Life as a Yowler

Brandon has over 100 store trainings to complete over the next 6 months. The last month for us was spent doing 32 of those trainings. We were on the road 34 days and Brandon only had 2 days off during that time. The last time we hit the road for this long, my kids were 3.5 years younger. A couple of them don’t remember well. This trip everyone was at the perfect age to really appreciate and remember these experiences.

Our days on the road typically look like Brandon getting up and rushing out to a training at Haverteys Furniture. I stay back in the motor home with the kids and either oversee some summer learning, outdoor time, cleaning the rv, or preparing food. When Brandon gets back from his training, I need to have the rv packed up and ready to move to the next campground. If we get to the next campground at a decent time, we try to take the kids to do something fun or educational in the area. We stayed in San Antonio for 5 days and we stayed in Dallas for 9 days. Other then that, we moved to a new campground almost every day. We traveled almost 10,000 miles in 35 days. That averages out to roughly 5 hours of driving per day 🤢. I prefer to stay in one place. Moving every day is way more complicated and exhausting.

Being away from home for so long has been somewhat hard on our kids. I’m thankful for technology and the ability for them to call some friends back home. At one of the campgrounds we stayed at, we met the sweetest family. My kids begged to go outside (even in the hot weather) and play at the playground all day with their new friends. The one day my youngest three kids set an alarm, fed themselves breakfast, and rushed out to play with their new friends. 😆

This trip has been great overall. I’ll try to think back and make a list of all our unique take away and memories.

1. The other night in Louisiana, we were eating at a seafood place right on the water. All the sudden the entire restaurant staff rushed to the window in a panic. Some tourist was swimming in water where two huge gators had been surfacing all day. One of the waiters went out and told him to get the heck out of the water. The guy listened. Then 5 minutes later the genius jumped back in. In the word’s of my oldest, and non filtered child: “I guess he deserves to get eaten.”

2. One day, while in Hill Country Texas we rented a jeep and drove up into the mountains. The reason we rented a jeep is because our vehicle has been overheating and we knew it wouldn’t make it. At one point in time I had to close my eyes to keep from having a stroke (that’s how steep the mountain was). The white jeep was covered and I mean covered in mud and dust. That’s not the worst part. Brandon got the kids chic fil a on the way home. They got grease and fries all over the inside of the car. Plus we had about 1000 muddy footprints on the inside of the car. I don’t think we’ve ever returned a rental car in worse shape. I didn’t even go in with Brandon to return it because I was so embarrassed. He came back and said “the Lord worked it out. No one was even there (it was after midnight).” So he just left it and ran. We never got an email later and it makes me really appreciate how painfully laid back Texas is. 😆

3. In 10 years of motor homing we have yet to figure out the secret to keeping the fridge from flying open. We have 2 locks, plus a huge spatula in the doors(tying to prevent the doors from flying open). The good news is my kids are old enough now and they had to keep taking turns on “fridge duty.” As we round turns on the highway, Brandon yells, “fridge!” and one of the kids pops up to grab the doors.

4. I don’t know if we’ve ever had a more stressful start to a trip. The water heater quit working, but Brandon problem solved and fixed that one. Brandon strained a tendon and was on crutches before we left. He couldn’t put any weight on his leg, and it was his driving foot. I don’t drive the RV for lots of reasons. The main one being, I don’t want to die. His leg has majorly improved and he’s barely limping anymore. A couple days before leaving, Brandon was pulling into our driveway with the RV to get it loaded and ready to go. The back end of the RV hit a tree stump and took off 4 of the bottom doors. We didn’t have time to get it completely fixed, but we got it drivewable at least. The rv also started having engine trouble, but luckily it was still under warranty and we got it fixed. All this happened before we even left home.

5. We saw a rattlesnake in Texas. That’s the first time I’ve seen one in the wild.

6. Our RV toilet quit working and this is way more complicated then we ever would have guessed. We called about a dozen places. None of them have our toilet in stock. Ordering one was going to take about 3 weeks. We decided we might as well wait until we get home. So we’ve had no choice but to just use camp bathrooms and pull over when we’re driving. Some campgrounds have bathrooms close by. Then others have bathrooms 10 miles from us (ok it just feels like it in 100 degrees).

7. Isla has officially outgrown thinking that sleeping on a mat on the floor is fun. We had to get her a cot on this trip. We could turn the table and couch into a bed for her, but with us moving almost every day, the cot is the easiest option. I also noticed after about 2 days that my missing pillow was in Brielle’s bed. She took the liberty of helping herself. I think my girls value good sleep as much as I do.

8. My girls have been begging for a baby on this trip. I don’t exactly know why, but they really want one. One day I got on my Amazon account and realized they had created a brand new wishlist entitled “Baby.” It was fairly detailed. It covered everything from 7 battery powered cars to diapers, to 12 pairs of baby shoes. 😆

9. The day we were in Texas Hill Country, we were surprised to be stopped by border patrol not only once, but twice. We were very close to the Mexico border. I did some research afterwards and I guess that Texas has several border patrol stations when you get that close to the border. I was worried our kids were going to say something inappropriate, but luckily things went smoothly. They didn’t say a word. Brandon was only asked a few questions and they let us right through both times.

10. The weather has been so hot. I know I should have expected it. But we’ve mostly been to Texas in the Winter. The weather is perfect then. It’s been over 100 degrees almost every day. Luckily each of our campgrounds has had a pool. We’ve done tons of swimming.

11. The day that we went to the Fort Worth Stockyards, our car started to overheat. Brandon was on a conference call with a buyer and couldn’t talk to me. But he whispered that we were only 3/4 mile down the road from the stockyards. So I jumped out of the car with the kids. We pretty much had to jog in the heat. We made it with two minutes to spare in time for the cattle drive. Things always seem to work out, but I age a lot along the way. We were all dying of thirst and the first thing we did after watching the cattle drive was find a smoothie place.

12. One of the most special places to us is San Antonio. We brought Brandon’s dad along with us to San Antonio several years ago. He was with us when we went to the Alamo, the Alamo Cafe, and Seaworld. We went to those places again. He was also with us when Isla cut her head open on the San Antonio KOA playground. Just being at that campground, we noticed that they removed the metal swing that hit her. I asked the lady in the office if we were the reason that needed to be removed. She said the swing was clearly dangerous and it was just time they removed it. But I knew….it was us. 😆

13. The highlight for the majority of us on this trip was the drive through safari. We did it five years ago. It’s in Jacksonville, Texas. It was very close to one of Brandon’s stores trainings. We went with him that day. They gave each person a bag of food and we bought a couple extra bags. We remembered from the last time that we didn’t have enough food. The animals were so interactive. They know when you have food. They stick their heads inside the car until you feed them. At one point, a zebra stuck his head in. We were all in awe of him. Then he started being a weirdo. lol He was showing us his teeth, then all the sudden he sneezed all over Brandon and Joah. They got drenched. 😆 Five years ago there was a Watusi that decided to terrify me. He couldn’t fit his head in the window because of his longhorns, but he stuck his tongue out and kept trying to lick me. This exact watusi was still there. He did the exact same thing, tongue and all. He remembered me, smelled me, saw me coming, and haunted my dreams again.