Ten years ago, we took an amazing trip across the country to see several national parks. We had all ten children with us. At the time they were: Ryon (15), Nicholas (13), Nathanael (11), Alex (10), Annette (8), Isaac (7), Amelia (5), Dominic (4), Damien (2), and AnaClaire (1). We had a travel trailer that slept 10 and pulled it with our 15 passenger Chevrolet van. We traveled for 6 weeks and had an amazing time. (You can read all about it here: https://kiddingaroundfarm.com/2015/05/08/5715-the-first-day-by-cpt-america/)

We promised ourselves at the end of that trip that we would do it again in 10 years. Dominic, Damien, and AnaClaire were really too young at the time to remember any of it, so we wanted them to have the opportunity to experience seeing so much of the country too. 

So here we are – 10 years later – doing it again. It won’t be the same at all. We only have 6 kids with us, and one of the kids who was supposed to be on this trip isn’t here. The older three boys are at points in their lives where they have responsibilities that keep them at home. We have with us: Alex (20), Annette (18), Isaac (16), Amelia (15), Dominic (14), and AnaClaire (11). We don’t have any kids in diapers or that need to sleep in a pack-n-play. We won’t be carrying any little kids on our backs while hiking, although there is always the chance that we might have to carry Alex off a trail 🙄, and although she doesn’t weigh much, she definitely weighs more than a 2 year old. 

I’ve been making lists and getting our new-to-us RV organized to work well for our family for the past couple months. We had finally decided on a used Class C RV that sleeps 8-10.  Since an RV isn’t ideal to drive through some of the narrow roads in national parks (especially since we’d like to set it up at a campground and leave it there while exploring the parks), we decided to bring our Honda Pilot with us.  I was all for towing it, but Charlie thought it would be better to drive it separately.  When he pointed out that a teenager could drive it and it would give us the opportunity to separate children that may need a break from each other, I was all for it.  The downside to the Pilot is that it seats 8 tightly and there are 8 of us.  We’ll just have to get used to being in close quarters at times.  

We spent a good bit of today getting all of the last things into the RV, cleaning up the house, doing some animal chores, and running a few last errands. We finally left the house around 3:30 with Jacksonville, FL as our first destination. Of course, we got about 10 minutes down the road when Charlie realized we had left an important food item that he had purchased, so the Pilot was sent home to retrieve said treat, and the RV was off to be fed with that commodity that it gobbles up so quickly, gasoline.

We met back up with the other half of us when we reached our first stop, Cracker Barrel.  For some reason, it has become a tradition to eat at a Cracker Barrel while we are traveling.  It’s usually our dinner stop for the first night because we typically don’t manage to get anything prepared after only traveling for just a few hours.  They also have great RV parking, and everyone can browse through the store while waiting for their food to arrive.  Now we just need them to start carrying gluten-free pancakes!

It’s been years since we did much traveling.  I took the kids to Arizona in early 2020 before Covid was part of our lives.  We had a great time, but we had so many problems with the camper on the way there that we sold it when we finally arrived in Arizona.  And if you want to watch anything about the craziness of that trip, I did a vlog on YouTube

Since then we’ve stayed closer to home and used rental houses if we did much in the way of traveling.  This trip will be difficult for all of us without Damien, but it’s also a great time for us to travel since we’re taking more of a break from homesteading to focus on family time.  Keep reading along as I post.  I promise these adventures will get more interesting!