Great Expectations

We've been on the road now for a little over 2 years. Is there anything I would have done differently? What mistakes have I made since we started full timing? What would I do if I could start all over? Honestly, my first thought is " We should of started sooner", but everything happens for a reason. We hit the road when we were meant to. So, really, what would we have do differently if we could hit the proverbial REDO button?

First, I should have never expected anything other than to have an adventure. When we started I had high hopes of moving all the time, boondocking a lot, and sightseeing. We have been on the road now for 2 years, and I have been to a hand full of states, mainly for workamping jobs which meant no sightseeing. Like I said, an adventure, but an ever changing one. We have made a lot of new friends and some really great connections and so have our kids. So no regrets there.

Second, I would have packed more of the kids toys. I never realized how much time they would actually spend inside. It maybe raining out, snowing, or just too dang hot for them and no matter how hard I try to kick them out the door, they don't want to go when the weather's like that. I envisioned that the kids would be outside all the time, so I packed mostly outside toys with only a few inside ones.

Third, I got rid of a lot of my specialty pans that I wished I would have kept and have been slowly replacing. I thought I wouldn't have the time nor the space to bake. I've learned I can't go without making Christmas cookies or cheesecakes and learned how to make the space. I love baking and don't know why I got rid of my good pans. I thought that by being on the road, my day to day routine was going to change drastically, it really hasn't. I get up a little later because there's no bus to put the kids on but thats pretty much it.

Since being on the road, I have learned to always have a backup plan, and a backup for your backup, just in case. No matter how concrete something maybe, you just never know. A job could no longer need you, you may get there and not like it, or a better offer may come along. I'm always keeping on eye on whats out there.

So all in all, if I could talk to myself 2 years ago, before I sold everything, I would tell myself: Keep your bake ware, don't give all those toys away, things may not go as you expected, expect the unexpected, and always, have a backup plan, nothing is written in stone. You never know what to expect! Some people are born to be fluid and flexible(me) and others have to learn how to just go with the flow:) Being a Gypsy Rebel helps!


This was written for The Families on The Road Blog Carnival. Wanna join? Visit http://familiesontheroad.com/carnival.html#3

                                                                     Happy Travels!!

Andersonville Largest and Deadliest Confederate POW Camp

 

 



Kurt got a 3 day paid weekend for the 4th of July holiday, whohoo! We went to Andersonville then Stone Mountain. If you've never heard of Andersonville, let me give you a brief history. It was the major Confederate Prison in the south during the Civil War, located in Macon county, it was cramped, had horrendous conditions, and a high mortality rate. The prison was only 26 acres, with a small swamp running down the middle for water, 16 ft high blockade walls and the "Dead Line", which was located 19 ft away from the stockade walls, if a prisoner crosseed the line, he was immediately shot. The prison held 50,ooo Union soldiers, with a total of 15,000 that didn't survive the prisons short run from February 1864 to April 1865 . There was a miracle that happened in Andersonville that saved many of the soldiers lives. The only water that they had was the small swampy stream that ran down the middle of the camp, this was used as their sink, toilet, and drinking water. Up stream, was where the confederate officers lived, who used the stream for the same purposes. So the union soldiers never really had any clean water. One day in August 1864, a great majority of them got together and prayed for rain, what resulted was a massive thunderstorm that produced lightning that struck the ground. When it struck, it opened up a small spring, which provided the union men with fresh water. The only thing was that the spring was just on the other side of the Dead Line and guards offered no leeway when it came to crossing the Dead Line. Prisoners fashioned sticks and rods together with a tin cup on the end in order to reach the spring. The spring was named Providence Spring and was dedicated in 1901. The plaque by the fountain reads: "The prisoner's cry of thirst rang up to heaven. God heard, and with his thunder cleft the earth and poured his sweetest waters gushing here. Erected 1901."  The first time we went there, there was no warning about drinking the water, so we drank it, and it was some of the best tasting, sweetest water we ever drank. The next time we went they had the sign erected, but being the Gypsy Rebels we are, we drank anyways, BIG mistake! It was the worst tasting water in the world. I don't know what happened to it between those 2 yrs but DON'T DRINK THE WATER!!



The fountain.



We all love Andersonville and have been back a few times since our 1st family trip. Across the street there is a cute little town full of antique shops and old style buildings. Andersonville it's self is a little bit out of the way off of 75, but well worth the trip if you enjoy Civil War sites. If you arrive around sunrise, as we did, the fields are covered in a light mist and deer can be seen grazing. It's truly a wonderful and eerie sight, you can almost hear the men and feel their suffering. The National park also offers a POW museum and a National Cemetery which were really nice. They also have a Jr Ranger Program, but we didn't know it at the time:) So I cannot tell you about it.

If you want a more detailed account of Andersonville before you go, may I suggest reading John Ransom's Andersonville Diary/Life Inside the Civil War's Most Infamous Prison.
John Ransom, Brigade Quartermaster of the Ninth Michigan Calvary, was only 20 years old when he became a prisoner of Andersonville:

"One of the best first-hand accounts to come down to us from the Civil War, uncommonly rich in the love of life...a tale of adventure, of suspense, of fierce hate and great love."

How the union soldiers slept in Andersonville

Or Just watch the movie "Andersonville"

Rainbow Springs

As I post and you continue reading, you will notice a theme, we like the outdoors. Which was one of the various reasons we decided to fulltime. On our way home from the Itchnatucknee, my husband mentioned Rainbow Springs. Now Kurt was from the Citrus County area and had been to the spring may times, I on the other, had never even heard of it, so we took a detour. Rainbow Springs has a really cool history, it was a major tourist attraction between the 30's-70's. It had offered glass bottom boat rides, a zoo, a rodeo, man made waterfalls, gardens, and a leaf shaped monorail at tree level. Due to larger attractions, like all mom and pop places, it was forced to shut down, then in the mid 90's, it became a state park that now offers tubing, swimming, camping, canoes, and a good meal. One word of caution though, if you have small kids, make sure you have a floaty for them, it's really, really deep. It's no fun trying to keep a kid above water when your trying to do the same thing. There is a small area where kids can play, but we preferred swimming together. We did walk the grounds, where you can see remnants of it's past life, the beautiful water falls are still there as well as the tropical gardens, there are portions of the zoo and monorail system still there. All in all it was a great side trip, aren't they all? We went back a few more times with our friends who also enjoyed it. Admission is pretty cheap, it was like a dollar to swim when we were there, and the scenery is well worth it.

Weekend at the Ichetucknee

Tubing down the Ichetucknee River

 

O'Leno's Swinging Bridge

If you're ever in North Florida, between Lake City and Gainesville there is a little place called The Itchetucknee. This was where we decided to spend our first available weekend. It's a gorgeous natural spring fed river thats 6 miles long and where the temp is always 72 degrees. The highlight of the river is you can tube down it. Imagine, lounging back in an intertube, relaxing, and just floating for 6 miles down a crystal clear spring fed river. Thats the Ichetucknee, with beautiful hemlocks and wetlands, the natural Florida, surrounding you and the sun shining down. Thats how Florida is meant to be enjoyed. Not in Orlando(my personal opinion) full of tourists and traffic. If you go, my advice to you is buy your own tube before you get there from Walmart or the Dollar General. You'll know when your getting close because there are tube renting vendors all over the place, with pretty much the same prices, 15 for a single rider, 25 for a double, and 35 for a triple. So be prepared with your own tube. Now you can't camp there, but just 30 mins down the road is O'Leno State Park, which is where we stayed, and it too is beautiful. The campsites are located close to the Santa Fe River and offer almost full shade. So next time your in the area, check it out. Who wouldn't enjoy a 3 hour relaxing trip down            the river? My kids sure did:)

O'Leno Campsites 

The Head Spring

Random Thought: American Dream

So, I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep when I started thinking about our life and how everything has changed in the short 11 yrs Kurt and I have been together. We started of with the need to have the American Dream, but why was that the collective dream? Why were we all instilled with the need to have the American Dream. The white picket fence, the 2 story house in the 'burbs, 2.5 kids and a dog? So I did a little research in the wee hours of the night, or early morning how ever you look at it. I found that the Dream is rooted in the Declaration of Independence which proclaims that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It was also a driving force for the immigrants that flooded the country in the late 1800's, for them they had probably the most basic form of the dream, the need to own ones own home and have the ability to rise above the class you were born into. So, I found a beginning to the Dream. It all started with a simple desire to have a house, there was no mention of becoming rich or having everything you could possible want, just a simple house, so to me the original Dream was simply to be able to survive without struggling.


What happened? People got greedy as they always do and when they got the house, they need to maintain or improve it. Which lead to the need for more money and more possessions, to "Keep up with the Jones". Where am I going with this? Just that the Dream for me at least has changed, I no longer what the house, dog, or the bills, if I ever REALLY wanted that, all I want now, my Dream, is a change a scenery. Being able to move at will, go where the work is, live comfortably, and be happy, as a family, is all I want now. This should be everyones dream, but I'm glad it's not, cause then workamping jobs would be scarce:) Good night, hopefully I can fall asleep now that I looked up what was on my mind. Heres a link I found: http://www.americansc.org.uk/online/American_Dream.htm

The End

Well not really the end, just the beginning, but the end of our beginning if that makes any sense. We made it back to Tampa, parked in front of moms house, and proceeded to load everything that was ours into the trailer. We spent the second night in an abandoned parking lot, where we slept a lot more comfortably. The next morning, I spent about an hour calling around to find a place to set it until we moved on. We found a cheap park called McCormick's, and once we were loaded back up, is when we found out our battery didn't hold a charge. We had to call my sister and jump the trailer to close it up. We made it to the rv park, which turns out the rv aspect of the park was more of an after thought, their main business was being a water ski and motor sports arena, which was cool to watch, but was really terrible as a park. There was nothing there to do out in the middle of no where( which was nice), but was perfect for our needs. All we need at that point was a place to get organized and settled while we scourged the Internet for traveling opportunities.

While we were getting settled, Kurt got an electrical job at the base. Life carried on as normal, then in June, we got our first volunteer position at the local State Park, Hillsborough River in fact. Which was great, during the interview, I was asked if I could do interpretive signs, "Sure" I said, "I would love to do it", I had no idea what it really was, turned out, It was my job to change all informational signs, which was fun and easy. Then got changed to cleaning bathrooms, which was just easy. Kurt continued to work while I continued to look for opportunities and a larger truck, remember we only had the 1500. I found one at the Apalachicola Nation Forest and we left in the end of August.

We made the trip with someone else towing our trailer, Kurt didn't trust the truck now that everything was loaded into it, and went to Northern Florida. We got to the park and set up shop. Kurt continued to work in Tampa and was staying down there during the week and coming home on weekends, which only went on for 2 weeks then they laid him off, which was one of the only times I was glad for the lay off. Unfortunately, by the time they laid him off, the National Forest decided they didn't want us, we were there for 1 1/2 weeks, when I was informed that they didn't think I could clean bathrooms alone, with 3 kids to watch. Which was bull, come to find out the other couple there didn't like kids. I had 3 days to vacate. So again, I began looking for a place to go and a way to tow the trailer. As we were looking at renting a uhaul to move us, we meet a great family who lived across the street. The husband was a mechanic and gave Kurt some needed advice and conformed that the truck could handle our load. We just needed to upgrade the leaf springs.

When we arrived in Campbellsville.

I found us a little campground called Parker Farms in the middle of nowhere, which was pretty much every where in that part of Florida, and loved it. We stayed for a month, replaced the leaf springs with 3500 ones and replaced the shocks, now, we have the ass end to haul of load. We got our first workamping gig with Amazon and was scheduled to start the beginning of Oct. With him out of work and his unemployment not yet approved, I had to sell my van to get the gas money to get up there. It was either that or living in Wewahitchka, Fl. So I sold the van and that day we left for Kentucky, I was scheduled to start the next day. Talk about pushing it. We were almost into Alabama when the brakes on the truck went out. Being on a tight schedule and low on cash, we stopped to get LOTS of brake fluid and continued on, it was dark and he couldn't even see to determine what was wrong. So we traveled 10 hours and 600 miles on trailer brakes and down shifting talk about white knuckling it. We arrived in Campbellsville just in time for orientation and I began working the next day. Meanwhile, Kurt got new brake lines, replaced then, and we were as good as new. This concludes the End of the Beginning. Next up, The Adventure! continues.

The ridge at the Campground.

1st Night

We arrived at the grocery store, which luckily was still open. While Kurt started setting up the trailer, I went in to see what we were going to have for dinner. Walking up and down the aisles, I took mental inventory of what we had in the trailer to work with, we had no power and no cooking equipment, remember, we just bought it, all I had was an oven to work with. I decided on tv dinners and plastic forks, with donuts, and fruit for breakfast. After checking out, I went proceeded to the back of the parking lot where we had our first meal in the new trailer, which consisted of Hungry Man dinners and Kid Cuisines. Not bad for a first meal, and prepared for bed. So, between the 5 of us we had 1 blanket and 2 pillows, on a cold night. I think I may have thought about turning on the furnace, but I was worried about it catching on fire, I have a thing about gas. I piled the kids on the jack knife couch and we all tried sleeping 5 people on it. Sometime in the middle of the night, Kurt and I moved off the couch on to the bed and chose sleep and freezing as opposed to no sleep and warmth. Thus concludes our first night in our new trailer.

 I was awaken by singing birds and sunshine, and the memory of a broken water pump. As our wonderful luck would have it we broke down across the street from an Autozone and Kurt ate and headed over to get the part. We got the part, while he spent the next 5 hours changing out the water pump, which would of been easier if he had mechanics tools as opposed to electrical tools, he basically did everything with a screwdriver and a pair of channel locks. Meanwhile, I spent 5 hours entertaining the kids. After 3 trips to the thrift store, a few toys, and a clean shirt for kurt, we were loaded up and back on the road. While we were loading up and pulling jacks, I had my first encounter with a curious onlooker. She was an employee from Winn Dixie on her break. She come up to us curious about the trailer, so we talked to her for a few, she expressed that what we were doing was something she would love to do and have always wanted to do, but wasn't able to. Money I think was her issue, she felt that she need to stay a cashier at the store, like that was the only money she could make. None the less, she envied us and what we were doing. After she left, we left, and headed make to my moms house in Tampa to load the trailer up with our stuff.