Take Me Home, Country Roads

I actually didn't buy these...

We have travelled through 3 states in the last 2 days. Not too sure where we are or where we are going. I'm hoping that I'm getting closer to home each day but I'm not too sure. Jojo and I have had words about our destination tomorrow. I say book it to Sault St Marie and spend the night. She thinks that’s too long. I think I’ll give her a drink at lunch, wait til she falls asleep and just keep driving. She won’t know where she is when she wakes up. We’ll see.

Tonight we are at Hayward KOA in Wisconsin. It is literally in the middle of nowhere but it has EVERYTHING. I’m amazed at how much there is to do here. We tried to do it all in the few hours we have before bed. It got me thinking about how much I’ve changed my outlook on the trip. There’s beginning of July Allyson and end of July Allyson. She differs greatly.

wahoo! look at us! paying to use a bike!

Whee! This is so fun!

Worth every penny!

Americans think of everything!

At the beginning of July I was up every morning about 5:30am. I had my coffee, cleaned up and sat outside watching the sunrise and waiting for the kids to get up. It was blissful.

End of July me is rolling over at 6:30 for 2 more hours of sleep, then rushing to clean up from the night before, get something for breakfast and get on the road around 10am.

I bought these lovely candles at Canadian Tire at the beginning of June. They sat on my table for most of the month and I would sit at night with only them on, enjoying the evening. In contrast, tonight, those candles are shoved in a cupboard because they don’t fit on the table with all the electronics, cords, movies, food, wrappers…

At the beginning of July we would stop at truck stops and take advantage of fresh fruit and vegetables that were offered. We stopped at fruit stands and farmers markets. I even bought a hard-boiled egg at a truck stop and made sandwiches! I rocked the beginning of July.

Today this is what I bought to nourish my children: popsicles, milk, fruit roll ups, gum, chocolate bars (yes, plural), tostitos, instant oatmeal and queso (for you healthy people, queso is cheese in a jar and it isn’t refrigerated) Who buys queso? End of July me, that’s who. Jojo bought marshmallows and root beer. She knows how to woo her grandkids.

I was on a severely limited pop agenda at the beginning of July. The kids had very little pop for about 3 weeks. As mentioned above, we now have root beer (their fav) and yesterday I barely noticed when they had refills at Subway and then a large mason jar of pop at a truck stop. Yes, we had dinner at a truck stop.

Along with the pop, I decided that we were not going to snack on chips all July. Every morning I cut up veggies and put out dip for the long days in the RV. The kids actually didn’t complain and ate the vegetables and fruit no problem.  This morning, yes morning as in before noon, we stopped for gas and Abby followed Nana out of the store with her arms FILLED with Pringles. Apparently, there was a sale -  buy one get one free. Awesome.

Early July Allyson told the kids, ‘we don’t need to do all the tourist things that cost money. We are going to see awesome things and take pictures that we can look back at and remember.’ In the last 24hrs I’ve paid for bike rentals (while their bikes are still sitting on the back of the RV) firewood that didn’t even burn, water slide day passes at 4pm, jumping pillow day passes, ice cream, movies at Target…It goes on and on. Part of it is mother-guilt for making them sit in a hot RV for 9000kms in the past month.

We have taken lots of pictures and we do have lots of memories. Really, our spending and eating only just went off the rails in the past few days. I’m going to forgive myself and move on next week when we are home and life gets back to normal. I think if I’m totally honest it’s usually the end of July in a regular summer when I start sleeping in til 9am and the kids finally break me down and eat popsicles for breakfast. Is there anyone out there who will admit that the beginning of the summer we all have grandiose plans for how the summer will go and they differ to what reality brings us? Let’s all just crack open some queso and enjoy ourselves. It’s all going to be OK.

You know those cute pics of kids jumping in water? Here's our version!

Parker heard there was a s'more party!