Question - What do you get when you cross: a nesting pregnant lady with an upcoming year of maternity/parental leave burning a hole in her brain; a cheap, research/organization-obsessed Virgo; some serious wanderlusting hippy tendencies; a penchant for minimalism/small living; a love of backcountry camping; a burning desire to breathe lots of salt air for long periods of time and; a highly-tolerant (possibly masochistic) spouse?
Answer - Possibly the most amazing (and insane) plan for an extended roadtrip ever.
Oh ya baby, we're going to try to take this (poop)show (two small kids, one skinny dog and two adults who should know better) on the road.
In a camper van. For 6 months.
I vacillate constantly between being super-excited and utterly-terrified. Wheee!
The current (sketchy) plan and timeline is to:
1) Give birth to a healthy (happy, mellow, easy-sleeper, champion-nurser) baby - late January/early February
2) Buy a reasonably-priced larger camper van (probably a used Roadtrek) - March/April
3) Figure out what to do with our current car and home while we're gone - April
4) Deal with any van repairs/upgrades, insurance, documentation, vaccinations, etc. - April
5) Come up with a rough plan for where we want to go and what we want to see (other than ocean, ocean and more ocean) - April
6) Pack up the van with a small selection practical and comprehensive roadtrip/camping supplies - May
7) Find enough leftover space for 2 child car seats, 2 small car seat occupants, a car-sickness prone dog, a driver and a navigator - May
8) Make appropriate sacrifices/prayers/offerings to any/all possibly sympathetic higher deities - May
9) Hit the road - May
10) Manage to make it to at least one ocean without any roadtrip-ending disasters - May/June
You'll no doubt be impressed that I've already purchased some aesthetically-pleasing and highly-practical Turkish towels. And I own a Swiss Army knife with a bottle-opener/corkscrew.
So really, we're pretty much ready to go.
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Best idea ever. Where are you going? Which way? Is it all willy-nilly or are you planning?
ReplyDeleteAlso - a year of maternity leave is amazeballs. You lucky Canadians!
Thanks! I'm pretty excited about the idea. We're currently planning on basically making a big circle: to leave Ottawa and drive down the east coast, cut across the bottom of the US, head up the west coast to BC and then come back to Ontario via the rest of Canada (with a few detours to see Montana and a couple of other states). We mainly want to stick to national parks and forest service areas with a few cities thrown in for variety. Any and all recommendations are welcome.
DeleteI know how lucky we are in Canada with maternity leave and that's part of the reason I don't want to just mope around home the whole time. It's going to be a year of leaky boobs and sleepless nights regardless - I may as well have something interesting to look at.
That sounds amazing! I'm sure your baby will be cooperative. Second ones are usually much easier than firsts.
ReplyDeleteQuestion though - passport for the littlest one going to be a problem for the US?
You might be the first to person tell me that seconds are easier than firsts. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed about that for sure!
DeleteI'll need to get a passport for the newest addition asap. Baby passports are just so silly but if it makes people feel they're safer from (mini)terrorists, who I am to argue?