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Happy Friday! Life has been wonderful and wild during our crazy road trip. We’re FIVE weeks in (what?! How did that happen?) with just a week and a half to go before we arrive at our final destination in TX!
We’re currently enjoying our first trip ever to California. The beaches here are so different from Florida beaches!
We had fun finding sea glass at the Glass Beach. And we’ve done lots of camping lately. After my last update on the blog, Benjamin caught a stomach bug so we were stuck in Casper, WY for an extra day while he recovered. But that’s really been the only major snag so far!
Except for a heat wave in Boise, ID I almost feel like we’ve skipped summer. We’ve been on the road since mid-July and immediately headed north. We’re now going south in sunny California and the weather is PERFECT. I know that as we continue down into the southwest and head to the farm, the weather will become increasingly blistering, so we’re enjoying it. But hey! By the time we get to TX, there will only be September to get through before the nice fall weather begins. Summer avoidance success!
Wednesday I desperately needed to catch up on email, writing, and all kinds of blogging-related stuff so after 24/7 family togetherness for a month, I sneaked away to a coffee house in the Bay Area and drank absurd amounts of peppermint tea. It was nice to have a brief moment of internet access and some quiet but I was ready to get back on the road to Sequoia National Park for some more camping.
We had a restful and wonderful stay with friends near San Francisco and had a blast showing the kids the Golden Gate Bridge.
I’m starting to compile questions about how to organize/survive a road trip like this with small children, so if you have a question, be sure to ask in the comments so I can address it in future posts!
Links:
The Late, Great Stephen Colbert: GQ (This was a really interesting read. There’s some language, just FYI.)
All of Chesterton’s Children: Catholic Thinker
25 Period Dramas to Watch on Netflix: The Silver Petticoat Review (I guess I have some binge-watching to do…)
Living the Faith in a Secular Culture: Christy Isinger
And if you want more details about our trip. Daniel Bearman wrote an update.
Sponsors:
Be sure to give some love to this month’s sponsor! They keep the lights on around here.
Wishing everyone a beautiful weekend!
Lots of love,
Haley
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You guys are my heroes, forever and ever!
Ha!
I’m so glad your trip has been a success! What was your laundry situation? How many clothes did you pack, when/where did you wash, etc. Because seriously, I hate packing for a week vacation (and I just have 2 kids) so I can’t imagine what it’s like for much longer!
I’m interested to hear what Haley has to say, too, but for us — (we do road trips every year with the littles) — we just pack enough for 5 or so days, wear dirty clothes a lot, and try to build in a campsite with a laundry facility and showers (like a KOA) every 5-7 days on the itinerary. We layer, so we mostly wear t-shirts and pants no matter where we are.
Ooo. Good question. I’ll be sure to address that one!
We just left the great state of Texas (Tyler) for greener pastures in Nashville. Only we didn’t do it with such style! What a fun around the way journey
I love Nashville!
Hey you were in my neck o’ the woods (we’re in Berkeley)! Glad you enjoyed your Bay Area visit. We do have pretty fabulous summer temperatures most of the time.
We’re supposed to pay for it in the days upon days of rain in the winter, but last year El Nino became El Wimpo. We’ll see if it happens this time!
It rained on us a TEENSY bit in LA today! Maybe that bodes well for the drought?
So very cool! We have family in Idaho so we’ve been out to Yellowstone once. It is so amazing how the landscape can be so vast and changing!! Enjoying Instagram. Keep posting.
Yellowstone is SO awesome! I want to go back. <3 Miss you, Jeni!
I see you’re headed to the Grand Canyon. Hopefully you can spend some time in Flagstaff. It’s an hour south of the Canyon (and my hometown!) and a convenient stopover for I-40. I hear the newly-built Catholic church has spectacular views of the mountains!
Oh cool!
As for me, I am not sure I could survive 24/7 fmily togetherness
sooo now I am a devoted fan of Yours 
Not every minute has been pretty
But we have had a lot of fun!
How have you fed your family? Have you stayed on budget food-wise? Have there been any difficulties because of food issues in your family? Has this part of the trip worked out as you planned?
Those are great questions, Bonnie! I’ll definitely speak to that in my post!
How has the sleeping situation worked? I mean… nitty-gritty details here…
We have a 5 yr old, a 3 yr old and a 1 yr old. We’ve been camping 4-5 times this summer as a family, with the big family tent. My husband and I have also gone twice, just the two of us with the backpacking tent. In the backpacking tent, we take the fancy Therm-a-rest backpacking mats (They were gifted to us) and make do with sleeping just off the floor on those. When we take everyone, we give the kiddos the Therm-a-rest mats and take along a big air mattress for us. However, it always seems to leak or have an issue, despite being SO careful with it.
So… what have you done? Have you splurged and bought a fancy air mattress or something else to sleep on? What? What kind? How much was it? Where did you get it? Has it been worth it? What have the kids slept on? Are they just all in one big bed with sleeping bags on top? (Can you sense the desperation in my questions? We just returned from 4 days of family camping). We live in Michigan and camping here can be chilly (It was 47 degrees on Saturday night). It’s worthwhile to put something between your body and the ground to stay warm, but I’m struggling as we go forward with how much money to invest in air mattresses. It seems kind of excessive… so I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Also, this is an intimate question, but how have you and your hubby found time for yourselves? When we camp, we are in one big family tent. It can be difficult to sneak in some “adult time” when there’s kids crawling all over. What have you and Daniel done to make sure you have time for each other on such a long trip?
Thank you so much for blogging about this adventure. Camping with kids is fantastic!
Another good question!
Did you guys grow up camping? We don’t have a lot of camping experience, but we’d like to go out this fall. The learning curve just seems steep, especially with kids. I’d love any tips you have about camping with kids.
I didn’t at ALL! But I did some backpacking in high school and college and so did Daniel.