Day 1: LA to Ventura with a Stop at the Proutys.

We have been at our home base of San Pedro for almost exactly 5 months since we got back from our last cross country trip. During that time, we have spent nearly 2 of those months in the Mish traveling locally. Even though our trip is only going to be about 2 months before we need to be back for a wedding, we are seeding the plan for a much longer trip in 2014.

That means we once again had to move our belongings out of the house that we have called home for the last 5 months. We didn’t want it to just sit empty while we are gone. We also knew that once we returned, we would only be back for another few short months before we left again. So we decided to scale way down and move to the rear attached studio of our house and rent out the rest.

We had originally set a departure date on a Saturday evening. Due to family obligations, we had to push that until the following Monday which puts us in an even tighter schedule to get up to the Pacific Northwest. For most people, 2 months is a long time to be out on the road. But for us, it is short, especially considering the distance we are hoping to cover. We need to keep our speed to a manageable level or we risk burning out on those long driving days. For about 3 weeks in the next 2 months, we are also going to be convoying with nearly a dozen other Airstreamers into Canada. Needless to say this has taken a lot of planning for the involved parties and we don’t want to be the ones to mess up their schedule.

We left San Pedro at 11am which is not the best time. To be fair, it’s not the worst either. We hit a fair amount of traffic which was to be expected but nothing to dwell on for too long. The reason we had to leave at this time is because we are meeting up with another family who just sold everything they owned to spend a year on the road.

We have been following the Prouty family for quite some time. Don and Joy use to live in Thousand Oaks which is only about 30 minutes from where we use to live in Ventura. We found each other on Instagram and over the last year, we have learned about each other’s desire and journey to live more simply.

Joy is a well known and respected photographer and a mother of 4. Gracie, Brandon, Clementine and Mabel are their littles from oldest to youngest. Don has owned and operated several businesses but they decided that the rat race was not for them any more and sold everything to find a new life. Joy continues to schedule photography sessions with clients around the country as well as running photography seminars and mentoring sessions which dictate much of their traveling schedule.

People always talk about how social networks are creating more physical distance between friends. On the flip side, they area also creating real friendships that otherwise might not have ever happened. This is definitely one of those cases.

Even our littles got along with each other immediately. We hope to see them again something soon as our visit was sweet but short. They are sticking around Thousand Oaks at Joy’s mother’s house before heading out on the road again. We left after a couple hours to continue our trip north to our usual spot in Ventura.

Our first night on the road took us to Rincon Parkway, the campground along the Pacific Coast Highway frontage road that is first come first serve. We have never seen it this crowded before but it is pretty much the peak of summer. We drove the entire length of the road and saw that all but one of the over 170 spaces were taken. When we backed into the only available spot, our neighbor told us that the last camper had just left 5 minutes ago.

We are thrilled to be back on the road again. Marlene will hang out with the kids tomorrow while I head into work for some office hours in Santa Barbara.

As the kids are all getting bigger, we are having to do some serious shuffling of our sleeping situation. We really need that bunk bed right about now.

over and out,
dan