Hope You Find What You’re Looking For

It was thirteen years ago when we first “hit the road in a motorhome”. We didn’t really know what we were in search of then, we just knew there had to be a better place to raise our baby, than stuck in this daily grind, in this large city of Metropolitan Phoenix. We kind of figured we’d just hit the road in search of that perfect place to settle down…..maybe. There was a lot of fear on my part going into it, we had never heard of or known anyone to do something like this before, and the internet wasn’t like it is now where you can find hundreds of families “living on the road”. Honestly, I was just going along with Joey’s crazy idea. That was until our first night in our new home on wheels, parked beside a lake… under the stars. This was an awakening….a whole new way of life for us. A world I never knew existed.

This vagabond life has worked well for us all these years. We’ve had big dreams for our family, like traveling Australia by RV for six months, backpacking Europe, and even moving to Hawaii. We can check off moving to Hawaii now. But one far off dream that we’ve always had was living on a sailboat and cruising the World. We used to talk about how great our life was going to be once all the kids could swim. That would mean to us that they’re at an age where they’re not babies anymore, and are a little more independent,  and well, what the heck….if they fall off a boat their chances of surviving are are a little better.

We completely put that dream aside though, and I, yes, I admit it, I begrudgingly moved to Hawaii to live in a stick and mortar home. I did it because I knew if I had to live in a house, at least it was on an island. It was what Joey felt he needed to do for our family….. and I knew it would be a good thing, too. I remember when we first moved here someone left a comment saying “hope you find what you’re looking for” and it’s stuck with me. I’ve never felt like I was looking for something. I feel like I’ve always gone with the flow, but now I think that comment plays over in my head because we were searching. I knew it wasn’t a house we needed, it was just to be near the water. It’s to be in the sun, the sand, and the surf…….. That’s all we’ve ever needed. We just didn’t know how to go about making it happen.

Then last month we were walking around the harbor in Waikiki and a dream was reborn.

  I think we’ve found our next RV park

We brought up the idea of buying a sailboat instead of land to the kids and they were one hundred percent on board. Didn’t even have to pry them away from the XBox to go boat shopping! Of course the boat they want is this huge ship they’ve dubbed The Pirate Ship.                                                                                         We’re looking at something a little more affordable practical. We came sooo close to sealing a deal on this sailboat below, but ultimately decided against it. We were initially just thinking cheap and quick, but the more we learn, and keep finding out, about sailboats and cruising, the more decisions we have to make. I’m proud of us for not jumping on this, like we normally would have.                                                           

We may not know anything about sailing, but we know a lot about living in a motorhome, and a liveaboard boat is just a motorhome on water, so we’ve already won the first challenge.

And as far as what we’re searching for……I don’t think it’s anything, yet it’s everything. We simply can’t be content with just one thing…….. when there’s a huge world out there with so much to offer. It’s just every now and then a traveller needs to stop for a minute and regroup, and I see now that’s all we were doing every time we thought we needed to settle down. Life is forever evolving, and our goals and plans should be, too…..and that’s all those breaks were about, we just didn’t know it at the time. We just needed to keep evolving ourselves, but that’s hard to do when old voices in your head tell you you’re supposed to have a house, get a job with a company with benefits and stay until you retire, and THEN you get to go live your life. If we hit a hiccup in the road, that old recorder plays over and over, but I think we mayhave finally broken that record player now! ……….So bring on our next adventure!!

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 Gypsy ………..defined as "persons of nomadic habit of life, whatever their race or origin, but does not include members of an organised group of travelling showmen, or persons engaged in travelling circuses, travelling together as such."

Hibernating Bus Passengers

We have come as close to hibernating as humans can. I can't say I don't like it, either. Since I last blogged, all five passengers became ill. Right after I bragged up how *healthy we all are, so don't worry about us catching what you've got*. Jonas came down with it first, then we all quickly followed. It was a respratory flu, or maybe just a chest cold, I don't know, but we're all better now. Of course Joey was convinced there was hidden mold in the bus and we were all slowly dying.

We took another week to fully recover, or some could call it an excuse to watch every reality show currently being aired, and took the time to consider our options. What are we doing? Where are we going? Why are we here in -10 degree temperatures when Kimberly is in shorts in Florida? Where is our next paycheck coming from?

We even came up with some answers. We're here because we really like it, and it's a bonus that there just so happens to be a major gas boom going on in these hills. There's enough work here to last fifteen years, and we've got a nice RV spot that we don't want to lose. The problem is I wanna travel, really we all do, I'm just the only one that whines about it. So we're talking about getting a fifth wheel or travel trailer, with a bedroom for the kids, so we can then park the bus and use it as our travel camper. The RV spot we have is big enough to have an actual yard, complete with deck, trampoline and portable spa(wishful thinking). I didn't enjoy traveling by car and sleeping in hotel rooms and guest rooms, so having the bus readily available to just hop in and go will make it much easier, and more likely. And, Joey will be able to stretch a little farther in something with slides. Win. Win.

For me this is kinda settling down, even though it's in an RV Park, we would be parking with the intent of it lasting a few years. Last time we tried to settle down by buying a house in small town America, with no decent work in sight. We did our traveling to, during, and from the job. What a novel concept to actually *settle down* near work. What a brilliant idea.

We're going to California end of February to watch our nephew take off for Iraq, then hopefully on to an unschooling conference in Arizona. Oh, and Joey still wants a boat by May.

He went back to work today.

Hibernating Bus Passengers

We have come as close to hibernating as humans can. I can't say I don't like it, either. Since I last blogged, all five passengers became ill. Right after I bragged up how *healthy we all are, so don't worry about us catching what you've got*. Jonas came down with it first, then we all quickly followed. It was a respratory flu, or maybe just a chest cold, I don't know, but we're all better now. Of course Joey was convinced there was hidden mold in the bus and we were all slowly dying.

We took another week to fully recover, or some could call it an excuse to watch every reality show currently being aired, and took the time to consider our options. What are we doing? Where are we going? Why are we here in -10 degree temperatures when Kimberly is in shorts in Florida? Where is our next paycheck coming from?

We even came up with some answers. We're here because we really like it, and it's a bonus that there just so happens to be a major gas boom going on in these hills. There's enough work here to last fifteen years, and we've got a nice RV spot that we don't want to lose. The problem is I wanna travel, really we all do, I'm just the only one that whines about it. So we're talking about getting a fifth wheel or travel trailer, with a bedroom for the kids, so we can then park the bus and use it as our travel camper. The RV spot we have is big enough to have an actual yard, complete with deck, trampoline and portable spa(wishful thinking). I didn't enjoy traveling by car and sleeping in hotel rooms and guest rooms, so having the bus readily available to just hop in and go will make it much easier, and more likely. And, Joey will be able to stretch a little farther in something with slides. Win. Win.

For me this is kinda settling down, even though it's in an RV Park, we would be parking with the intent of it lasting a few years. Last time we tried to settle down by buying a house in small town America, with no decent work in sight. We did our traveling to, during, and from the job. What a novel concept to actually *settle down* near work. What a brilliant idea.

We're going to California end of February to watch our nephew take off for Iraq, then hopefully on to an unschooling conference in Arizona. Oh, and Joey still wants a boat by May.

He went back to work today.

When we were heading to Wyoming to see Johnny we said we WERE NOT spending the night. We were going to visit for a few hours and head home, hopefully getting there around 3am. Instead we spent the night in their 35 ft. motorhome that already housed four people. Their boys hugged eachother's feet on the dinette bed, while Jake slept curled up in the driver's seat, Jonas on the floor, Jewel on another seat, and Joey and I took the fold out couch. And we slept good! We ended up hanging around all morning, watching Jewel play on the playground with other girls, until John got home from work. Shortly after we headed out and on our way back to the bus. Our five day quick trip to Texas and back turned into a fourteen day cross country trip that we weren't fully prepared for, so we couldn't wait to get back and sleep in our beds.

Now that we have the new welder, Joey needs to go back to work. We decide to stay where we are......until we wake up again. Then we want to go ahead and go with the WA/OR job. We prepped the bus to get back on the road, which meant I had to finish painting....and I did! (I'll share those photos later.) We had a last bonfire and cook out with Jimmy and Shirley and said good bye to Colorado a few days later. The plan is to stop a night or two in SLC, UT on the Great Salt Lake, then another State park in Idaho, and arrive WA the 27th or 28th.