Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day weekend is upon us and we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our friends.  We met the Kolb family in Arizona and spent some time with them traveling in Texas from Jan 23 - Feb 6 before we had to go our separate ways.  Fortunately for us, we knew we would be seeing them again as they made their way up the Atlantic coast continuing their cross country, year long trip!

Here is a link to some previous posts
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So, normally the drive from NYC is 4 ½ - 5hrs and after a 10 hour drive in from NYC to NH they finally arrived.  Their rig seemed bigger than ever sounding like a semi truck just drove into our neighborhood!  Our driveway kind of looked like an RV park/organic commune wouldn't you say?

For our first day out exploring, we began with lunch at one of my favorite pizza places, Flatbread, in Amesbury, Ma.  Amesbury is one of the northernmost towns in Massachusetts, formerly a mill town with the Powwow River running thru it.  The kids entertained themselves with dough while the pizzas cooked in the wood fired oven behind us.

After lunch, we walked around one of my favorite quintessential New England towns, Newburyport, MA.  We walked the boardwalk along the mouth of the Merrimack River which flows right into the Atlantic Ocean and climbed some trees.  Melissa and I did some shopping while the kids played in the park with Jason and took in some of the street entertainers.

One more quick stop at Plum Island to see the beach before heading home.  Plum Island is an 11 mile barrier island.  It is also home to the Parker River National Refuge which was established in 1942 primarily to provide feeding, resting, and nesting habitats for migratory birds. Located along the Atlantic Flyway, the refuge is of vital stopover significance to waterfowl, shorebirds, and songbirds during migratory periods.

We had to get home so the guys could cook up some dinner.  Jason had brought up some fish he and JAK had caught while in Florida which was so tasty, along with some more local fish and crab cakes we had a nice fish fry!

After a busy day running around, we decided the next day to lay a bit low.  We though hike was in order and since we abut some conservation land, we decided on a hike right out our back door.  I found out that there are a few geocaches hidden back there so we decided that would be part of the hike. JAK found it, and again, it was filled with junk! It's all about the adventure of finding it!

Later in the day, I was giving out free ukulele lessons! I have only had mine for a couple of months and within 10 minutes, all the girls were playing everything I had learned up to that point! 

That night was all about Scott's homemade pizza.  My new favorite started out as a french toast pizza, with cream cheese, cinnamon and syrup and then they  added a new twist of pears on top! Wow...that was a great dessert pizza, it tasted like an apple/pear pie!

Memorial Day started with our town's annual parade.  Small town NH, the parade was maybe 15 minutes in length!  I did get to see quite a few girlfriends from town that I hadn't seen since my return which was nice!  

After that, we drove up to Ogunquit, Maine to walk the Marginal Way.  Ogunquit is such a strange name for newcomers to remember. So Jason, I looked it up and the summer resort's name means "beautiful place by the sea" in the indigenous Abenaki language. And that is why it is one of my favorite places.

A quick jaunt thru Wells, Maine to see the Nubble Light which is a famous American icon and a classic example of a lighthouse.  I said I would never photograph it since all my photographer friends do it so well.  So, I decided on taking the worst picture of it that I could!

What's for dinner tonight? Come on, you can guess...

We found a local lobsterman basically selling the lobsters right off the boat.  We opted for the bakers dozen and the kids had fun picking them out.  The only kid to make it to the adult table for dinner was Jack.  The other kids got my famous pasta dish with my secret alfredo sauce made by the one and only Paul Newman!

Well, unfortunately the kids had school the next day and the Kolb family were going to see some other local friends and colleagues in the area for an overnight. They were all dressed up so nice I couldn't rest a quick photo or two!

I will leave it here to be continued because we do get in our RV and take off with them!

~Linda

What a ride!

What began on a whim, turned into the best days of our life.  Driving into the sunset watching the landscape change put a smile on our faces everyday.  We had nowhere we needed to be, no one expecting us, no time constraints, not a care in the world.  People would ask for how long we would be gone and my only reasonable answer was anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months...lucky us, we were out for 4 ½ months! 

A huge "Thank You" to our friends for taking in mail, plowing us out (80+ inches of snow) and keeping on eye on things while we were gone! We live in the best neighborhood!

This was a once in a lifetime trip.  We will never be in this exact situation again where we can easily homeschool the kids, have our Scout with us and just like the NH State motto, Live Free or Die!  To experience all these different places with the ones I love the most, making memories that will last a lifetime, has been priceless.  

I never took for granted how lucky I am in the spouse department, and it has become clearer everyday just how lucky me and the boys are.  Scott was our rock.  He was the driver, the shopper, the RV maintenance guy.  He was the chef extraordinaire (homemade bread anyone?), keeping our bellies full, and all of us healthy.  He was the educator; teaching them math, showing them educational videos and discussing science, technology, and history to open their minds.  He was the chief fire builder and teacher, he kept us warm, he kept us safe.  He gets the boys showered, he braids my hair.  

Many of you have asked what we would have done differently.  It's hard to say because we never had a plan.  I think everything worked out well, we experienced so many different things but left plenty of undiscovered gems out there to be lured out again!  

I am so happy that I stuck with this blog, and took lots of photos.  It was a ton of work and along with planning the trip as we went, it took up a lot of my downtime.  Thank you to all my family and friends who told me they were reading it, looking forward to it and loved it. That's what kept me on track and focused.  

Every family has a story, and this is ours.  Thanks for following on our journey.  I truly hope we have inspired others to take their own journeys. When you do, I will be there following right along!

By the numbers...

1 crab dinner

5 cowboy hats

6 lost teeth

23 states 

77 blog posts

135 days on the road

1,150 gallons of gas

6,500 photos

11,000 miles

One Grand Adventure: Priceless!

~Linda, Scott, Jack & Tyler along with Scout

Raleigh, NC

March 15-18

We drove about 200 miles into Raligh, NC and got to squeeze in one last visit with a college friend from Spain, Calleen.  This year is our 25th anniversary of our time in Spain and think a reunion trip, along with a Michelle, is in order!

We arrived on Saturday afternoon to a warm welcome from her new Ewokian puppies, Renzo (Lorenzo) and Iggy (Ignacio).

We went to my Mom’s friend’s friend’s sister’s brother’s Dad’s wife’s brother’s sister’s cousin’s uncle’s brother’s niece’s house the next day.  No, it was just my Mom’s friend.  She had 2 dogs.  They were so cute!  Their names were Iggy and Renzo.  Iggy was smaller and he put his ears up a lot.  He also wants a lot of attention.  Renzo was the biggest of the litter and crawled onto you and played with his toy.  We had a lot of fun with them.  It was already getting late.  

The next day we went to an NHL hockey game.  It was the Hurricanes Vs. the Oilers.  My Mom’s friend, Calleen, let us wear her jerseys.  It was military appreciation day.  Along with the food carts, there were a lot of things were the military showed you like guns, and you could sign up, it wasn’t cool.  Who would encourage people to go out and kill during a hockey game?  I didn’t like it when they showed some little kids their guns meant for killing hoping someday they’d join the Army.  When we got our food, we went in to see the players practice.  Once the game started, people were going insane.  The part I didn’t like was that they kept showing things about the military, and propaganda.  The reason why I am saying this is because I hate war.  Why should people go out and kill to “defend” our country?  I just don’t get that.  The game was pretty cool.  There was even a fight. PENALTY.  We had cheesecake after the first period.  The last two periods went by like a blur, mostly because I was half asleep.  We came home to the whining dogs.  They were so excited!  That night we watched Despicable Me 2.  I wanted to watch more, but we had to go to bed.  That was Sunday.  

The next day we had school.  Colleen also had to go to her work.  We watched the dogs , watched movies, and watched them play.  It was so funny to see what they did without us around.  After that, we went to a bowling alley.  That was where Calleen had her meeting.  It was a cool place.  They served you food.  I went for the heavy balls and I finally paid the price.  My fingers were really hurting and I lost.  The next game I went for the lightest ball.  I let Tyler at least get second to last because I saw how grumpy he was.  That night it was getting late again.  The weather was getting cold.  We needed to get back to our cozy home.  We had half ‘an hour left ‘til we had to go to bed.  We watched a dinosaur show.  The next day we said our goodbyes, and packed up and left.

~Jack

This guy reminds us of Petey back home :) 

We had a nice time catching up with Calleen and her and I stayed up way too late Saturday night!  So much fun reminiscing thru the old photo albums.  Here is one of us from 1995!

Sunday afternoon started off at the local Farmer's Market.  Along with some fresh veggies, I couldn't resist this necklace called the Tree of Life.  I bought it directly form the artist...love supporting the local folks.

Calleen treated us to a NC Hurricanes hockey game. She has been a season ticket holder for years.  The boys got all decked out in Hurricane gear...Tyler was calling them the Tornadoes!  We had never been to a pro hockey game and this was such a fun experience to add to our memories!

We had planned on leaving on Monday, but snow storm Wiley was headed right into Washington, DC and into our travel path.  We are just hanging out here for another day and making sure it is safe to drive.  We figure we are about 3 driving days from home now.

Happy St. Patricks Day!  Calleen had a business meeting at a fancy bowling alley so she left us her car and we joined her over there later in the afternoon.  We had a lot of fun bowling and all of us even got strikes!  It was great catching up and so nice to have a nice home to relax in instead of being stuck in the RV.

I think I am ready to push on home...thanks to Calleen, I have all the essentials!

~Linda