Thirty Days Later

Today marks thirty days since we pulled out of the driveway of our stick house and started our adventure. That seems enough of a milestone to warrant a blog post, doesn’t it?

So far, we’ve dodged a tornado, and objects flying off of passing trucks, met up with cousins I haven’t seen in 5 years, and met another Family On The Road. We’ve covered roughly 960 miles between stops. We’ve boondocked overnight at a Cracker Barrel, and learned a lesson about keeping the furnace and fridge on overnight while boondocking (hint: slides need lots of power to run in). We’ve helped restore a World War 2 submarine, and seen 8-foot tall guitars. It’s been a great adventure, and I’m looking forward to being on the road for quite some time. There’s so much we want to explore!

The kids are having a great time so far. Our current location isn’t the most kid-friendly park (no playground equipment), but they’ve made friends at Muskogee First Church, and they’re settling in to their routines. They’re eating up the warm weather, although as I wrote this, it was 70° outside, and they were playing Wii Party! Thunderstorms are a little more “exciting” in an RV, but we’re working through that, too.

Our schedule for the next few months is best described as…fluid at the moment. We’re in northeastern Oklahoma right now, and pulling out next week to head to Austin, Texas. By way of Lawton, Oklahoma.

Yeah, that’s not exactly the direct route, I know. Diana spent a few years in Lawton when her dad was stationed at Fort Sill, and I was born in Sherman, so we’re making brief stops there on our way down to Austin. We’ll spend about a month there, catching up with more cousins, doing some genealogy research, and maybe trying to meet up with an aunt in Jasper and an uncle and cousin in New Orleans. Our original plans had us making a sweep from Austin through Jasper and NOLA and Kentucky to arrive in Ohio in time for summer camps, but then I discovered the Pennwriters Conference, and thought that would be a really good thing for me to fit in. That made the Jasper-NOLA leg a little difficult, going from short jumps to almost whirlwind, and I didn’t really want to do that. The general plan is for a longer stay in the South during the fall and winter, maybe with a workamping gig in there some place.

We’re planning on visiting Fort Gibson and Seqouyah’s cabin this weekend. See you next week.