One Big Camping Trip

Joshua occasionally reminds me that I really should be blogging. And he's right. Some would say we have an interesting life. So here's the moment when I again step out of silence and maybe post once in a while. Because well, we live in an RV now. And who gets to say that?

Someday soon I'll post a picture of our little set up. But right now there is a bunch of crap in front of it waiting to be unpacked and it doesn't look as idyllic as I want people to think our life is. So I'd better hold off. No sense ruining the illusion.


For now I'll say, we live in 31 foot Fleetwood Prowler. My husband Joshua the Park Ranger, our two kids Malachi and Mimi, our dog Rose, and me. We don't take this ol' girl anywhere; we stay put in our little town in Virginia.


I'd like to say we live in an RV out of idealism. And in a sense it is. I have had a lot of dreams over the years, and anything that's hipster-chic, like the tiny house movement, I've dreamed about doing. Joshua sometimes dreams along, and sometimes humors me. I won't tell you which is which.

First there was the intentional community dream. This one involved selling all we had, serving and living among the poor, and only having one pair of pants. Laundry day was challenging in this dream.

There was the farm dream. That one lasted until we became friends with some farm people and realized you can't really do anything because you are always farming. And you can't really go anywhere because...animalz. That seemed like a drag. Plus I don't like manual labor.

And there was a house boat dream. A Peace Corps dream. The Dorm Parent dream. The Teaching English in Korea dream (thanks for that Ken and Krystin). I could go on.

Last but not least...the RV dream. Similar to the houseboat dream, but this one involved travel around these great United States, and probably Canada and Mexico too. And hanging out with hippies. Well, that is in all of my dreams. Because in my dreams I am a hippie.

But the REAL RV dream, the one that's happening, is not as exciting as all that. It involves a new job with less pay, a desire for a stay-at-home parent, and a new town with expensive housing. It involves a plan to homeschool, with kindergarten on the horizon. None of it added up without some finagling. So we finagled ourselves into a travel trailer, and onto some land. I use the word "land" loosely, as its just an acre or two that we share with our landlord. Between her and us and all our stuff, it looks like we're having a yard sale every day. Truth be told, we had very little to do with the whole arrangement. We contributed some ideals, a willingness to do something crazy, and a very great need. The God of the universe, who knows our names and every need, orchestrated the rest.

Anyway, that's a snippet about how we got here. Hopefully I'll make time to write about it more, because there are some beautiful things that have happened, and I'd love to share them. Without further editing or ado, I'll hit the Publish button, otherwise this bit of work will join the ranks of my already lengthy Drafts section.