Johns Trippin'

It came years later than I expected it, but Fiji is gone. We don't know her exact birthday, but she was 17.5, give or take a month. She was roughly 3 months old when we got her. Her back legs started to fail her a few weeks ago. It started with some small stumbles, but by this past weekend, she was falling down every 10-15 seconds. She also had a vacant look on her face that said, "I'm not really sure what's going on." It was time. I have been preparing for this literally for years. I bet I've told the kids "Fiji is nearing the end" 3 or 4 times over the past few years. Yet she kept trucking. I told them the same thing this past Sunday night as they went to bed, and I knew that it was for real this time. I don't know if they believed me or not. Jordan hopped out of bed to give her a nice pet, so perhaps she did. My halting voice may have betrayed my emotions. By the time they woke up in the morning, she was gone. I took her to an emergency clinic...

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We live in a big country. Really big. I suppose I always knew that, but I never really appreciated it until trying to plan a trip around it. Not only is this country big, but there is a lot to do. A whole lot. To plan a trip like this and not be completely overwhelmed by the options, it helps to work around a theme. Our theme is National Parks. With that theme in mind, we're planning the trip in such a way that we can hit as many of the National Parks as possible. As of this writing, there are 63 National Parks. I say "as of this writing" because the list is not static. In fact, our newest National Park was created a mere 6 months prior to this writing. By the time you are reading this, there may be 64 or more. Of the 63, the majority of them are west of the Mississippi. And some of them aren't even within the 50 states (I see you, American Samoa !). Of those that are within the 50 states, some are very hard to reach (we'll try again later, Dry Tortugas ). We may...

 The Beginning of Achy Feet American Heritage RV Park (Tuesday, 6/22/21- Sunday, 6/27/21) One reason that makes this RV trip even more spectacular is that the kids can see, experience and ponder what they have been studying in school this year from their early American history course. This is why we chose to go up the east coast in the first place. It began with the trip to colonial Williamsburg (of coarse this came before a two day trip with hikes, including a steep one to and back from a waterfall, and then two tours at Monticello, but no one complained yet of their feet). We found American Heritage RV Park, which was right in the middle of 3 historic places: Yorktown, Jamestown and Williamsburg. The kids and I tackled the triad in three consecutive days.  I was able to get a homeschool discount for both Yorktown and Jamestown when booked together at the museums. Both are set up in the same way: There was a museum with plaques and quotes, timelines, movies, and artifacts. Th...

We next stopped at our first KOA ( K ampgrounds O f A merica). When we got there I was hot and itchy, so dad  graciously let us take a shower then went to bed.   [Editor's note: The kids are welcome to shower whenever they'd like.] When we woke up we got ready to go to   Monticello  (the birthplace of Thomas  Jefferson). We looked around there, went to a museum, watched a film, and toured his house and garden. We also went to a  demonstration on how slaves were handled. After Monticello we went to a farmer's market and got peaches. Then we went home and played on a  blow up jump pad and fed some chickens that roamed free and then  swam in the campground's pool which felt so good. Then we had dinner then went to bed. See you in the morning! When we woke up we got ready to leave and then left. See you at the next camp site!

Because of RV maintenance issues, we pulled into our site around 11 pm. (See black circle on the map) Behind our site in the woods we found there was a really small creek. Jordan loved to look for salamanders under rotting logs and we caught 11 in one day. My birthday was that Thursday. Before then I had made a birthday schedule of what I was going to do. Dad and I put a bunch of songs into a playlist and did that during breakfast. I found out that I shouldn't have planned for so much food. At the end of the day I was stuffed. When I opened one of my presents I found that it was a remote control car! We ate lunch by the lake and they had a small playground with this on it: While mom made dinner I read one of my new books: Edge of Extinction 2: Code Name Flood . We got a little off schedule so when dad got "Trolls: World Tour" from a Red Box, we watched it during dinner. After the movie, we ate sugar cookies and donuts. We made friends with a boy named Jackson who had an R...

My birthday was great! Oh and thank you granny for that card! Well I had my day all planned out, though I did not watch a movie because Sophia didn't want to. But it was...  SO AWESOME! I think it was the best birthday I remember! It was even better with the bunnies AT EDISTO! We did YouTube in the morning, swimming, lunch and built a fort! Then we sang "Happy Birthday" and I got very a messy face from the cake. I had a huge mustache. I laughed! Nathan got in the water! I was so proud of him!

We've been very fortunate in the weather we've encountered since this trip started. We've had one or two hot days and a few scattered showers here and there (mostly overnight), but that's about it. I really can't complain at all. But you have to take the good with the bad in this lifestyle (and let's be honest, in all areas of life), and we didn't win the weather lottery at Henry Horton. We were at the park for about 4 days, and it rained on and off for much of that time. That's not to say we didn't enjoy our stay, though. We honestly needed a little down time, so the rain forced us to stay inside and not worry about filling time with activities. We also got to bed at a decent time, which is always nice. We were even able to squeeze a campfire in, over which I grilled some salmon, seriously over-cooking it in the process. The rain did let up for the last day or so, and we used that time to walk around the park. It's a beautiful park (we booked it...