Johns Trippin'

When we first started traveling, I would tell people that we were homeless. I stopped doing that after a little while because it wasn't really true. We were houseless, but we weren't homeless. We were all together, and we had a roof over our heads. It was a small roof, yes, but we had a home. Now we have a house. Let's back up and do a brief recap. We  sold our house in North Carolina  in February, 2021 and  bought an RV . We didn't really have a plan for what came next other than to visit as many National Parks as we could. We hit the road in March, 2021. Me: "Should you teach me how to drive this?" RV Guy: "Have you ever driven a moving truck" Me: "Yes." RV Guy: "You'll be fine." Our kids were 7, 9, and 11 when we began. We spent the next 20 months driving around this (very large) country, visiting all 59 National Parks in the lower 48 plus Alaska. We didn't have a house to come back to once we were done traveling. Our p...

Dear Younger Me, Stop getting excited about the house that you think you will be living in in six to eight months. Yeah, no, you won't be able to even see the house being built until a year has gone by. By then, you will have progress, but I don't know how much (I'm waiting on a letter from future me). Eight or so months have gone by and we have a well. The only interesting news is we are getting 100 gallons a minute from our well. I guess that's good... but when I turn on the shower I'll probably be sliced in half by the blade of water. Maybe you're hoping we have a foundation. If you call a field of dirt a foundation then you're in luck. Maybe you're hoping the roads will be done. Well, all I'll say is... this John guy isn't quiiiiiiiiiiiite right about when he'll be done. At least the roads have a disgusting layer of bumpy gravel. At least they're drivable... mostly. The only good news is we can drive down to our slab of dirt now on a ...

Dry Tortugas National Park,  you are hard to get to. Perhaps I should provide some background information. Dry Tortugas NP is one of the three national parks in Florida. The other two being Everglades NP and Biscayne NP. Back at the start of the RV trip, the first thing we did was head south. Due to the fact that it was March, and we didn't want to go north when it was cold. Since we didn't have much national-park-going experience, we didn't realize until too late that Dry Tortugas is in the ocean and needs a ferry to get to that is booked months in advance. (We also missed Biscayne NP, which is also on the water.) Therefore, we made plans to go to the island with our cousins' family and booked a ferry and camping trip 12 months ago. We were all staying in the RV as we went down to Key West from Georgia. It is not fun to sleep in an RV with nine people. Here's where everyone slept: Everyone in our family slept where they always do. As you saw in the picture, we had ...

In this blog I am going to tell you my favorite poems from "Poems for Kids - over 600 poems for children in grades 3 - 6" by Lorrie L. Birchall. I hope you find these as funny as I do. The Purple Cow - By Gelett Burgess I never saw a purple cow, I never hoped to see one;  but I can tell you, anyhow, I'd rather see than be one. Ann Jennings Some have children some have none; Here lies the mother of 21. Ann Mann Here lies the body of Ann Mann, Who lived an old woman, And died an old Mann. Latitudes and Longitudes -  By Hugh Lofting 'Twas in the tropic latitudes That we were talking platitudes, Just sailor-like chit-chatitudes As any ship-mates might. We forgot to take our longitude (Which was a grievous wrongitude) So we didn't reach Hong-kongitude Till very late that night. A Nursery Rhyme Mash-Up - By Michael Lewis Little Jack Horner sat in the corner Eyeing the pies all day, While little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet Eating her curds and whey. Old Mother Hubbard ...

This was one of my favorite Harvest Hosts. Harvest Host definition: A place, farm, brewery, etc. that allows RVs to park there for one or two nights. We drove into the Pint Sized Pasture in the afternoon. It was a bit dreary, clouds covering the sky. We knew the owner of the farm was at a birthday party. This farm took animals to birthday parties. But it was expensive: $250 for one hour and if you wanted an extra it was an additional $150. You would also pay for how many miles away the place your party was at. They also did unicorn parties where they dressed the animals up as unicorns. We parked next to their swing set, put the slides out, and put the stabilizers down to level the RV. Since we had been cooped up driving for three hours, we were more than ready to get out of the RV. Caleb, Asher, and I jumped out of the RV and immediately started playing on the swing set. Then we jumped on a trampoline but it did not bounce that well. The newly built swings! Tied up near the trampoline ...

The traveling portion of this adventure is over. Yes, we still live in an RV, but it's now stationary. You may recall that we spent three months in north Georgia , using that time to look for a church. Once we did so, we would then look for land or a house in the vicinity of that church. We had a forced end date on that stay due to a previously planned vacation . We got to the end of that three month stay with no church but with a better idea of of where we need to go to find what we're looking for in a church. One of our priorities is diversity, so in short, we needed to get closer to a metropolitan area. North Georgia, while beautiful, is rural. Julie and I would love to get away to the mountains, but it's not the right decision for our family in our current season of life. Long story short, we decided to focus our search around Athens after our vacation. It's small enough to not feel overwhelming (I'm looking at you, Atlanta) yet big enough to serve as a mini-met...

When I went to the bathroom this afternoon, I was struck with a seemingly odd thought. "The toilet has water in it." Now this might seem weird to those of you who have regular toilets, but ours is not a normal toilet. No, our toilet is a broken toilet!

If by some random reason — maybe you want to be out there with no worries, or you just NEED A REST FROM YOUR KIDS' ENDLESS AND POINTLESS TALKING!!!  — you'll probably want an RV trip. But! you don't want just ANY RV trip you want THE RV trip. A trip that will make you feel free of the world's problems. A trip that will be the best vacation OF ALL TIME. Well, you are in luck my friend! for I have put together a list of what you SHOULD bring on your, 'The RV trip.' Enjoy! Full size soap bottles There you are after a long day of driving. YOU NEED TO TAKE A SHOWER!!! You feel like you have bugs crawling ALL OVER YOU. So you head to the bathroom to get your 'super small travel size soap' that will make your RV shower experience efficient and easy! But your wife/child/cousin beat you to it! You wait twenty minutes for your wife/child/cousin to get out. When they finally get out you realize your wife/child/cousin has used ALL the hot water. NNNOOO! You wait ano...

When you drive in, the office is on the right with a lane to park in while you check in. You drive on a paved road through a campground with plenty of trees. There aren't any ditches or tight turns on the road.  Then you arrive at your clearly marked site at an angle convenient for pulling in. The site is level and held back with a retaining wall made of natural materials. The utilities are close to the site and there is plenty of room for the slides. After setting up, you could bike to the big playground on the smooth roads, or you could take a walk around the lake. Dinner could be eaten outside at the picnic table on the concrete patio, without any neighbors right up next to you.  If you fancied a shower after dinner, then head down to the bathhouse along the well lit street. All the lights are facing downward as to not contribute to light pollution. The bathhouse is clean and also well lit. The lights in the bathroom are always on.  Step into the shower, clos...

Along with Biscayne National Park , we failed to get to Dry Tortugas National Park on our first attempt two years ago. The Dry Tortugas are a set of islands about 70 miles off the coast of Key West, Florida. Islands means ferry, and it turns out you have to book the ferry months ahead of time. Lesson learned. We started planning our return trip a year ahead of time as a joint vacation with my sister's family. I was in charge of getting us down there, and my brother-in-law Marc took charge of getting us to the island (booking the ferry) and keeping us on the island for a few days (camping). There is one RV park in Key West, and it's as expensive and hard to book as you'd imagine, so we parked the RV at the campground in Everglades National Park, rented a 15 passenger van in Miami, and booked a hotel in Key West. The ferry departs early, and we had an extra early wake up call because we were camping. We had to have all of our gear at the ferry, inspected and ready to load by ...