We have been home for one week. The kids are back in school and I have finally finished unpacking all of our camping gear from the van. It took me a full seven days to unload, not because there was so much stuff, but because emptying the van meant surrendering to being in one spot for a while.
From conversations with friends and family during the last week, I have been able to assemble the following list of frequently asked questions about our trip:
1. How did you get the kids to do this without driving you nuts or killing each other?
There were some minor squabbles in the back seats, but Julia and Kellan did remarkably well during the trip. We didn’t discover a secret formula, but here are some of the reasons why I think it went as well as it did:
A.) Age. A couple of years ago, a trip like this would not have gone quite so smoothly. At 9 and 11, Kellan and Julia are still very much kids, but they are more capable and predictable than they would have been at ages 7 and 9. When parents tell me “my kids could never do that”, I remind them that age is important. Most of the time at least one of their kids is younger than 9 and it just may take some time before they are ready.
B.) New Territory. A 4-hour trip that your kids have done many times before is much harder than an 8 hour trip through new terrain and scenery. The kids were able to see out of windows on both sides of the van and through the front windshield. They spotted all sorts of things that I might have missed. They kept journals and made notes as we rolled along. Both kids remembered to bring their cameras, but forgot the battery chargers, so after the batteries died they were forced to share a camera. Having a single camera between the two of them created the most back seat strife, but the simple act of having a camera at the ready helped them pay attention to the world going by rather than the time left to travel to our next destination.
C.) Technology. Before we left a friend asked if we were going old-school with no digital devices. Hell no. When you’re going to be on the road for a month, having a Kindle, iPod, DVD player and some audiobooks on hand are necessary to provide some variety. The daily use limit on the iPods and DVD players was each device’s charge time and they were never used outside of the van. Reading on the Kindle or from a regular book was allowed anytime, anywhere, and audiobooks were great entertainment for everyone, including the driver. My original plan for the van had been to install a charging station next to the back seats. I ran out of time and we wound up with a front-seat only charging station which turned out to be a blessing since it allowed us to control the amount of time that the kids had their electronic devices. The DVD player was only allowed when we were traveling long stretches on the superslab, which turned out to mostly be on our transit days out and back. Oh, and the GPS. The Time-to-Arrival feature on the display was a life-saver. We mounted the GPS where the kids could see it from the back. Punch in the destination and press “go” and the time to arrival begins its countdown. We drove nearly 9,000 miles with no “are we there yets.” Thank you, Garmin.
D. Comfort. Had we all packed into the Subaru for this trip, the experience would have been pretty miserable. You could certainly have done it in a nice mini-van though. The seats that I installed in the Sprinter for the kids had been taken out of a brand-new 2015 Toyota Sienna minivan by an outfit that converts mini-vans for wheelchair transport. I purchased the seats on eBay. They are full leather, recline, have arm-rests, foot-rests and integrated seat belts. I also mounted them with a bit of room in between each seat so there would be no “elbow wars”.
2. Didn’t you get sick of driving?
I love to drive and the Sprinter made going long distances easier than any other vehicle I have ever piloted. The view from a Sprinter seat is great. You can see over smaller cars in front of you and the upright seating position is designed for drivers to eat up miles in comfort. (Remember, these are fleet vehicles that are made to be driven for many hours a day.) When I get tired, I know enough to stop and rest. A quick 20-30 minute power nap is usually all that I need and then I’m good to go for another 5-6 hours. (Pro note: when it’s time for a nap, never sleep in the driver seat. You don’t want your body/brain to ever think it’s OK to sleep in the driver seat.) Aside from the part of the journey where I was stressing about the turbo system, the most difficult leg was driving across Michigan’s upper peninsula. I’m guessing this is because I had been there before and after driving for weeks in the 80 mph wide open west, the 55 mph two-lane road felt a bit restrictive.
3. What was your favorite part?
My favorite part was getting to spend so much time with the kids, but I know that most people are actually asking where my favorite place was. The day we drove across Wyoming was pretty amazing to me. It was a gorgeous western day and everyone had told me how boring the drive would be. I was mesmerized by the terrain and fascinated by the penetration of the oil and gas industry on the landscape (pun intended.) What I enjoyed most about the drive was that we were seeing a regular day in the life in the only state in the US that has fewer people than ours. It wasn’t a park full of tourists, a well-marked trail, or an environment designed for visitors, it was just Wyoming.
4. Was this a once-in-a-lifetime trip or would you do it again?
I am thankful in so many ways that we were able to have this family experience together. If it turns out that it was once-in-a-lifetime trip, I will be happy with that because it was everything I’d hoped it would be. But if you gave me four more weeks and the keys to the van, I would leave tomorrow to do it again.
I think the kids would be up for it too. These days, when they are playing outside together, it’s not long before the van door is open and the vehicle becomes part of the game. At this very moment, Kellan is sleeping on a cot on the porch floor for the third night in a row, having declared that sleeping in tents and on the ground is much better than sleeping on a bed. I’m not sure I agree, but the trip has left a mark on my sleeping patterns as well. Each night, my dreams are dominated by driving somewhere in the van. And come to think of it, my dreams during the day are starting to follow a similar pattern.