The Lows Are Low

There was a small plane crash in Truckee yesterday, very close to the playground where we hung out at a lot. If I were still there, it would definitely have felt like another apocalyptic sign, like when a brush fire ignited on the mountain next to Boomtown a few days before I was set to move the camper there. 

But from where I'm sitting this morning...watching Shadow chase a fly around the dining room while I sip a cup of tea...everything feels sort of normal and boring. Has it really only been a month since the race? We would have been arriving home this week anyway. The 2,500 miles of country we were supposed to cross slowly, stopping at the vacuum cleaner museum in Idaho and looking for wild horses in North Dakota, instead passed underneath us in hours, as we flew back home in separate groups. 

M is at a very boring wait-and-see part of his recovery. We can make no plans for the future, because there are several very different paths in front of us. We just have to do the laundry and take the kids to the dentist and figure out how to adapt to these circumstances. Sometimes it feels fine, like we have a handle on everything and an appropriately cheerful outlook. M ordered button down shirts to accommodate his port. I found sodium free seasoning at the grocery store. The kids are digging our new cable tv subscription. So many channels! Shadow loves being back at the house. IT'S FINE!

We have a saying in our family that all feelings are acceptable but some actions must be controlled. I forget where I picked up this phrase, but we usually apply it to kicking your brother when he steals the Lego you were saving for your creation. I'm definitely harboring some resistance to this new reality. I hate it, actually. It's ok to feel that way. I still have to do the laundry.

Let Me Catch You Up....

Well.

Let me catch you up....

We were having a fabulous time in Truckee, getting excited for the race, and planning our route for the way back. We managed to find a reservation at the KOA in Salt Lake City for the July 4th weekend, which we knew the kids would love (swimming pool!) and had a lot of neat roadside attractions and state and national parks to check out on the northerly route home. We had plans to drive out of Truckee on June 30. 

Race day happened, we had a really fun time, M managed to finish the race, but became life-threateningly ill with rhabdomyolysis in the days that followed. Many terrible things happened over the past three weeks, but many amazing things happened as well. Family and friends rallied around us and helped in so many ways. We are now back in Pittsburgh and M is starting dialysis here, we're figuring out how to feed him a renal diet, getting used to living in a house again (it's so big! so many rooms! the toilet doesn't have to be manually emptied!) and in the process of meeting a new medical care team. 

I'm not going to lie, this kind of sucks. There's an afterglow of relief when your loved one recovers from a near-death experience. You can really only think about the next hour, sometimes the next minute, in the critical care unit. Making it through that feels triumphant. We were filled with gratitude and rightly so. But when that part was over and the dust settled, we had to deal with the messiness of an unexpected illness in a faraway city. Right now, the people are in Pittsburgh, but the cat is in California and the camper and car are in Nevada! Our kids experienced a lot of trauma from the way things happened and our separation. We're all alive, and M is feeling better every day. But you can be grateful and excited and frustrated and sad and angry all at the same time.

If you read this blog, you know we love road trips and outdoor adventure. This particular trip was many years in the making. Lots of saving and dreaming. So many times in the weeks leading up to Western States, we looked at each other and said, "This is it. We did it. Everything we said we wanted, we have and it's amazing." And it was, and nothing crappy that happened since then can erase the memories we made over the past few months. 

Stay tuned for more stories of the adventures that happened along the way. And I am so very grateful to everyone who reached out to us during a very dark hour. Thank you. 

Sister Time

Although we talk on the phone almost daily, I haven't seen my sister in 3 years. I am so happy that we were able to coordinate and meet up here in Truckee. 

Truckee is the best. It's exactly the right town for us to ease out of the pandemic and run races and camp and meet up with our besties. Also, it's very windy all the time and all activities are outside so the mask mandate is ending, but there's not too much to worry about with Covid. 

Things have been a little tumble down around here. We got our car back (yay!) and bought a new camper (wait, what?) and M is still figuring out his new job and we don't have any sort of structure around homeschooling. Amazing things continue to happen, though. The other day we went to down to a creek near our camp and Omar pulled out a little bag of equipment and taught the kids how to pan for gold! 

We tried to fish today but didn't catch anything.  I am looking forward to a session of our Auntie-Niece Book Club where we will actually be in the same room! Zoom is great, but being together is better. 

Homeschool - How is it going?

We're not doing too much formal homeschooling right now. Our lives have become very unstructured. We are basically just reading a lot and wandering around looking for places to swim or run or fish. 

Brave Writer has something called One Thing, which is basically a themed collection of resources. This month the theme is sand. There are articles, videos and activities to do, and you can post your thoughts or pictures of activities on a thread in the discussion board. I like that it's something all of us can do together and other than wrestling with internet, it's extremely low-effort on my part. We observed a lot of sand and sandy soils and sand dunes and dried up lake beds on our way here, so the kids made a lot of connections to the material right away. I failed to document this, as we hit our 180 required hours in April and haven't done much documenting since then. But it's also nice to disassociate learning from school sometimes. Humans are wired to learn, we just do it all the time, not always for credit or for a particular reason. 

The other day Max used some modeling sand to construct a relatively accurate model of the United States (although it was a mirror image). He placed two markers...one on Pittsburgh and one on Truckee. It's pretty impressive that a five year old could do that with such accuracy and I was relieved to know that he was paying attention to our travels beyond counting down the minutes until the next time he gets to play Nintendo Switch. However, I didn't even pull out my camera to take a photo of his rendering, so it'll be lost to the ether. We are never short on geography activities for our portfolios, but I am sketching out some ideas on how to document the next year and hoping to get some technical support from M. 

Truckee Life This Week

The past week has been a whirlwind of activities, or at least it felt like that...I'm not actually sure we did all that much. It just felt like a lot because we are not used to hanging out with other people. My friend Leah came to Truckee with her family for a week. They rented a cabin not too far from our campground and we spent lots of time hanging out, sharing meals, hiking, swimming at the lake, playing video games, and building puzzles. It was totally crazy, because there are even more kids than there were during our last cabin vacation two years ago....she had a baby in November, so now we each have 3 kids. Our previous two cabin meet-ups took place in Pennsylvania as they have family in Philadelphia. Those cabin trips were characterized by cool, gloomy weather, with some epic rainstorms and flooding. We spent a lot of time trying to light wet campfires. This time, the weather was very dry (no fires allowed here!), but varied widely in temperature. It was 90 degrees last week one day, and last night, it dipped to 35! It's so funny to me that we have our down coats and bathing suits out at the same time. They left today after we had one last playdate at the Truckee Regional Park. It is cool and partly cloudy with gusty wind, and her baby fell asleep in my arms while I was carrying him around the playground. I was surprised at how fast he warmed up to all of us and let him hold him. Her almost-four-year-old has grown so much since we were last together. He said so many hilarious things and was fun to play with. Her oldest is just a little older than Marko, and plays very well with both Marko and Laurel. My kids really wanted to learn how to play Dungeons and Dragons and while we were not able to get a full game going, he did help them with character development and understanding how it works. It is amazing to me that Leah and I have been friends for 17 years, that we have all these kids now, that our spouses are so similar and get along well and that we managed to pull off another transcontinental reunion, despite the pandemic. 

Last week, M took our Yukon in to the dealer in Reno to check the AC, which we realized wasn't working when we started driving in hot places. We also wanted to make sure the brakes were ok after all the steep grade towing. Due to a number of things we ended up not having our car back for 10 days! Luckily we had a rental and this did not put a dent in any of our plans, although the kids complained mightily about having to ride smushed together in the backseat. He is on his way to Reno now to get the car back. 

I was finally able to connect with our homeschool evaluator and mailed our portfolios off to her from the Truckee post office. We'll have a zoom meeting where she will interview the kids and then hopefully send off a positive report. Everyone wants to carry on with homeschooling for the next school year and I already have our books and materials picked out.

It feels very quiet all of a sudden without our friends around, but we're eagerly awaiting the arrival of our next visitors, my sister and her boyfriend!! They also rented a cabin nearby, and we look forward to lots of fishing, swimming and boating together. 

Life in 20 Foot Travel Trailer

Well, we have been in the rPod for a month straight now and people constantly have questions about how we make it work. First of all, we chose this camper for its size, because 3 years ago we had a Toyota 4Runner and this was pretty much the most it could tow. We have a larger vehicle now, but we continue to appreciate the small size because we can always find a campsite, we can pull into almost any gas station and maneuver easily around the pumps, and it's very easy to keep it cool or hot. I had my doubts about how we were going to keep food for a longer trip, but it turns out the 3 cubic foot refrigerator is pretty adequate, and we have gone at least a week between grocery shopping at times. I did have to take out the freezer compartment, so we don't have ice. 

The rPod (we have the 176) is 20 feet long on the exterior so we actually have closer to 16 feet of interior living space. On the one end is a set of double bunk beds and on the other is a dinette that converts to a bed, so there's basically just a little kitchenette and hallway that's about 6 feet long. We all fit around the dinette comfortably, and there is plenty of room for everyone to sleep, and the kitchen actually feels pretty adequate, although we are definitely limited to certain dishes. M did manage to bring along his sour dough starter, and not only keep it alive, but also make some sour dough English muffins, which were pretty darn good. 

When it is cold we either turn on the propane furnace, or if we have an electrical hookup, we plug in a tiny electric heater and stay very toasty. When it's hot, we either use the vent fan, or turn on AC and it is cool within minutes. Solar panels can keep our batteries charged up pretty indefinitely to run the fan, lights and water pump if we are off grid. The fresh water tank keeps us going for 3-4 days when boondocking. When we are parked at a place with hookups, we can use as much water as we want, because we can flush out the gray and black tanks anytime. We even have a tv! It's really a pretty great little trailer.

The only real downside is the complete and utter chaos that occurs when we need to get ready for bed and all the closets and storage nooks are opened up. Messes get big fast. We're all tripping over each other and shouting and cursing. But then it somehow gets picked back up and shoved away and then we are all tucked into our beds with the lights out, listening to M read Travels with Charley. Magical! 

We know that we are close to outgrowing this camper. We've been looking for a new one for a while, but the pandemic has made camping very popular and RVs very hard to get! If we can find one of the models we are looking for on this trip, we may try to get it. If we can't, we'll continue to happily use the RPod as long as we need it to do the things we want to. We have had the dream of a cross country road trip with our kids for years, before we even had kids actually. The dream was about seeing the places and going on the adventures together, not about the accommodations we would have on the way. And we are willing to take navy showers in a wet bath to make it happen. 

Truckee, CA

Memorial Day weekend was very exciting, with M having his Western States training run and all sorts of people coming into the area. Now Truckee is pretty empty again and we are settling into our campsite here, just outside of town. There is a bike path that goes from where we are staying right into the business district and the kids and I have used it to walk into town for ice cream, to go to playground and to the farmer's market. We've been doing lots of beach time at Donner Lake and fishing and hiking in whatever patch of woods we stumble upon when walking or driving around - which is basically any direction you go in. We tried out a few local restaurants for takeout. We met some of our neighbors at the campground, and Laurel likes to take the cat on a walk in the evening, which always attracts a little attention. M met some local runners and will hopefully be able to go on some group runs. 

The weather here is pretty great....cool at night and hot enough midday to want to dive right into icy snow-melt fed lakes. We are slathering ourselves with sunblock and wear hats and sunglasses everywhere we go because we are just not used to this sunshine! 

During the next few weeks, we are having a couple of long-awaited visits with friends and family and Laurel is going to horse camp. Other than that, we are just homeschooling and working, doing laundry and dishes, all the same-old-same-old but in a different spot. It's also a little simpler than at home. Dishes go fast because we only have 5. Laundry dries super quick outside due to the low humidity and I love that I can throw in ALL of the family laundry at once in several machines. I used to do laundry every day, but now it's only once or twice a week. Meals are easy to cook because we have two burners. Limits can be good. 

Loneliest Road

We had 5 days to make it through Nevada, and decided to follow Route 50, also known as the loneliest road. Many years ago, M and I took a car trip down historic Rt. 66 and we loved all the old motels and weird road side attractions. Route 50 isn't as kitschy, but still has some historic buildings. Mostly it is known for wide stretches between services. We filled up our gas, propane, and freshwater tanks before heading out. Our first stop was Great Basin National Park. Even though it was a weekend, the campground was pretty empty and we snagged a spot with a view of Wheeler Peak. The kids and I did some short hikes and they earned their junior ranger badges and M got a few good runs in. We did not find the 4,000 year old bristlecone pine! The conditions at the top of the mountain were a bit too extreme for us to do the 5 mile hike (25 degrees and snowing). 

Nevada was not what I pictured at all. I had been to the Las Vegas area many times and in 2019 we drove through on I80, to the north. However, it being spring, the scenery was really beautiful. Lots of wild flowers, aspen groves starting to open up pale green leaves on the mountains, snow-capped peaks in every direction. After leaving Great Basin N.P., we had a general plan to head towards some hot springs M had heard about from one of his friends. We ended up stopping at the Hickison Petroglyph Recreation Area which had free camping (BYO water, there are no services). It was a great spot, being only 1/2 mile down a bumpy gravel road. I hate taking the camper down long bumpy roads because things fall down in the cupboards and some of the screws shake loose. This area had some cool places to hike and view petroglyphs and camping area was also next to pretty much endless acres of BLM land. 

One morning, the kids and I walked a few miles down a trail and found a rock to sit on. After being very quiet and still for a few minutes, we started to spot lizards and birds doing all sorts of things. Two raptors on a cliff started screeching and swooping at a tree, which scattered a bunch of black birds. It was really cool to watch and also a novel experience to sit still and be quiet and also hear so little man-made noise around us. We are trying to practice mindfulness and being quiet more often so this was a perfect place.

We did end up finding the hot springs. We had to follow a very long, very bumpy road. There are a series of natural pools fed by the hot spring, but at one end, someone had placed a large livestock trough and piped the spring into it. You could swing the pipe out or into the pool depending on how hot you wanted the water. It was only about 65 or 70 degrees outside and the hot water felt amazing. The panoramic views and peace and quiet were an extra treat. 

Before we knew it, it was time to drive the rest of the way to Truckee, which is our temporary home-away-from-home for the next month. I'm glad we had some time to experiment with all our off-grid equipment. M was able to work from all the remote places we stayed thanks to our solar panels and mifi. 

I highly recommend route 50 in spring. Towing our trailer was not a problem with the grades and we topped off our gas tank at every opportunity as recommended. Definitely bring water and plan to conserve if you are camping.

We Made It!

We made a last minute decision to wash the car and camper at one of those big rig truck washes. You pull into an enormous bay and a team of people armed with power washers and brushes scrubs everything. We are all still looking pretty grubby, but the vehicles look nice from the outside. We're celebrating with takeout hamburgers and hot showers.

Part I of the road trip is complete. We had a great time camping in Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah and Nevada. 

Part II is parking in Truckee, CA until the end of June. M is doing the Western States training runs this weekend and he will run in the trail race next month. We'll be exploring the area, meeting up with some friends and family, finishing our homeschool paperwork for this year and launching our next school year. M just started a new job a few weeks ago so he'll be ramping up with that and, of course, running.

Part III will be getting back to Pittsburgh someway, somehow. We haven't made any plans yet, except a general intention of heading north to beat the heat. 

A Very Windy Birthday

We left Hanksville early in the day in order to arrive at our next campground in time for M to log on for some work meetings. There was a high wind advisory, which meant a lot of dust blowing around and difficulty driving high profile vehicles. It's times like these that we are happy we have weight distribution bars on our hitch, even though our trailer is small. We took the road back through Capitol Reef National Park, which is an absolutely gorgeous drive. On the way through, we stopped at the petroglyphs site, since M missed that when the kids and I went the other day. We drove two lane roads through Utah, stopping at a little grocery store, before heading up the hill to Palisade State Park. The campsites circle the lake, but it was so windy we couldn't even sit outside! The kids played at the playground for a while, but soon took shelter in the car, making themselves a video game lounge. I tried to eat a salad for lunch on the picnic table, but the leaves blew right out of my bowl! Later in the evening, the wind came to an abrupt stop, and the waves on the lake calmed down. I took a sunset walk on the loop around the lake and was delighted to receive some birthday calls from friends and family.