I’m leaving this introduction to our last year, sort of for me.
Here’s a chronicle of our year-long sabbatical from teaching at a small boarding school in Colorado. We are known to mess up lots and we are a mess. We are going to live, all five of us – Wren is 2, Tucker Mac is 4, Otter is 7 and Peter is dad and Misty is mom – in an Airstream for a year. Lots of people have done this before, but not us, so we’ll see how we do. At least we like each other. We’re going to start in Montana so that Peter can get some schoolin’, then go to Tennessee (where some of our family is) to get the Airstream tricked out. Hopefully we’ll then go down to Mexico for Thanksgiving and Christmas and spring (we promised Otter that Santa will find us in Mexico). Late spring and early summer we hope to be in California and Nevada visiting grandparents. We have so far deviated from our plan lots. We began on the west coast, visiting grandparents and seeing national parks.We got way-layed by high gas prices and the tumbling stock market (that was going to fund the trip to Mexico). After a great fall traveling around the west, we have hunkered down in Tennessee until after Christmas. We are planning to go back to Kansas after Christmas, then down to Mexico from there.
For those that care, we are traveling in a 1983 Airstream and it needs some work. It will be pulled by a 1994 Suburban (that doesn’t currently work) with a frybred veggie oil conversion. When we got it we hoped that we could run on recycled oil and help us live a more simple lifestyle. Now we’re just hoping we can get it to run dependably. The veggie oil dream has been hit with the cold reality that its hard to get veggie grease on the road. Its hard to get it even when you are in one place.
We are looking forward to life under the awning: dinner, games, sitting, I can’t wait to sit. I think Wren will just want to climb up the steps and come back down, up and down, up and down.
We are a river loving family – Peter is a kayak teacher and Otter is learning (Misty kayaks too, or used to, before kids). We’ve taken many river trips together. We hope to learn to surf in Mexico and learn to speak some spanish.
Update:
Its August in 2009 and we are back in Colorado and enjoying the end of our summer. Otter and Tucker Mac start school next week, no more homeschooling for me. It was nice to have the time with Otter, but he is not a very focused child and it’ll be nice that someone else is motivating him. Otherwise, we’re glad to be back and sad to be back, all at once. What a great year we had.
