Category: Keeping It Real
Nomadiversary Number Three

Nomadiversary Number Three

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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!
Lets Try This Again

Lets Try This Again

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Hey Guys!!

I took a few weeks off from writing blog posts. We’ve been crazy busy…but mostly it’s been mundane…not really blog worthy stuff. We left my (Jennie’s) parent’s house where we were driveway camping and headed to Houston. We always take a family pic by the map before we start each loop. I like to look back and see how everyone has changed.

We spent two weeks in Houston getting all of our yearly stuff done. Even adventurous nomads have to go to the dentist, get their eyes checked and visit their pediatrician.

Our furr baby-nomads had to go visit their doctor too. They weren’t pleased…not even a little bit. They let us know of their displeasure loudly on the ride there and back

We hit up a few of our favorite eateries,

stopped by one of our favorite book stores, and even made it to a friend’s birthday party! I don’t like to post pictures of other people’s kids so you’ll just have to take my word that this particular kiddo who just turned one is pretty stinkin’ cute! The best part about being back in the Houston area is spending time with friends.

I think I told y’all that we were having leaky plumbing problems from the cold weather we were in. We took our home-on-wheels to an RV place to get it fixed…we actually had to take it twice…and it was still leaking pretty badly behind the back toilet. Jerl ended up having to take the toilet off and redoing the fix, but he fixed it! No more leaky toilets!!

That pretty much wraps up our two weeks in Houston. Short and sweet…filled with friends and foodies.

We took off from Houston to Junction, TX where we would stay overnight on our way to New Mexico. Things were going pretty smoothly until I looked in the rear view camera to check on the car and the car…well, it wasn’t there. I looked in the side view mirror and there it was…trying to race us down the highway. It was pretty startling. Jerl kept his cool and used the RV to stop the car. I wish I’d gotten some video of it all, but I was too busy freaking out. The pin that holds the hitch to the RV either broke and fell out or someone messed with it at the last gas station we were at. Either way, the tow bar ended up under the car. Just to clarify…that’s not where it’s supposed to be. It doesn’t really work properly like that.

Everything considered…we were extremely lucky. If this had happened on a busy road or going down a steep incline, it would have ended very differently. The car can be fixed. It’s totally drive-able…just not quite as pretty as before. The RV has a few scuffs and scratches and the light came off. But, there’s nothing too bad.

We were twenty miles away from the RV park we were going to stay at. We got untangled and made it to the park before dark. The camp host at the park did his best to try to help us straighten out the tow bar. They were making some progress when they started worrying about the integrity of the metal after being so bent up. So, they stopped. We really appreciate their willingness to help strangers, but that’s been our experience with the RVing community as a whole. We help each other out.

It was a pretty exciting first day back on our travels…and not really the kind of exciting we’re used to (or want). We’re hoping for some less exciting travel days in the future.

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018
Typical Day

Typical Day

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Hey Guys! There are a few questions we get asked more frequently than others. We get asked all the time what a typical day is like for us and honestly, it’s probably not all that different from what your typical day looks like. We actually have three kinds of days…the typical day, the move day, and then the adventure day. In this post I’ll take you through what one of our more typical days looks like.

This, we’ve found from numerous people, is what most people think we do all day. Camp. We don’t camp…not really. Now, we love to stay in state parks, but you won’t find us hanging out outside by the campfire every night. It’s rare that we have a campfire. So, what do we do all day?

Our day starts off like yours. Jerl gets up around 6’ish and I get up around 7’ish. Our cats would like us to get up about 4’ish and feed them. That doesn’t happen. Sadi (you can see her in the pic above) is my shadow all morning until she’s fed. She’s a foodie. She fits in well. The very first things we do are make the bed and get dressed.

And then I start on my chores. Laundry is done Tuesday through Friday. I’ll do a couple of loads a day. Our combo washer/dryer is smaller than your average residential unit so it takes me more loads to get done what most of you can do in just two or three loads. I don’t mind it. I’m glad I don’t have to use the RV park laundry facility or find a laundry mat.

By this time Sadi has had about all she can take of waiting and starts to passive aggressively demand food. The longer it takes for me to feed her…the more demanding she gets. Ha! I feed both of our little furry maniacs and clean the litter box.

I let the boys sleep until 8:30 am while I’m doing my morning routine and then I wake them up.

School starts by 10 am. They each start the morning at their own pace and as long as school is going by 10 am I let them do what they need to do to get the day going. The Alex and Nicholas like to do school on the big bed while Charles likes to sit on the couch to do it. We use a curriculum called Switched On Schoolhouse. It’s a computer based program that tells them what they need to get done each day. Each morning they network into my computer where everything is. That way I can keep track of who’s doing what and how they did that day. Now that they’re getting to the higher grades, SOS will kick any essay questions or math questions that require them to write out an answer for me to grade. Luckily, it also has the answer there and tells me exactly what to look for. We supplement SOS with Rosetta Stone for language classes, workbooks for logic, and Charles will have an online writing class this next school year. Jerl sits at the dinette to work and I’m just all over the place doing stuff that needs to be done.

Lunch is anytime between 11 am and 1 pm. We’ll each stop when we’re at a good spot and make our own lunch. Anytime this involves meat, Magnus assumes it’s for him. He usually gets a morsel or two.

When work and school are done for the day we either run some errands…

get in a quick hike…

or we start dinner. Sometimes it’s a combination of those things and sometimes it’s just one. It really depends on where we are and how big our “to see” list is. Dinner usually happens anywhere between 5 pm and 7 pm-ish.

Our evening activities vary as well. We’ll either play a family game,

or the boys will play a video game,

or we all go our own ways…into our separate spaces to do our own things. I like to read…Magnus likes to help me while demanding to be loved on.

So, there it is! Not too exciting is it? Y’all are probably reminded of your own daily schedules a bit. Ours is the same as most family’s…just in our home-on-wheels instead of a stick-n-bricks home. I hope I covered everything y’all were curious about. If not drop me a note, shoot me an email, or comment below and I’ll try to answer any questions in a future post!

Thanks for spending the day with us!

See y’all down the road!
Rescheduling, Repairs, and Recouping

Rescheduling, Repairs, and Recouping

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Hey Guys! We’ve been back in Missouri for two months now.

We got back to Missouri Sunday, December 31 just before midnight. It was a very long 15 hour drive day! We had Monday to recoup from the drive and then Jerl had an eye appointment Tuesday then surgery Wednesday. This was his second eye surgery in less than five months. He’s still healing, but it’s going much better this time. He had to have another gas bubble inserted into his eye…this time during the surgery. It was much less painful for him that way. The bubble finally completely disappeared Tuesday, March 7. He was pretty excited that it was gone before we took back off on our adventuring.

Mother Nature greeted us the week we got back with some snow. It was pretty, but it kept us from getting our home-on-wheels to the Ford dealership for engine work.

Once the weather cooperated and Jerl was able to drive, we made the three hour drive to the dealership where we had to leave our home for repairs. I’m not going to lie…it was really hard to drive off and leave our home there. We’d heard some pretty gnarly horror stories of things that had happened to other people’s home-on-wheels while they were on dealership parking lots getting repair work done. We had to prove we’d had proper maintenance done on the engine (regular oil changes), but after that Ford was great to work with. We ended up needing a whole new engine and catalytic converter. Not from anything we did…apparently the engine was malfunctioning from the start and we were lucky it lasted as long as it did. The dealership never seemed to be bothered by our many calls for updates and always answered all of our questions.

With our home-on-wheels staying three hours away, we had to move out. I didn’t move every single thing out, but I moved out everything we might want or need and anything that I didn’t want to lose just in case something happened like a fire, or theft, or a storm…you never know…and y’all know I’m a planner. We ended up being out of our home for about six weeks!

Luckily, we were able to stay with my (Jennie’s) mom and dad. Our furrbabies made themselves right at home. I think they kind of liked all of the space…and the carpet. They really liked the carpet. We don’t have any carpet in our home-on-wheels. It was really funny to watch them roll on the floor and spread out. We ended up getting a runner to put in the RV for them and they’ve been enjoying that too. The things we do for our furry family members…

This unexpected detour really threw a kink in all of my planning. The Grand Western Loop was cut short. Big time. So, I had to rework the schedule. We won’t have time to do the entire loop I’d originally planned. It’s kind of working in our favor though. We’re going to be spending more time in California than we’d originally planned…which means we’ll get to see more places! We’ll be breaking the Grand Western Loop into two smaller loops with a winter in Florida in between. The blue loop is our revised Grand Western Loop, the red is our Florida winter, and the green is our…well, I haven’t named that loop yet…it’s the other part of the original #grandwesternloop. And yes, we are booked all the way through the blue route and most of the red route. Florida is another hard state to book for those of us who are under 55 and have kiddos…and wear clothes. The state parks book eleven months in advance and boy howdy…let me tell you, they book up the day they become available…usually within hours!! I still have two more state parks to book, but I have to wait for the eleven month mark to do it.

The boys enjoyed an actual winter…for about a week. And then they were over it. None of them complained when I told them we would be spending next winter in Florida. Ha!

We’ve enjoyed frequent family game nights! If you don’t have 5 Minute Dungeon, you’re missing out. It’s a fun, fast-paced, short game where you work as a team to defeat the dungeon.

Alex and Nicholas had fun helping my (Jennie’s) mom and dad down at their shop. Nicholas helped Grammy in the office while Alex helped Grandpa out in the shop. I think Alex kind of loved wearing Grandpa’s shirt. They both did stuff I used to do when I was growing up. It’s kind of funny to hear them talk about their day at work.

Oh! I’m learning to make bracelets. It’s something for me to do to pass the time…I’m thinking about eventually opening an Etsy shop for it. I’ve had so much fun picking out beads and learning a new craft.

We signed up for UniversalYums…it’s been sooo fun! Every month we get a box filled with snacks and every month it’s from a different country! It comes with this great little booklet that tells us about each snack plus some facts and games about the country of the month. Plus, you get clues as to where the box will be from the next month!

When we got our home-on-wheels back, we found out some of the plumbing pipes had frozen and busted. We thought we’d winterized it before taking it up to the Ford dealership, but we didn’t get it done fast enough (all that snow and ice) and the water filter busted which made it impossible to blow all of the water out of the lines…so…we had busted pipes. We had to take our home-on-wheels to an RV dealership for some more repairs. They worked their magic pretty quickly. We’re still moving back in as I’m writing this post.

We definitely didn’t plan on starting 2018 like this, but that’s ok. Honestly, I think it’s going to work out even better for us. We head back out this Saturday, March 10 to get back to our adventuring…so, I guess I’ll…

See y’all down the road!

Mad Dash To Missouri

Mad Dash To Missouri

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Hey Guys!! Are you ready for more of the story?

It took us three days to drive the 1,400 miles or so to get back to Missouri. We were in sunny and warm Arizona when we started out. We said goodbye to Lost Dutchman State Park early Friday and took off for Las Cruces, NM. Now, there are three ways to get from Phoenix to Las Cruces. One path goes up and over and takes you up the steep Colorado Plateau, one path takes you straight east through Globe, NM and some steep grade mountain passes and the other path takes you down to Tucson and then over.

We chose the down and around route to avoid the steep grades since our engine was acting up. We ended up at the Hacienda RV Resort the first night after a fairly uneventful day. We’ve stayed at…I don’t know…close to 100 RV parks and this was the first one to give us treats for our cats! I thought it was super cute and the cats appreciated the treat. I don’t know how the RV park is other than the treats. We got in right before they closed and we left before anyone was in the office the next day.

We started out even earlier on day two. We had a long day ahead of us and there would be some elevation gain that would slow us down. Our route took us through El Paso. You’re looking at Mexico in the picture above on the left. We’ve heard a lot of…not so great…things about El Paso. We didn’t stop. We just drove on through. It’s a big city and took forever to get through, but we made it with no issues. The engine was behaving.

We got to our RV Park in Abilene pretty late that night. It was so dark on the road we weren’t really sure we were in the right spot at first. Thank goodness the office had the forethought to put us in an easy in and out spot. It was dark when we got there and dark when we left.

We woke up to ice on day three. We’ve driven in a blizzard, we’ve driven in wind storms, and torrential rain…but, Guys…driving on a sheet of ice was a whole new ball game.

We crept along at around 20mph and noticed our windshield wipers were freezing up so we thought we’d be smart…and safe…and stop at a gas station to recoup and fix a few things. We didn’t know we were driving onto a thick sheet of ice until it was too late. Our only course of action was to go with it and try not to run into anything. We slid past the gas tanks with the cars…we slid past the propane fill up…and somehow we got stopped without hitting anything. I think Jerl and I were in shock at this point and  sat wondering how the heck we were going to get out of the ice covered parking lot. The only out we had a chance at making it to was the one in the pic above and we watched car after car slip and slide up and down it. My (Jennie’s) dad had the idea to use cat litter to get enough traction to get out. Luckily, the gas station had one bag of it left. It worked and we made it out of the parking lot an hour and a few heart-attacks later.

It took us four hours to go 90 miles that morning.

We made it though. It took us 15 hours that third day to make it to Missouri, but we made it safely. It was the most stressful day of driving we’ve had in the three years we’ve been nomads…I’m getting all stressed out again just thinking about that day.

I’ll leave y’all here and next week I’ll give you all the updates and the plans for the rest of the year!

See y’all down the road!

#itsnotallfunandgames

Phoenix Fiasco

Phoenix Fiasco

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Hey Guys! Let’s see…where did I leave you hanging?

Let’s recap just a bit… It was Tuesday and we were in one of our favorite RV parks in the Sedona area soaking up that awesome Sedona vibe, trying to figure out what was wrong with the engine of our home-on-wheels when a dealership in Phoenix called us back. If we got there that day they could get us in. Well, sweet chickens! Let’s get going! We let the office know of our early departure (no refund…we were paid up to Saturday) and we took off trying to get to Phoenix before the RV guy at the dealership left for the day.

We made it to the dealership where the RV guy listened to our engine and proclaimed he didn’t really know what was wrong with it, but that we were going to need a brand new engine. Hmmm…what? Oh, and they couldn’t even start working us in until after the first of the year. And, the RV guy made it seem like our engine was on it’s last leg. This was very new news to us since the other two dealerships we’d had it at couldn’t really find anything wrong and told us it wouldn’t hurt to keep driving.

It was Dec 19th (a Tuesday) in southern Arizona and our reservations at Lost Dutchman State Park didn’t start until that Saturday the 23rd. Well, what the hay-diddly were we going to do? Have y’all ever tried to get last minute reservations in the middle of the winter in southern Arizona? It’s nearly impossible if you’re not 55+ and you have kiddos. We called over to Lost Dutchman SP and miraculously found spots for the rest of the week. Unfortunately, you can’t reserve a spot for the same day…it’s first come…but we were told there were six available spots if we could get there. We didn’t really have a choice…we didn’t feel safe sitting in the dealership parking lot.

We chanced it. Worst case scenario we would have to dry camp for a night in one of our favorite state parks. It took us close to 2 hours to go the 46 miles from the dealership to Lost Dutchman SP.

When we got there the park office was already closed and it was getting dark. Luckily, we’d been there before and we knew our way around. Arizona gave us a pretty spectacular sunset as we were searching for a spot for the night.

We woke up in our favorite spot in Lost Dutchman. It was such a welcome sight! We’d been able to make reservations for the rest of the week until our original reservations would kick in, but we were going to have to move pretty much daily. It was going to be a week of site hopping. But, hey…at least we had a place! It could definitely have been worse. We headed up to the Ranger’s station to try and figure out what we were going to do for the three days that we needed to gap from when our reservations would run out and we could get into the dealership to get the work done. Guys, these Rangers and Volunteers were amazing. They bent over backwards trying to figure something…anything out for us and it worked. They pieced together places so that we would have someplace to stay through the end of the year.

We spent the first week spot hopping. It became a routine to get up and start watching for the people in our new spot to leave so we could move. Most days we were just a few spots over.

Let’s be totally honest here, there are no bad views at Lost Dutchman State Park. I mean, look at that view? How could anyone be in a bad mood with that view out their window? Plus the weather was ah-mazing! It was mid 70s during the day and low 50s at night. I could think of worse places to unexpectedly be stuck.

And…all of the moving made utilizing the dump station easier. The only downside to Lost Dutchman SP is that there aren’t any full hookup sites. But, geez, with those views…who cares.

It was the week before Christmas so we put engine issues on the side burner and started on our Christmas traditions. One of our traditions is to have tamales for our Christmas dinner. Some years it’s a challenge to find tamales, but this year we hit the jackpot! We ended up at a place called Old El Paso Tamales and Guys…they were soooo good!

We were able to sneak in a visit to a National Monument while we were in the Phoenix area. Casa Grande National Monument is preserving what remains of an ancient Hohokam (ho ho KAHM) farming village. Casa Grande (“Great House”) is one of the most prominent examples of the Ancestral People’s society.

In 1932 a steel and concrete canopy was built to protect Casa Grande from the harsh Arizona environment. At one time this Great House was four stories high and sixty feet long. This site is the largest known structure left by the Ancestral People of the Sonoran Desert. The builders of this Great House were very in tune with the sky. The walls face the four cardinal points of the compass and there are holes in the walls that align with the sun/moon at different times of the day/year. It took 3,000 tons of a concrete like mixture of sand, clay, and limestone to complete Casa Grande in 1350. We learned a lot at this National Monument and met another traveling family from Hawaii! Meeting other travel families is always fun!

We made it back to Burger House in Miami, AZ!! We drove 45 mins one way just to eat a Green Mix Burro Enchilada Style. I got one to eat there and one to take home. Yum!! If it’s possible my take home burro was even better!

Meanwhile, Arizona was showing off with all of the gorgeous sunsets.

We made it through our week of musical spots and settled into our original reservation spot. It was really nice to be able to stay put for longer than two days. Between all of the moving around, Christmas prep, and Casa Grande we only made it out to the trails once.

We hiked a portion of the Siphon Draw Trail one afternoon. I really enjoy this trail, but can’t work up the nerve to go all the way to the top of it. We’ve heard it takes about six hours to go all the way to the top and back. Now, y’all know we don’t shy away from a hiking challenge…the Guadalupe Peak and Harding Ice Field hikes are proof of that…but this trail has tons of loose gravel once it reaches a certain point. It’s at this point that I turn around. I stood there…at my turn around point…and watched countless people slip and slide and fall and I totally chickened out. Again. It’s hard enough to hike on loose rock as it is, but I’m carrying my camera in one hand so that only leaves me one hand to balance, catch myself, and climb. I’m looking into a solution to this. I’m determined to reach the top of Siphon Draw one day.

Until then, I’ll just soak up the views and the sun as much as I can! I’m always amazed at how green the Sonoran desert is. One day I’ll make it to the Sonoran desert during the spring so I can see all of the cactus flowers! I’ve heard it’s spectacular!

Let’s talk foodies! We ate at a few new places, the two worth mentioning are both called Taquitos Jalisco. No joke. We were at an office store getting my calendar printed out and asked someone where some good Mexican food could be found. She pointed us to Taquitos Jalisco. Problem was…there were two and we weren’t really sure which one she meant. So, of course, we had to try both! Guys, both places were so good! Very different from one another, but both very good! We will definitely hit both again next time we get back to the area!

Y’all might remember that Jerl had to have eye surgery back in late September 2017. Well, it was time for another post-op eye check and we coordinated with his eye doc (Dr. Benedett) to find someone to do the exam in the Phoenix area. We love Dr. Benedett, by-the-way.  December 28th we headed to Jerl’s check-up and found out that his retina was re-detaching. We didn’t really go into panic mode until the young doctor we were seeing started giving us conflicting information. That worried us. A lot. He couldn’t even tell us if Jerl would be under general anesthesia or local anesthesia during the process.

We spent the afternoon talking about all of our options. There weren’t really that many. I jumped online and tried to find an RV park that we would be able to stay at for 2 months in the Phoenix area and guess what…nadda. As good as the Ranger’s at Lost Dutchman are, there were no available spots. Not even for one night after our reservations ended. For several reasons we decided to chance a 1,425 mile dash back to Missouri on an engine that was acting up and through winter weather to get back to Dr. Benedett. Yup, he’s that good.

In the next post I’ll fill y’all in about our mad dash to Missouri and give you an update on Jerl’s eye and the RV engine.

See y’all down the road!

#grandwesternloop

New Mexico Foodies

New Mexico Foodies

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Hey Guys! I know what you’re thinking…a whole post just for foodies? But, y’all know we love our foodies! Our explorations are just as much about the foodies as they are the views, National & State Parks, and the hiking. Every new area has it’s specialty…certain things that you can only get there or that were started there.

For New Mexico, there are several foodies that you’ll want to seek out while visiting! New Mexican foodies aren’t really Mex, but they aren’t quite Tex either. They’re this happy little medium that usually looks like a plate of goop…but tastes very much like magic! There are six foodies that most people will agree are the quintessential New Mexican foodies, so let’s go through those first.

Before we jump into the foodies…let’s get one thing out of the way. In New Mexico…chilies reign supreme. In the grocery stores you’ll find them in these handy little tubs that are good for one meal. You can get them hot, medium, or mild. Fire roasted or not. Chopped, diced, or pureed. You definitely have options. My favorite (and the most cost effective) way is to get big 5 lb. bags of frozen chopped chilies then divvy them up into smaller one pound bags that I can pull from the freezer and throw into anything.

The most important question you’ll be asked in a New Mexican restaurant is if you want red or green. Until you’ve found your favorite, I’d suggest Christmas style. Half red and half green!

On to the Foodies! I’ll start with the Green Chile Cheeseburger. You can easily find these all over New Mexico, but not all burgers are created equal. Any green chili cheeseburger we’ve had comes with a mound of green chilies and is covered in a white cheese. The easiest place to find them would be at a Blake’s Lotaburger. Blake’s is a fast-food place. Think Dairy Queen with a New Mexican twist. And while Blake’s isn’t our favorite, it’s where the locals go for a quick burger. After two tours through New Mexico we’ve found two places that we feel have the best all around green chili cheeseburger. We found Rockin BZ Burgers in Alamogordo our first time through NM and dreamed about them for two years before we could get back there. Rockin BZ still number one for us, but a close (and we mean a very close) second is Church Street Grill in Carlsbad. With these two places you’ll get the whole package. The chilies are hot, but not melt-your-face-off, the meat is good quality, the cheese has a nice mild flavor, and the buns hold up nicely. And then you’ve got a decent selection of really good sides.

Green Chile Stew is a New Mexican staple food. Every restaurant will have their own little twist on this dish, but they don’t usually stray too far from the simple dish of green chilies, pork, garlic, onions, and potatoes in a broth. It’s one of our favorite things to make at home so we don’t usually order it out. We’re kind of partial to our own recipe after two years of tweaking and getting it just right for our taste buds. I should say though…anytime we’ve ordered it out, the green chili stew is loaded with flavor and the meat is so tender it falls apart in your mouth!

Sopapillas are fried pockets of light airy dough! In New Mexico they’re served with the meal. You can eat them the way you’d eat a roll or save them for the end of the meal and have them with honey. Actually, if you get into some big time heat with your meal, this is a great way to help cut the heat.

One of my favorite ways to get a sopapilla is stuffed. It’s hard to see under that pile of cheese and chili sauce, but there’s a great big sopapilla on that plate stuffed with pork and green chilies, and more cheese. We’ve had some really good stuffed sopapillas! The Sopapilla Factory in Santa Fe and Sadie’s of New Mexico in Albuquerque are two of our favorites!

Breakfast Burritos are a staple in New Mexico. Pretty much every restaurant that sells breakfast has a breakfast burrito on the menu and we’ve never had one we didn’t like. The biggest decision you’ll have to make is if you want it dry or covered. Covered comes with the chili sauce of your choice (red or green) and cheese. Dry is…well, just like it sounds…more of a pick-it-up type of burrito. It’s rumored that the breakfast burrito started at a restaurant called Tia Sophias in Santa Fe back in the 70s. We’ve never had one there, but we have had lunch there and we highly recommend it for an authentic New Mexican meal!

Stacked Enchiladas are exactly what they sound like! Instead of rolled individually, the enchiladas are stacked on top of each other…kind of like an enchilada casserole. I was reluctant to try these. To me enchiladas are rolled up, sitting side by side, little tubes of awesome. But, I wanted the full New Mexican Foodie experience…so I broke down and tried them. And then I ordered them every chance I got. Yup, I’m a fan. My two favorite places to get this magical enchilada casserole-esque dish is at Casa De Suenos in Tularosa and at  Rancho De Chimayo in Chimayo. In forty-three states, I’ve only seen stacked enchiladas in New Mexico. Maybe I missed them somewhere? I don’t know, but I highly recommend giving them a chance!

Navajo Tacos are probably my favorite New Mexican foodie. I know, I know…it’s just a taco…but, y’all, it’s soooo much more than just a taco! First of all, it’s made on Navajo Indian fry bread. It’s the fry bread that totally makes this taco so amazing. Indian fry bread is similar to the sopapilla in that it’s a light airy bread, but that’s really where the similarity ends. Indian fry tends to have more of a chew and the outside is crisper! It really is perfection! There are variations to this, but usually you’ll find a Navajo Taco with ground beef, beans, green chili sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese. My absolute favorite is from Twisters in Albuquerque, but the Sopapilla Factory in Santa Fe is a very close second!

So, those are your six main New Mexican Foodies, but they’re definitely not the only New Mexican Foodies!

They’re called rolled tacos…but they’re basically taquitos. A corn tortilla stuffed with a meat and then rolled and deep fried! Usually served with something to dip them in. This New Mexican Foodie is Nicholas’ favorite.

Sometimes you’ll find something special on the menu. It’s a burger, wrapped in a flour tortilla, and then deep fried. It’s the ultimate New Mexican hamburger! We’ve seen them dry (where you pick them up) and covered (fork and knife type of meal). You can’t go wrong either way!

In the more authentic restaurants, you’ll find your meal comes with a side of posole. You can see it in the picture above…it’s the white stuff. So, what the heck is posole? Well, posole is a traditional New Mexican stew made of hominy, pork, and spices. It’s usually very savory and filling. Any posole I’ve had has a bit of a kick to it and the hominy still has just the tiniest bit of chew left. It’s surprisingly good (I’m not usually a fan of hominy)!

If you’re in New Mexico…you have to try some biscochito cookies! They’re kind of cross between a shortbread cookie and a butter cookie spiced with cinnamon and anise.  They’re crispy and sweet and they are a really good way to help cut the heat of some of the food when you’re done with your spicy meal! And, if you need another excuse to try them…biscochitos are the New Mexican state cookie!

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the spices and tortillarias in a post about New Mexican Foodies! There is a brand of spices called Chimayo Traditions that I absolutely love! They’ve got some great mixes with recipes on the back like the one in the pic above, but they’ve also got my favorite chile powder! I stock up and horde it to make it stretch out. If you’ve found this brand somewhere besides New Mexico…please tell me where! We can eat ourselves silly on fresh tortillas and chips from the tortillarias! We always take the opportunity to have some with our favorite home cooked meals!

OK, Guys…that’s all I’ve got for you on New Mexican Foodies! Hopefully, I’ve inspired you to take a trip to New Mexico or try your hand at making something new at home. Get out there and try some new foodies!

See y’all down the road!

#grandwesternloop

It’s Not All Fun And Games

It’s Not All Fun And Games

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Hey Guys!! One of the main reasons we took a travel hiatus is to work on the growing list of projects for the RV aka…our home. We do little odds and ends while we’re on the road, but there are some things that would be easier to do while stationary. I thought I would let y’all see behind the scenes of what it takes to keep this nomad life of ours going.

The very first thing we do every time we driveway camp at my (Jennie’s) parent’s house is to clean out and organize our “basement”. We take everything out, reevaluate its place and if we still want/need it, and clean out all of the bays under the RV. The first year we left we had all of the bays totally packed. Completely filled. There wasn’t a single inch of free space. Now…we’ve actually got quite a bit of empty space in our “basement”. The longer we do this nomadic life thing, the more we realize life isn’t really about the “stuff”…it’s about the memories and the moments.

Once we got everything cleaned out and reloaded, we put new seals on the bay doors that needed it. The seals are what keep the wet and dirt out of our “basement” and off of our stuff.

We (I’ll say we, but really it was just Jerl) did some electrical work. We (there’s that we again) added a strip of electrical outlets under a lip on our closet. A couple of our light sensor switches (I totally just made that name up…I don’t really know what it’s called) went out on the main control panel so Jerl took a look at all of those wires too. These switches tell us if our water pump and arctic pack is on or off. So, they’re kind of important.

So…funny story (not really…heavy sarcasm). The bottom slide out compartment of our freezer broke so our freezer door wouldn’t stay shut. We looked and looked and looked some more for the part or for someone who could tell us where to look for the part and no one in six or seven states could help us. Y’all…we had to keep the lock strap on our freezer door or the thing would just stay open. That’s not helpful. While we were back in Missouri, we finally found a place that could look up the part we needed and actually order it! We did a little happy dance after it was fixed!!

We have three ceiling vents in our RV. Two of them are in the bathrooms with these little dinky fans that help ventilate the…well, you know. Our plan was to replace all three with an upgraded fan. We started with the one skylight that didn’t have the fan. We LOVE it! It’s a reversible fan so not only can we vent air out when we’re cooking we can also pull cool air in to help cool the RV on days when it’s not hot enough to turn on the AC. We only got one switched out because we simply ran out of time due to some unexpected injuries. I’ll fill you in about those later.

We replaced this doo-hicky in both of our hot water tanks. The bottom one is the one we took out and the top one is what a new one looks like. I’d say we replaced it just in time. What the heck is it? Well, it’s actually called the anode rod and it helps protect the hot water tank from mineral build up and rusting.

We took out all of the cornice boxes around all of the windows (I’ve disliked these from day one) and my (Jennie’s) mom and I made curtains!! It took me forever to pick fabric. For…ev…ER! And then when I decided I went back and found that one of the fabrics was almost gone! Sheesh! I bought up the rest of it that day and luckily we had enough for the curtains and a small pillow! We lined all of the curtains with the grey insulating material you see in the picture above.

And, because I’ve already gotten several questions about that insulating fabric…you can see the details in the picture above. I got it at JoAnne’s back in the upholstery section on the big, long rolls.

The curtains made a huge difference in the way the RV looks and feels. It feels so much homier and more comfortable now. We’re loving the curtains! And… because I love the fabric…here’s the fabric that I almost missed out on. The big curtain in the back of the bottom picture. When I first found this material there were five full bolts of it. Five! When I just happened to stop in to have one more look there was only one partial bolt left. One. And it was almost empty. I grabbed it and carried it around the store in a panic trying to finalize my decision on the other fabrics. That’s what I get for procrastinating and trying to wait for a good coupon.

Jerl fixed a leak in one of the slides. It had been leaking for some time and we’d had it in to the shop. The pros couldn’t find the leak, but we kept seeing evidence of it, so Jerl took matters into his own hands…and leak be gone!

If you look back at the very first picture on this post you’ll see our trusty 4Runner. We had to replace her this past summer. Our first thought was to get a truck, but we couldn’t find one that fit us better than our old 4Runner so we ended up with a newer 4Runner. My (Jennie’s) dad and Jerl worked on getting her ready to go.

It was a hard decision. Not only did we really love our old 4Runner…she was totally paid off.  But, we can now flat-tow and get rid of our big, bulky, heavy trailer. The trailer has caused us some issues on our travels. We always had to make sure we could get a pull-through spot or if a pull-through wasn’t available we had to make sure there was a spot somewhere for our trailer. Some parks let you park on the grass right next to your spot…most don’t. Some parks want to charge extra for either another spot or storage. So, while we’ll miss her and the no payment it was definitely the right decision to replace her. *sniff sniff*

Ever wonder how to replace a mattress in an RV? Well, it’s actually pretty darn easy! We ordered ours from a company called Mattress Insider and they shipped them to us in the boxes you see in the picture above. So, getting the new mattress in the RV was easy peasy! When you take the mattress out of the box it’s wrapped up tight. We found it easier to cut the wrap than try to pull it apart. Once you cut the wrap, you unfold it and the mattress expands…and voila! New mattress! We got new mattresses for all of the beds. After two years of sleeping on the factory mattresses it was time for an upgrade. Our backs are thanking us!

Getting the old mattresses out of the RV door wasn’t as easy as getting the new ones in, but with a little muscle we made quick work of it.

In between all of the projects and explorations, life happened. Charles got started on straitening his teeth with the help of appliances and these trays. We were able to get all the trays he’ll need to take with us so over the next year his teeth will straighten out and when we get back to driveway camping next October we can go back in for a check up.

Nicholas had a pretty big growth spurt which effected his vision so we had to find somewhere to get his eyes checked and get him some new glasses.

Charles and Jerl took a quick trip down to Texas to get a driver’s permit. We’re late on doing this. Charles isn’t in a hurry to drive…this doesn’t bother me at all. I get it. I’m not a driver either.

Jerl had a retina detach from his cornea. He had to have eye surgery. He’s actually still recovering from it, but is able to drive. It’ll take a solid three months for it to really heal up and then he’ll need new glasses. Remember that bit about me not being a driver? Well, thank goodness we were around family when this happened. My parents watched the boys while his parents drove us around to Jerl’s various doctor’s appointments. This is the injury that put a stop to any more big projects. Hard to work on something if you can’t see it properly.

Oh yeah…and three of us got a stomach bug. Gross.

So, while 16 weeks sounds like a lot of time…well, you know the saying…time flies. We started our Grand Western Loop on October 28, 2017. This loop will take us an entire year and will allow us to finish up 49 of 50 states with Hawaii being the odd state out. We had planned on doing Hawaii this past late September/early October, but with the growing number of projects we decided to put it off and take care of business instead. I’m so glad we did or we would have been in Hawaii when Jerl’s eye crapped out. That would have been…bad.

Well, Guys! That’s it for this post! The next post will be the first in our #grandwesternloop so stay tuned!

See y’all down the road!

Travel Hiatus

Travel Hiatus

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Hey Guys!! We took a hiatus from traveling this past summer and spent time with family and friends in MO while we worked on some projects around the RV. We spent 16 weeks having fun, touring National Parks, and catching up with family and friends.

If you ask the boys…they would tell you one of the best things about our hiatus was being able to shoot off fireworks. One of the downsides of being nomads is missing out on holidays with family. We were away for the July 4th celebrations the last two years. We didn’t get to celebrate on July 4th this year either…but we were only four days late.

When we go back to MO we always stay in my (Jennie’s) parent’s driveway. We driveway camp/moochdock. The boys love to play games and spend as much time as possible with family while we’re back.

They also love all of the toys that they have access to while driveway camping. 😉

Shhh…be very, very quiet…he’s hunting birds. Magnus spent the summer stalking birds…we put up a bird feeder to keep him entertained. He’s very serious about his bird stalking. I tried to get a video of him chattering and charming the birds, but every time I’d get close enough, he’d stop. Apparently, he’s a shy hunter. Who knew cats could be shy?

Sadi spent the summer doing what Sadi does best…sleeping. And eating. She’s a champion eater.

We took a mini trip up to Omaha, NE to visit friends and see the eclipse! You can read all about it here.

We also made it to a local Vietnamese festival! Please don’t ask me to spell out the name of the festival. It’s an annual festival held every August in Carthage, MO. We had a great time wandering around, drinking boboa tea, shopping and eating. Guys…the food! We didn’t get anything that wasn’t good.

Speaking of food… one of the things we look forward to is hitting all of our favorite foodie places. Bonus points for anyone who can name all four different places in the pics!

I’ve got a few more posts planned to catch y’all up on what we did over our travel hiatus. We’ll talk about the National Parks we visited, a fun day trip to Branson, and all of the projects we’ve been working on…along with some not so fun things that happened, so stay tuned!

See y’all down the road!

Year In Review Number Two

Year In Review Number Two

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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3. I 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.

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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.

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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!

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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!!!

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 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!