Looking Back at 2015 and a Slow Start to 2016

Well, here it is, our #2015bestnine (at least by the numbers). 1) Our route for the year from California to Massachusetts (via Alaska!) 2) Sunrise from an incredible boondocking site overlooking the Tetons 3) Fall moochdocking in New England with family 4) Aluminum foilage from Big Bluffs State Park overlooking the Mighty Mississippi as we blasted east across the country 5) A dirty Airstream pic halfway through a wash after driving the Top of the World Highway from Chicken, Alaska to Dawson City, Yukon on a slick, rainy day 6) An improvised hammock rigging beside the stunning Muncho Lake in Northern B.C. 7) Sunset on Hauser Lake at Black Sandy State Park north of Helena, MT 8) Sunset from the same spot above the Tetons 9) And the Sisterhood of the Traveling Parents on the shores of Muncho Lake reflecting on a great year on the road! Thanks to everyone for the encouragement, community and inspiration! #airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife #familytravel #travelwithkids #welltraveledkids #lifeontheroad #fulltimefamilies

You know you're raising your kids right when all they want to play is "@wandrly and @mali.mish's Baja Adventure." #littleformerairstreamfriends #childhoodpluggedintosocialmedia

One more week catching up on appointments and seeing friends before we head "home" to the trailer in Massachusetts. After a weekend of settling back in, we'll point the trailer southwest towards Lexington, KY, Nashville, TN, Memphis and Austin, TX. #almostontheroadagain #airstream #airstreaminsnow #liveriveted #myrivetedlife

One from the vault of towing the 19' with our old Sequoia around the entire Valley of the Gods Road. I wouldn't do it with a longer combo, and our rear bumper never quite sat level after a few of the steep approaches and departures. I believe you can boondock anywhere on the road, so I might suggest approaching from the east entrance and picking a scenic campsite while you explore the rest with your truck. @jmccartie This flows nicely from the end of your Utah Hwy 12 Scenic Byway route and many people say they like it more than Monument Valley. #airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife #utah #valleyofthegods #backinthetrailerin5days

The middle of January marks our one year #nomadiversary of traveling full-time in the Airstream. We actually moved out of our house and into the trailer the August before and did a couple three week trips between "pasture parking" in our own backyard while friends were in our house, but didn't start on the road for good until early 2015. Here's a shot that never made it to IG the first time around from a deserted lakeside campground just on the eastern slope of the Sierras. Mae is 6 months, Wynne would have just turned 3 and my beard would have still just been a glimmer in my eye... #airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife #familytravel #travelwithkids #fulltimefamilies #backinthetrailerin3days

Worst. Minimalist. Ever. While visiting our home base in Petaluma for a couple more days, we've taken the opportunity to continue to pare down the stuff in storage which we had thought was the bare minimum when we hit the road a year ago. Somehow, that had included the contents of three large garbage bags (mostly clothes, some books) that we've now dropped off at the donation center plus two carloads of baby gear which have now been distributed to friends and a local family homeless shelter. The task at hand? 12 file boxes of memorabilia from kindergarten through college including my Wesleyan Class of '94 yearbook in which the only place my name appears is below a smiling picture of some guy named Derek Butz. #notkidding #worstminimalistever #downsizing #hoarderswithoutborders

It's a good news/bad news kinda day. So after a second long night of Mae not sleeping and coughing like a seal, it's confirmed she has croup which doesn't bode well for our red eye flight back to the trailer tomorrow.

Postponing until Thursday, despite exorbitant change fees, may actually be a good thing since while removing a silver filling last week, the dentist cracked my tooth and now needs to squeeze me in on Weds afternoon for a crown. Then again, Massachusetts is expecting a foot of snow on Saturday which will only give me one day to get the trailer out of the soggy side yard and onto some pavement before getting trapped.

Oh and on top of everything, the fridge at our VRBO broke last night spoiling all our food, and I just found out that my investment advisor - against my advice, but claiming to be "inspired by us" - just bought an '85 Westfalia camper van which now makes me question his judgement.

But on the bright side, Wynne and I built a pretty sweet fort out of some blankets and the four file boxes I narrowed my memorabilia down to (one for each decade doesn't seem too bad), and we "homeschooled" by drawing pictures and writing the names of all the members of the Paw Patrol. I think our collaboration on Ryder came out pretty damn well!

#goodnewsbadnews #brightside #travelwithkids #familytravel #croup #whenitrainsitpours #ohdidimentionitsraining

It's not always gonna be a level road. Sometimes there are ups and sometimes downs. Sometimes one side is up and the other is down. But like this campsite/hillside at Great River Bluffs State Park overlooking the Mississippi in Minnesota, the view can be worth a little effort.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, after three nights days of a baby with croup, an expensive flight change to try to get back to New England before a snowstorm that ended up hitting Tennessee instead, I have now have viral pink eye and can't fly. Yep. As soon as I can open my eyes enough to push our flight back to Monday, I'm sure I'll go back to enjoying the view.
We're thankful to have enough flexibility that it doesn't really matter that much and are keeping a good attitude. All part of the adventure!
#thereareworseplacestobestuckthangrandmas #stayingpositive #airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife #pinkeye #pinkeyeforthebeardguy

Since I'm being forced by circumstances beyond my control to "look at the world through pink-colored glasses" (see previous post #pinkeyeforthebeardguy), I've decided to just ignore the fact that we have to delay our return to the trailer for four days while I flush my eyes with steroids and fastidiously bathe in Purell so as not to infect anyone else and to instead completely falsify a series of posts that I wish were true and will make me feel better in the meantime. So without further delay, please enjoy a certifiably untrue post (with true pics!) about our day:

After a two hour flight from SF to Boston during which the kids just sat quietly by themselves, we got back to the trailer to find everything perfect and a comfortable 70 degrees inside. It took a few seconds to fill the water, hitch up and effortlessly pull out of our snowy spot before driving 2,929 miles to the Alabama Hills and arriving at our private boondocking site with a full hour for a nice walk before the last sun bathed Mt. Whitney in an amber glow. The kids made us dinner and took a bath before putting themselves to bed while Ann and I sat by the fire reflecting on a great day. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

#mysocalledrivetedlife #pathologicalliar #everythingoninstagramistrue #airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife

You are not going to believe the day we had... which is good because if you've read the last two posts you know that what you are about to read is completely fabricated, and we're actually still trapped in CA by a combination of a late Christmas in Tennessee and pink eye.

The secure line triggered at 8:00 am sharp. I have it wired to a light in my wardrobe that I keep telling Ann just "gets fritzy" sometimes, but I know it's time to sneak into the rear streetside storage compartment that I've converted into a mobile com center. I told her once it's where I put the stinky slinky and she hasn't been near it since.

I wasn't surprised to hear the voice of NASA communications director G. Michael Green on the other end of the line; We'd received his coded communications about the potential discovery of a 9th planet beyond Neptune via various media sources and figured it might be time for Project Interstellar Roadschool to commence.

We briefed Wynne on the details: She would be in transit for exactly 9,121 days, a little over 24 years; Yes, a lot of it would be like "Miles from Tomorrowland," but unfortunately she would not be provided with a robotic, holographic, jet-pack-equipped ostrich as a sidekick (though she was free to build one for herself during the journey should she choose); and Finally, her mother would be insisting that she bring an extra sweatshirt in case the outer reaches of known space got chilly.

The rendezvous was set for Trona Pinnacles, an out of the way dried up lake bed with convenient access to the massive China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station. The distinctive pinnacles would serve as a stand-in training ground for the next 6 years of mission prep and acquaint her with necessary techniques to analyze similar mineral structures should they be present on the distant gas giant.

Mae was left to make dinner for the family all by herself - if I'm being honest, it wasn't great - while Wynne was being trained on a manned surface craft prototype that closely resembled a pink Strider bike.

#mysocalledrivetedlife #airstream #myrivetedlife #liveriveted #tronapinnacles #milesfromtomorrowland #kidsinspace #ohanditsassifiedsomumstheword!

Okay enough with the made up posts. Here's a flashback to our second or third week living in the trailer on a trip up to see friends in Arcata in the Fall of 2014. Mae was 8 or 9 weeks old, Wynne 2 1/2. This is at the Burlington CG in Humbolt Redwoods SP, still one of our favorites. #airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife #airstreamwithkids #travelwithkids #familytravel

This is a random story I was reminded about today... (yes, I'm still on a lot of drugs and we might postpone our flight yet again)

Along a remote stretch of highway in the Yukon, we stopped at a pullout to make lunch for the kids. Afterwards, Wynne and I wandered a bit on either end of the trailer and noticed something pink in the dirt farther up the pullout.

She ran forward and picked it up. It was a t-shirt. A women's V-neck in a pretty pink heather color.

"Can I keep it?!" She asked.

"Well, it's pretty dirty, and I think it looks a little big for you. Maybe it would fit mama? Plus, you already have one kinda like this." I reasoned, remembering a similar one we'd found for her in a kids thrift store.

In fact, the pullout shirt was the size Ann would wear and in a brand that she liked. Score! Wynne was a little disappointed, so Ann offered that maybe we should just take it with us and wash it, and then they could both try it on later and see who it fit better.

A week later, we dumped a clean bag of laundry out on the couch in the trailer for folding, and there on top of the pile was a pink heather V-neck in a toddler size - the one we'd gotten from the thrift store - on the top. Wynne grabbed for it immediately.

"It *is* my size!!!" She was so excited, we couldn't bear to tell her it wasn't the same shirt. So instead, we told her the shirt was magic and would change sizes each time it was washed, so they could share it. 😜

Now, when both shirts happen to be in the wash, it just takes a bit of sleight of hand by whoever's doing the laundry to make sure they're never seen together, and the secret of the magic pullout shirt lives on!

#lyingtochildren #airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife #myrivetingwife #familytravel #travelwithkids #airstreamwithkids #curbscore

Flight officially changed to Thursday. Fingers crossed. Now more from the 2015 highlight reel including what it really looks like to try to get a family picture on the border of Canada and the Alaskan Panhandle when a three year old is involved. Now you understand why we started dangling her by her arms in pictures... #airstreamwithkids #airstreamtoalaska #travelwithkids #familytravel #familyportrait

When we arrived at grandmas almost a week ago it was supposed to be for a ride to the airport, not a 7 day pink-eye quarantine, so we didn't have a porta-crib with us. With nap time approaching fast that morning, we improvised some bed bumpers by stuffing pillows under a fitted sheet like we do for Wynne's toddler bed and just went for it. At only 18 months, Mae's now been doing naps and bedtime in this practically-big-girl bed for a week! We always find that our kids reach milestones while we're in a transition, likely because we let down our expectations of what they're capable of. TBD what that means for when we return to the trailer (Thursday flights are booked and looking good!).

Mae's been hilarious lately. She loves getting a rise out of people and then firing back that double-dimple mischievous grin, but she also just does her own thing, especially when food's involved. Tonight at dinner, she was in the zone, popping a piece of meatloaf in her mouth with her fingers and then chasing it with a spoonful of ketchup. Again and again.

#18months #biggirlbed #toddlerlife #travelwithkids #familytravel