Month: September 2020

One thing that always gets mentioned by those who have hit the road, but yet conveniently never captured, is just exactly how hard it is to downsize. There are many who have romanticized leaving everything behind and chasing adventure. This is a fine take, but it leaves out a glaring hole in every story: the leaving behind. Hi, my name is Summer and I am a packrat. I’m not a hoarder, but I do tend to attach sentimental value to random items like that tshirt I wore to play backyard football in highschool 20 years ago (yes, Icebox still lives, thanks. Go Mongeese! and yes, I still have the final BFE trophy back home in VA. Don’t ask.) I have a set of books my grandparents gave me as a child in ’91. Or just maybe I still have that nail polish I’ve worn once a few years ago and hey, it hasn’t dried out yet and maybe I’ll wear it again? Okay, okay. It can go, no big deal.

When we first starting talking about this decision, my underlying anxiety buzz that usually sits at a simmer these days blew into a full-blown boil over the first time Drew said those hateful, hateful words “you can’t take all of these books” and “when are you going to go through your closet?”

How dare?!

If you know me personally, you know that I read as if I am breathing. I tend to read between 100-150 books a year and until about 2 years ago I refused to get a kindle because I’m old school and prefer physical books so I can skim back to info or know how far along I am. Library book sales are like the 2nd and 3rd coming of Christmas every year. Thus, I had a lot of books. Drew attempted to compromise and allowed for space in storage for 15 boxes of books. You read that right. 15. Not enough, right? RIGHT? He kindly reminded me that he would never say a word to me about how many books I put on my kindle so why not just get the ebook for whatever I wanted to read and keep those that were actually important (like all of my signed copies). Okay, fine. I didn’t like it, but I ripped the band aid and managed to create 5 book boxes. I may or may not have entered a state of mourning for a few days as I saw 4 armloads of books that remained walk out my door to their new homes. (I love my dear friends who all reminded me that if I want them back that I know where they will be because, hey, that’s what makes them such great friends y’all.) Drew boxed up the rest to donate and it’s about 8 boxes? I refuse to watch again to count. It hurts, but I can replace those on Kindle. Or at another library book sale.

and then.

The main reason we built this house was that it came with 2 closets in the master, mine being half the size of the garage. That’s not an exaggeration. This has allowed me to accumulate a myriad of items from formal dresses, shelves of t-shirts, boxes of pictures, scarves upon scarves upon scarves, a box of purses and bags/totes of all sizes, no less than 20 jackets of varying weights and fabrics, not to mention shoes for every occasion. (Do NOT let Drew lie to you, he has more shoes than I do.) Just thinking about it now makes me start to itch. I am fully prepared to spend the afternoon in tears as I try on all of the clothes I know good and well will not still fit and agonize over which of the 4 Auburn jackets I want to take (this is my blog so you don’t get to judge me. They’re all different types and we’re SEC fans. As they say, “Nuff, said”).

How do you possibly choose? How do I possibly whittle down 8 yrs of closet allotment into 4ft? Can it be done? Can it be done fully sober? This is only partially in jest. It’s not until you have to start physically parting with your stuff that you realize just exactly what you’re leaving behind. It’s not just stuff, it’s a lifestyle. It’s convenience. It’s laziness, frankly. It’s avoidance, because you can. It’s comfort. It’s a tether we create of our own making and cutting that cord can physically hurt. I told you. I’m a planner. What if I NEED something in there? Why should I waste the money to replace it if I already own it?

I promise I’ll get there. It is surmountable to be certain. But. Anyone who tells you this part is easy? Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Maybe the most frequent question I have been asked since we told the world we were Full Timing was “where are you going first?” And we don’t know.

A big part of that is we don’t know when we will get to leave so we can’t start making reservations. And we will be joining some memberships that don’t really make sense to join until we know when we are leaving. So there are practical reasons why we don’t know yet.

But honestly, I don’t plan on always knowing weeks or months out where we will be. Part of doing this is adding some spontaneity into our life. We have started to throw down pins on a digital map of places we want to see around the country. But the order we do it in and all the little stops along the way isn’t set in stone.

I have no doubt that we will have more structure planned than some do, that’s the wife’s nature. But part of the trip is the trip itself. I’m looking forward to it as much as any single destination outside Alaska.

We want to meet people and caravan with similar families. We want our kids to have a social life and playtime and friends. And we have to be intentional about those things by being intentionally flexible. It will be good for us. 

So no, we aren’t sure about where we are going first. But we know we are going. Soon. And that’s good enough for today anyway. 

I thought I would take a few minutes and jot down for posterity what would cause me to want to sell almost everything I own, shut down my business, and travel around the country with my family in a Fifth Wheel. Maybe I’ll need to look back and read this a few times during the next few months to remind myself. I hope not, but it is definitely a possibility. Some of the people I know have to be wondering what in the hell we are thinking as well. Maybe this will help them understand.

So where to start? The easiest motivation to identify is some amount of Wanderlust. I love seeing new things and experiencing new places. Having spent the vast majority of my life in places that are almost uniformly flat, wet, hot, humid, and full of pine trees, I find the majesty of the Tetons or the haze hanging on the Smokies striking in a way I can’t quite put into words. Alaska still seems to me the Great Frontier. Part of what makes America great and majestic is it’s massive size and scope, both geographically and culturally. I want to experience it for myself and with my wife. I want my children to experience it. I believe we will be changed by it in a meaningful way.

The writings of John Muir have reminded me of the intense call of the wild that when answered helps us re-center ourselves in what has become a wild and crazy world. Anger and hate and distrust and fear perpetuate so easily that sometimes unplugging and returning to nature really can help us find the perspective that is so easily lost.

Don’t get me wrong. We aren’t casting off all creature comforts. We still need the internet for work and school (and Netflix) and mama’s tolerance for temps above about 72 is mighty thin. But learning about erosion in the morning and seeing the Grand Canyon after lunch will be pretty cool.

There’s also more to this decision though. Why do we wait until we are in our 50s or 60s to do those things we have always wanted to do? Why don’t we do them when we are young AND when we are old? What happens if you wait until the kids go to college, or when we retire, or, or, or… and then you have a massive heart attack one day, or another pandemic happens, or the polar ice caps melt, or aliens attack?

I suppose the safe decision is to keep doing the same thing day after day with as much security as one can muster. But I want my kids to see that it is ok to follow a dream. It is ok to decide that you need a change and to make that change. It is ok to follow your heart. It may not be easy or conventional. Your family and friends may not all really understand. But you only have one life to live so you might as well LIVE it.

I know this all sounds like a Jimmy Buffett song. And 385 square feet with a family of four and half of Noah’s ark seems daunting. But if not now, when? There will always be reasons not to do it. But if the reasons to do it are what you lay awake thinking about at night, maybe you should follow your heart. That’s what we are going to do.

Does anyone remember the TLC show back in the day called “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding”? I remember watching that show and not caring so much about the over-the-top extravagant weddings. My real concern was all of these people living in campers. There were several times I turned to Drew and made him watch a portion I rewound to show their living arrangements, specifically saying “there is no way I could ever do that”. At the time, we had never even been camping. It was 2010, we were fresh out of law school and living at the beach. Fast forward to 2014, we now have two kids and started camping a few weekends in a travel trailer because this momma doesn’t sleep on the ground or without access to a shower. I fully admit that I put the “Glam” in glamping. We traded up in size pretty quickly to a travel trailer with a bunkhouse, because it doesn’t take long to have kids stuff exploding everywhere. In my head I’m thinking “we’re on vacation, we need to just shut a door on their mess because I’m not dealing with it”. It was a good thing we did, because soon Drew was working out of town for weeks on end and ended up living in it instead of hotel hopping. He came home and talked about how much he actually enjoyed it. Again, I said, ‘No thanks’. He started watching a lot more youtube channels instead of cable channels, and suddenly “Keep your Daydream” and “Less Junk < More Journey” become household viewing standards. Drew and the kids are fascinated with their travels around the country. Me? not so much. If you haven’t caught on yet, I’m not real big on change or travel in general. I’ll go, but I’m going to overpack to get there.

A couple of years later and we are taking longer and longer trips. Fall break 2019 found us in Atlanta for a week and change before moving on down to Auburn, AL to take the kids to their first Braves and Auburn football game. Little did we know that was one of the last trips we’d get to take for a while. Covid hit before we really had a chance to even de-winterize the camper and suddenly we’re stuck inside. I’ve been WFH for a few years now and it has gotten quite a bit more crowded around my office these days. Even for a homebody like me, it was starting to be a little much and I was itching to just do something. A childhood friend mentioned he was meeting his family at a campground a few hours from here and so I immediately latched on to the invite and booked us last minute for the weekend. It felt good to just get out. A few weeks later, we got word that the kids wouldn’t be going back to school in the fall either. At this point, courts are closed. Schools are closed. I’m still WFH, so nothing changed there thankfully. Again, I’m getting restless to get out of this house even if it means taking the camper somewhere and having to do all that packing again. Because it’s August/Sept and the South, we opted to chase a little bit of a break in humidity.

That’s how we found ourselves for almost three weeks in TN “trying out longer trips”. Drew was doing school with the kids, I was still working full time, but if they are online why not online somewhere they can do other things? All the while, Drew is dropping more and more hints that he wants to do this full time and I just roll my eyes. I tell him, “let’s just see how several weeks go first,” thinking that there is no way this is going to work. About a week in and we’re in a routine and I start to notice that longer is actually easier. I can put stuff away and not feel like it’s a waste of time because I’m about to move it back out. I do some work outside because it’s not the surface of the sun in the mountains. I can get back to running again because I don’t have to wade through the air up there. Drew has now added even more youtube channels onto his list and the kids know their kids by name now. By the time we are set to leave, we aren’t really ready to leave. Drew and the kids start playing the “but what IF we do this full time, what would it take” game. “Wouldn’t it be cool if the kids are doing homework about rocks in the morning and then can walk outside and step into the Grand Canyon and see them in real life that afternoon?”

This game is pretty dangerous if you don’t think you’re actually on board yet. You’ll find yourself agreeing to check RVTrader for midbunk models that could work because your kids won’t actually sleep if they’re in the same room so school the next day will be a nightmare. You’ll also find your self driving all over the state to look at bigger trucks with more wheels in the back. Suddenly, you’ll find yourself in a bit of an out of body experience where you hear yourself saying “okay” and not quite sure who said that. You’ll remind yourself that you’re assuming a timetable of January, because “clearly it’ll take a while and be difficult to find the camper and the truck you want because THANKS COVID, supplies are pretty low” and there would be time for it all to blow over or get used to it,
Then one day you find the perfect camper model you can set your sights on. Within a week, RV Trader posts a deal you just can’t pass up if you’re going to do this. The truck you thought would be the easy part is actually a lot more elusive until out of the ‘blue’ one seems to just appear a few hours away (literally 8mins from said earlier childhood friend’s house). Then the check for the warranty cancellations on the old truck is almost exactly what it costs to transport the new camper here from TX. Pieces all seem to suddenly fall too perfectly into place, and you find yourself sitting here in September, watching boxes of books walk out of your house to their new home ( a moment of silence, please) and you’re listing furniture on FB marketplace.

How did we get here? Little seeds that have germinated for a very, very long time. Restless feet. A changing world that could easily have forced us into a shell within these four walls. Am I still anxious about all of this? Heck yes. I’m a planner. I’m type A with a capital A in bold and underlined. I’m stretching myself in ways I never thought I would already and we haven’t even left yet. It’s scary to make a jump like that, but I also know in my heart how great it will be for our kids. They will get experiences that many only ever dream about (who am I kidding, so will mom & dad). WiFi is so readily available nationwide now, that any excuse I have about school or work is no longer a problem. It will be good for me, too. If left to my own devices (and a book), I’m perfectly happy to not leave my couch. I hate seeing my kids sit in front of a TV and xBox for hours on end, but I can’t really fuss if I’m not giving them other options.

So here we are, scheduling painters and realtors, sitting down to capture all of this process from messy start to eventual finish one day. We still have family and commitments here, so we’ll be dipping in and out of NC for quite a while, but otherwise let’s get out there and see what this world has to offer.