Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Back to the Grind & Stats From The Road

We've been home for just about 2 weeks now and while we are all happy to have a lot more space, sleep in our own beds, see are all our friends and family and get back into our usual routines, I am still feeling a bit of a loss for our traveling days. Yes, I know I am very spoiled, we had a wonderful year trip and now it is time to get back to regular life, we can't live on the road forever. Or can we? 
Could we live like this for longer? Maybe if every spot was this beautiful. 
While it might be tough with our girls as they are growing up and want to be doing the normal things kids do, we will likely stay put for awhile, but we can incorporate some of our traveling ways into our at home days. Since we have been home we unpacked our storage unit and we all got our rooms sorted, pretty quickly - taking a tip from traveling in our tiny camper, I am trying to remind myself and the family that every thing needs to have a spot to call home. It's easy to leave shoes, toys, dishes, etc all around a big house, likely people won't step on them or have to move them to sit down, like it would be in the camper, but in either home, its a good habit to continue. 

Of course we were very happy to see our friends again! 

My main goal as we re-enter into the no-mobile world is to take it slow. This is something that was just natural in the camper, we drove slow, we explored, we were curious and were appreciative of all the new things we encountered. I need to remember this as we are adjusting into our new/old life again. We will take each day slowly and act deliberately and try to bring in as much curiosity into our familiar world as we did in the new settings we found on the road. 

Now as our adventure is coming to a close, I have a few things that I have been working on and want to work on in the future. While we were traveling, at the end of the trip we got a lot of questions about "How Many" or "What was your favorite", so we decided to put together a list of some of the statistics from the trip (both trackable and untrackable).

Our goal for this trip was not to visit every state or see every national park, our goal for this trip was to explore this amazing country of ours, we wanted our daughters to see all the opportunities that are available to them in our country. We wanted them to learn about all the types of jobs they can have, the places they can go to school and the vast amount of variety that is in the US, from the different types of landscapes and the many different people that live in our country. We also wanted to see as many as family and friends as possible. With these goals in mind, I think we achieved them. There are definitely more places in the country that we would like to go back to and visit, but we feel pretty good about the surface we scratched. 


One of our last hikes at Latourell Falls in Oregon with Uncle Dan & Eva & Rodin
Here is a breakdown of some of the statistics we gathered over our 9 months on the road: (Please let us know if there is a stat you are curious about, we are happy to share, this was just our initial list, more details of where stayed can be found here.) 

Miles driven: 25,164.6

States slept in: 29 
States driven through: 33 
Provinces visited & slept in:4

Trips to Ford Dealers: 7 (Terrace, BC; Port Huron, MI, Bangor, ME, Virginia Beach, VA, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Salt Lake City, UT, Ventura, CA - 5 oil changes, 3 dealing with check engine light, 1 set of new tires) 
Oil Changes: 5
Tire changes: 1 - Salt Lake City  
Tire issues: 1 - Caught a screw outside of Bozeman, patched and repaired in less than 20 min

National Parks & Monuments visited: 
Canadian: 3 --  Jasper, Banff, Watertown 
US: 27  Yellowstone, Windcaves, Badlands, Minute Man, Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore, Sleeping Bear Dunes NP, Acadia, Great Smoky Mountains, Mammoth Caves,  Provincetown Monument, Dry Tortuga NP, Everglades, Big Cypress National Preserve, Zion, Grand Canyon, Alcatraz,  Glen Canyon, Colorado National Monument, Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Newberry National Volcanic Monument, Gettysburg National Military Park & Cemetery, Death Valley NP, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Presidio of San Fran, Redwood National Park,  

State parks visited: 10
KOAs: 28
Harvest Hosts: 7 (Coastal Black Winery in British Columbia, Younity Winery, in Maine, Bishop’s Orchards in Connecticut, 16 Mile Brewing Company in Delaware, White Barrel Winery in Virginia, Mockingbird Hill Farm in Georgia and Agua Dulce Winery in California) 
Hotels stayed in: 11 (South Dakota, Great Wolf Lodge Niagara Falls, Bangor, Maine, Disney Cruise, Gettysburg, PA, Telluride, CO, Durango, CO, Snowbird, Timberline, OR, Zion, UT, McMenamins, OR
Countries visited: 6 (US, Canada, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Mexico, Bahamas) 
Driveways slept in: 6 (Danny's, Waters', Heig's, Rutledge's, Quinliven's, Zimmerman's) 
Houses slept in: 8 (Thompson's, Sophia & Yuki, Hayden & Steph, New Mexico Cabin, Janell & Glen, Nonni & Nonno, Sanya & Phil, Doris & Don)
Longest stay - Thompson's in Virginia (16 days!) 

BIG THANKS to all those that hosted us! These were some of our best times and best memories! We always appreciated a clean shower and a home cooked meal!

We were also so happy when we were able to meet up with family and friends on the road, such a treat to be able spend the holidays with loved ones!
Visit with Houser cousins in Key West, FL
Super fun Disney Cruise with Gorohoff Family

Christmas morning with the whole Micheli crew in Orlando, FL 
Ending our trip with an awesome visit with The Bauer cousins in Oregon

Flu shots/Dr's visits: 1 stop at the pharmacy for flu shots for the family, but otherwise we stayed out of hospitals and urgent cares (Thank God!). We all got a little sick, colds and a bit of an ear infection (for Siena) - but no one puked! Woo hoo! 
Speeding tickets: 0 -- Also, patting our backs for this one, while we didn't really ever drive over the speed limit, I did get it get the truck up to 80 at one point, and then Andrew got mad and that's why I didn't drive that much.  
Rear endings: Just one, by a guy in Las Vegas, again, one of the few times I was driving and getting on the freeway to head to Zion. His car was way more damaged than ours, so we called it good. 
Ski days: 27
Ski areas: 14 (Taos, Santa Fe, Angle Fire, Wolf Creek, Purgatory, Telluride, Powderhorn, Steamboat, Alta, Solitude, Snowbird, Squaw Valley, Mt. Bachelor, Timberline) 
States we skied in: 5 (New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, California & Oregon) 
Boat/ ferry trips: 6 (ferry in Vancouver, ferry to AK, Disney, Houser boat trip, Dry Tortoguas, Alcatraz)
Times stuck in the snow: 2 (Both times at the cabin - that driveway was a bear to get out of)
RV repair projects: 3 (new hoses for our toilet in Gettysburg, Andrew & Hayden fixing my light and other issues in FL, Andrew & Phil fixing the drawer in AZ - these last two were just really excuses for the boys to use tools and go to HomeDepot) 

Fun times skiing this winter! 
Boxes sent home:
Number of states we left gear: 4 (Montana, Virginia, New Mexico, Oregon) 
Times the camper pipes froze: Just once, but that was enough! 
Times we wished we had air conditioning: 2 (One humid night in Orlando and our last night in Death Valley) 
Museums, Zoos & Aquariums visited: 15   
Movies seen in theater: 5/6 -- Star Wars: Force Awakens (Siena & Andrew saw it twice, once in Orlando with the Micheli's and on the cruise in 3D with the Gorohoff's), The Martian (girls saw Charlie Brown), Deadpool (girls saw Zootopia), we all saw Civil War twice. 
Dutch oven meals: 10 apx (we only had 3 dishes we cooked but made them over and over: Chicken & Rice, Lazy Peach Cobbler and Apple Crisp) 
Times crossing the Golden Gate Bridge:
Universities Visited: 4 (MSU, ASU, Stanford, MIT) 
Yoga classes across the country: 7 (Jasper, Bozeman, St. Augustine, Ft.Lauderdale, Telluride x2, Squaw Valley)
Running Races: 2 (Prostate Cancer Race in VA, Pat Tillman Race in AZ)  


Untrackable: 
Money spent - all of it 
Gallons of diesel (Cheapest diesel at Buc-ee's outside of Dallas, $1.50/gallon) 
Souvenirs picked up - too many 
Meals eaten out 
New people met
Family campfires
Fires in the rain 
Quarters spent in laundromats
Walmart visits
Starbucks visits 
Times girls asked how much longer (of the entire trip or on a specific drive)

One of our many campfires in the rain - I think this was in Michigan
Favorites: 
Kathy: I think Maine was my favorite. I love Acadia National Park, even though I didn't participate in the big hike there. I loved the rocky coast line and the small coastal villages, Bar Harbor was a fun place to visit and the country side is beautiful there. I also really, really enjoyed all of our skiing adventures, staying at the cabin in the snow and being active and outside with my family, even in the cold of winter, was a highlight of the trip. Oh and of course Yosemite! Loved that place to death, the cliffs and hikes and the greenery of the whole place. I can't pick just one favorite!
Andrew: Key West, the weather was nice, it was warm enough to sit outside to drink our coffee in the morning and the sunrises were beautiful. But if we stayed too long we may have never left there.
Siena: I liked Texas the best, I liked the food and seeing our family. I really loved the ranch and the dogs.
Nadia: I really liked Florida because it was warm and I got to see all my family, we got to go to DisneyWorld and go on a Disney Cruise.

It's been a great ride!  Thanks to all for following along on our crazy adventure!