Living through a pandemic hasn’t been easy, to say the least. We struggle with the overwhelming feelings of managing our household, working full-time jobs while homeschooling the kids. But on the other hand, we are incredibly fortunate to be healthy, to be able to stay at home and to have jobs. Living in times of Coronavirus means living in stress and anxiety, no matter who or where you are.
But like everything in life, with difficulty and downside also comes opportunity. We have been at home for 3 months (we’ve only left the house a handful of times) and have had the opportunity to really use every corner of the house. We typically don’t spend much time at home, between kid activities, my work travel, our weekend errands, and commitments. And now? There’s nowhere to go. The guest room that only sees action when we have a family member stay (a few times a year) now is getting daily use because it’s been converted into an office. The boys’ bedroom is also where they study and get work done, the basement has turned into the practice zone, where the boys practice their musical instruments (violin and cello) and make zoom calls. Our neighborhood has turned into our daily playground, where we take our dogs for daily walks while we chat about anything and everything.
We’re spending more time as a family and really utilizing every room in our home. That part has been wonderiful. Dennis has been wanting some relief from his 45 minutes (one way) daily commute in the form of working from home, but his company has not been a proponent of WFH. Now? They’ve realized there is very little reason to not allow employees to work from home.
Our new collective reality has hardship and suffering – but also beauty and opportunity. So, now that summer has arrived and the boys are still home (usually they go visit my family in PR), we get the opportunity to do something as a family. Something we haven’t had in a long time.
I started brainstorming on what “summer vacation” we could do that would be a fun adventure but also that would also maintain social distancing. My mind immediately went to an RV.
I’ve always told Dennis that I want to travel the entire United States in an RV when we retire. Lately, however, I’ve been wondering if we shouldn’t wait and do it earlier.
So, I proposed a crazy idea. Why don’t we go to some National Parks towards the end of the summer? By then (we hope) more parks and cities would be open again and we can take the advantage of being self-contained (in an RV), go to the trails at sunrise and, in general, do our best to uphold social distancing.
In order to understand the complexities and realities of traveling in an RV, we rented one for the long Memorial weekend. We got 4 humans and 3 dogs in an RV rented from Cruise America and drove down to Crawford State Park, a Kansas state park only 1 1/2 hour away.
We chose the “large” version of their Series C (i.e. the ones you drive inside of). We also drove my Minivan so I could drive with the 2 large dogs (one is 70+ lbs and the other is 80+lbs) and in case we wanted to drive around the park once the RV was parked. We didn’t really end up needing the Minivan, but for this first trip, it was good to have.
The RV had 4 sleeping locations: the master bedroom, the main sofa (which converted into a bed), a loft bed on top of the driving section, and the dining area. We had Alan sleeping on the loft with our Chiweenie, Maggie, in her crate. Lucas slept on the converted sofa and Dennis and I slept in the master bedroom.
We left on a Saturday and went biking around the campsite to check out the park. We noticed that the slots in front of the lake were all full and very busy (not a lot of people wearing masks or social distancing). Our location was out of the way and surrounded by nature, which I was so thankful for. We all went inside, turned on the AC (the way I like to camp!), and were out pretty quickly.
I woke up early on Sunday and snuck out of the RV with my paddleboard. I had scoped out a small inlet into the lake at the end of the road we were on and I quietly got in the water to paddle. It was so wonderful. Quiet, peaceful, absolutely devoid of other human beings.
I just love being in water, just watching and listening to nature.
After I got back, we had breakfast and set out on a hiking trail. It was a bit muddy but we successfully took all 3 dogs through it. This trip was supposed to be learning trip and we had already learned a lot about what to do, and not, in a future RV trip.
The rest of Sunday was spent biking through the rolling hills of the park, chatting, and spending time together. Dennis got our little Bose speaker out, and he DJd different songs, and as we (I) sung along and forced the boys to merengue with me. All in all, it was so magical and hopefully, a memory the boys will remember.
Monday we drove back and got everything unloaded and put away. We are ready for our 3 week RV trip at the end of the summer!