unicon stalking

For months we've been researching and debating a tow vehicle.  At times the options seemed endless.  Trucks are better for towing but a family of 6 doesn't fit in a truck very well.  Do SVUs really have enough towing capacity for the size trailer we want and all the stuff we'll end up bringing along?  What about vans?   With some sense of which travel trailer we wanted we felt like we had a good idea of our towing needs.  Which ultimately lead to what we began referring to as unicorn hunting. We decided we wanted a Ford e350 diesel 7.3l liter standard length passenger van.  Unfortunately coming by one is not easy and coming by one that has low enough miles and is in good shape is even harder.  Lots of online searching.

We won the lottery!!

As we began creating our list of places to go and things to see in the eastern half of the country the Florida Keys popped on to our (my) radar.  How cool would it be to drive across the Overseas Highway, talk about the drive of a life time!  After extensive reading it became clear that staying in a state park in The Keys would be ideal.  Unfortunately most people think that!  Which means sites at those camp grounds fill quickly or as we soon found out, immediately.  The booking window for a site opens 11 months before hand at 8 a.m. Eastern time.  We decided we would shoot to be in The Keys for December 2017.  When December 2016 rolled around I began looking at sites even though they would be for November the following year.  I was shocked and a bit dismayed as I watched the sites fill every day.  Were people really booking every site this far in advance; yes, yes they were!  We decided that we should just start trying to book something and we would work our travel plans around it if we were able to get a site.  Christmas came and went with me trying to get a site every morning by getting up at 5:45 a.m. getting ready to try to click book at exactly the right second each morning.  A week and a half into this routine I was growing tired of being disappointed every morning but also came to accept that I was in this game for the long haul.  Certainly if I kept at it long enough we would land a spot.  One particularly disappointed morning I asked on a facebook group for fulltime R.V.ers if there was some secret to actually getting a site.  Not really was the unfortunate answer.  Use the fastest internet connection you can and keep trying.  Well on Jan. 3rd we won the FL State Park lottery and scored a site at Bahia Honda State Park.  As I watched the site switch from not available yet to reserved (had my heart drop a little again) Geary called me to the other room, "Come here, I don't want to mess it up."  Wait, what?!  Talk about cloud 9!  And so began the concrete we're really doing this part of our journey.  We'll be in Bahia Honda State Park December 3rd though December 17th, 2017 (2 week booking limit).  Having one concrete piece in place we began working around those dates trying to figure out where we are staying on our way down to The Keys and on the way back up from The Keys.  Dry Tortugas National Park is still on the conversation table.  An expensive excursion no doubt but... if we're down there shouldn't we go all in?!  Time (and budgets) will tell.  Excited and scared as we inch closer to making this dream a reality.

We have arrived

A few months ago I looked at my husband, Geary, and declared that I finally feel like we had left babyhood.  Obviously this transition isn't an abrupt one but rather a gradual shift.  Sleepless nights, changing diapers, nursing and spoon feeding babies changes to occasional bad dreams, racing to bathrooms with kids in training, and sippy cups.  Then finally more full nights of sleep than not, kids that ask for a bathroom (with ample time to find one), and even kids who fill their own cups of milk. Here we are, squarely in our children's childhood.  Which brought about the question of what do we want that to look like.  Sure we've given thought to this idea before because really this is our story, this is our life.  That undeniable ownership has long been a part of me.  But having 4 kids in 4 years meant there was a dramatic shift from "Is this what we want to be doing with our lives?"  to "This is amazing and so overwhelming.  I'm not sure if we are even going to survive."  Babyhood was planned in the sense that we wanted kids but it was similar to white water rafting- you know you want to go and it will be fun in an exciting and thrilling way but when the boat flips and you are being tossed and turned gasping for air you wonder what the hell was I thinking.  In those moments you aren't thinking about where you are going so much as just trying to survive.  Honestly I think it would be easy to stay in more of a survival mode at this point.  Our days are full, there is school and homework, music lessons and playdates, never mind getting everyone fed and bathed.  There are holidays to make special, costumes to be made, presents to be bought, parties to be planned... busy I tell you.  And yet I find myself asking "is this what we want?"  Our life is good, very good in so many ways, but is this what we want it to be?  As Geary and I talked more we found ourselves reconnecting with our own dreams or perhaps more accurately working on creating new ones.  What do we want for our family?  So here we are.  Dreaming and scheming.

The beginnings

Just Another Good Idea has been a long joked about idea with its beginnings dating all the way back to the summer of 1999.  Neither Geary or I can really explain exactly how we ended up wandering the back roads of Northern California but that's were JAGI's roots lie.  Two college kids wandering aimlessly on their days off as summer camp counselors.  We talked about anything and everything.  Honestly I assumed the experience was going to be a bit Vegas like- what happens at camp, stays at camp.  Silly me!