sounds familiar

We’ve reached the halfway mark of our year on the road, the endeavor Sharaun and I called “doing what matters” (all my spreadsheets begin with “DWM_”). On the one hand it feels like it’s gone by way too fast… and on the other there are bits at the beginning we have a hard time believing were connected to this same journey.

Being a momentous occasion, though, I wanted to take a moment and reflect on a couple things. One, I wanted to do share some of the statistics I’ve been keeping, even if they’re not of interest to you, dear reader, I’ll have them here for posterity. Two, I wanted to go back and revisit the “what I’ve learned so far” bullets I captured at the 25%-compete mark.

Since the latter is a pretty heady and cerebral self-examination type thing, and the former is a nice easy data-gathering exercise, can you guess which one I’m choosing to lead with? Right your are! Here, then, is a nice selection of data about the trip so far, for all you nerds:

Driven: 7,017mi
Stops: 63
Nights/stop: ~2.3
Cost/night: ~$22
Fuel: ~$1900
States: 11
National parks: 6 (11 NPS-managed areas)

Just as a point of clarification, the average cost per night does include free nights spent with friends and relatives or in parking lots of Walmarts or Cracker Barrel or Bass Pro or whatever. Also the gas is pretty correct, but does not include propane, which might be another $200-$250 this far.

Anyway, them’s the details thus far.

Peace.

Sometimes, when I look at my hands in the right light, resting, say, on my knees or on a table, palms down, I see my age there. The size, the criss-cross of tiny lines and the little scars and the color.

Other than that, even with all the gray in my travel-long beard, I don’t often see my age. I don’t feel particularly old, so maybe the feeling overrides the seeing. I mean, we’ve got an almost-teenager and will be married twenty years this year and are currently mired in a “midlife opportunity,” but I still don’t feel old.

But my hands are where I see it, don’t know why.

We’re halfway through this week, almost over the hump of our year on the road. I already wish we had longer. Did the first rough planning of where we’ll be when on the back half, but am purposely keeping it loose and open to serendipity.

Let’s get moving. Peace.

It’s a gray morning in South Florida. The humidity has everything sticky, even the air feels like you could push it around. We ran the air conditioning all night just to dry out the place a bit.

I misjudged two people pulling into our campsite last night, neighbors on our immediate right and left. Both were those quick snap judgments we humans, or at least me, are so unfortunately prone to. The first, because he had his truck parked in our spot as we arrived, and the second based on what he was wearing and the state of his campsite.

Soon after we’d parked, and as I was out getting the kids’ bikes down, I learned how miscalculated I was when both neighbors came calling separately to introduce themselves, welcome us to the loop, and ask about our journies – the RV campground version of delivering a meatloaf on move-in day.

Chris, a mortgage broker with a flight attendant wife, had his rig in the shop and the whole family was living in a large tent in the meantime. With no storage, they’d taken essentials from the vehicle and tucked them around the site, mostly stuff for the kids and thus strewn around as kids will do. Preconceived notions & bias: 1, Dave: 0.

Antone, a tax adjuster, and his family were waiting for escrow to close on their new house so they could get the keys, the old house having already sold. He moved his truck almost as soon as he saw us pull into the loop, and apologized for having it there initially. Preconceived notions & bias: 2, Dave: 0.

Each family had kids, and they, unsurprisingly, hit it off, playing like long lost best buds. Cohen and Antone’s kid, in particular, played well into the dark and chose to eat late dinners rather than stop. Preconceived notions & bias: 0, children: 2.

“… Unless you turn and become like little children…” I think someone said that once.

Peace, hugs.

8pm in the Everglades.

The oak that was too damp when we bought it last week at a campground up north finally dried some and is burning fairly well in the fire pit, not a showy fire but hot and consistent. Every once in a while it gives one of those massive pops and sprays sparks.

Cohen’s in the RV taking a shower and Keaton’s sitting out with me playing ukulele. The mosquitoes are out so we’re both sprayed down and I’ve set the little portable zapper lamp we got for Christmas ten feet or so away. It’s popped a few bugs, but I’m still unsure if it was worth it.

We rode our bikes to the visitor center today, left around half past ten for the eightish mile round trip. Everyone did well, but we all underestimated the distance, heat (80° today), and difficulty of terrain (grass, some soft almost-mud, and potholed bedrock). We also should’ve put on sunblock, didn’t think we’d be out so long.

It’s beautiful here, I’m glad we came.

I said I didn’t know what to expect after we’d past the final artificial “milestone” in our trip, the last checkmark my mind arbitrarily created so I could envision things divided into measurable segments with starts and ends.

We’ve past it now (it was “get to Florida for the holidays”), though it took time, and I’m surprised at my own thinking in response.

It’s a pleasant drifting feeling; unmoored, but in an empowered as opposed to helpless way. An expanding, an undirected movement outward, not linear along a path but spherical growth, a comfortable filling of new spaces as they becomes available. I think it’s what I was playing at this whole time: nowhere to go and no time to be there, infinite time to change plans and improvise, but without the nagging worry of execution to some imagined “schedule.”

I didn’t know if I’d ever really get here, but is this what you free people feel all the time? Always 100% open to the, “Let’s stop here and check it out!,” suggestions? Never not game to stay another day or change plans on a dime? Amazing. I hope it continues to mature, that I allow it to build and flourish.

Could it really have taken almost five months for this neural deprogramming?

Hugs.

I’m always first up. It’s cold here this morning and the windows are fogged with condensation because the propane heater kept us warm inside. I’m looking through the bits that are clear out into a sea of oak, decked with tendrils of Spanish moss, and sweetgum.

The hammock is slung, but it’s probably too chilly to use it today. I tried at a fire the first night, and while it was hot enough to roast our hot dog dinner it never really took well, I think the oak was too damp to get going. I’ll take the remaining wood and hope it dries so we can use it later.

Taking a turn now…

I picked up a head cold, probably from our week at Disney, and it’s kept me up some at night. I’ve vowed not to grab the phone during these sleepless moments, so I’ve just been spending them in my own head. Last night I got tangled there thinking about coming back… the idea of essentially “re-starting” work terrifies me. I built a career, eighteen years…

Maybe I should feel a freedom instead, but I don’t. I feel like, if I’m going to start it all again, why not really start it all again? Reevaluate the whole of things, endeavor to better what I can with the new beginning. Not just the job but everything. How could this transition most benefit our family?

Oh but the old normal has all the gravity! It’s just there waiting, the cushions already worn to fit my rear, the smell familiar. Unless we really consider alternatives, the old normal will just pull us back. Maybe that’s not bad, we spent eighteen years building that, too.

I almost feel like it’s a trap.

“Go experience this wonderful freedom!,” says the World. “Go and explore, see, build amazing experiences and bond with your family in ways you didn’t know were possible! Have time to think, time to exist. Live, truly live!”

But in small text, a disclaimer, spoken two decibels quieter, in micro-print along the bottom of the advertisement, daggered and asterisked: “All lifestyle changes are temporary and subject to revocation upon inevitable return to the rat race. Smoke ’em if ya got ’em.” Something like that, anyway.

Y’all hear that big sucking sound? I’m deciding if I’m going to run the other way. It’s a tough decision.

Hugs.

Man, trying to find a place to camp on the Gulf Coast it Florida in January might be the most challenging “where the heck are we gonna sleep?” situation we’ve faced yet on this trip. Everything’s booked out for months by wintering full-timers. It’s more difficult even than what we’ve experienced at the most popular national parks.

Backing up and catching up, we left the in-law’s place on the Space Coast a week after the new year and spent a week at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground. While a week at Disney is pretty awesome, it’s also a week-long death march that ends with sore feet, a bloated stomach, and an empty wallet.

The plan is to make it to the Southernmost spot in the lower 48 and then turn around and head north. I figure we’ll be headed out of Florida again in ten or so days. Our time here is beginning to feel overlong to me, like I felt about how long it took us to get out of California.

I’m ready to head into winter, maybe.