• Dinner with the kids overlooking thunderstormy Lake Travis in Austin
• White sand, sand castles, and dolphins on the FL Gulf Coast
• Seeing Keeper reading Tom Sawyer while floating the Meramec in MO
• Watching the kids come alive on a hike through Rocky Mtn NP after complaining about hiking
• Just about everything in Moab (except the heat)
• Firebolt absolutely devouring books
• Seafair in Seattle X 2
• Watching all three kids learn to ski, and loving it. (Well, Woodsprite will at some point.  I know she will.)
• Keeper turning to me on a beach in CA and saying “I’m really happy right now — there’s so much to look forward to!”
• Keeper jumping from about a 30’ rock into the Colorado river after beating back his acrophobia
• Summiting Angel’s Landing with Firebolt
• Multiple visits with friends we hadn’t seen in years, and likely would’ve have otherwise
• Firebolt and Woodsprite developing their improv routines
• Comparing our beginning-of-the-journey kids to our end-of-the-journey kids

I petered out at the end there, but could’ve easily gone on – there were so many more.

What was your least favorite?  Another tough one.  If anything, it surprised me how much I enjoyed pretty much everywhere we went.  While there are places to which we won’t return, I can’t think of anywhere we stopped where I thought “I don’t like this place at all.”  The negative experiences, and they were few and far between, most often had to do with either the specific campground we chose or unrelated personal circumstances.  If I were pressed to pick a few, though, I’d say:

• Our overnight at a campground outside of Boise.  Unpleasant setting / weird experience with some other campers
• Mission Bay in San Diego.  Found out what type of campground we don’t like
• Houston didn’t do much for me.  I’ve heard it’s great, I just didn’t see the great, or even the good (and to be fair, we stayed on the outskirts)
• Lake Powell.  Love Lake Powell, but our stay there just didn’t click
• Stressing over the flashing check engine light, which was a factor to greater or lesser extents for just about our entire journey.
• Selling homes.  Tied us to internet / cell phone coverage, got way too personal, and stressed us out in general.  I could never be a house flipper.

How did you handle food / eating?  I think we did pretty well with this one.  It would’ve been easy to fall into some unhealthy patterns, and we managed to avoid that pitfall. I’d say 45% of our cooking was done outside on the grill, 45% in the Instant Pot (which burst onto the scene just in time for us, incidentally), and just 10% inside.  While the RV does have an oven, stove, and microwave, we discovered quickly that most indoor cooking was a non-starter due to there being no venting.  Even lightly toasting a slice of bread on a skillet got us a smoke alarm pretty reliably.  Prior planning was absolutely crucial due to minimal storage space, so we tended to do about a week of meal planning at a time.  Fortunately in the late 2010s fresh anything is pretty easy to find, and I’m slightly ashamed (but only slightly) at how much we depended on staples at established grocery stores, Trader Joe’s in particular, rather than more local options. 

We tried to limit eating out to no more than once a week or so, but did want to sample local cuisine as much as we could, so that made for a balance.  Ultimately the local eating thing didn’t turn out to be nearly as much a factor as I imagined it would have.  Sure, there was New Orleans Cajun and Texas BBQ and 5000 calorie bowls of soup in Charleston, but overall I was somewhat surprised to find food across the country to be less varied than I’d envisioned.

What did you bring that turned out to be crucial, and vice versa?  Important question, as we learned early on that we weren’t as much space-limited as we were weight-limited.  We rode the ragged edge of max gross vehicular weight (gas, water, and waste tank levels made a big difference here) the entire time, so thinking hard about what we wanted with us was imperative.  I mentioned the grill and Instant Pot.  Crucial.  Along with the grill was the adapter I researched and found that allowed me to tap the grill into our large propane tank rather than use portable bottles, which it was designed for.  This was key; I would not have liked the bottles.  Our Vitamix only lasted us a couple months before we dumped it off at my parents’ house – too big and heavy, rarely used.  Outdoor furniture, to include camp chairs, the outdoor mats, and the Clam (hexagonal tent/shelter) – crucial.  Our mindset was that we were living outside, with the motorhome being our bedroom.  That took the edge off of the close quarters.  The full set of camping gear we brought?  Meh.  I think we set up a tent and pulled out the sleeping bags once.  Just didn’t make sense to camp right next to your warm bed.  The tools were a mixed bag. Har har.  I brought a lot, and was glad we had them, even though the vast majority got no play at all.  The cordless drill and screwdriver bit / drill bit set, however, was what I reached for just about every time something needed fixing, which was often.  Hammocks – definitely.  Slack line set – great in theory, but we never set it up.  Soccer ball and frisbee – absolutely.  Lacrosse stick and baseball bat – nope.  Bikes and bike racks, yes!  We biked a good bit (though it tailed off at the end) and I wish we had biked more.  Books… this is a tough one.  We were home-schooling, so having books (and books are heavy) was unavoidable.  And we carried a lot of them.  But at any given time we were using / referring to maybe 10-20% of our books.  And it’s 2019 – any book can be read on a Kindle/iPad/phone/laptop.  This would be the main area I would trim weight were we to do it again.  Clothes we did ok with.  There was very little we brought but didn’t wear (though getting the kids to wear their hiking boots, even for hikes, was something we eventually gave up on), and I took far more pleasure in having only a few shorts/shirt/pants combinations to choose from than I thought I would.  Now that we’re back in a home with a full wardrobe (which itself isn’t that extensive – I’ve never been much of a clothes person), I want to throw 2/3 of it out.

How often did you boondock (i.e. camp outside of a campground), and how long could you do it at a time?  Almost never, regrettably.  Though opportunities for it were everywhere, particularly in the West, we found it tricky to just find a spot to pull over and set up.  Towing a vehicle complicated the situation as well.  Here’s how it would tend to work:  I’d have an idea of an area where we wanted to boondock.  We’d start driving down the small road in that area.  I’d see multiple dirt roads which led to what are likely sweet camping opportunities.  And then I’d think “hmm… if I turn down that road, will I be able to turn back around if there’s nothing there?  Will I get stuck in the mud or sand?  How far will I have to take it before I find a good place?”  Aaaaand I’d keep driving and eventually we’d end up at an RV park. 

Plus hookups, it turns out, are nice.  Running the generator for electricity isn’t that big a deal, but just plugging in turns out to be really convenient.  Same with water and sewer.  I never used the shower in the RV, but the girls did many times, and being able to turn on the water without it drawing from your tank as well as knowing it’s draining right out the bottom and into the park’s sewer tank, not our tiny on-board grey water tank – that’s nicer than I thought it would’ve been.  All that said, we found that about 5 days was our limit on camping without hookups, and the limiting factor tends to be the grey water tank, sometimes the black water tank.  That certainly has to do with the size of our family and the ages of our kids, but even when being meticulous about it, we’d see the tank level creep up to full at just about the 5 day point.  Two days if we weren’t paying attention. 

How was it using the onboard toilet?  I don’t know, I never did.  No, seriously, I didn’t.  I mean, sure, for the lesser business, but for the serious stuff I always used the campground toilets.  Two years using public toilets and public showers is a long time, now that I think of it. In fact it kind of blows my mind to consider.  Somehow it wasn’t a factor though.

What did you learn along the way, and what would you have done differently?  Big one – I’ll break it down.

• Planning took up much more of our time than I would’ve expected, but it was imperative.  First of all, weekends are still weekends for the rest of the world, even if they were meaningless to us, so if we didn’t have a campsite nailed down at least a month ahead for Friday and Saturday nights (several months for the popular places), we could expect to stay someplace second-tier, at best. Extend this concept out and you get the picture. We managed never to stay in a Wal-Mart or Cracker Barrel parking lot even though we were assured by many that that was an option. Had it been just Tacco and I that might have been a more attractive backup plan, but in our situation we were happier with established, well-researched temporary homes.

• Do not buy the extended warranty.  This is basic stuff, but somehow I let us get talked into it – the increase in the monthly payments seemed small, we were pretty giddy, yadda yadda, Sales 101.  Anyway, what happens is this – something needs fixed on the motorhome, you find a local dealer and tell them you’re under warranty, and they ask you if you bought the motorhome there.  If you’re us, you answer no unless you happen to be in Cincinnati.  They then tell you one of two things, either that they can’t help you at all or that they can get you in in early September maybe (and it’s May).  Ouch. Basically we had no warranty work done because we couldn’t schedule it.  It’s just about impossible unless you’re staying near where you bought the motorhome.  Everyone is “backed up for months.”  This is not as true of the chassis, i.e. the Ford part of the rig – the engine, drivetrain, etc — but even that is problematic as although there are Ford dealers everywhere, only a few are authorized to do warranty work and even fewer have the facilities to work on such a big vehicle.  Which leads to the corollary…

• Plan to do your own maintenance.  If you’re not handy, become handy, and get comfortable with finding what you need to do on YouTube, watching it done in videos, and then getting to work yourself.  Most of it is much easier than it seems once you get comfortable with taking things apart that you’re not used to messing with.

• This lifestyle doesn’t cost nearly as much as you’d think it would. I suppose that depends on what your entering assumptions are, but one of our primary ones was that this would be our home, not a temporary mobile one while we owned a house elsewhere. More detail on that here and several other places in the blog, but in general during pre-gaming we estimated the costs to be such that there’s no way we could afford to pay a mortgage while we traveled. Unfortunately that precise scenario became our reality for the vast majority of the trip. But what we discovered, to our great surprise, was that we were spending less money total on the road, even with still owning our Maryland house, than we had been spending when we just lived in Maryland! We didn’t skimp, either. Very few of the decisions we made on the road had cost as a deciding factor. Meaning we could have been far more frugal had we opted to. Ultimately though, you’re looking at lodging (to include the RV payment and insurance), gas, food, and entertainment. That’s essentially it, and that last category tends to take care of itself without extra expense if you choose your campsites well. Food for thought for the “I’d LOVE to do that sort of thing, BUT…” crowd hopefully.

• National Parks are great, but often not the best places to camp.  At least in an RV our size, they often make it tricky for you.  And I get it, I do – they’re National Parks, they’re trying to maintain a certain level of pristine.  I actually appreciate it.  But they rarely have hookups, they almost always have size limits, the RV campgrounds tend to be cramped, and there are a ton of regulations.  This tends to lead to a market-driven solution, i.e. several well-appointed private RV campgrounds nearby, just outside the park. These are often not a bad option.  Also, and I hesitate to say this, but National Parks tend to be off the grid, i.e. no cell coverage.  Which, yes, is of course one of the reasons people go to them.  And I’m all for that.  But…

• Off the Grid is tricky in 2019.  This pains me to write, but cell signal became far more important to us than I had ever guessed it would.  We got most of our internet from tethering off our phones.  I say “most” because the majority of RV campgrounds offer wi-fi.  On the other hand, the vast majority of that wi-fi sucks.  It’s reliably unusable.  So a good data plan with tethering was crucial, and we bumped up against its data limits every month.  We technically had an unlimited data plan, but like many, it kept track of how much data (both how much total and how much used via tethering) and heavily throttled us above a certain amount.  I struggle with this because in theory I’m “against” our general dependence on connectivity, and had grand notions of showing the kids the glories of life without it this trip.  In practice… well, it was a major pain to be without cell coverage, and in fact caused no small amount of stress. We kept discovering reasons why we needed to be reachable, and to be able to look things up, make online reservations, etc.  In fact at several points on the journey I arrived at a tentative conclusion that we could not have even attempted this sort of a trip without that sort of connectivity, particularly given my comings and goings for work.  And so we eventually stopped fighting it.  It’s saddening on some level that Woodsprite’s first question about a new campground became “will there be wi-fi there?”  But it was.  Submitted without further commentary.

• Beware Google Maps / Waze.  “The best route” is sometimes not really the best route when you’re lugging 50+ feet of high-inertia awkwardness.  ‘nuff said.

• Economic Prosperity (or Lack Thereof) in American Towns is Readily Apparent. We didn’t stay anywhere sketchy, for obvious reasons. But while places that are “doing well” seemed to be pretty similar to each other, all things considered, there are some shockingly run-down towns out there. On some level I knew this, as do most of us I think. But seeing some of them first hand, many in areas you wouldn’t necessarily expect, was eye-opening.

• Connecting is worthwhile.  One facet of the journey I had envisioned in the very early stages was a social aspect, in which we would meet several families doing the same thing we were, the kids would hit it off, and our paths would intersect at various points along the road.  We’d end up with a new group of friends with similar interests from around the country.  As I’ve noted in earlier posts, this did not happen at all.  We met lots of retirees.  Families though?  No.  There was one, and we met them just outside of Sequoia the day before we left.  The girls got in an hour or so of play time with their girls while we swapped travel stories with the parents, and that’s about as far as it went.  What I came to discover very late in the trip (but seems obvious now) is that there are several online means of facilitating exactly that.  In other words, we would’ve needed to make some effort to set up such experiences, not just wait for them to fall into our laps.  This strikes me as something that would’ve been useful.  Our situation was different than most, to be sure, but getting online and throwing out a “hey, we’re arriving at xx tomorrow and staying for a week, anyone around?” if and when we felt like being more social would have paid huge dividends for us and for the kids.

• If you’re not good at conflict resolution (or aren’t willing to become so), do not attempt.  I’d like to think this is something at which we’re decent after seventeen years of marriage, but close quarters like these focused everything and forced us to up our game.  We termed it “living in the Instant Pot” initially and after a while didn’t think about it much anymore, but there’s no denying the need to address and resolve conflicts quickly and efficiently was a constant.  Passive aggression, hanging onto grievances, taking your mood out on others, all of those things you aren’t supposed to do but can sorta get away with normally – those things do not fly when you’re in such close quarters.  It seems that not only did we get better at the “dealing with it” part, but we also got better at reading our own moods and recognizing when we needed an outlet, which the others learned not to question.  When Tacco wanted to head out for a walk or I wanted to jump on my bike, we recognized that in the other as the “steam release” on the Instant Pot, or maybe more accurately, the thing that prevented the steam release from needing to happen, and we always encouraged it.  Hopefully we were able to model constructive conflict resolution for the kids as well – I guess you never know until later… but we have both noticed that they seem to do it well with each other.

• Bigger is not better.  Our motorhome size was just about right.  To an extent we got lucky with that, as we didn’t know much when we bought it.  Due diligence, sure.  But it was our first motorhome, and we managed to nail a size and format that was just big enough to keep us mostly out of each other’s way when necessary, but small enough to keep the expense down and get us into some of the places we wanted to see.  Also, and related, try as we might we couldn’t figure out a way to do our journey without towing a car.  We considered every other option we could imagine and ultimately rejected them. Looking back, we were correct – the car was mandatory, and we’re glad it was big enough to fit us comfortably.  The only thing we would have done differently (see “Our Biggest Mistake”) would be to buy a newer, more reliable one. 

• Passivity Sucks. More of a vague thread running through everything than a “lesson learned,” but the gist is this: At various times I found myself easing off the throttle as it were, and expecting that positive lifestyle changes, extraordinary experiences — basically all the benefits that you would hope to glean from a journey like this — would fall into our laps by virtue of our just being there. Sometimes this worked. In general though, not the case. To be sure, nothing happens if you don’t show up, and our actual pulling of the trigger and getting underway was THE most important step. Yet inertia is relentless, and works both ways. Even in a lifestyle full of constant change and upheaval, it remained far too easy to fall into ruts. To sit and stare at a screen rather than go do something interesting, let alone something a little scary… I want to be clear, we did all right on this front. There’s a balance between go go push push go and slowing down to savor the moments, and I believe that we struck it somewhere in the healthy zone. But I noted, for me at least, that hope is indeed not a strategy and even living this far out of the box it remains important to make things happen rather than let them happen.

In summary, an extraordinary two years, and we were extremely fortunate.  Not only to have the opportunity and means to do such a thing, but for what didn’t happen along the way.  No one got hurt, no one was seriously sick, in fact other than a scant few stretches of the sniffles, there was hardly any illness at all.  I was the only one who needed to see a medical professional (for my sciatica).  No accidents, no equipment failures so serious they stopped us in any major way, and no unsavory interactions with strangers.  Maybe most importantly, we all got along and manage to still really dig each other.  In fact I’d say we’re much closer for it.  That was a fervent hope, but never a given.  Going forward, what I would be thrilled to discover is that we didn’t ruin the kids too badly for their return to conventional life and that they’re able to reap the fruits of the experience down the road.

Things that were supposed to happen:

• We’d be done with our travels at the one year point.
• We would be settling into our new house, in a location we had painstakingly chosen, by Summer 2018.
• Davista would be up for sale by Fall 2018.
• We would blog nightly, astutely capturing what living on the road with a family looks and feels like.

These things have not happened.

The first three have been pushed back by various periods of time, the last we adjusted our expectations about in an effort to nudge them toward reality.  The first three for what we fervently hope are excellent reasons, the last due to a combination of poor prioritization, the fact that we’re just playing at this writing thing, and no small measure of laziness.

Here is a map of our one-year progress.  Overnights in red, significant stops in purple. 

Plan Moon is in effect, which means we’ll be doing this for another year. As the traveling will slow down, I suspect that the blogging will too, though we’ll attempt to cover highlights, major developments, and general thoughts. I’m hoping to do some summation at the end as well, as we tend to get similar questions from folks, and we do have answers, or at least we’re getting them. We’ve learned a lot.

By the way, we’ve been asked, and yes, we do have a page with links to all of our old posts, sorted by time and geography. It’s up at the top menu, or here — Geographical / Chronological Archive

Are armadillos not a Texas thing?

I had thought so, prior to this trip, and fittingly enough, we saw our first (live) armadillo shuffling through the low brush outside of Austin.  “Armadillo, kids!”  “coooooool…”

We then left Texas and saw them in Louisiana, Florida (LOTS in Florida), Georgia, both Carolinas, Kentucky, and Missouri.  90% of the armadillos we saw were smashed on the side of the road (and here I should qualify — that should read “90% of the armadillos that *I* saw,” as I was doing the driving.  I’m not twisted enough to interrupt anyone else’s activities to point out roadkill.)  Never have I seen so much roadside carnage. And armadillos are especially gruesome as such.

The only conclusion I can come to is that they either like to hang out near roads and play chicken (badly), or that there are so incredibly many of them creeping around the South that it’s purely a numbers game that you’re going to see a few dozen flattened on the highway during any given drive.  That’s a little disconcerting.

OK, carry on.

In Naval Aviation, Safety Standdowns are periodic events that are put together to help aviators optimize safety awareness while in flight and on the deck.  The Safety Standdown is a day where all aircraft remain on the deck and the entire squadron gathers together to hear or provide safety-related discussions on a wide range of topics (e.g. having a state trooper relate the importance of wearing seatbelts (I can attest to that!), an aerospace physiologist share the latest research on the systemic impact of sleep deprivation, etc.).

While all hands were usually happy to have a breather from the flight schedule, the day served to remind everyone that aviation is inherently dangerous and one must remain ever vigilant against complacency.  Invariably when one gets complacent checklist items are skipped, corners are cut, and mishaps can easily follow.  It is important to note that these day-long events were scheduled periodically, most often at times where complacency might be higher than usual.  Typically a Safety Standdown would occur half-way through deployment where many start to think, “We’ve got this…” as they switch to autopilot and become less mindful about operations.  Another optimal time was just before redeploying home when many minds have already shifted to reuniting with family members after the long separation and may be suffering from “Get-home-itis, ” where potential safety red flags might be ignored to avoid delaying homecoming.  And, of course, a Safety Standdown is an expected evolution following any mishap, be it crunching metal or injuring personnel.

As our current travels resemble a deployment more so than not (and I’ve already touched on the value of checklists), I had already noticed that in resuming our travels this phase we were maybe a little looser in following SOP than our prior journey. For example, the grey water drain valve had been left open following tank dumping procedures, which is no big deal really as it just meant Flight got his shoes washed with some soapy water while getting hooked up at our next campsite.  We had also missed setting a cotter pin on one side of our Blue Ox tow bar contraption, which meant that by the time we arrived at our next campsite one of the two larger pins that directly connect the Subaru to the Blue Ox tow bar had not been locked in place and had wriggled half-way free in transit.  Although our tow bar has safety cables in the event of such a mechanical disconnect, I’d prefer not to see them engaged.  You’d think that two seasoned naval aviators would take these signs of complacency for what they were and immediately debrief the possible consequences of departing from checklists, but we were too wrapped up in our deployment experience to make that a priority.  Shame on us.  Instead, our Safety Standdown was triggered by a mishap.

We departed Charleston at a most civilized hour entirely delighted by our introduction to this lovely city and meandered northwest to Asheville, NC.  After a stop at Congaree National Park (I’ll get to that shortly), we arrived at the Lake Powhatan Recreation Area & Campground and registered to get our lovely spot nestled in the trees.  Even if a spot is “drive through,” we tend to disconnect the Subaru and park it out of the way so I can help Flight maneuver Davista into the ideal location (depending on layout, water and electrical hook-up locations, view, obstructing branches, etc.) within our assigned spot.  Our Carpinteria episode taught us well.

Although the details of who discovered our blunder and when are open to interpretation, the upshot is that when either Flight or I opened the door to collect the hardware box used to store the Blue Ox tow bar connection gear and set the parking brake (that became SOP when we had forgotten to do so once early in our travels on a not so level road – yikes!), it was more than a little surprisingly to find it was already engaged.  My brain slowly leapt beyond the mildly befuddled observation “Well, that’s not supposed to be like that” to meet Flight’s “Holy crap.  How long has that been on?! “ to “Shoot – We likely no longer have a functioning Toad.”  !!!  I then cycled through today’s activities to try to pinpoint how we might have managed such an oversight.

Let me back up. Before departing Charleston, we had discussed making a stop at Congaree National Park, because it was so darn close to our intended path.  It was another opportunity to learn about the biodiversity of a pocket of our country we’d not yet seen and probably wouldn’t ever if we didn’t stop now.  Although it wasn’t as last minute an addition to our itinerary as the two stops I had suggested (insisted on?) from Tampa to Savannah, the conversation that followed that extended travel day was fresh in my mind, which meant I was keen to minimize the time of our layover at Congaree.  I guess you could say I was sporting my own variety of “Get-on-the-road-to-our-next-home-itis.”

Upon our arrival at Congaree, we noted that all the spots in the oversized parking lot big enough to accommodate our crazy 51’ road show were taken up by NPS vehicles far shorter than ours.  Dang it.  To fit in the remaining longer than normal spots without blocking traffic entirely, we had to disconnect the Subaru and take up two spots with our vehicles. Fortunately, Congaree was hardly slammed on this Tuesday afternoon and taking up an additional oversized spot with our regularly sized Subaru was entirely forgivable.

This particular National Park is an interesting mix of swamp, old growth bottomland hardwood forest, and more swamp.  While the Visitor Center boasts some great information about the native population and the push to preserve Congaree’s biodiversity, I was ever aware of our time on the road ahead of us and did my best to make our stop most expeditious.

When we collected Junior Ranger books (a theme, you might note), there was not a Ranger in site. Several volunteers were at the desk, but they were not official NPS Rangers.  We learned there was a proscribed burn underway (used to cull the dead undergrowth and help the forest rejuvenate), which is an all Ranger hands on deck evolution and closed off a good portion of the main boardwalk hike through Congaree. Led by our complaining bellies, we returned to Davista to have a sandwich lunch while we sorted out what the girls needed to do and how much of the requisite hike was possible/necessary to complete their requirements before we could be away.

Hunger assuaged, we walked a mile along the boardwalk out to a short overlook peeking over a small, not particularly clean-looking, lake where we saw several turtles frolicking.

Along our boardwalk trek, we also saw some unique creatures, or evidence thereof.  I saw these houses (?) and had no idea what to make of them. I took this picture specifically to show the folks at the Visitor Center to ask what they were.

The answer?  Crawfish chimneys.  Apparently crawfish build these towers and turn circles about in their mud structures to create a center hole vent to increase the oxygenation of the water in their homes.  Pretty savvy, those crawdads.  We also saw several blue-tailed skinks running about the forest.

Running nowhere were the endless ranks of baldcypress knees, whose true purpose has yet to be identified.

The baldcypress is a cousin to the magnificent redwood and enormous sequoia trees whose acquaintance we made last fall as we meandered through California.  Unique to these southeastern swamp dwellers, are flared out trunks serving to offer stability in the ever-changing water levels.  These buttressed stems provide the strength to resist additional stresses without a deep root system, which might actually suffocate the tree in the low-oxygen environment of a typically waterlogged swamp.  Early botanists thought the knees provided a means of additional oxygen exchange by elevating the roots above the standing water, I thought this one looked like a faerie house.

That theory has since been disproven, so their true purpose remains one of the great mysteries of life.  Perhaps such existential rumination is what distracted me when we departed Congaree.

After the girls were sworn in for their 20^thJunior Ranger badges, we hightailed it to Davista and rapidly made ready for driving into the seasoned (meaning worn smoother by time than the newer more jagged ranges out west) mountains of North Carolina.  A quick refresher on the checklist for readers would be a good idea.

The Hitching Up the Toad checklist to date looked a little something like this:

• Unlock Blue Ox Tow Bar from locked position (locked “up” so it doesn’t drag)
• Reposition Blue Ox Tow Bar into Y in preparation for hook-up
• Maneuver Toad into position (or Davista if doing so solo – says Flight ??!?!!)
• Toad parking brake – set
• Keys in ignition, set to detent position 1 to enable lights mimicking Davista’s
• Grab plastic box holding connection hardware from Toad
• Pin Blue Ox tow bar into left and right sides of Toad connection points
• Set cotter pins left and right (to lock connection pins)
• Connect dead-man’s switch (in case both the tow bar and the cables fail, engaging Subaru’s brakes should she run tether-free)
• Connect safety tow cables beneath tow bars
• Connect red electrical cable above tow bars
• Return plastic box holding connection hardware to Toad passenger seat
• Gear shift in neutral
• Disengage the Subaru parking brake

All good, right?

In principle, yes, yet we neglected to identify who was responsible for executing the final steps.  I had assumed that Flight was checking the settings for the key in the ignition and verifying the parking brake was off and the engine was not in gear. Flight was under the assumption I was setting the key, disengaging the parking brake, ensuring the stick shift was out of gear and he would verify (position one, parking brake off, gear shift neutral).

And so we exemplified the saying “When you assume, it makes an ass out of you and me…” or at least it will burn out your Toad’s braking system.

Somehow, in our collective oversight, we missed that last step and dragged the Subaru behind us for 180+ miles with the parking brake engaged.  Oops.  The mechanic who outfitted us with new brakes informed us the old ones had gotten white hot during our travels from Congaree.  Flight and I realized that we have gotten off rather light by only having to purchase new brakes. The Toad could easily have burst into flames, but didn’t.  If we had lost our Toad, our journey would have come to a screeching halt.  As Flight is fond of saying, although averted for now, we could certainly see disaster from here.  Fortunately, it looked much less ominous through a pint of Sierra Nevada, and we settled into our Asheville time, our wallets a little lighter, but with brakes shiny and new.

As I learned at the Jean Lafitte NHP, here’s just a little something extra to add on our last full day all together in New Orleans…

After knocking out a full day of studies, we picked Flight up at the airport in the early afternoon and headed back into The French Quarter.  Since we enjoyed lunch before coming to collect him, I suggested he grab a quick bite at the airport as we were en route.  From the airport we headed straight to the French Quarter. After a quick debrief precipitated by Flight throwing out a few suggestions and my replying “Oh, we did that yesterday…” we parked the car and, not sure of where to start, wandered over to check out the docked Steamboat Natchez, which was about to get underway. For a three-hour tour.

Kidding, it was only two.

And it was the perfect opportunity to relax, see the French Quarter from a distance, learn a bit about the mechanics of a steamboat, get some traditional beans and rice, hear some jazz (the girls couldn’t help but dance), and sort out what we were going to do before we departed for Pensacola, which I hadn’t quite realized (and wouldn’t for about another day) was in less than 40 hours.

I had done some research and learned that NOLA would be celebrating her 300-year anniversary, complete with a floating museum of tall-ships coming into port that evening.

Although it would have been great to get over to see the tall-ships in person, it was enough to see a couple of them at anchor from the steamboat’s shifting vantage point.  Observing the city gearing up for celebration, my inner 22-year old wanted to take in NOLA in full party finery, but my mama bear instinct realized that was probably unwise.

We did manage to introduce our kids to the art of eating beignets.  I have very distinct memories of several all out powdered sugar fights at Café du Monde that I may or may not have started been drawn into and thought we should go easy on the kids.  The carnage wasn’t too bad.

Flight and I ordered together, as we often do, when we enjoyed an early dinner at the New Orleans Creole Cookery (= “city food” with tomatoes).

I stuck with the standard fare and got another sampling dish and Flight ordered oysters, it was the perfect taste of NOLA.  As sunset is about the right time for kids to move out of the French Quarter, we repaired to Davista to pack up for relocation to the heart of the Vieux Carré following school in the morning.

As the kids were finishing up school, Flight and I walked about the campsite to check out the gator traps cabins perched above gator lairs.

All I could think imagine was having one of those enormous reptiles waddle up the plank to snack on the nicely contained morsels sleeping within.  I’m good with the nice half-mile buffer to the campground, thank you.

We were slow to leave our last location having had plenty of The French Quarter for the last few days, but somehow I didn’t equate time spent at our Bayou Segnette spot as time taken away from our last hurrah in the New Orleans.  In retrospect, that should have been obvious, but, much to Flight’s occasional exasperation, I never really have had a solid grasp on the passing of time.

Our new address was smack dab in the middle of the French Quarter, one that was safe enough to walk to and from, in the daylight, anyway, “but you should plan to Uber at night” according to the campground host. parked right next to a cemetery.  For those of you who are not familiar, the water table is pretty close to ground level, which means that any serious rain would transform traditional graves into the last scenes of Poltergeist.  It was a little eerie to look out our bedroom window and see an expanse of nothing but crypts and mausoleums.  I should have taken a picture, but, regretfully, didn’t think to do so.

We finally sauntered into town just shy of 3 pm and zipped right by Bourbon St for obvious reasons. Now that I had backup, I told Flight I wanted to catch the Historical Pharmacy Museum and was able to pop in almost free of children.  Almost.

WoodSprite assured me she was just as keen as I to learn about making Absinthe and ghastly versions of rhinoplasty used to restore functional noses to those stricken with advanced syphilis, so she joined me on my pilgrimage to honor ancient medicine.

Yikes.

Fear not, those pictures were in glass cases that required at least a five-foot vantage point, so WoodSprite departed that establishment without those dreamy images to fill her head.  Actually, there was quite a bit to this little museum and I would love to go back for a longer visit without the added, “Hey, Momma, how much longer?” interruptions.  Next time.

We rejoined Flight and the older two in Jackson Square and we turned towards the French Market in search of trinkets and an early dinner.  As Flight mentioned, the market was quite an experience for Keeper, but we departed only with two name bracelets made for the girls and, sadly, sans fedora.

Dinner, however, was surprisingly good. Flight got his boudin fix and the only other open offering was a crèperie, which fed the other four of our herd.

As they were sweeping up around us, we mobilized to show the kids more of the Vieux Carré.  After getting shut out at Pat O’Brien’s on our way to the French Market (What do you mean we can’t bring our kids into a bar to get hurricanes?), we thought we’d take in some serious jazz and sauntered over to Preservation Hall only to find those in the 90-minute line straining to hear a preview of their evening’s entertainment.

Flight and I realized that probably wouldn’t do and, unsuccessfully, sought out the next slice of NOLA to share.   Flight and I came to the same “What exactly are we trying to accomplish here?” moment simultaneously and steered our gaggle back to Davista, a little baffled at our belated disillusionment.

While the monkeys immersed themselves in digital worlds, Flight and I grabbed some adult beverages and slipped outside to debrief our New Orleans time in the fading sunlight. Due to our inability to communicate and hash out our respective ideal plans prior to executing Operation Big Easy, we came to the conclusion that there were plenty of things outside the French Quarter we would could should have done to truly experience living in the bayou. Recognizing the Woulda Coulda Shoulda Game is never a productive undertaking, our two take aways were this: ultimately we did a reasonable job of exposing the kids to the PG version of our NOLA memory playlist, hopefully piquing curiosity for further exploration much, MUCH later down the road and, as always, solid communication remains paramount in every successful campaign.  May we keep every mindful of this debrief and practice our lessons learned.

But first, anyone for a Diesel Fuel at Flounder’s?

“How long have you been on the road?” is actually a tricky question to answer.  We started on July 30th of 2017, so by that measure we’re pushing nine months.  But we took the three winter months “off” back in Maryland, so those sort of don’t count.  On the other hand, we weren’t planning to stay on the road all winter to begin with (original plan had us doing a snow/ski month somewhere and maybe a month in Europe), so maybe they do count?  Regardless, we’ve now been BACK on the road for just over a month, and wanted to show our progress.  Anything in green is still just notional, though even more so after Atlanta, as we have reservations up to that point.

The house is still for sale, and we’re over it.  Despite several price reductions and many thousands of dollars (and hours!) in improvements and work, the input we’re getting hasn’t changed much, and we’ve had no reasonable offers.  For those of you who live in truly hot housing markets and who are or have been on the selling side of the equation, consider yourselves fortunate — this is stressful.

On the positive side, we do seem to have a destination now about which we’re all very excited, and we are fully assimilated to life on the road.  It no longer feels like living in the Instant Pot!  Most of the time at least.

New Orleans brings to mind two very distinct collections of memories.  The first dates from the few times I made it over to the Big Easy from Pensacola while in training to become a naval aviator over twenty years ago. The second from my three weeks in Officer Recruiting Officer training that was held at the Navy’s Belle Chasse Department of Redundancy Department a mere 15 years ago.  Most noteworthy is that both memory-gathering eras were before kids.  Much of what little I knew of New Orleans was through the eyes of a much younger person unfettered by the joys of parenting, which meant I didn’t plan this visit accordingly.  This sign kinda summed up my previous vision.

And somehow I didn’t know to recognize that disconnect until we pulled chocks and rolled on to Pensacola.  Sigh…

New Orleans is a vibrant town whose reputation I understood to center on its laissez faire attitude.  Although the city itself is a beautiful compilation of the varied influences of the many different people who have called this area home, I think it is the shifting identity of “creole” that is the basis of this attitude.  I’ll get to what it is to be creole shortly, but first, a few highlights of what was in my greatest hits memory playlist to share with our kids.  The French Quarter topped the list for sure, as that’s where we’d find the perfect mix of all that NOLA is known for – a little Jazz, a hurricane or two, beignets at Café du Monde, street musicians.  What kid wouldn’t want to be exposed to that?

Right?

Right.

Hmm.  Not unlike Las Vegas, there is a wide range of how one might experience New Orleans, all of which you can’t unsee, and so the plan evolved into how best to do so without scarring our kids unnecessarily.  Looking back, we had planned our time in Texas quite well, meaning Flight and I discussed very specifically what we were cleared to do while the other was out of town, saving things we both wanted to enjoy as our flight of five for when we were all together again.  Not only did we neglect to have that critical conversation before we moved Davista into the city, only steps away from the French Quarter the night before we moved on to Pensacola, but our individual ill-conceived visions for sharing the past with our kids were strikingly similar, which meant we perhaps overdid the French Quarter and didn’t see much of everything else. Shame on us.

So, let me back up our arrival and Flight’s departure for his work trip.  When we departed Houston and blew by the road to Galveston, I was astonished to learn the combined Houston/Galveston metropolitan area boasts the fourth highest population in the U.S.  !!! It would not be my preference to plant my flag in the line of annual hurricane wreckage, but apparently a lot of people do.

As Flight was at Davista’s controls, the flight path to New Orleans was his to choose.  We mostly hugged the shoreline, and my meteorological assessment of this neck of the Gulf Coast proved spot on as we wound our way through small town after small town with all buildings of consequence on stilts.

I had previously seen houses in flood zones so perched, but was surprised to see a high school campus on stilts.

At last we arrived at the Bayou Segnette State Park.  I initially had some reservations about this location, but our site proved a lovely little corner from which we could strike in any direction.  A bonus was seeing whatever flora and fauna was out and about as we strolled along the raised boardwalk to get to and from the bathhouse. We saw an abundance of turtles, ripe mulberries (which Flight and I each sampled whenever passed through, much to the dismay of Keeper and Firebolt (WoodSprite actually tried one but decided they weren’t her favorite) whose anxiety was not eased as we repeated nearly verbatim our SERE training on berries), and thankfully only one snake.

Shortly after our arrival, we managed an early dinner, some chalk artwork, and rolled to the airport.

 

We dropped Flight off on Sunday evening and had to fend for ourselves until we collected him three days later.  The following morning, after many hours of strong work devoted to dawdling school, I saw the wisdom of staying put for the afternoon to regroup before we headed to the French Quarter.  I made the opportunity to review the two National Park Service sites that are only blocks away from each other and tentatively put them on the calendar to check out on different days.

Despite their proximity, there was a night and day difference between the two National Park institutions.  The Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve is a conglomeration of six sites and headquartered on Decatur St, one of the main drags through the French Quarter. There was also a daily Ranger presentation scheduled every morning at 0930.  Typically we will try to knock out academic business in the morning, sometimes modified sometimes not, before we use the afternoons to explore the local environs.  Primarily based on the scheduled Ranger talk I thought we should hear, we made the whole day a field trip day and headed into New Orleans proper at a most unreasonable hour.

Most fortuitously, and likely due to the early hour, we readily found parking and made it to the Visitor Center with four minutes to spare.

After a brief introduction on the title of the collection of NPS sites falling under the Jean Lafitte NHP (“I have a hard time with this site being named for a notorious pirate…”), the Ranger gave a solid history on the development of New Orleans and all the flags that have flown above her constantly shifting boundaries.  What I hadn’t realized is that in the wake of LaSalle’s exploration of the Mississippi, the travel route from what is now Quebec to La Louisiane (named for then King Louis XIV) opened up, further compounding the influence of far reaching empires.  In fact, a large part of what now makes up the local Cajun population is rooted in Acadian transplants (les Acadiens became the truncated “Cajun”) who, after being forcibly removed from their homes, traveled down the river from NE Canada. WoodSprite’s greatest take away from the talk was “Don’t treat people who work for you bad or they might kill you.” Apparently, LaSalle was notoriously unpleasant to his crew and, after several failed ventures (we’re talking on the scale of sunken ships and being shipwrecked 500 miles away from the intended destination), his minions mutinied and killed him.  Zoinks!

After the Ranger’s presentation, we collected the Junior Ranger books and the girls got to work. Overall, this was the most depressing NPS Visitor Center we have visited.  The Junior Ranger books were sloppy copies and many of the audio exhibits for listening to variations in local dialects and juxtaposing different music styles that have their roots in New Orleans, which I certainly would have enjoyed hearing, were out of service.

Even the Ranger who administered the oath to the girls looked as though she had just come straight out of a week in the field at the Barataria Preserve. On a positive note, we still learned a ton about both the Creole and Cajun cultures.

I had always understood “Creole” to be the nebulous descriptor for anyone who called the bayou country home. Not so.  The term Creole has gone through several iterations in its meaning over the years.  With its roots in South America, the term originally meant “native-born,” and was used as a means of identifying the native population from European transplants. Creole then morphed to include children of mixed racial descent and/or those who have French or Spanish blood. The best description of current usage I found comes from Louisiana historian Fred B. Kniffin, in Louisiana: Its Land and People, who stated Creole “has been loosely extended to include people of mixed blood, a dialect of French, a breed of ponies, a distinctive way of cooking, a type of house, and many other things. It is therefore no precise term and should not be defined as such.”  Well, that clears things up.

Despite having no more solid a grasp on what it means to be Creole, my inner foodie was excited to see there was a discussion of the difference between Creole and Cajun cuisine.   In the loosest terms, the former tends to refer to “city food” and the latter to “back country” eats, however those terms are becoming interchangeable in the mainstream culinary circles.  Or so I read at the Visitor Center.  I have since learned that one of the prime discriminators between the two may be tomatoes, as Creole cooking uses them and Cajun does not, but not even that is a strict definition.  The two styles of cooking reflect the unique identities of the people who have added to them over the years.  The resourceful Cajun practice of using every bit of an animal and layering seasoning throughout its creation is very different from the Creole cuisine that developed more wide-ranging flavors steeped in the aristocratic tradition of having access to more exotic ingredients.  I thoroughly enjoy both styles and was delighted to sample some of each, which brings me to our next unplanned evolution.

Our Junior Rangers were sworn in at 11:30ish and the Ranger encouraged us to make our way to the New Orleans Jazz NHP to catch the free jazz concert at noon.  There would be another concert down the street at 2 pm featuring a band of Rangers who were all Jazz Musicians.  After contemplating what kind of a threshold our children had for National Park venues as the lunch hour was nearly upon us, I proposed this compromise: let’s go pick up the new Junior Rangers books, listen to some of the concert and then get some lunch.  The kids were game so we trundled off to other NPS site, collected new activity books that were no more challenging, and sat down to hear some Jazz.  Much of this light, airy Visitor Center was taken up by a small performance hall with a goal of telling the story of this very important part of New Orleans history through experiencing the music.

Now I will admit I came to this session entirely uneducated in the mechanics of jazz save knowing there’s a lot of improvisation that goes on throughout sets, which usually starts with blending the sounds of all the musicians first, working through solo opportunities for each instrument, and then coming together again in a finale of sorts.  I knew nothing of jazz piano, except that my uncle loves to play Dixieland jazz and I’ve only had the opportunity to hear him once or twice.

We were fortunate to have Richard Scott (see above photo) as our high noon solo entertainer.  He spoke about the birth and evolution of Jazz and infamous piano player Jelly Roll Morton’s, well, role in that changing musical discipline, all the while playing examples of what he had just discussed.  He gave a fantastic description of playing “Stride” jazz, where a piano player takes on the role of three different musicians to play a melody, a base line, and the in between harmony.  Because a pianist is usually limited to two hands, the base hand walks or strides between the base keys and those hammering out the harmony.  I have to say it was far more impressive to hear him play and improvise knowing a little more about all that goes into such a production.  You can learn more about the New Orleans Jazz NHP here.

Exhibiting uncharacteristic patience, our kids did brilliantly with this experience.  I knew to cut our time short than overstay their threshold for learning and have them give in to mounting sass driven by gnawing bellies. We quietly excused ourselves and meandered down to the Royal House Oyster Bar where all the kids all tried fried alligator.

 

While the girls are still eager to rely on the familiar offerings of kids’ menus, Keeper is quite pleased to order from the regular offerings.  He surprised all of us, especially our waiter, by ordering the blackened redfish, which was delicious.  I enjoyed sampling his meal more than my Taste of New Orleans that featured jambalaya, crawfish etouffée, and gumbo.

While we were awaiting our meals, the girls finished up their NO Jazz Junior Ranger workbooks and after dining we popped back over to have their work evaluated to earn their newest badges.

We took a rather serpentine route through the French Quarter to find our car and I realized there were so many places I wanted to further investigate, but that likely wouldn’t happen on this trip.  Although, really, how scary might some voodoo stuff be especially for the 8 and under crowd?  Exactly.

I knew Flight wanted to introduce our kids to beignets and so avoided Café du Monde.  Instead we sampled some other New Orleans goodies and passed through the French Market at a steady clip.  On our way we found pralines for all my friends.  Happily double-badged and sweet-tooth pacified, our girls were delighted to call our French Quarter experience good.  Keeper, however, started feeling nauseous on the way back to Davista.  His system was overwhelmed by the rich food combined with the sugar hit.  Poor guy.

As always, I was thrilled we’d be collecting Flight the following morning.  In general, and as one might expect, this journey is so much easier with my life’s partner present, but keeping track of our gaggle together through the French Quarter was especially stressful and I was relieved we’d be returning to the 2-on-3 zone defense.  After a quick Instant Pot dinner (for everyone but Keeper, still woozy he abstained), I sorted out the kids’ respective school agendas for the morning and didn’t think much beyond what time we had to depart for the airport before crashing out.  My last coherent thoughts were vaguely centered on wondering what we’d do tomorrow with Flight as we’d covered a lot of Vieux Carré ground already today…

More on that in the next post…