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Lets Try This Again

By Jennie Simpson | April 5, 2018

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

By Jennie Simpson | March 16, 2018

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

By Jennie Simpson | March 9, 2018

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!

Santa Fe Area

By Jennie Simpson | February 1, 2018

Hey Guys! We spent one week in the Santa Fe area trying to hit everything we missed last time and revisit a few of our favorites.

The first thing we did was hit one of our very favorite pizza places. Back Road Pizza. We’ve been talking about this pizza since we discovered it two years ago! The New Mexican pizza is probably our all time favorite.

We also managed to hit three National Park Units! It’s amazing how many NPS Units are in this area!

The Pecos National Historical Park preserves two Pecos Pueblo ruins along with old church ruins. Most of the pueblo ruins looked like the pic above. Not much was left. Around 2/3 of the South Pueblo ruins remain in an unexcavated mound. I wanted to include a picture of this sign to give y’all an idea of what one of these pueblos used to look like. Pecos, at its peak, was a trading place for the Plains Apaches and would have been home to around 2,000 people.

We saw several Kivas. I think I saw that there are 20 kivas at the Pecos Pueblo. You can see the remains of one in the pic above. (top right picture) During the Fall of 1540, the Pecos’ lives would be changed forever when a Spanish expedition claimed the land for their king and demanded the Pecos become Christians. The first mission built was finished in 1625. It’s estimated that the builders used around 300,000 forty-pound adobe bricks to complete the 1625 mission. This first mission functioned for 55 years but burned during a rebellion in 1680. The Pecos people tied a certain number of knots in ropes and handed them out to everyone. Each day they would untie one knot. When the last knot was untied, the rebellion started. The second mission was finished in 1717. By 1821 Pecos was almost a ghost town and in 1838 the last inhabitants left the pueblo to join their relatives at the Jemez Pueblo eighty miles away.

Fort Union National Monument protects what’s left of the three forts once built here. When the US acquired the New Mexico Territory at the end of the Mexican-American War, Fort Union was built to guard and aid in the American expansion into the Southwest.

Fort Union was positioned where the Santa Fe Trail’s two main branches met. Some years over 3,000 wagons made a trip up or down the Santa Fe Trail’s 900 miles. For many, Fort Union was the end of a long 800 mile journey through the Great Plains under constant threat of attack. At Fort Union there was someone on watch at all hours for incoming riders/wagon trains on the trail. When riders or wagon trains were spotted Fort riders were sent out to get everything organized and into a single file line by the time they reached the Fort. So, what was a trail wide enough that it would allow up to four wagons to ride side by side ended up being a single file trail closer to Fort Union. Can you imagine having that job? Telling riders at the end of an 800 mile wagon ride that they need to slow down and get in single file line? I imagine they were met with some grumpy people.

Fort Union protected the Santa Fe trail and it’s travelers, aided in protecting against Native American attacks, and was a major supplier for the US Army. There were three forts built here from 1851-1891 each fort getting bigger and stronger than the one before it. What once was the largest fort west of the Mississippi River is falling into ruins today. The NPS isn’t allowed to do anything but try to preserve what’s left. They’re trying their hardest to preserve this part of our history.

The grass has grown up over the trail. If there wasn’t a sign, you’d never know you were looking at one of the most important trials in US history. Can you imagine setting off on a 900 mile wagon journey across the Great Plains? Wagons could only cross in the summer or early fall when there was enough grass to feed the mules and oxen that pulled the wagons and they would only make around 8 to 10 miles a day. I’m not sure I’m cut out for that kind of travel. I feel like we’re crawling when we’re going 55 mph down the highway in our home-on-wheels!

The last NPS Unit we made it to in our week in the Santa Fe area was the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Valle Grande, in the picture above, was formed around one million years ago when a series of huge volcanic eruptions spewed a volume of material 500 times greater than the May 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. There’s a visitor center here and some trails, but we didn’t get to do much because it was cold and icy the day we went. I’d love to go back during the spring when it’s all green!

Valles Caldera looks like a big bear paw on a map. Can you see it? (top picture) We heard some of the Natives in the area call it that. This area is gorgeous even with the forest healing from a big fire a few years back.

One of the neat things about this NPS Unit is due to all of the volcanic activity. There are tons of obsidian laying around! What you might not know (we didn’t) is that when obsidian reaches a certain temperature it turns into poofy obsidian. A what obsidian? Poofy. In the picture above, you can see a normal shiny, black piece of obsidian. Next to it is the poofy obsidian. Poofy obsidian is soooo light and airy! It was pretty neat to see and feel the difference. If you step on it, it poofs. If you hold it too tight, it poofs. Due to the large fire there are tons of poofy obsidian in the park now. If you visit this park, please don’t poof their obsidian.

We also stopped back by Bandelier National Monument to revisit it in hopes of seeing it without snow, but the main trail was closed due to maintenance…so, we hopped back in the car and drove on. The views in this area are pretty stellar!

New Mexico is one of our favorite states. The views, the hikes, the NPS Units, the foodies, and the vibe all speak to us. There are so many postcard worthy vistas in this gorgeous state!

I imagine we will go back to New Mexico again and again throughout the years!

See y’all down the road!

#grandwesternloop

Pizza Roundup Pendelis Pizzeria

By Littlest | August 5, 2016

For my fellow pizza lovers I bring to you a post for Pendelis Pizzeria in Montreal Canada.

Pendelis is a very good pizza place with a pepperoni cut like you have never seen! The pepperoni is so tasty to!

When you go to Pendelis make sure to check out their pasta to, because it looks excellent. My brother had the pasta and he loved it! Pendelis has more than just pizza, they also have pastas and poutine and burgers.

The staff is really nice and the food is really good. For all of that I give Pendelis Pizza a 5 star review

See you next time on…

Pizza Street!!

Pizza Roundup Pizza Ranch

By Littlest | May 4, 2016

For my fellow pizza lovers, on this pizza review I will be talking about Pizza Ranch. If you remember my first post from Nebraska last year (2015) you might remember Pizza Ranch.

Pizza Ranch is a really good pizza chain that we couldn’t resist eating at again, but this time we were in Springfield, Illinois. My favorite pizza from there is still the chicken bacon ranch pizza.

Just to refresh your memory of Pizza Ranch you can look at my first pizza post ever in the history of ever.

Pizza Ranch has more than just pizza on the buffet like chicken legs, mashed potatoes,

salad stuff,

and dessert’s such as ice cream, and really really tasty dessert pizza.

The decorations were also really cool in the style of a ranch and the bathrooms are also clean.

I think pizza ranch deserves another 5-star review.

see you next time on…

Pizza Street!!

High clearance required

By jsimpson | December 15, 2015

One of the requirements before starting this trip was to have a four wheel drive vehicle. The Sedona area has over a dozen drives that are a little more, adventurous. We wanted to do one of these drives, as the views were said to be spectacular…and they were.

The drive we chose to do is called Schnelby Hill Road. Schnelby Hill Road is a semi-maintained dirt road that runs from Sedona to I-17 along 12 miles of very bumpy driving.

I was excited to drive up and see this sign. Soon after, the pavement ran out, that’s when things became interesting.

Where the pavement ends…

You can see a couple more warning signs in the distance. I’m pretty sure people don’t read those, we saw several people trying to drive low clearance vehicles along this road. We actually talked to one guy and suggested he turn back…he did.

This area is not so bad, pick your path and just about anything can drive along that…but that’s not all there was.

I have to say, the car looks pretty good going through there.

Here’s another shot, showcasing the road…and the car.

The views were amazing the whole way.

We stopped occasionally to do some exploring. This is a bowl that has been washed out of the sandstone from running water when it rains. Just beyond the edge there is about a 20 foot drop.

TEQUILA…or at least where we get it. Agave grows everywhere around here.

Some more exploring, this was as far as we went, about 4 miles in.

We were greeted with this view at the end.

I put together a map of the route we took using a Garmin eTrex. I pulled the track off the GPS unit, converted it into something I can use and added it to the map. It’s fun to see where we went. The whole trip was about 8 miles and took us almost 2 1/2 hours.

Pizza Roundup Mountain High Pizza Pie

By Littlest | October 31, 2015

Mountain High Pizza Pie is a pretty tasty pizza place in Talkeetna, AK.

The decorations were nice and the place was clean. We sat outside and there were lots of flowers.

My dad got the toasted ravioli with meatballs.

I, of course, got pizza!

They had a good selection of pizzas on the menu, as well as, sandwiches and pastas.

The bathrooms were nice and clean. That’s always important in my book.

I think that Mountain High Pizza deserves a 4.5 star review.

See you next time on

Pizza Street!!

Hello World!

By jsimpson | August 8, 2014

I think it was about a year ago that my hubby and I decided to do something totally crazy. We decided to homeschool three boys, get an RV and travel to all 50 states! When we tell people about our impending trip we usually get one of two reactions. The most common reaction is of total amazement followed with begging to come with us. The other reaction is the one where people think it’s an awesome idea, but think we must be a bit nuts to even seriously consider doing it. Five people and two cats in an RV for how long? That would be two years (as of now).

We’ve spent the year preparing for this life changing trip and this blog will be a way for us to share the experience with anyone who might be interested or just curious about what it takes to switch from living in a house to living full time in an RV! It’ll also be my digital journal…a scrapbook of sorts so we can remember our Grand Adventure!

See y’all down the road!