Day 102: Lakeside living in Crossville.

This trip has really taken on a life of its own since we left over 3 months ago. We had a pretty good idea what it was like to work and live on the road, after all, we’ve done it before. What is totally new to us is how many people we have met through the blog and how gracious people have been in opening the doors to their homes to us.

A little more than 4 years ago, we decided to blog about our travels so we would have a place to store all of our memories. When our kids got older, we wanted them to be able to reflect on the great time we had together on the road by looking back at this blog.

Fast forward to 2012, we are at it again. Except this time we have a new little one who needs to join in on the memory making. Of course he is still too little to be able to hang onto his own memories. Just like his two big sisters, he will spend a large portion of his childhood traveling and meeting people around our country and the world before we finally decide to hang it up.

This time around, we are finally getting to meet so many of our virtual friends in person after knowing them for so long on the Internet. Even though we met Nathan and Leah in Croatia last year, this visit is very special for us to see them again after their trip across Europe. They understand our yearning for the road. We reciprocate admiration for each other in taking risks to make our adventures reality. We reap the same rewards in seeing our children living their childhood the way we think they should. We have this blog to thank for that.

Ava said it best the other day about the amazing Airstream and traveling family community that have embraced us. She asked me, “Daddy, why do you have friends everywhere?”

I didn’t really know how to answer her. From her perspective, we are just a family traveling the country in a trailer. She doesn’t know anything about blogging. She hasn’t quite grasped the concept of a virtual community with a common love for the road. She certainly has no idea that all of the great friends we have met through the blog are as much her friends as they are mine. She certainly has no idea that many of them have been reading about her adventures since she was just a year old.

I don’t know if they will be friends with Eli and Milo forever but I hope at least they will treasure this time in their lives and the people they have met.

As they get older, we will need to reel back extended trips like these as they will need to have a more stationary lifestyle and learn to build strong and long lasting friendships.

In the meantime, we will continue to travel. Hopefully we can continue to open their eyes to all of the places they will see and the people they will meet. We want them to have a solid foundation to build their lives on and we think traveling the country and seeing the world is a pretty good one.

From time to time, someone will contact us and tell us how fondly they look back on their childhood for having traveled their country with their parents in an Airstream. I can only hope that our kids will feel the same way. Maybe one day 30 years from now, one of them will send that same message to another family in the future who decided to go out there and make their dreams happen.

We are thankful for all of you who read our blog and especially those who have opened your arms and welcomed us into your homes. Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I will leave you with Ava playing drums at Nathan and Leah’s house during our visit. It was her first time. As you can tell, she will rock you.

over and out,
dan