On the Road to Allentown, PA

June, 2012

 Grove Skatepark, Columbus, OH

 Grove Skatepark, Columbus, OH

 Grove Skatepark, Columbus, OH

 Grove Skatepark, Columbus, OH

 Southpark, PA (near Pittsburgh)

 Southpark, PA

 Southpark BMX track

Beautiful views all along the PA Turnpike

Second Trip to Memphis, TN/Horn Lake, MS

It was fun to come back to Memephis Jellystone Campground in Horn Lake, MS and see friends again that we had met on our first trip here.  The kids have some friends who are staying for the entire summer and others who are full-timers staying through the end of the year.

 Our travel journal

 In the evenings, the playground is full of toads

Lego Ninjago with friends

with Love,

Holly

Back to Oil City, PA: Grey, Drizzly Days

 Maya working out something in a workbook while Seth jumps rope outside in the drizzly rain

 Seth with Riley

 Morning cuddle time

Field guide for bird watching, campground map, and some games

with Love,

Holly

Adding a Bunk

We needed one more place to sleep in our RV.  We have a full-sized bed that for Matt and me, a jackknife couch that Riley has claimed, and then Maya and Seth were sharing the dinette bed.  Turns out Seth is a big old floppy kicker, so Maya wasn't sleeping so well.  Matt did some research and landed on the idea to convert the storage area over the dinette into a bunk.

 Relocating the games, arts and crafts, drawing/writing supplies, etc. over the couch

 Testing out the space before the bunk was added

 Painting the bunk area

Maya approves!

with Love,

Holly

Travel Map

Our RV Travel Map at the end of  May, our first month.

Memphis Jellystone, Horn Lake, Mississippi

May 2012
Our second trip was really fun, too, but a whole different type of campground.  The Memphis Jellystone park, located just across the border in Horn Lake, TN, is located in a suburban area.  It is a clean, level park with paved patio areas.  There are lots of kids here, including a full-time family we enjoy seeing every time we go back.  There are a lot of kid-friendly, fun things to do; and the staff is friendly and helpful.

 Jedi craft and training

 pedal cars, rented from the campground

Maya's Lego project

 water slide!!!

 putting our hometown on the campground map

 reptile and amphibian field guide; for identifying animals they're finding at the pond in the evenings

my turn on the water slide!

Our First Trip: Oil Creek Campground, PA

classic backwoods campground sign

May 2012
First trip was a little scary.  New RV drivers trying to maneuver the winding, hilly backroads of PA; lots of rain; road to the campground closed and no GPS signal to find an alternate route; trying to suppress horror movie thoughts as we trusted a person (who was perfectly kind and helpful after all) who offered to show us an alternate way to the backwoods campground; and, when we arrived, this sign (above) brought all the B horror movie thoughts right back to the surface!  Warning from the campground staff as we paid for our site:  Be sure and bag up your trash, we've had a bear getting into the dumpster.

We were nervous, uncomfortable, had no idea about most of how the RV worked, and in a whole different world than traveling by car and staying at the Holiday Inn; but it was also exciting and pretty funny!

All of our misgivings about the campground were totally uncalled for.  It was a great place to stay!  It had an awesome frog pond teeming with wildlife.  We listened to the loudest frogs in the evenings.  It was remote enough to be pitch black at night, and we could see so many stars in the sky -- we loved looking out the back RV window as we were going to sleep.  The campground staff were so nice and helpful, especially to us noobs who killed our battery and just generally had no idea what we were doing!

Maya and Seth feeding the campground alpacas.

 checking out the pond

 Beautiful spot for yoga!

 lots of time for swinging and talking

checkers with Riley

 upside down Maya

 upside down me

aftermath of something terrible?

Lots going wrong, lots to learn:  batteries & electric, dump tanks, water system, propane...

Getting Set Up

Games!

Clearing out the previous owner's things from the storage bins and bringing in our own supplies for living and learning on the road.

with Love,

Holly

First Meal on the RV!

Welcome!

Welcome to our new blog!  I've previously blogged at Unschooling Snapshots, which served as a photo journal of our family's earlier unschooling years.  I haven't blogged there much recently so I thought I would start fresh here with a focus on the latest twist in our lives:  RV travel.  I have dreamed of traveling full-time in an RV for several years.  We started traveling more when my husband got a home-based job with his company that involved weekday travel about 3 weeks a month.  Since we unschool anyway, the kids and I often tagged along on his trips, taking interesting side trips near where he was working.  We traveled by mini-van, staying in hotels, to Washington DC; New York City;  Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Hershey, PA; Memphis; Dallas; Chicago; Kansas City; Baltimore; and many other places.  Finally, in May of this year, we were able to purchase our RV:  a Class A 1993 Winnebago Brave. We still have our sticks-and-bricks house, but more and more the RV is becoming home.

Our very own T.A.R.D.I.S.  We call him Harvey the RV. 

with Love,
Holly