So here it is. After the longest-fastest six years of planning ever, our big roadschooling adventure is finally within sight.
Now, I am much more spontaneous than Trav. (Some might call it impulsive or maybe even rash. I call it spirited). He is a planner. A long-term thinker, a details guy. I take big risks. I have always taken big risks. Move states. Change jobs. Change careers. Dye my hair pink. I do things because they sound like a great idea. I don’t always think things through. Trav is a rock. He is steady. His thoughts and decisions are considered. He has had exactly two jobs since college, both in the same field. He considers risks carefully, thinks things through.
To be fair, even if his decisions are considered, one thing I love about Trav is he has always been open to going along with my hair-brained ideas. He dresses up in ridiculous costumes with me, sometimes for no good reason. He is willing to look ridiculous on the dance floor with me. (Something we both excel at.) He is willing to try new things with me, even if they are way out of his comfort zone. He'll go along with most of my low-risk shenanigans pretty willingly. But his risk assessment skills kick into gear when it comes to the big decisions.
If it were up to me, I would have packed it all up then, in 2018, when the inspiration first struck. Grabbed our 3-year-old twins and bought the first decent-sized vehicle that we could fit our gear into and hit the road. And we surely would have been back home in a couple of weeks once we realized we had no money, no plan. No clue.
Trav pulled the reins a bit and convinced me to slow down. Make a plan. Do this right. And I trust him when it comes to these things.
So we did that. We decided to make a 5-year plan. Hit the road when our girls were 8. Third grade. Sounded perfect. They would be old enough to dress themselves and brush their own teeth but not too old to think we were an embarrassment to the human race. (Oh, I know that will come eventually.) So we would go during their “sweet years.” Save money in the meantime. Do some research. We even scheduled “Dream Meetings” one Sunday a month so we could spend time on our 5-year plan. (I gotta be honest. Those fell apart after a couple of months in favor of Netflix and pizza nights in the winter or time in our backyard in the summer).
And then the 5-year plan stretched to six when we learned about the Every Kid Outdoors program, which gives our nation’s 4th graders and their families free access to all federal parks, lands, and waters. Perfect. This would give us one more year to save, research, and plan.
In the meantime, I followed every single Roadschool and RV Life social media account I could find. Trav started talking about finances. We both started thinking about what a year off work might look like. Or what working from the road might feel like. The dream lived in our minds for the next five years. We gave it power when we spoke about it to friends and family. We thought about it always. It shaped how we made decisions about travel, about big purchases, about finances, about work.
And then. Oh my gosh. Here it is! 2024. Our girls will be in 4th grade in the fall. Six years of planning is now down to a little more than six months.
We are closing in on purchasing our rig. We have a general map of our travels. We have started letting folks know we are launching this year. It is coming together.
We still have so much we don’t know that we don’t know. But we have stitched this dream together, the two of us, in quiet, private, whispered moments and long, excited conversations.
Are we ready?
Hell no. I mean. Maybe. I think so?
For sure, we aren’t ready, technically. But our hearts and minds are. As we go along, Trav will continue to make the considered decisions to weigh out the risks, and I will most likely continue to jump with both feet before I can even see ahead of me. He will pull me back. I will pull him forward. And so, like that, we will lurch uncertainty into the unknown. But at least we will be lurching along together.
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