On the Road Again: The (Temporary) Return of the Travel Blog

Back on the road...!

It has been one year since I've contributed to this little space of mine, and three years since the four of us have all piled into our RV for a looooong road trip.

I've missed both.

For the next month, we will be on the road in "Honu," our 32 foot Class C motorhome traveling around to both new and familiar places in the Southeast U.S.

"A month?!?" people usually gasp. "Wow. All of you? In there? For a month?"

This is actually shorter than our last summer trip, which took us (almost) to Canada (it was too damn cold for this beach bum) and took up about 6 weeks of our summer. So yeah, a month doesn't really scare us.

Although....

Last time it was a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old we were dragging around and sharing about 250 square feet of living space with, not a practically-13-year-old and a now-suddenly-getting-opinionated-nearly-10-year-old. For people who do not have kids (stop gloating), that may not seem like much of an age difference. For those who have entered, are enduring, or have survived the teen years, you know this can be a potentially volatile situation.

However...

Hubby and I are (perhaps naively) optimistic. In fact, we couldn't wait to get back in the RV and escape it all with them. You see, the amazing thing for us is that when we do go camping together (I use the term "camping" loosely here, since, hello, I have a mini apartment on wheels here), everything else seems to fall away. The essence of who we all are, as individuals and as a family, seems to really come back to the surface. This is our hope for this trip: that we stop bickering (mostly) about nonsense like video game time or who sits where on the couch...that we will, once again, build memories that will make them want to continue spending time with us, even as they grow older...that they will meet new people and see new places and try new things and just sit and breathe and play and laugh and love.

We have made a lot of changes in our lives over the last few years so that we can attempt to live in a perpetual state of vacation. We take mini trips every other month, if not more often. We go to the beach on weekdays. We make time to play as often as possible. But these trips, the "big ones", these are really what it's about for us. So here's hoping that this one, like all the others, fills up our souls and brings us even closer together.

Here's the itinerary:
Stop 1: Melbourne, Fl...Visiting "Tantala" AKA our dearest friend and the boys' pseudo Grandmother
Stop 2: St. Augustine, Fl....After studying Florida history, Ben requested we return to check it out again
Stop 3: South of the Border, North & South Carolina state line...this stop is mostly for practical purposes, but I'm thinking we may get a little Griswald-y here
Stop 4: Cedar Island, NC..just an overnight sleep stop
Stop 5: Outer Banks, NC...AKA My Second Favorite Place Ever
Stop 6: Cherokee, Smoky Mountains, NC...hoping to get over my fear of white water rafting here as well as enjoy some tubing, aerial park adventures, visit Asheville, do some hikes
Stop 7: Nashville, TN...spending a little downtime between the mountains and our next long drive during July 4th week at truly country-themed campground
Stop 8: Pitstop in Lynchburg, TN to check out the Jack Daniels Distillery (if you know us, no explanation is necessary here)
Stop 9: Florida Caverns State Park, Fl...went here on our very first RV summer trip (back when we thought being gone for 9 days was an adventure), and the boys barely remember it
Stop 10: Henderson Beach, Destin, Fl...this was my first beach campground experience and became the measuring stick for all future beach camping trips

Happy (and safe) travels to us...!

Old posts from the road:

Lessons Learned in an RV

Mommy Blog turned Travel Blog

Bliss in Outer Banks

RV Girls Wear Heels Too

The 4 of Us for 8 Days in a 20 Year Old RV

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all."

                                        ~Helen Keller