Underway

And so our journey begins. I sit waiting for Mark to arrive to pick me up from a 4-day conference at the Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center in Marriottsville, MD. He should be pulling up within the hour, camper packed & towing our well organized and planned out, motorcycle trailer. He got a late start this morning, which is not a surprise, considering all the finishing touches and details he had left to do when I spoke to him last. The 7AM start turned into 10AM and I imagine his lack of a full-nights sleep will be evident when he arrives. We will be staying at Gambrill State Park in western Maryland, which looks to be about an hour away from our meeting point.

We have tried to think of everything and plan for any possible scenario. We outfitted the trailer with all of the things that we will need but don’t want to take up room in the camper/truck itself…the grill, motorcycle accessories, hoses, cords, shoes & boots, most of our needed clothes and hanging items, lawn chairs, camper jacks in case of an emergency, tool box, trailer dolly, spare tire, and of course the motor cycle. This allows us to easily set up and take down for our daily transitions from place to place. We even practiced driving the motorcycle in and out of the trailer to make sure it would work. 

Before leaving for the conference I tried to think about our daily life in our new “tiny home” that we call a camper and be sure we could easily enter/exit locations, as well as enjoy our space without feeling overrun with “things.” After much discussion, brainstorming and switching things from place to place (and maybe an argument or two), I came to the realization that we have to leave room for learning something.  After all I am a teacher and that is what experiential learning is all about. We would have to try it out for size and plan for adjustments along the way. That will be the fun of our trials and mistakes. Mark is always up for revision and improvement, so I’m sure we will be continually thinking about how to “make it better. “

I’m excited and I have to admit a little anxious about our next 6 weeks. I don’t want to miss anything and I don’t want to waste any of our precious time being idle. At the same time I don’t want to be so focused on “doing” that I miss the opportunity of “seeing,” after all that is what our journey is all about! I hope to be awed, humbled, inspired, and to use this trip to dream and look for nuggets of wisdom from people we meet, places we go, history we discover, and even problems we encounter. We will be taking 2 of our grandchildren along in a make shift suitcase (flat Ellyana and Flat Awut) to share with them via Instagram and emails about our travels.  I’ll most definitely miss their 3-dimensional little smiles and hugs but certainly will enjoy building special memories with them as they see themselves propped and photographed on location all around the country.

So I’m going to open my eyes wide and let the adventure begin!