Merry Week-Between-Christmas-and-New-Year to you! I hope you’re having a great holiday
week! We are currently in a campground
in Georgia, which I will write more about later. So much happens when you change pretty much
everything about your lives, so I wanted to back up and write about our first
day.
My wonderful Aunt Heidi said that this blog should have more
pictures, so here’s a picture (love ya, Heidi!):
Just in case we ever forget, this picture is day one of our
journey, and so everyone is holding up one finger. This will be a bit more challenging when we
get farther into our trip and we all need to hold up 81 fingers, but for now,
it’s good.
It was a little bittersweet, leaving our Doylestown home and
driving away with our new home. As I
loaded up all our last-minute supplies into our new home on the road, this is
what I saw every time I entered the camper:
My dad can cut anything out of wood. Isn’t he great? He made us this Christmas tree ornament this
year, but since everything Christmas was already packed into storage, this
ornament hangs in our camper. Every time
I walked in the door of the camper, loading it up, I’d see the ornament, and
the song, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!” would play in
my head. Isn’t that great for being
excited and joyful and ready to go?! And
so, the big road trip began.
Have you ever heard of boondocking? I never had until about two months ago, when
my husband brought it up and explained it to me. I promptly told him I would never be
boondocking, ever. Boondocking is
sleeping somewhere totally random in your camper while you’re between
campgrounds. Oftentimes, this happens in
truck rest areas or Walmart parking lots.
Either way, I think I’d be really hesitant about the surroundings and
all the possible criminals who might try to break in and steal my children, and
I don’t think I’d sleep a wink. Probably
always letting my mind go to the worst possible scenario is not the right
choice, and our very first night in our journey, we knew we’d end up between
campgrounds on our drive south.
Fortunately, if you email a large church right off of the
interstate exit you’re near and ask if you’d be able to park and sleep in their
parking lot for the night, and then attend their worship service in the
morning, you can get a really pleasant boondocking experience! We were happy to jump from the truck to the
fifth wheel in back, to be serenaded by raindrops on the roof, and to be comfy
and cozy as family. It was actually a
really nice night, and I will be happy to continue similar boondocking
experiences throughout the country. I
think it will be cool to see different churches and worship God and be with His
people all over the U.S., too. The
people in the North Carolina church told us, “When you’re done with your road
trip, you should come back and live here!
It’s a great place!” I wonder if
everyone everywhere will say that? We
shall see as we travel.
If anyone has read this far, then I hope that where you are
is a great place to live today, too. We
hope you have a wonderful day, and you have much love from the Utter family.
4 comments:
My family has boondocked many of times when we traveled. We drove everywhere we went (UT, CO, CA,...) and there were many of nights we slept in the car at a truck stop. Us kids weren't driving yet, so mom and dad had to get some kind of sleep since hotels were too expensive for a short sleep. We didn't have the luxury of a camper though. The full size van it was...Dad had built a bed for the back and two of us were there and one on the bench seat. Mom and Dad slept in front seats. There are some good memories from our travels. I wish you all the best on this awesome adventure.
Erin
You should have called while you were in NC! We'd have loved to catch up with you!
Erin, it sounds like you have great memories and had a great experience. I never knew about that while we were in school together!
Melenie, you're right! I should have thought of you, and even though I watched your pictures on facebook of traveling back across the country, I still think of you and the west coast. Where in NC are you now?
OK, I feel weird asking this question about boondocking, but curiosity is getting the best of me. How does someone that is boondocking hook up their water/utilities? Or is that why a 24/hour Walmart is such an appealing stop?
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