Isn’t it funny how you can have glorious plans of how much you will get done in a day, only to get to the end of the day (or several days in this case) and most of your to-do list is still undone? I suppose that is the idea with life now, though. Freedom from to-do lists, loose schedules, and time to enjoy each other. This has been a great experience so far. However, my intention was to start the blog the first day on the road, and several days have passed since that first night.

So what on earth are we doing? Perhaps this is the first you’ve heard of our newest adventure. Have you ever gotten to a place in your life where you begin to question why you are doing  what you are doing? We want to raise our kids to KNOW that there is more to this world than living in the town in which they were born. We want them to find their purpose. But we found ourselves just running daily in the hamster wheel, finding less and less time to spend as a family doing things we enjoy. It’s so easy to get tied up in work, activities, household projects, and all the other things that can tether you. We needed a change. And so we prayed, and God answered. So many doors opened and things started falling into place for us to leave Rapid City in an RV. Jacin started a new career in insurance adjusting, and he will be a storm chaser just as soon as hurricane season hits. And I have figured out how to take my accounting business on the road (hopefully successfully – only time will tell). So, here we are, having left our house and headed to CA for a few scheduled activities, and then on to Tijuana to assist at the Puente de Amistad mission base if time permits before Jacin is deployed to his first storm.

Here’s a quick summary of our first few days:

Day 1 – We left Rapid City around 8:30 at night. The need to start our adventure was too great to spend one more night. We made it to Mule Creek Junction and stayed the night next to a few semis.

Day 2 – We spent a couple of hours organizing the last piles that were thrown into the RV before departing. We made our way just west of Rock Springs, WY, where we stayed in Little America’s parking lot. All meals today were in the RV, even the final meal of dehydrated backpacker’s fettuccine alfredo (which was not a big hit).

Day 3 – We were quickly in Utah. Justice had me (attempt) to take a picture of the Welcome to Utah sign, but true to my abilities, there was a decorative windshield post smack in the middle of the picture. I was saved, however, by the rest area outside of Park City that had a Welcome to Utah sign on site. The kids fed Cheerios to ground squirrels and we hiked around a bit. We made our way to Salt Lake City and visited our first Camping World store, where we picked up a few items we realized we could not live without. To our delight, they had a FREE electric site on their lot, so we took advantage of it for a night. There was also an RV park down the road that allowed us to dump and fill our water tanks, so we made it out of Salt Lake City with very little expense. We spent the afternoon downtown in Temple Square, enjoying the gardens and the visitor’s center. We toured Brigham Young’s houses and had lunch at a quaint little café in one of them.

Day 4 – Up “early” to catch the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s 4,363rd live recording of their weekly “Music and the Spoken Word” program. It’s the longest continuous broadcast program in the world. It was pretty powerful to be in the presence of so many talented musicians, not to mention the pipe organ with over 11,500 wooden pipes. Even the kids were impressed. We then toured the Clark Planetarium (for FREE!), where we saw a moon rock and meteorites, as well as an audio kinetic sculpture (essentially a giant marble maze). After a Mediterranean lunch, we headed to Liberty Park for Earth Fest where we enjoyed the outdoors and some local music along with fun hippy craft booths. A highlight for the kids was the tiniest dog we have ever seen, maybe six inches tall. We had dinner in the RV, then packed up, dumped and filled once more time, and headed out towards the Bonneville Salt Flats.

Day 5 – We slept in until 8:00! We’ve spent the day on the Bonneville Salt Flats, where the land speed records are set. Nation got to drive 40 mph – pretty lucky for his first driving experience! I worked for a few hours this morning in my PJs, in the middle of the shocking white landscape, while the family toured around a bit to find a post office so Justice could mail her first postcards. The kids have spent the afternoon making art out of salt. And here I am, finally getting to the blog. It has been such a relaxing day, listening to music and enjoying the simplicities of life. I think it will be pancakes and eggs for dinner (with a big WOO-HOO from the kids), and we’ll stay the night here. We don’t know how far we’ll get tomorrow; our next deadline is making a conference by Thursday afternoon near San Jose, CA. Jacin would like to see Tahoe, so perhaps that will be our stopping point tomorrow.

I apologize for such a lengthy, not-so-exciting first post. I will try to get more creative as we go along, as well as involve the rest of the family. We’ll make sure the kids post every now and again, as long as you don’t make too much fun of spelling errors. 🙂 Regardless of spelling limitations, our kids are learning so much everyday by experiencing new places and doing new things. We look forward to each day of our adventure.