Category: Nomadiversary

Six Year Nomadiversary!

Six Year Nomadiversary!

Hey Guys! It’s been awhile. How have y’all been?

Today marks our six year Nomadiversary! You know, when we started this whole nomad life, we were only planning on living in our home-on-wheels for maybe thirteen months and then as I kept researching places to go… it got pushed to two years…and then three years… and now we’ve been living the nomad life for six years!

This Nomad Year was pretty different for us. It was definitely the most stressful year we’ve had. I’ve never had to re-plan our nomad year sooo many times. Some cities were basically closed down to everyone except residents, some cities were wide open, but most cities were something in between. We started out in Logan, UT waiting to see what was going to happen with the whole global pandem thing and hoping things would start to normalize. Y’all know that things didn’t normalize at all, but some National Parks started to semi-open back up. In light of how some of the states we had reservations with were handling everything, we’d already canceled all of our remaining plans for 2020 except our reservation for Yellowstone. So, when some of the parks started to open with limited services…we made a new plan to try and see as many national parks that were on our original plan for the year as we could.

We only made it to thirteen National Parks during our sixth year of nomad life. But, Guys…they were some pretty amazing parks. We still talk about our time in Glacier and the bears we saw in Grand Teton. We found a few very cool State Parks too.

We spent a larger portion of this nomad year in Missouri with family than we’d originally planned. Jerl had to have another eye surgery (he’s doing well now) and then between all of the civil unrest and the continued global pandem troubles…we decided to winter in Missouri mooch-docking in my (Jennie’s) parent’s driveway…which was kind of nice since it allowed us to be around for the holiday season for the first time in a long time. After we had ice growing on the inside of our bedroom walls for several weeks (yep, we had both of our furnaces going and a couple of space heaters), we decided wintering in MO in an RV just isn’t for us. It was so stinkin’ cold!! I’m not sure where we’ll go this coming winter…that’s an entirely different conversation.

It was a good year for wildlife sightings! Our favorites were the bears in Grand Teton National Park. We ended up seeing a total of ten bears (a combination of black and grizzly) between Glacier and Grand Teton NPs.

I think the biggest thing we learned during our sixth year of nomad life was patience… Patience in our everyday life. Patience in our nomad planning. Patience with other people. Patience to overcome difficulties. Patience to wait for the right path to open up.

We’re just starting our travels for this nomad year…we’re hoping the year goes as planned! We’ve got some great parks planned so stay tuned for more of our crazy nomad adventures!

Thanks for coming along for the ride!

See y’all down the road!

#nomadiversary

Five Year Nomadiversary!!

Five Year Nomadiversary!!

Hey Guys!! It’s that time again…it’s our Nomadiversary!! Today marks five full years of being digital nomads and living our American Dream. You know, we started this whole journey to show our boys that not all American Dreams have to look the same. Some might include a white picket fence, some have you wearing suits and working in offices, sometimes it means you go to work outside and some dreams might look like a home-on-wheels that takes you wherever you want to go. Everyone has different goals and dreams…and that’s ok. It’s those differences that make life so interesting and our Country so great. We really believe that if you can dream it, you can do it. You just have to be willing to put in the effort to make it happen.

It’s been quite the year! We started our year in Texas eating our way though BBQ places and then we spent a couple of months in Missouri visiting family. Every time we’re in Missouri we seem to have a never ending list of projects we need to work on. We did make it to Branson with my (Jennie) parents for a long weekend of family fun. And, the boys got to have Shop Class with Grandpa. We always look forward to our time with family.

We spent almost two months in Colorado finding the wild places and visiting National Parks. Colorado is, with out a doubt, one of the most beautiful states in our country. Our favorite day in Colorado was the day we went exploring up in the mountains on old mining roads.

Utah was in a word…amazing. We did some hard hikes, found some breathtaking views, drove down some awesome dirt roads and woke up with ice on the inside of our walls a few times.

We spent several weeks in Northern Arizona. before heading to New Mexico. I always forget how cold New Mexico gets in the winter. A few of us wanted an actual winter with a white Christmas so we ended our 2019 in New Mexico. We visited some new NPs and revisited an old favorite. Even as nomads we’ve developed family traditions…ours just revolve around certain places. Is it weird we feel at home in several different states?

Arizona was home to us for most of our nomadic year. We were just starting our time there when the Corona Virus started to do its thing. Luckily, we did get a little exploring done before everything closed down. Sedona has been one of our favorite areas since our very first visit back in 2015.

Ok, let’s talk about the real reason you’re all here…the foodies. We do love our local mom and pop foodie shops. And, Guys…we found some ah-mazing places this nomadic year!!

We had big plans for 2020 with tons of National Park units on the schedule. In February and March while we were in the Sedona area, we realized things weren’t going to go as planned. Due to the Corona Virus, everything started shutting down and it became almost impossible to find things in the grocery store. State and National campgrounds closed, some private RV parks were ordered to close, and…all of the National Parks closed. All of them. It’s hard to go on a National Park tour when the parks are closed and there’s no definitive answer as to when they’ll open back up.

When our reservations in Sedona ran out we decided to go ahead and keep with our planned reservation schedule. Our next stop was back to Page, AZ and honestly, we didn’t mind that it was basically a ghost town. Mostly locals. It was so different from the last time we were there when there were people in every nook and cranny.

For now, we’re hanging out in Utah, waiting to see what happens with the National Parks and the campgrounds. We’ve been enjoying the scenic drives that are close by…and the snow topped mountains aren’t the worst thing ever. ;-P

It’s been quite the eventful year for us even with this whole corona virus mess! During our fifth year of nomadary we: explored six states, visited thirty-two National Park units, drove a total of 4,689 miles, and made countless memories.

A few of our favorites from this year are hiking Angel’s Landing, exploring the mountains of Colorado, getting to talk to some Navajo while visiting their home, and hiking the Peekaboo/Spooky slot canyons.

All in all…I’d say our fifth year of living the nomad life was a success. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

See y’all down the road!

#nomadiversary

Four Year Nomadiversary!

Four Year Nomadiversary!

Guys! Today is our four year nomadiversary!!

I can’t believe we’ve been doing this crazy nomad life for four years. I thought it would be fun to look at the stats for our journey overall so far before getting into the nitty gritty of year number four.

This map shows where we’ve been so far. Each color is a different calendar year. Our journey so far in numbers: 51,808.85 miles, 49 US states, 4 Canadian Provinces, 1,460 days, 119 National Park Units, 137 Junior Ranger badges, and countless memories.

We spent most of our fourth year as nomads exploring the west coast and it did not disappoint! It took me three years to talk Jerl into going to California and I knew it would probably be years before I could get him back to California so I packed as much as I possibly could into our time there. It was one of the best states we’ve explored…but it was also really crowded and super expensive. I’m already trying to talk Jerl into going back for a shorter visit to some of our favorite places.

Oregon was on fire when we went through, but we managed to see some of its beauty. We only spent a few weeks in Oregon…I have tons of places on our to see list, so we’ll definitely be back in Oregon exploring!

Washington was gorgeous. It was also dealing with some wildfires so it was really smokey some days, but we saw enough to know we would totally spend an entire season up there. We’ve made plans to spend a couple of months in Washington in 2020 and we’re so excited to get back up to the PNW!

We spent so much time on the west coast that we had to rush through Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado. We didn’t get to see much of them, but we were able to see the State Capitols of each state and make plans to visit again. We’ll be back in Colorado and Utah this year (2019) and we’re super excited to get back and explore more! We’ve already made reservations for Idaho and Wyoming for 2020…yup…2020. I’m a bit of a planner.

We spent the winter hiding from the cold in Florida. Florida was mainly sand and shells and amazing sunsets. We mostly succeeded in avoiding winter weather, but we did hit some colder weather once we moved up into the Orlando area. We didn’t mind the cooler weather while we were at Disney and Universal. The cold weather thins the crowds a little bit…not much…but some…and if you’ve been to Disney or Universal, you’ll know any help with shorter lines is welcome!

In our fourth year as nomads, we made it to fourteen new-to-us National Park Units and we revisited three NPS Units! National Parks really are America’s best idea. We have plans to see around twenty new-to-us NPS Units for 2019 and we are sooo ready to get going! Our favorite NP from year four of our explorations is Sequoia National Park. Something about those tall trees spoke to us and for the first time since we went nomad, we were genuinely sad to leave an area.

We finished our fourth year as nomads back in our home state of Texas so our boys could go through driver’s ed. Our timing was just right to see some of the best bluebonnets we’ve ever seen so I took the opportunity to snag some pics with the boys. We’ve also been eating as much bbq as we can…I mean, we are in one of the best bbq areas in the country…it would be wrong to waste the opportunity to try as many different bbq joints as we can…right?

And that is our fourth year as nomads in a nut shell! Thanks for coming along on the ride!

See y’all down the road!

#nomadiversary

Nomadiversary Number Three

Nomadiversary Number Three

Hey Guys!! It’s that time again! Today is our three year nomadiversary!! Three years!! It’s hard to believe we’ve been on this nomadic adventure since 2015. We’ve had quite the year. I thought I’d take you through the highlights and some lowlights of our year.

We started our third year out in Michigan and found out how awesome Michigan really is. None of us were ready to leave and all of us have spoken often of returning. We went in the wrong season…it was bitterly cold for most of our visit, but that didn’t deter us from enjoying the sights and foodies.

Kentucky will always hold a special place in our hearts. We loved the rolling hills of horse pastures, the many distilleries, and the bourbon balls. If I’m being totally honest, I might have a slight obsession with bourbon balls. One of our favorite distilleries to visit is the Woodford Reserve Distillery. The setting, the tour, the chocolate… It has the trifecta of tours!

Tennessee is another state that had a good vibe for us. Nicholas was a willing mural model while we hunted down the many murals that can be found in Nashville.

We also found the foodie scene to be filled with ah-mazing foodies. We still dream of Pepperfire Chicken’s Nashville Hot Chicken.

When in Memphis…you eat BBQ, BBQ, and more BBQ! And that’s exactly what we did! We had BBQ for every meal we could and still don’t feel like we got a sampling of everything the area has to offer.

We have mixed feelings about Memphis. On one hand you’ve got Elvis, Beal St., and BBQ, but on the other hand…we saw so much poverty and homelessness and rough rundown neighborhoods. We weren’t as at ease in Memphis. That kind of takes away some of the sparkle from the experience. We’re glad we went! But, I’m not sure we’ll go back.

Oh, Arkansas…we learned all about chigger nests while we were hiking through Hot Springs National Park. Well, let me clarify that statement…the boys learned all about chigger nests…Jerl and I already knew about them. Somehow, Jerl was the only one unscathed by the massive amount of chiggers we found. The rest of us spent weeks itching all over. Weeks…

We also learned all about the Little Rock Nine and what they went through. If you ever get the chance to visit this National Historic Site, do. It will change you.

I can’t do a review of our third year without mentioning the eclipse! This is an experience we will all be talking about the rest of our lives. We couldn’t have picked a better place to experience this eclipse. The place, the people…and the weather all made it the awesome memory we hold in our hearts.

We found one of our favorite places in Texas this year. Palo Duro State Park just south of Amarillo will take your breath away! We spent several days exploring as much as we could of the “Grand Canyon of Texas” and still didn’t see everything we wanted to.

We got to hike up to the top of Texas on Thanksgiving Day while visiting Guadalupe Mountains National Park. This NPS unit is out in the middle of nowhere and took us over an hour to drive there, but it was worth it. It was a Thanksgiving we will never forget!

We’d been to New Mexico before. We spent several weeks exploring New Mexico back in 2015, but we found new places to explore. Carlsbad Caverns National Park was a pleasant surprise for us. Not only did we thoroughly enjoy Carlsbad, NM…we also loved Carlsbad Caverns NP! If you go prepare to spend the entire day and don’t dismiss the hiking trails above ground.

Sitting Bull Falls National Recreation Area was definitely worth the drive. The falls themselves aren’t really anything to write home about, but the area around the falls was so fun to explore. We spent quite a bit of time picking our way around the pools and rocks at the base of the falls.

New Mexico is on our top five list of states. If I’m being honest, it’s probably in the second spot just behind Alaska. We learned that not all forts have high walls while visiting Fort Union National Monument. That was new for us. All of the other forts we’ve ever visited have been enclosed in high defensible walls so it was very interesting to learn about Fort Union and the role it’s had over the years. We also got to walk on part of the Santa Fe Trail there!

Arizona taught us that we can’t get enough of those red rocks. We could easily spend a season exploring all of the trails in and around Sedona, AZ. It’s something we’re seriously considering…to spend an entire season or two in the Sedona area.

Arizona is also on our top five. The sunsets there are epic. I have to many sunset pics from Arizona and they’re all just as amazing as the one above.

I can’t talk about Arizona and leave out Lost Dutchman State Park. We were able to stay there back in 2015 and again in 2017 during our third year of nomadic travel. Both times have left us wanting more.

While we won’t get to officially add California to our map until June, we’ve been in California for a solid month now. We’ve experienced an earthquake and survived the Santa Ana Winds in an RV. We learned quite a bit about some of the different kinds of palm trees and yuccas while in the Desert Hot Springs area.

We learned about being flexible with our schedule this year. Jerl had to have two eye surgeries and our home-on-wheels needed a new engine so our plans changed quite a bit over our third year.

We didn’t travel as much as we wanted to during our third year, but it is what it is. Life happens and all you can do is make the best of it. We ended up driveway camping at my (Jennie’s) parent’s house for 25 weeks this year, which means we only traveled 27 weeks in total. I feel like we still got quite a bit of exploring done though.

Annnddd…our toad decided to take a joy ride and race us down the highway. We learned sooo much from that experience. We now lock any pin that could be tampered with/bounce loose/fall out. We do not want to have to experience this lesson again. It was nerve-wracking enough the first (and hopefully only) time.

Life is about the little things…all of the little moments that make up the journey. The biggest lesson we learned this year is that life on the road isn’t always easy. It’s not always fun and games and exploring, but like any lifestyle…you have to decide if it’s worth it. For us, right now, it’s still worth it. We still enjoy living in our home-on-wheels and traveling the country like the crazy nomad family that we are.

Thanks for being apart of our journey!

See y’all down the road!

Year In Review Number Two

Year In Review Number Two

Y’all! Today is our second nomadiversary! Another year has already passed!

You might have noticed we’re doing our #50statetour in loops. We have to spend some time each year in Texas where all of our doctors are. Even though we’re nomads, we still have to go to the dentist and get check-ups.

For our second loop/year we headed east. We made our way from Texas all the way up to Maine and then we worked our way down the east coast to Florida before returning to Texas.

It was quite the year! We added 22 states to our map during our second year! 22!

I thought we could talk about some of our favorites from year two during our #easternloop2016.

 

We can’t talk about our second year without talking about Niagara Falls. The American side of the falls was kind of a bust for us, but the Canadian side was ah-mazing!

We stayed until the fireworks and guys…it was such an awesome experience!

Now, y’all know we’re foodies…so it should be no surprise that we’ve got some foodie things on our favorites list. Our favorite burger place also scores our favorite poutine place. We found this place when we ventured over to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Everything we had at The Works was delicious! We would go back to the Niagara Falls area just to cross the border for this place!

Our favorite state capitol building of our second year is the New York State Capitol Building. In fact, this is probably our number one SCB of all 38 SCBs we’ve been to so far. It’s also the place I developed a thing for staircases, but a staircase called The Million Dollar Staircase will do that. I could’ve spent hours walking around taking pictures of this SCB.

Out of all the National Parks/Memorials/Historic Places we visited this year three really stood out for us. We couldn’t come to a unanimous decision as to which one was best so we’ll talk about all three. Acadia National Park in Maine was great for all the wild places and hiking it offered and the views weren’t bad either.

Cape Cod National Seashore is probably at the top of the list for me when it comes to National Parks for year two of our #50statetour. Beaches, hiking, lighthouses, and amazing views. The only negative for me would be all of the people. It was crowded. We had to search out the empty places, but the effort was worth it.

The last National Park to top our list for this year is Everglades National Park in Florida. We didn’t get to do much hiking here due to the wildness of the park, but we learned so much and saw so many diverse biomes.

So, this next favorite surprised us in the best way.

The Newport Mansions in Rhode Island! Guys, they were breathtaking. We want to go back during the Christmas season to see them all decked out for the holidays!

It was so neat to see the opulence of that era and hear about their daily lives.

Even though they’re no where near each other, we kind of group The Biltmore in with the Newport Mansions. The Biltmore was built by the Vanderbilt Family who also built two of the Newport Mansions, but where the Newport Mansions were really made to show off all of the opulence and wealth of the era, The Biltmore was made to be more of a home and to entertain friends and family. It took us almost six hours to visit this place and we had to rush. It’s crazy big!

Another foodie favorite was the Crème Brûlée Shake from Burger 21 in New Jersey! It was eyes-rolling-in-the-back-of-your-head good! I’ve got to give a shout out to my friend Nicole and her family for introducing us to Burger 21!!

We caught this sunrise in North Carolina off the coast of Kitty Hawk. We had the beach pretty much to ourselves that morning. Luckily, we didn’t have to get up too early since all we had to do was walk across the road to get to the beach.

We’ve also had some pretty spectacular sunsets, but this one really stands out for me. We were having dinner with some friends of ours in Alabama and this was our view. *waves at friends* It was a great evening filled with friends, food, and views.

We ate a lot of BBQ during our #easternloop2016. Way more than we should have. Our favorite place is a little joint in Kitty Hawk, NC called High Cotton. Everything we got here was finger-licking good! It was so good that we ended up getting a family pack the night before we left the area just so we could have more of it!!

The boys all loved Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans. Those light and airy pillows of fried dough were pretty good!

 

Y’all knew this one was coming, right?

We spent four days in HarryPotterverse aka Universal Studios living like wizards and it was totally awesome!

We ended our 2016 year with a snorkeling trip to The Keys in Florida. It was cold and windy and the snorkeling was a total bust, but we all loved it! It gave us island fever. We’ve been planning our next trip down to The Keys since we were driving away.

What did we learn during our second year as nomads? We learned quite a lot! Let’s chat about a few of the lessons we learned this past year!

1. Big cities aren’t really our thing. During our first year of nomads we didn’t hit too many cities…and none of them were what I would call big. Now, we’d been to big cities before. We are from the Houston, TX area so we knew what we were getting ourselves into.

We only spent a handful of days in various big cities

so we could see some of the iconic, historical landmarks,

but we didn’t really enjoy any of the days we spent walking endless miles in a concrete jungle.

We knew when we started the #easternloop2016 that there would be more cities and less wild places. We didn’t know how much we would miss the wild places. While we are grateful for the chances to see and experience the big cities, we are glad to be done with them.

2. Secure the kitchen sink faucet before leaving. Cats. Why are cats such big jerks? We have two cats…

a fat one and a fluffy one. Don’t let them fool you, they’re menaces…both of them. The fluffy one likes to jump up on our kitchen counter when we’re gone and look out the window. We usually close the window blinds when we leave to keep him off the counters, but the day we went to New York City we forgot. Fluffy cat turned on the water at the kitchen sink while we were gone which eventually filled up the front grey tank which caused the grey tank to back up into the shower where we keep the litter box. I should point out…the grey tank is just rinse water from the sinks. But still…it gets stinky.

We got home from NYC about 10PM to find a note on our door that our water had been turned off because there was water pouring out of the bottom of our RV. We walked in to find the entire bathroom flooded.

The shower was disgusting. The entire bathroom floor was disgusting. And to top it off, Fluffy cat was afraid to use the litter box because of the water so he decided to use our beds as his own personal litter boxes. It was a looonnngggg night.

I spent the next day sanitizing beds, showers, floors, counters… We now have a way to lock the kitchen sink faucet in the off position. Lesson learned.

3. I (Jennie) have a slight obsession with flowers. I’ve always enjoyed pretties. During our first year, I had tons of pretties to photograph everywhere!

During the second year, the pretties were harder to find and I started going to greater links to get to them.

That’s when I knew I had a problem…is there a step program for this?

It doesn’t matter if the pretties are actual flowers or if they’re weeds.

And…if I’m being completely honest, my obsession isn’t limited to pretties…it just needs to look interesting for me to lay on the ground and snap a picture.

4. We kind of love National Forts, Battlefields, and Historical Sites. So, we really love them. A lot. Confession: When we started this nomad life, I didn’t think we would really be interested in any of them. Boy, was I wrong! I can’t even begin to tell you how much history we learned during our second year of nomad life.

One of our favorite forts is the Old Fort Niagara in New York. It sits right on the shore of Lake Ontario. We watched a big rain storm come in across the water while we were there…it got a little wet…and cold.

The first time the boys heard a canon fire they about jumped right on out of their own skins. I’m laughing at the memory as I type this. I really wish I’d caught it on video. If you’ve never heard a canon fired, it’s loud. Depending on the size of the canon…it can be very, very loud.

We’re cautious about period actors. Sometimes they’re fun and sometimes they can be…tiresome. These guys were great! They stayed in character just enough to make it fun, but not so much that it was weird.

You don’t need a time machine to travel back in time. All you need to do is visit one of the many National Parks/Memorials/Historical Sites. The NPS does a fabulous job of recreating life of days-gone-by and of teaching anyone interested enough to listen. We learned so much about the founding of our country, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War during our #easternloop2016. Our history lessons were very hands on.

5. We (Jerl) learned how to fix a pulley system slide. It was the last couple weeks of June and we were in New York when we started hearing a weird ratcheting sound while bringing our main living slide in. On June 24th we decided to leave the slide in because we were afraid of getting stuck somewhere because the slide wouldn’t come in. This reduced our living space by quite a bit. We learned to dance around each other anytime we were in the kitchen/living area.

We lived with the reduced space until September 8 when we made it to the DC area. It took all five of us to push the slide out so Jerl could work on it. Things were going ok, until there was a big pop and the slide tilted out. You can see the angle of it in the photo above. It was about this time that I got out a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and started stress eating. I kept picturing the entire side of our RV sliding right on out and onto the ground. Luckily, it stayed put and Jerl was able to get a new motor put in and the pulley cables all reattached. So really, I guess we learned two lessons that night. How to fix a pulley slide system and how much Ben & Jerry’s I (Jennie) can eat in one night.

8. We can eat lobster for days and not get tired of it.  This lesson is one of our favorites. Lobster.

While we were in Maine, we found some really decent priced lobster and we found a recipe. We ate on that lobster for several days!

We also ate lobster when we went out!

Lobster was everywhere in Maine! Everywhere! We even tried a lobster roll from McDs! It was…ok…and very pricey. The lobster rolls we made were 100 times better and way cheaper.

We even found lobster mac-n-cheese in the grocery stores. Guys, it was soooo stinkin’ good!!!

 9. Not every state sells postcards. This one was a shock for us. We had the worst time finding postcards to send out to the postcard club in most of the states along the east coast.

I even had to resort to buying some state postcards from Amazon. *gasp* I know! Postcards are not expensive. Every gas station should have a small selection of state postcards. Postcards are such a fun and inexpensive way to stay connected to friends and family while on the road!

Well, that’s it! We wanted to share with y’all some of the highlights and bloopers of our second year as nomads! We love having y’all along for the ride so stay tuned for year three!!

See y’all down the road!

A Year In Review

A Year In Review

Guys! It’s been one year already!! Can you believe it? We thought it might be fun to look back at our year and talk about some of our favorites and share with you some of the things we’ve learned.

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This photo was taken the day we left my parents’ house in 2015.

We left on Mother’s Day 2015 (sorry mom). We were full of all kinds of emotions, questions, and worries as we drove off that day. Most people assume we already had our RV when we decided to switch to a full-time RV life and that we knew what we were doing. We didn’t. We jumped in with both feet and hoped for the best. Now, don’t get me wrong…we’d totally planned everything (I’m a planner), but it’s hard to really know what you’re going to be facing when you’ve never had any experience with something. By the time we reached Nebraska (our second state) we were pretty certain we’d made the right decision.

Let’s start with some of our favorites!

We all agree that Alaska is our favorite state.

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Waterfalls, glaciers, ice fields, and rainforests…. Alaska is pretty spectacular!

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Our favorite experience so far is the day cruise we took to explore the Kenai Fjords National Park in Seward, Alaska.

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And…it may be no big surprise that our favorite National Park is Denali National Park in Alaska. It was so fantastic…we’ve been trying to decide when we can go back since we left.

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Our favorite State Park is Makoshika in Montana with the unforgettable gumbo incident. If you don’t know about it or want to read about it again, you can find our post on Makoshika here. We’re looking forward to a time when we can go back to Makoshika to finish a very cool hike we had to turn back on while we were there.

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What you’re looking at is our favorite burrito. Y’all know we’re foodies…we’ve got our favorites…and this, my friends, is the best burrito we’ve ever had. It was so good we drove 45 minutes one way…twice just to get it. This is the Green Mix Burro, Enchilada Style from The Burger House in Miami, AZ. We will go back to Miami, AZ just to get this burrito. Yep, it’s really that good!

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Our favorite grocery store is still HEB. Here Everything really is Better. We’ve been to a lot of grocery stores and we’ve only found two other grocery store companies that even come close.

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I know y’all are wondering (since we talk about burgers all the time) what our favorite burger is. Tucker’s Onion Burger in Oklahoma City, OK is the best all around burger we’ve found so far! It has all of the elements a good burger should have!! Now, if we’re talking about a green chili burger…we would have to go with Rockin’ BZ Burgers in Alamogordo, NM!

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7th Ranch RV Park in Garryowen, MT is our favorite RV park for numerous reasons. We like it so much we did a post on it! You can find it here and read all about why it’s still in our number one spot!

We have quite a few favorites from over the past year, but these are the only ones all five of us agree on. If y’all are curious about any of our other favorites give us a shout and we’ll tell ya!!

We’ve learned a lot over this past year. Here’s a small list of some of the things we’ve learned:

1. Not all grocery stores are created equally. I’ll be the first to admit that we were super spoiled by our HEB in Texas, but we had no idea how spoiled we really were. It didn’t take long to come to the harsh realization that we were going to have to say goodbye to some of our favorite items and brands. We never really know what we’ll find in a grocery store when we walk in and it’s turned into one of my favorite things about moving around. It’s always interesting to see different brands and regional items and to even find a few new favorites. Sometimes tiny grocery store will have a great selection like the Cottonwood General Store in Terlingua, Tx and sometimes we struggle to find anything we would eat in one of the well known grocery store chains (like the Piggly Wiggly). One of my favorite isles to peruse is the ice cream isle. Not only do brands carry different flavors per region, but some of the basic flavors have different names. I love trying all of the different ice cream brands and comparing them! It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it…right?

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2. Not all gas stations are big rig friendly even when they have an RV Island. Gas stations…we visit a lot of gas stations. Some are set up so poorly we just drive on by and pity the poor sucker who pulled in and can’t figure out how to get out. We can say that because we’ve been-there-done-that. When we were just starting out, gas stations were a source of anxiety for me… not that I was the one driving…I don’t drive the RV…it’s best for everyone. There have been times that we’ve had to back up, wait for other cars to move, and block the entrance/exit because we were at the RV Island getting gas. We were where we were supposed to be, but the gas station wasn’t laid out with any kind of forethought to the size and turning radius of a big rig. Jerl has become an expert at gas station navigation. I still get a little nervous sometimes, but he’s as cool as a cucumber now.

3. You can’t find good ethnic food everywhere. We were in Montana the first time we found a Mexican restaurant we wanted to try. It smelled good, but when they set the salsa down it had cabbage in it and looked like it was a soup. We should have just left then and there. Seriously. The meal just went downhill from that point. We left realizing that it was going to be a very long time before we would be able to find anything remotely like the kind of Mexican food we like. But it’s not just Mexican food… last summer (2015) while we were in Alaska, Mr. Man turned 15. We always let the boys pick out where they want to eat for their birthdays and Mr. Man chose the only Asian place in Valdez. I left with a mild strain of food poisoning. It would have been ok if the food had been worth it, but it really wasn’t. Live and learn. My favorite ethnic food is Indian food. So far, I haven’t even tried to get it anywhere but back home in Houston, TX.

4. When Google Maps says your destination is five hours away, it’s more like seven hours. We learned this the hard way while traveling though Canada to get to Alaska. We had some twelve and fourteen hour drive days. What The Googles doesn’t take in to consideration is that when you’re driving an RV you probably won’t be going the posted speed limit…at least not very often…and not if you don’t want to tear up your rig. We still compare all roads to the ALCAN (the road to Alaska). There were times when we were going ten miles per hour and that was still too fast. We’ve learned you have to slow down when driving an RV…and really, that’s kind of the point of driving an RV…to slow down and enjoy the journey. We have learned to add an hour for every three hours The Googles has predicted our travel time to be.

5. Sometimes the GPS looses its little electronic mind. It’s one thing when the GPS doesn’t know how to pronounce something. We all laugh and make jokes, but when the GPS takes it’s revenge and tells us to go down roads that are only meant for high-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicles….well, that’s not so funny.  The first time this happened we were driving down the Cassiar on our way back from Alaska. The GPS map for that region hadn’t been updated in a long time so it didn’t know that two parts of the Cassiar had been connected. Our GPS was trying to route us around in a way that added an entire day to our trip. Luckily, we had done our research and knew what way to go. The next time the GPS screwed up we were in Arizona heading to the Lost Dutchman State Park. We happily followed our trusty GPS as it told us to turn down a questionable dirt road where we almost got stuck. This road rivaled some of the worst parts of the ALCAN. We swerved around potholes the size of our car and big mounds of trash that someone had piled up in the road. We held our breath a few times, but we made it in once piece only to find out that there was a wonderfully smooth highway we could have taken to get to the Lost Dutchman State Park instead. The first time we thought it was just a mapping glich…an update that needed to happen…the second time we realized that our GPS has a tendency to loose it’s little electronic mind. That second time we learned to always trust our gut. If a road seems shady, find a different way. A different time, while we were driving near the old Route 66 our GPS decided to have us turn off of a perfectly fine highway and take us down the original 66 highway that hadn’t been maintained in way too long and was more like something you would expect to see a horse drawn wagon on. After our first incident we were on to the GPS’ ways and had more sense than to actually drive down it. We got back on the highway and let the GPS sort it’self out. We have a love hate relationship with our GPS.

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The road our GPS lead us down to get to the Lost Dutchman State Park

6. Always make sure you have the memory card in your camera. Funny story…One evening while we were in Valdez we were walking around down by the harbor and there was a sea otter eating and playing right by the docks. It was soooo close! And, of course, I had my trusty camera so I whipped it out and got some ah-maze-ing shots. Or at least I think they were amazing. I’d been editing pictures earlier that day and had forgotten to put my memory card back in the camera. I didn’t know this while I was snapping pictures. My camera just let me shoot away completely unaware that I wasn’t getting anything. I was crushed when I went to edit pics again the next day and all those wonderful pics I had taken were nowhere to be found. Nowhere. I thought I’d lost my mind…I mean…I distinctly remembered standing there taking some once-in-a-lifetime shots. So…where the heck were they. I guess I was too distracted. I learned a valuable, but painful lesson that day. Always check your gear before you leave. Always.

7. Not all RV parks are created equally. It always amazes me when we pull into an RV park and it doesn’t look like the pictures on their website lead you to believe. Or, when we go to check in and all of a sudden there are tons of small hidden fees they didn’t tell us about beforehand. Or, when you walk into the park bathroom and you back out because you’re afraid to turn your back to the room for fear something will reach out of the dark corners and you’ll never be heard from again. There are some parks that we feel dirty just pulling into. We pulled into this place in Fox, Alaska and we kind of just looked at each other for a minute. To say this place was rundown would be putting it nicely. Weeds were everywhere, the path to the sites had potholes the size of a small car, and the owner told us not to hook the water up to the RV because it had a bit of rust in it. The water looked like chocolate milk and we later found out was filled with arsenic. And then there was the goat…it was the neighbor’s goat. The goat was in rut and the owner of the RV park was positive that the goat had gotten into its owner’s stash and was high. Well, for some reason the goat thought the boys were a threat and became very aggressive toward them. We almost had goat curry that night. On the flip-side…there are some absolutely awesome parks out there. We’ve learned to thoroughly research the parks we go to.

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The goat that was almost curry.

8. We didn’t really need 1/2 of the stuff we thought we would. We’d never been camping in our RV…we’d never been on a trip in it anywhere so, when I was trying to downsize our three bedroom house to fit in our 38′ RV…well, I didn’t have a clue what we would really need. I crammed everything that would fit in the RV into the various storage spaces. Just in case. We’ve spent this first year lightening our load as we’ve realized we don’t need ten pairs of pants each or fifteen different shirts. That it’s not necessary to have two complete sets of dishes. We’re learning how to live a minimalist lifestyle. It’s been difficult. We go to all of these amazing places and I see all of these souvenir-ish items that I would love to have…but we don’t have room. Can you imagine how cluttered the RV would be if we bought every cool item we found? We got rid of a bunch of stuff through the year then made a healthy deposit to our storage unit while we were back in Texas.

9. Gas station food isn’t really that bad.  I know, I know…I can hear y’all already…you feed your kids gas station food?!?! Well, yes. Yes, we do. On move days we tend to get up and go so when we stop for gas, we let the boys go in and pick out something for breakfast. They usually go for the donuts or fried pies or something along those lines. But sometimes we come across a gas station that has breakfast sausages and sandwiches. Littlest had pizza the other day. Yep, pizza for breakfast. Let the hate comments begin. We don’t allow them to have these things all the time. These are their treat breakfasts. And then there are the times where we spend the entire day driving and when we pull in to fill up the tank, we fill up the kid’s tanks too.  It’s a rare occurrence, but it does happen. Some gas stations have actual food. We’ve found some pretty good stuff.

10. Pay attention to the grey tank. This is probably one of the most important things we’ve learned this year. The grey tank is the tank all of the water we use when we do dishes, brush our teeth, shower, do laundry, and wash our hands goes into. It can fill up fast. This might be a good time to tell you we’ve got two full bathrooms. And cats. We have two cats. We keep the cat’s litter box in one of the showers so we don’t have to move it around all the time and it’s pretty contained. Well, guess where the grey tank water backs up to when it gets full. Yup. The shower. One day I noticed that Magnus (one of our cats) was walking around really wet and that he kept going back into the bathroom with his litter box. Now, this cat loves to play in water and can turn on the faucet so I thought he’d been playing in the sink again. But, when I went back to check on him…well, he was playing in water…the grey tank water that had backed up into the shower where the litter box is. It took me hours to clean and sanitize everything. Gross.

We’ve got one entire year under our belt and we’ve visited 18 states so far, but only 17 State Capitol Buildings (extra points for anyone who can tell me what State Capitol we missed) and we’ve stayed at 55 RV Parks. We’ve traveled a lot of miles…I don’t know the exact mile count…but it’s up there and we’re really just starting our adventure.

For our second year we’re hitting the eastern states. We’re working our way up to Maine and then we’ll make our way down to Florida before heading back to Texas to do all of our yearly stuff. I’ll be using the hashtag #easternloop2016 this year.

There’s a growing number of families who full-time RV, but we’re still in the minority. We’re usually the youngest people in the parks we stay in and as you can imagine…people are very curious about us. We get asked quite a few questions so I thought I would start a new series of posts called FAQs. I’ll answer all of the usual questions we get and if y’all have any questions you’d like to throw in the lineup just let me know!

Well, that’s all for now!

See y’all down the road!