Epic Trip 2015 – Part 1

In this galaxy and not very long ago…this is how this adventure all started…

Note: The time frame for the the Epic Trip 2015 is late April to early June 2015.

I’m sitting less than twenty feet from the river that is energetically snaking its way through this old mining town.  A couple of mule deer are grazing in a yard across the river.  The cool breeze is pushing the clouds over the mountain peaks that surround the town. I need to check on the kids.  I think they’re at the playground.  They’ve been gone for a while.  They’ll be okay.  It can wait. The morning horse ride was a success.  My wife, a city girl, loved it.  The kids didn’t want to get off their horses. I pick up my phone.  I should check my e-mail.  I put the phone back down.  It can wait.  I catch a scent of our afternoon fishing adventure.  I need to take a shower.  It can wait.  In fact, it all can wait.  With one exception.  The imminent return to the rat race of city life.  I don’t want to go back.  My wife doesn’t want to go back.  The kids love it here…as well as the eleven previous stops we’ve made on our “Epic RV Trip”.

This adventure, unknowingly, started in late 2013 when we began tent camping at Huntsville (TX) State Park with our kids and they loved it.  When camping they wanted to be outside exploring the world on their legs, bikes and scooters.  The electronic life of iPads, Xbox, and TV was a distant memory.  It was really a small miracle.  Within minutes of setting up camp a friendly and happy mob of kids had formed and their excitement was felt throughout the park.  A few months later we purchased a pop-up camper taking our camping experience to the next level.

In early 2014, my wife and I made the relatively easy decision to start home schooling our two children.  I know that you are probably thinking we are some weird religious zealots living on a farm.  I can assure you that we are as normal as normal can be.  Too normal, which was part of the problem.  There was nothing sinister that lead us to this decision, we simply felt, all things considered, this was a better fit for our lifestyle.  At the same time we made the homeschooling decision, I was leading a global IT department for a high growth company.  I was responsible for over 50 people on my team and several thousand customers (end users) that were seemingly never happy.  The hundreds of e-mails and dozens of phone calls a day were maddening.  In the previous two years my stress level went through the roof and I had gone from a finely tuned, multiple Ironman triathlon finisher to an overweight, forty-three year old borderline couch potato.  As we prepared for this homeschooling journey we discussed me leaving the corporate world and going back to my consulting life (I had a successfully consulting business before going to work for one of my clients in 2011, but that is a story for another day).   We wanted some balance in our lives and my wife and I both new that my job was ruining me.  I wasn’t the husband, father, or man that I wanted to be.  But before I dove headfirst back into the consulting business we had other plans. As we continued to plan for our homeschooling adventure we both felt that this was only part of what we needed to do.  Remember that I said we were normal.  We were leading a normal life.  An ordinary life.   Not that there is anything wrong with that, but we needed to do something epic.  Like Major Tom stepping through the door.  One morning, over a cup of coffee, we had an epiphany.  How about a month long RV trip? It was a done deal.  We had the courage of our convictions and once we have a goal we don’t stop.  We were doing this! A long decompression from the daily grind for my wife and me and a long social studies trip for all of us.

So, I took the first step and traded in my GMC Terrain for a Ford F250 and a few months later, after spending countless hours on RV Trader, visits to local RV dealerships, and attending an RV show we identified our future 5’er.  After discussing several options including the east coast, Florida and Disney World and the southwest we agreed that a loop through the Rockies with detours to the Black Hills of South Dakota, the sandstone vistas of Moab, and the grandest of all canyons was the right adventure for us.  As I put the finishing touches on the destinations, booked KOAs, state parks, and RV resorts, my employer and I worked out a somewhat graceful exit from my job.  Working in the oil and gas market with extremely depressed oil prices, companies were offering packages.  My employer was no exception and it happened to be perfect timing for us.  On March 13^th, 2015, my final day in corporate America I went to the RV dealership to pick up our new 5’er.  We headed out to the local KOA immediately for some 5’er baptism by fire.  A few small glitches, but overall it was a successful maiden voyage.  After one more successful test run we were ready (or as ready as ready can be).

We made arrangements for neighbors to watch over our house and for family members to care for our kids’ pet snake and fish.  On April 25^th we departed the oppressive stress of city life.  We expected to be gone 34 days plus or minus a day or two.  Some of our friends were placing friendly wagers on if we would actually make it more than two weeks before returning.  I had my doubts and told my wife and kids that if after a couple of weeks we were tired of the travel or each other we could cut the trip short and return home.

We made an overnight stop at Lake Arrowhead State Park in Wichita Falls, Texas.

After we did our quick setup I noticed the refrigerator wasn’t cooling.  Two weeks?  We may not even make it two days.  After resetting the refrigerator a couple of times it came to life.  False alarm.

The next day we went on a bike ride, were entertained by the ground hogs in the park, then hit the road for Palo Duro State Canyon in Canyon, Texas near Amarillo.  No offense to Amarillians, but the area around is mostly non-scenic unless you like flat farmland as far as you can see.  We had seen the pictures of Palo Duro Canyon on the Internet and were very excited to see the second largest canyon in the United States.  But the flat farmland.  There was no way there could be this beautiful canyon in this part of the Texas panhandle. Were we ever wrong!  The canyon is absolutely stunning!

Ireland and Luke at Palo Duro Canyon SP

It rained for most of the 2 days and nights that we were in the canyon so we didn’t get to fully experience the hiking, biking, and other activities that the park offers.  However, we did make a trip in to Amarillo to visit the Jack Sisemore Travel and RV Museum.  What a cool place.  Even if you don’t care about RVing it is worth the visit.

To be continued in Part 2.