Our First Day on the Road (and What We Actually Packed)

We did it! We made it out on the road, just a half-hour later than we had planned to leave. Not too bad, all things considered. Packing the car was . . . challenging. 

Here's what we had to work with:

And here's what it looked like once we had everything packed.

Well, almost. The camping lantern got tucked into that bottom right corner.

Borrowing from my last post, here's how it all actually broke down in reality:

CARTOP CARRIER:

- Tent

- 5 self-inflating sleep mats

- 5 sleeping bags

- Beach umbrella

- 2 lawn chairs

- A couple of pillows

- Towels

BACK OF CAR:

- Crate 1: My clothes

- Crate 2: Havarti's clothes

- Crate 3: The Muse's clothes

- Crate 4: Dolittle's clothes

- Crate 5: BoyWonder's clothes (plus extra shoes)

- Crate 6: School stuff: curriculum, books, paper

- Crate 7: School stuff: games, legos, plastic animals, modeling clay, etc.

- Crate 8: Bathroom stuff

- Crate 9: Miscellaneous: Coffee grinder, French press (gotta have my coffee), Brita pitcher and filters, various spice cabinet basics, Wii (we debated this one, but it doesn't take up much space and BoyWonder loves it so so much), vitamins/supplements, laundry soap, and a few other random things

- Crate 10: Cooler (not really a crate, but the same size slightly larger, making it BARELY fit while still being able to close the trunk) for transporting leftover food place to place

Also in the back:

- Violin

- Piano  (sadly couldn't fit it in - had to leave it under the bed at Havarti's house) 

- Havarti's work bin (larger than a shoebox, but smaller than the crates)

- Havarti's work monitor

- Printer (in box)

- Small game suitcase (holds checkers, chess, mancala, cribbage, backgammon, Yahtzee, and a deck of cards)

- Kids' backpacks with books and activities for trip (set right behind their headrests for easy reach) (shoved up in the back wherever they would fit behind their seats, sort of within reach, but not really)

- Computer of whoever is driving at the moment

- Havarti's and my small overnight bag (the kids will use their backpacks to hold their overnight clothes and toiletries during long drives where we have to stay someplace overnight)

- Camera (or maybe up front with me, we'll see) (Yep, up front with me.)

- Beach umbrella

- Tripod

- Bag of The Muse's violin music and portable music stand

- Camping lantern

- Dolittle's fuzzy blanket she couldn't live without

- One pillow

- Dolittle's cardboard cylinder container with her big coloring posters (How did that moppet convince me to pack so many extra things?!)

WITH KIDS IN BACKSEAT:

- Dolittle's enormous stuffed horse (after much debate, I caved - she promised she'd hold it the whole way) (and so far she has, without any complaint)

- Pillows One pillow

- LeapPad

- DVD player (screens on backs of front headrests) (One screen went kaput right after we installed them. We'd used them for a couple of car trips without trouble. So the girls just shared one screen and tilted it so they both could see it

- iPad

- Cooler bag for car snacks (below BoyWonder's feet)

WITH ME OR HAVARTI UP FRONT:

- Computer of whoever is not driving

- Purse

- Bag with my home management notebook, road atlas, extra clipboard/paper, a ridiculous number of notepads that I've apparently been hoarding without knowing it, pens/pencils, etc.

- iPhones with Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and various other audio gems for our listening enjoyment 

- Kindle

- Water bottles

- Ziploc Sandwich bags

- Tissue

I suppose it's actually rather impressive that the only thing that didn't fit from my original list was the piano. It was rather ambitious, anyway. I did hope that we'd end up having a little space at the top for rear-viewing, but it's pretty much crammed right up to the ceiling. 

And here's the fam just seconds before our departure:

Sorry about the squinty faces. The sun was glaring right at us. And looking at this picture, I think it may have been glaring with contempt for us being such pasty white folk. Holy moly, we're going to blind the poor people at the beach in California. :)

See our cartop carrier up on top of the car? Havarti and I hauled it into the hotel with us. It's pretty easy to get off. Getting it back on in the morning will be interesting. :)

The first day's drive was fairly uneventful. We tried to stop in Iowa City to have lunch at Chipotle, but there was some big bike race happening downtown, so we ended up getting detoured all around it, couldn't find any parking, lost a good 45 minutes, and decided to just make do with the snacks we had in the car.

In Omaha, we saw a wild turkey on the freeway. The FREEWAY! Just hanging out on the shoulder, like it was out for a Sunday stroll. So weird.

Speaking of weird, know what we fed our kids for dinner? Edamame and strawberries and ice cream bars from Trader Joe's. I had sushi. And an ice cream bar. Havarti had a grilled chicken salad. And a couple of bites of The Muse's ice cream bar. He's so disciplined.

Thankfully, the hotel has a pool, so the kids got to blow off some steam after 9 hours of travel. Tomorrow we have many hours of driving through Nebraska to face. And unless we see some more wild turkeys playing chicken on the freeway, there probably won't be much to say about that. I've driven across Nebraska before. After Lincoln, it's a whole lotta nothin'. Like, seriously, nothing. 

I'm sure I won't be posting every day of our trip, but I wanted to get our take-off day documented before it gets lost in the shuffle. I truly want to thank all of you for your prayers and good thoughts and supportive comments on Facebook and here. This whole thing is exciting and fun, but also hard and frustrating at times. It's really helpful to have people encouraging us and getting excited along with us. I know that long road trips are always challenging, especially with children. They did really well today, considering. I'm sure the fun will outweigh the challenge once we're able to settle down at our destination. 

Night night. Three more sleeps til California!

What We're Packing and How

When I mention our plans to random strangers (which has happened a lot in the past few weeks), the most common question is a variation of "Are you taking an RV?" or "Are you hauling a trailer of some sort?"

Natural question. So I thought I'd explain a bit about how we're transporting ourselves and our stuff around the country.

We're not taking an RV or a trailer. We'll be staying in furnished rentals, friends/family's homes, or tent camping everywhere we're going. So we won't need kitchen stuff other than a cooler and a few basics. When we camp (which won't be often - it's not exactly my favorite thing), we'll eat very simple finger foods and hotdogs. If we decide we need anything other than metal skewers and paper towels when we're camping, we'll figure that out at the time.

We're taking everything in our car (Honda Pilot) with a soft-sided cartop carrier. The back of the Pilot has quite a bit of room. We're packing most of our stuff in stackable storage crates, like this:

See how they stack so neatly? Nifty!

This bin holds our school books/curriculum, for the most part. Our little bin of printer paper fits right on top of those books, with just enough room to close the lid. Super nifty!

We can fit ten of these bins in the back of the car, with room on top and beside them for other stuff, like the violin and electric piano.

One benefit of the storage crates is that after we unpack at a rental, they can all be stacked together and be shoved in a closet somewhere (and can be used for laundry bins, too). And the soft-sided cartop carrier can fold up inside one of them.

Here's how it all breaks down:

CARTOP CARRIER:
- Tent
- 5 self-inflating sleep mats
- 5 sleeping bags
- Beach umbrella
- 2 lawn chairs
- A couple of pillows
- Towels

BACK OF CAR:
- Crate 1: My clothes
- Crate 2: Havarti's clothes
- Crate 3: The Muse's clothes
- Crate 4: Dolittle's clothes
- Crate 5: BoyWonder's clothes (plus extra shoes)
- Crate 6: School stuff: curriculum, books, paper
- Crate 7: School stuff: games, legos, plastic animals, modeling clay, etc.
- Crate 8: Bathroom stuff
- Crate 9: Miscellaneous: Coffee grinder, French press (gotta have my coffee), Brita pitcher and filters, various spice cabinet basics, Wii (we debated this one, but it doesn't take up much space and BoyWonder loves it so so much), and a few other random things
- Crate 10: Cooler (not really a crate, but the same size) for transporting leftover food place to place

Also in the back:
- Violin
- Piano
- Havarti's work bin (larger than a shoebox, but smaller than the crates)
- Havarti's work monitor
- Printer (in box)
- Small game suitcase (holds checkers, chess, mancala, cribbage, backgammon, Yahtzee, and a deck of cards)
- Kids' backpacks with books and activities for trip (set right behind their headrests for easy reach)
- Computer of whoever is driving at the moment
- Havarti's and my small overnight bag (the kids will use their backpacks to hold their overnight clothes and toiletries during long drives where we have to stay someplace overnight)
- Camera (or maybe up front with me, we'll see)

WITH KIDS IN BACKSEAT:
- Dolittle's enormous stuffed horse (after much debate, I caved - she promised she'd hold it the whole way)
- Pillows
- LeapPad
- DVD player (screens on backs of front headrests)
- iPad
- Cooler bag for car snacks (below BoyWonder's feet)

WITH ME OR HAVARTI UP FRONT:
- Computer of whoever is not driving
- Purse
- Bag with my home management notebook, road atlas, extra clipboard/paper, pens/pencils, etc.
- iPhones with Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and various other audio gems for our listening enjoyment

That's pretty much it. I'll take pictures of it all packed on Sunday. There's a possibility that we will have to put the lawn chairs and umbrella in the back instead of in the cartop carrier. We'll fanagle it on Sunday morning.

Do you think we're missing anything important? I feel like we've pretty much got everything covered. It'll be crammed, for sure. But well-organized. :)

You might be thinking, What about room for souvenirs you buy on the road? 

No worries.

A few family vacations ago, we started doing those penny-smasher things. You know, the machines where you put in a penny and two quarters and it imprints an image on the penny of whatever place you're visiting? I used to think those were really stupid. Now I think they're genius.

I'll explain why in another post. It's time for bed. If you see any glaring holes in our packing list, let me know. :)

Three more days!

Too Bad Our Gargantuan Mop Bucket Couldn't Help with the Flooding . . .

We're just eight days away from departure. Yay! We have one more trip to make to the house to get rid of a couple of last things in the garage, and then we'll be totally done with that chapter. Holy buckets, moving is a gigantic pain. It's not one of those things that gets easier the more you do it, either. It sucks. Every time.

But enough with the moving complaints. That part's done. Now we can look forward to our new nomadic life for the next year. We're staying at Havarti's parents' until we leave next Sunday. (No sympathy necessary; my in-laws are unusually fabulous.) While Havarti is in Spokane for work, I'm wrapping up all of the last to-do's, such as online address changes, sorting out our schedule/routine for the road, catching up on work, getting our last few items to storage and Goodwill, etc.

Oh, and I'm also dealing with the traffic nightmare that Chicagoland has become due to Mother Nature's flooding joke. We're lucky that Havarti's parents moved last month, because the town they just moved from has declared a state of emergency. Crazy stuff.

Speaking of crazy weather jokes, we're going to be driving through Colorado in ten days. I really hope they get their whole April blizzard thing out of their system before we get there. Sheesh. Enough already.

The moppets are doing pretty well. The last week at the house as we were getting everything packed and cleaned was fairly brutal. Everyone got a little snippity. I don't remember ever being that physically exhausted for that many days in a row. Yesterday I had the girls do some bare minimum schoolwork and then told them they could do whatever / watch whatever / play whatever they wanted for the rest of the day - no screen time limits. So it was a Netflix marathon all afternoon. They really needed a decompression day, and I needed the time to get things done.

I could really use a decompression day, too. I'm picturing having one on the beach in Dana Point two weeks from now.

The good thing about the stress of moving out of the house is that it's going to make our nomadic life seem like a breeze. After many weeks of selling and giving, we were able to get all of our furniture and everything we're not packing in the car on our trip into this storage pod:

Plus a 5' x 5' storage unit. We really needed the extra unit. The bikes alone took up too much space to fit into the storage pod. And we ended up filling it with other things, too, like our cold-weather clothes (which we'll have to switch out with our summer stuff this fall) and our industrial-sized mop bucket.

Oh yes. One of the joys of being married to someone whose family owned a janitorial service for 35 years is that we have a mop bucket that looks like this:

Only it's a lot bigger than that in real life. Aren't I lucky? (Actually, I am, because Havarti does all the mopping. So I don't complain. Except when we have limited storage and a big honking yellow mop bucket. We got it to fit, though. All good.)

The crappy weather really is messing with our plans a bit, as I had assumed that by mid-April we would have been able to store our winter coats. But, alas, it was snowing last night. So we'll wait until the end of next week and go deposit our coats in the storage unit.

And then sunny southern California, here we come! Woohoo!

I have much to share about how we plan to spend our 30-hour car ride with three kids, what exactly we're taking with us in the car, and how we'll have it packed. But I need my coffee now, so I'll save it for later.

Eight days. Can't believe it's almost time!

This is Why I Haven't Been Posting

Q & A: Our Nomadic Trip Around America

Our family is starting a grand adventure in April. There's actually a word for what we're going to be - digital nomads. It's apparently a "thing." (And here we thought we were being so innovative.) Seriously, Google "digital nomad families" and you will see some of the most fascinating blogs ever. Like, ever ever. I'll highlight some of them on another post.

If you're just joining us, here's a brief rundown of what we're doing and why:

1. We have to move out of our rental house at the end of April because our landlord is selling and we aren't in a position to buy.

2. My husband and I both work from home, and our kids are homeschooled. Ergo, we can technically live anywhere.

3. Since we are not bound by a lease, a mortgage, or job/school locations, we've decided to pare down our belongings, store our major must-keeps, and take our life on the road for a year. We will live like we do now (working and schooling), only from furnished rental homes all over the country. In our down time, we'll explore wherever we are and spend time with friends and family who live afar.

4. Because we can. And because we might be slightly insane.

Some of you lovely folks put forth some questions about our plans on my Facebook page. Here they are, in no particular order.

Q's and A's about Our Big Digital Nomad Trip

Are the kids helping with the planning?

If by "helping with the planning" you mean whining and complaining about having to leave our lovely home and idyllic neighborhood, then yes, they're helping. :)

No, honestly, they really don't have much of a say in where we're going at this point. We don't really either, for that matter. Much of our itinerary is being determined by budget, which I'll get into in a minute. And up to now, all of the planning has pretty much been me sifting through rental websites - not really something they can help with. But once we're on the road, they'll help a lot with deciding what places we'll explore.

How will you stay sane? No, really, I mean how will each person get enough alone time? I'm assuming you won't be staying in houses everywhere you go.

We will actually be staying in furnished condos, for the most part. They'll be small - generally two bedrooms, sometimes three. But I think we'll be okay as far as space goes. I'm the queen of needing alone time, so I really value the importance of having some space to get away. But even in the 2700 square foot house we're in now, I find it difficult to truly get away unless I leave the house. I'm like a kid magnet.

I'm actually more concerned about staying sane during the long car rides. Our first destination is a 30-hour drive. So I'm collecting ideas for keeping the moppets happy in the car. (Pass them along if you have any.)

What is your budget for this trip?

I'm glad you asked. I'm sure when people hear about our plans they probably imagine we're a wealthy family who has the means to travel the country for a year.

We're not wealthy. We're not destitute, of course, but we're sitting solidly in the middle-class, still fully in the 15% tax bracket as far as income goes. One of the main reasons we decided to go on this adventure is because we figure it'll give us an opportunity to travel without spending much extra money beyond our normal expenses.

Let me explain:

Living in our area of the Chicago suburbs, renting a nice 3- or 4-bedroom house, including all utilities and expenses, costs us approximately $2000 a month. Before you freak out one way or the other, let me just point out that for some of you that amount might seem crazy high and for others it might sound crazy low. One thing I've learned moving around a lot is that housing costs differ massively from one place to another. We could rent a smaller place for a couple hundred dollars cheaper, and a nicer place for a little or a lot more than that. But $2000 with all utilities and housing-related expenses included is a reasonable amount to budget for housing here.

So that's what we're budgeting for housing on our trip. Actually, we're budgeting more like $1800, since storage will cost about $180 per month and we're including that in our housing budget.

However, that $1800/mo for rental homes is our monthly average over the course of our year. The summer rentals are significantly higher than that, and the winter places will be significantly lower. Our most expensive place is a 3-bedroom condo in Seattle - $2700 for 3 weeks in July. Ouch. But July is expensive no matter where you go. Believe, me, I spent a lot of time trying to find our July place. (And $90 a night for a 3-bedroom condo, including taxes, is still pretty darn tootin'.)

And those expensive summer places will be offset during the off-season. The places we're looking at for the winter are $700 - $800 per month. I'm looking right now at a house in Michigan that would be $1000/month for September and October. Cape Cod, Myrtle Beach, Florida - all super cheap November through March. So on average, we should easily come out within our housing budget.

Gas costs, of course, are going to be higher than our normal expenses, so we'll have to factor that in. I'm thinking that the money we make from the stuff we're selling as we pare down our belongings will help with gas costs. And any costs that go over that will be considered vacation expense.

Food might fall into that category sometimes. Since all of the places we're staying will have full kitchens, we'll just shop and cook and eat like we normally do. I'm sure there will be some extra eating out during our long drives, but we have so many dietary issues in our family that eating out is often more of a pain than it's worth. I anticipate keeping a cooler and a bin in the car for foodstuffs, so we'll be able to take extra spices or leftover food with us from place to place. With some careful planning, I'm hoping that food won't be too much of an issue.

The only other major expense we'll have is attractions, which will be a bit tricky to navigate. We have a museum pass that gets us reciprocal admission to all kinds of museums, science centers, zoos, and aquariums, so we'll be able to use that for a lot of exploring. And I'm big on finding free places. I plan on hitting as many state and national parks as we can.

Another consideration is that the kids won't be taking any classes or be in any extracurricular activities. We normally would have them in some sort of outside class or sport or something, so not having to pay for those frees up a bit of cash for exploration.

Will The Muse be able to keep up with her music lessons while on the road?

The Muse and music lessons could take up a whole other post. (Sigh) Right now, she's not taking any lessons. She took the summer off, and then we started searching for a new teacher that was closer to our house. We weren't having any luck finding a good fit, and then we decided to do this trip, so it seemed silly to hire someone for just a few months. I've now found a couple of teachers who teach online, but I'm not sure yet how we're going to proceed. So yes, there are options. We just haven't come to any decisions yet. I still have her keeping to a practice schedule so that her skills don't take too much of a beating.

Will you base your lesson plans on your location?

Lesson plans? What are those? :) Yes, we'll definitely incorporate the history and geography of wherever we are into our learning. I'm also bringing our basic curriculum materials, and we're moving some of our subjects to online/digital resources. (Honestly, we could almost exclusively homeschool using just the computers, the Kindle, and the iPad, but I'm still desperately clinging to pen and paper. So we're striking a balance as far as that goes.) But one of the major perks of this trip is getting to see historical places first hand, so yes, we'll be basing our American history and geography (and likely nature/science studies) on wherever we are.

How will you handle the tremendous amount of guilt you will most certainly feel upon leaving behind your loved ones, especially those who have been with you through thick and thin?

Gee, I wonder who could have asked this question . . .

Oh, P-Diddles. You know I'll miss you. :)

I don't feel guilty about our trip, but I do feel a bit conflicted about moving on to a different chapter in our lives. We don't know where we'll be settling when this trip is over, so it's hard to know how to feel. We may very well end up coming back here, so we're not saying any goodbyes or anything.  

Are you coming my way?/Why isn't Texas on the itinerary?

We're getting a lot of requests to go various places, and I so wish we could go everywhere! Texas may very well end up on the itinerary - we don't know where we'll be in March yet. We'll let people know as we're traveling through different areas of the country, and hopefully we can at least meet up briefly with some of you! And if anyone wants to offer us a place to stay, we'll go out of our way to take you up on it. :)

What is your ideal end result for each of you to take away with you from this trip?

Gosh, this is such a great question, and one I've thought about a lot. As it gets closer, I want to discuss it more with the rest of the family as well to see what they're thinking. So I'll share everyone else's thoughts later. But here's what I'm hoping for myself and for the family:

1. I want to build strong, interesting family memories. It's so easy to just let time go by and not have our days marked by something significant or new. This trip will be a benchmark in our family's collective memory, as well as our own individual life stories. I love that.

2. I hope that we will all see that we don't need much to be happy and live well. All we're taking with us is what will fit in the car and in a car top carrier. I love that we'll be focusing on experiences and not things, and I'm hoping that value will stick.

3. I hope we'll get to appreciate different landscapes, cultural nuances, and lifestyles as we travel the country. I want us to experience regional differences and similarities, enjoy the wildly diverse natural beauty America has to offer, and explore places we didn't even know existed.

4. I hope my kids will gain enough exposure to adversity that they'll understand that a 30-hour car ride is not the worst thing that could happen to them. :)

No, really I hope they'll understand why we chose to take this trip. Right now, the girls are a bit reticent to leave their friends and the neighborhood they've really fallen in love with. I hope they'll learn that "home" is where your family is - the rest is just geography.

Let me know if you have any other questions, and I'll keep you posted as it all comes together.

:) Annie

So We're Really Doing This

Unless something unforeseen occurs, we'll be officially nomads as of May 1. Either that, or we'll be officially financially screwed. We've now dug deep into our savings to make deposits and up-front payments for our summer rental homes, at least half of which are non-refundable, so it's Westward Ho! or bust for us when our lease is up.

Here's what we have solidified so far:

MAY
2-bedroom condo near the beach in Dana Point, CA

I'm a little bit excited about finding this place. It's quite new and lovely, 100 paces from the beach, and the price was incredible for the location. I'll get into the financial aspect of all of this in a separate post, but finding furnished vacation rentals on the west coast within our budget during the spring/summer months was like panning for gold. We're thrilled about this one. We'll be able to visit Havarti's grandparents, aunt and uncle, cousins, my brother and his wife, and my mom and grandma while we're there.

JUNE
Stay with family in the Bay Area for a week, then three weeks at a 2-bedroom cottage on the Oregon Coast.

Again, finding this Oregon Coast vacation rental and getting the deal we got was either sheer luck or providence. So many hours spent searching. So happy to not have to look anymore. It's not too far from Tillamook. Yup, where the cheese comes from. I'm going to see if they have a tour.

JULY
A week at Baha'i family summer camp (where Havarti and I met 30 or so years ago - holy smokes, that's a really long time).

We love this Baha'i camp. We both went there throughout our childhood and young adult years. Lots of great memories. Plus, both of my brothers met their spouses there as well, so if we want to get our kids married off, we need to start getting them out there. (Kidding, of course.)

Then three weeks in a 3-bedroom condo in Seattle
We love Seattle. All of western Washington, actually. Especially in July, when it's likely to be sunny and still have green grass. (Fact: People generally don't water their lawns in western Washington. I think it's because they don't have to. So if a summer is particularly dry, by August the grass is pretty brown, though everything else stays green.) Per night this is the most expensive place we'll stay, but that's mainly because it's July. Everything is expensive in July. But it's a nice 3-bedroom condo, and it still came out to less than the price of a hotel, so YAY.

Then my 20th high school reunion in Spokane
Still in denial about this.

After that, we're into August. The plan is to start heading back toward Chicagoland so that we can spend most of August back with our friends and family here. Havarti's brother's family is planning to come from Spain, and his sister's family might be coming from Australia as well, so we'll try to plan around their visit. We would like to stay a bit longer in Washington and Idaho with friends and family there, so we may spend the first week of August doing that and then head back to the Midwest.

Then, tentatively, we're looking at Michigan in September, then New England through December, then Myrtle Beach in January, then Florida in February. Lots of places bookmarked, but nothing reserved yet. The places on Cape Cod and in Myrtle Beach (and most likely Florida, too) are priced so low in the off season that they'll make up for the expensive summer places. So we're in this for the long haul, at least until February.

Excited, nervous, overwhelmed with what we have to do to prepare, but ultimately really looking forward to it. And trying to decide if I want to start a separate blog just for the trip. There are a lot of details and such that I'd like to document for anyone else who might want to try something like this, and I'm not sure this is the best place for all of that. If you have any opinions, let me know.

And if anyone has a magic wand that can sort through household items, school supplies, linen closets, and bathroom cabinets and keep only what's necessary, that would come in handy. Thanks. :)