We decided to leave Camping World and try to find a campground near Joplin, MO so we could start volunteering somewhere in the area.  We arrived at the Big Red Barn Campground on June 18th, settled in to our new spot and started researching to find somewhere we could volunteer with kids.  On Father’s Day we spend most of  the day touring the tornado area, taking pictures, and learning our way around Joplin.  The devastation is far worse in person than seeing it on the news. We arrived almost a month after the tornado hit and it almost brought tears to our eyes as we toured the area. We received an email from another traveling friend who gave us the name of the pastors wife (Cindy Wermuth) at Joplin Family Worship Center who eagerly invited us to volunteer at her church. We did not know that we would meet so many people that would touch our hearts for years to come. JFWC (Joplin Family Worship Center) was a disaster relief center which not only furnished daily necessities to those affected by the tornado but feeding hundreds of volunteers 2-3 meals each day.  The volunteers at JFWC supplied food, furniture,  and a shoulder to cry on if needed.  We worked in the food pantry area sorting, counting and replenishing food as needed.  This is where we met a dear lady named Karen who was supervising the influx of pallets of food, clothes, and miscellaneous items being brought into the church sanctuary.  The sanctuary was the headquarters for the food, toiletries, and clothing including a large quantity of children and baby items.  Brian worked outside bringing the pallets into the church where we sorted and shelved the items.  The next two weeks were spent learning how a relief center runs and how much work it is trying to help people.

We were happy to find out there would be two other traveling families in the Joplin area the same time we were here. The Lundy and Igel families joined us during our time volunteering and we had a great time afterwards swimming in the creek.  On July 3rd, we celebrated Carson’s 8th birthday with the Lundy family.

Joplin will go down as one of our most rewarding places we have stopped.  It was great for our family to volunteer together for such a long period of time.  But after 2 weeks we needed to move on to our next destination.

Below is a video and pictures of our stop in Joplin.  Please remember the people of Joplin as they recover.

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After leaving Slab City, CA we spent about 2 weeks in the San Diego area doing sightseeing and visiting Legoland with the kids.  We then went to the desert to relax in the warm weather of Desert Hot Springs, CA.  We stayed about 2 weeks there and visited Joshua Tree National Park for a couple days.  We were happy to spent some time with the Valentine family during our stay.  After leaving the Palm Springs area we drove to Williams, AZ which is one of the closest campgrounds to the Grand Canyon.  We spent most of that time working but did make a quick visit over to the canyon for one day.  We left Williams and then went to the Sedona, AZ area where we stayed for about two weeks visiting several state parks and National Monuments.  We then left the Sedona area and went to stay on the rim of the Grand Canyon where we would be close to the canyon to do more sightseeing.  We stayed on the rim of the canyon for about 4 nights.

While at the Grand Canyon we made the unexpected decision to head to Las Vegas to the National Hardware Show.  So we headed towards Vegas making a stop first for a few days in Bullhead City, AZ.  We then headed to Las Vegas crossing over the Hover Dam along the way.  We stayed at the KOA campground at Circus Circus which is right on the strip.  We had a great time at the Hardware Show and the kids had an even better time getting candy and free stuff from the vendors.  As for Vegas itself, well, it is not a place for kids so we were pretty glad to leave as we felt the kids had seen enough “trash”.

We left Vegas and headed to St. George, UT to visit Zion National Park.  While there we visited Zion NP for one day and then made the sudden decision that we needed to end our journey for a while.  I believe Polly and I had both been thinking about it for a short while but one day we started talking and realized that the timing was right to end the journey for now.  We knew that we would never be able to finish the rest of the US as we still had a lot left to do and see.  We also knew that our business needed our attention and we needed to head back to be able to spend quality time with it.  Also, unless you have ever traveled for a long time you may not realize just how tiring it is.  We really just wanted to stay still for a while and rest with no planning to worry about.  We then turned the motorhome east and drove for three and a half days from UT back to NC.

After being on the road for almost a year it was nice to get back home and slow down.  We spent the next several months doing the basic stuff that most everyone else does.  We have continued to home school the kids and they have been much more involved in our church youth programs.  The problem is that once you have entered into the RV lifestyle it is really hard to leave it for very long.  After a few months back we started to get the itch to leave again.  We knew that Zachary, 12,  was starting to get to the age that he would not want to go anywhere.  We also never finished the North West part of the country.

Well, to make a long story short, we sat down as a family a few weeks ago and after we where done we had made the decision to start traveling again in June.  Life is short and while it is easy to live life doing the same thing everyday it just isn’t for us.  We are not promised tomorrow and retirement may never come. Our kids are getting older and the memories we are creating will last forever.  So the end of May we are taking my mom to the beach and as soon as we get back we are heading west to try and complete the US.  We are leaving our return date completely open so we are not rushed and will simply come back when we either get tired or complete everything.  We learned a lot from the last time and hope to use that knowledge to make this journey even more enjoyable.

We will try to blog about our travels and would love to hear from all our friends.  If you are currently on the road or even considering it we look forward in hearing from you.

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Before we left we did a complete budget to estimate what living this way would cost. I highly recommend this to anyone considering this lifestyle.  We are very fortunate to have a small business that allows us to work remotely.  But many people choose to do this on their savings.  Either way, do a budget and research all the expenses.

RV Expense

One of the biggest expenses in traveling will be the RV you live in.  You can travel in a travel trailer costing $10K or a Prevost bus costing over $1M.  It all depends on the space you need and what you can afford.  If you finance say an RV costing $35K your payment over 15 years would be about $280/month.  Add a truck payment of a couple hundred a month and you would still have about a third of what a typical house payment is.  If you do as we did and sell your stick and brick house then you might be able to purchase the RV and truck ( or motorhome) and have no monthly expense for housing.  Remember that RV’s depreciate rapidly so keep that in mind if you are not intending on keeping if for many years. The rule of thumb is that they lose half their value in the first 5 years.  So purchasing used is always a good idea.

So as for your housing it is very much dependent on what you want to live in.  Just remember that your only looking at 200-400 sq. ft. which for us is just perfect and part of the reason we sold our home.

Campground Fees

When you own a normal home you have water, sewer, electric, cable/satellite and other monthly bills.  When traveling full time you exchange most of these bills for campground fees.  Now here is where you really have to make decisions on how much you can afford to spend.  We have paid as little as $0/night (my mom’s driveway or Wal-Mart) to $118/night in Key West, FL.  The average is around $35 – $45/night if you stay in a campground with amenities.  If you stay weekly, monthly or seasonal you can save a lot more.  In the off season you can usually stay for less as the campgrounds are not very busy.  For example, the campground we stayed at in New Hampshire we paid $190/week ($27/night) in peak season.  In the winter and fall in Asheville we were paying around $500/month ($17/night) in the campground we were at. If you work hard you can find places to dry camp for free or find discounted State/National Parks to camp at.  I know of one family that travels and hardly never pay for campground fees. Most campgrounds will charge more if they have amenities like cable, pool, internet, lake or mountain views, etc.

We have recently purchased a couple campground memberships which have greatly reduced our camping expense.  We can now stay in nice RV resorts around the country for $10/night or $70/week.  Over a month that is only $280/month.  Less if you throw in a few free Wal-Mart nights.

We are currently trying to average under $20/night for our campsite.  In the summer we will pay more but make up for it in the off season.  This will normally average more than your home utilities but you are making up some by not having the house payment.  Plus you get different neighbors and backyard whenever you want it. Don’t forget no grass to mow, large home to clean and all the other things it takes to manage a typical home.

Fuel Expense

Once again this depends on how you are going to travel. If you move a large motorhome every few days it will cost more than if you sit in the same spot for weeks or months at a time.  We typically move every week but do not move far.  Our fuel expense has been way below what we had budgeted so far.  This will probably change as we move west were things are a little farther apart.  With a motorhome expect about 6-8 miles/gallon and 8-12 miles/gallon if you are towing with a truck.  As of the writing of this post fuel is about $2.60/gallon. We get around 8 miles/gallon so every 8 miles cost us $2.60.  Last year when fuel was $4-$5/gallon most people were staying in one place longer than they normally would have.

The fuel usage for your toad or towing vehicle will depend on how much sightseeing you are doing.  We are actually using less fuel now because we are not driving two cars everyday to work as we were before.

Food and Sightseeing

The one place that will kill your budget is eating out.  We were actually very bad for this before leaving on this journey.  We knew we could not do this while on the road.  Therefore, we have a dining out budget that we try to stick to pretty close.  If we are out of budget we will be eating sandwiches.  We also try not to eat at chain restaurants and stick with local places.  We also save a lot of money by not ordering drinks in restaurants.  This saves us around $8/meal since many places are charging over $2/drink now (even for kids).

When you travel to tourist areas everybody is trying to make a buck.  When you are on vacation you just pay for the overpriced admission and expensive snacks.  We typically pass on all this stuff.  We don’t do theme parks or anything close to them.  We look for free parks, bike trails, swimming holes, free museums, etc. If there is an admission we think really hard about if it is worth it or not.  We are currently way below our sightseeing budget which is very good.  Believe it or not the kids have been fine with not hitting all the big tourist areas.  A pool and playground and they are happy.  Also for $80/year you get access to all the National Parks for free.  You could spend an entire year doing nothing but them.

The Other Stuff

There are always other stuff that you have to pay for.  Medical expenses, RV and auto maintenance, mobile phones, propane (mainly in winter), taxes, etc.  Most of these are just facts of life and will be paid for no matter where you live.  All these things we have in our budget and track monthly.

The Bottom Line

The reality is that this is not a lifestyle that people do forever.  Most people find that it can be cheaper but then others spend more as they are in “vacation mode” and spend money freely.  The memories and adventure that is created in my opinion is worth a little more if one can afford.  We are finding this way of living to be less than we were spending before. We had never had a budget before doing this so we are much better managers of our money and where it goes.  Imagine all the trips to Target or Wal-Mart and buying “stuff” you don’t need.  We can’t do that now because we have no where to put it.  We eat out less and we waste very little in uneaten groceries. We don’t buy many new clothes because there is no room. The kids don’t get new toys as there is nowhere to put them.  Our kids have made an amazing transformation in the fact they now value every penny they have.  They have become savers instead of spenders.  If they have 50 cents in their pockets they refuse to spend it even on candy.  We have been very impressed seeing how the materialistic values they had have gone.  We discuss money and how to spend it every day so the kids have learned that if we do one thing we can’t do another.

If you ever had an interest in this lifestyle then all you need to do is sit down and crunch the numbers to see if you can make it work.  If you can’t make it work now then you may be able to in a few years with some planning.

I hope this has explained a little more of the finances of traveling.  If you have any questions let us know.  Remember life is short, follow your dreams.

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We had heard a lot about Slab City over the past year and really wanted to visit the area. Slab City is a camp in the Colorado Desert in southeastern California, used by recreational vehicle owners and squatters from across North America. It takes its name from the concrete slabs and pylons that remain from the abandoned World War II base Marine Barracks Camp Dunlap there. A group of servicemen remained after the base closed, and the place has been inhabited ever since, although the number of residents has declined since the mid 1980s.

Several thousand campers, many of them retired, use the site during the winter months. These “snowbirds” stay only for the winter, before migrating north in the spring to cooler climate. The temperatures during the summer are unforgiving; nonetheless, there is a group of around 150 permanent residents who live in the Slabs all year round. Most of these “Slabbers” subsist on government checks (SSI and Social Security) and have been driven to the Slabs through poverty; some of the “slabbers” also have a strong desire for freedom from the American government.

The site is both decommissioned and uncontrolled, and there is no charge for parking. The camp has no electricity, no running water or other services. Many campers use generators or solar panels to generate electricity. There is a library, church, and entertainment stage.

One of the biggest attractions at Slab City is Salvation Mountain created by Leonard Knight. The mountain is 50 feet tall and 150 feet wide and made of adobe clay. Leonard’s intent was to spend a couple days and create a small monument to show his love for God but it turned into something much larger. You really must visit the official website and read the inspiring story of Leonard Knight and his love for God and to tell the world that “God is Love”. We had the great pleasure of having Leonard give us a personal tour of his mountain. You can tell he is so excited to share his creation. Leonard lives in front of the mountain in an old truck (see pictures below). He has lived there for 29 years with no electric, running water, sewer or anything. He works on the mountain everyday but is happy to stop to give you a tour. He says his favorite thing is talking to people and having them take pictures. It is estimated that he has put over 100,000 gallons of paint on the mountain.

I left Salvation Mountain inspired to determine what my passion in life is. Slab City is one of those places where you don’t really want to live but you admire the people that do. It is a simple, cheap life where you are not faced with many of the worlds issues. I hope to revisit Slab City in the future and actually get to camp a few days.  Thanks again for the Bogers for meeting us there!

Our next stop is Julian, CA for a week and get ready for some activities in the San Diego area.  We took a ton of pictures and you can see some below!

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While walking around the ruins you have to imagine the hard life these people led.  They had massive farming in the area and had long, long trenches for irrigation.  We were told they did not have any metal tools.  It is also believed they didn’t have the wheel either so everything was done by hand.  I don’t think most people can imagine that there were complete active communities in the US so far back.  There are a lot of these types of National Monuments out west and we hope to hit more of them.

We stayed here a few hours before heading south of Phoenix to Carrabbas for a late Valentine’s dinner.  We only stayed 2 nights in the area so there wasn’t much time for anything else.

Next stop will be Slab City and Salvation Mountain in CA.

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Our first destination was the town of Tombstone, AZ.  Tombstone is an old wild west mining town that makes you feel like you are back in the days of lawlessness and old movies.  You have probably heard of the “O.K. Corral”, “The Bird Cage Theatre”, “Wyatt Earp”, “Doc Holliday” just to name a few.  You can read the entire history at this site.  For the most part it is just a tourist trap.  We only spent about 2 hours here and since we don’t spend money on tourist stuff much there really wasn’t a lot to do.  I wouldn’t make a special trip here but if you are in the area it is a neat place to walk around for a few hours.

We only took one day and went into Tucson.  In Tucson we walked the historic walking trail to see some of the sites.  Tucson is such a beautiful area with all the brightly colored homes.  I think Polly and I have decided we would like to have one of these one day.  For lunch we ate at the El Charro Café which claims to be the birth place of the Chimichanga which is my favorite Mexican dish.  The Legendary Monica Flin, who opened her El Charro Café in 1922, is well‐known as the originator of the Chimichanga. While frying her now famous El Charro ground beef tacos, she accidentally dropped a burro into the frying pan and when the oil splashed up she was about to lash out a common Spanish cuss word starting with “Ch”, but because she was amongst her young nieces and nephews, changed it to “Chimichanga”, the equivalent of “thingamajig”.  It was good but not quite as good as our old favorite Mexican place back home.

Our last stop was Saguaro National Park.  When you think of Arizona you think of the cactus.  The saguaro catus is the well know tall cactus with “arms” that you see in all the AZ brochures.  Since 1933 the saguaro cactus has been protected by the park.  The park is in the Sonoran Desert with temperatures commonly climbing above 100 degrees and gets less than 12” of rain a year.  Many of the saguaros can suck up as much as 200 gallons of water which is enough to last then an entire year.  Many of the saguaros we saw were over 150 years old.  Of course being from the east coast we had never seen real tall cacti like this so it was a treat.  While in the park we did about a 3.5 mile hike through the cacti (was suppose to be less but we missed a turn).  The kids also got their Junior Ranger badges.

Once again another great time.  The weather was mostly nice and certainly much better than NC.  We would certainly like to come back here again in the winter.

Next stop will be north of Tucson near the town of Casa Grande, AZ and the Case Grande Ruins.

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The main purpose for visiting the area was the White Sands park.  White Sands is a 275 square mile gypsum sand desert.  It is the largest gypsum dune field in the world.  The gypsum that forms the white sand was deposited at the bottom of a shallow sea covering this area 250 million years ago.  Eventually turned into stone, these gypsum-bearing marine deposits were uplifted into a giant dome 70 million years ago when the Rocky Mountains formed.  Then 10 million years ago the center of this dome started to collapse, creating the Tularosa Basin.  Rain and snow in the mountains dissolve gypsum from the rocks and carry it into the Tularosa Basin.  The water with the gypsum gets trapped in the basin and turns to crystals.  These crystals then dry and fall apart into sand.  The wind then blows this sand into the large dunes you see in White Sands.

One of the best parts about White Sands is the ability to slide down the dunes.  So we purchased sleds and hit the dunes.  We all took our turns going down with many roll-overs at the bottom.  The sand is much finer than beach sand so it was nice and soft.  Also, since the sand is so white and bright (much whiter than beach sand) we got a lot of sun during the day. Even Bella had a good time running in the sand and digging holes.  While at the park the kids got another Junior Ranger badge.

Once again another fun stop and great park.  We will continue to do National Parks as we travel.  Now we head toward AZ for a week or so.

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The caverns are also the home of thousands of bats in the summer.  These Mexican free-tailed bat’s live in Mexico in the winter then head to Carlsbad Caverns in the summer.  Every night they leave the caverns by the thousands in search for food.  These bats are very important to the area as they eat tons of bugs.  Later that night we went to Pizza Inn for a little Valentine’s day dinner with the kids.

The next day we went to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park.  The Guadalupe Mountains are part of one of the finest examples of an ancient marine fossil reef on Earth.  The mountains formed 260-270 million years ago.  During this time a vast tropical ocean covered portions of Texas and New Mexico.  Over millions of years, calcareous sponges, algae, and other lime-secreting marine organisms, along with lime precipitated from the seawater, built up to form the 400-mile-long horseshoe-shaped Capital Reef.  While visiting we toured the visitor center where the kids received their Junior Ranger badges and Polly and I received our Senior Ranger badges.  We also hiked the Smith Spring Trail.

Our time in Carlsbad, NM was short but full of activities.  Now off to White Sands National Monument for a few days.

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While in New Braunfels we mostly worked and home schooled but did get a little time to do a few activities.  The RV park had a really nice swimming pool with slide that we were dying to use.  The problem is that the water was about 45 degrees and it was freezing.  So we did what any smart family would do we put on our swim suits and went in.  The water was so cold it took your breath away when you jumped in.  We lasted about 30 seconds and that was it.  Off to the hot tub we went.  We also played basketball which was really fun. I must say that was one of the best times we had had in a while.  Sometimes doing something crazy can be lots of fun.

We also took a day and went to eat at the Salt Lick outside of Austin.  I had eaten there once before on a trip to Austin and wanted the family to try it.  Zachary calls it his new favorite place to eat.  After eating we went and took a tour of the state capital building.  We took a guided tour and went to were the Senate and Representatives meet which was neat.  We also learned more history about Texas while visiting the capital.

About the only other thing we did was drive to about 10 stores looking an electric heater.  I guess they don’t sell heaters much in south Texas after January.  We finally found 2 returned ones at Lowe’s which we ended up taking back because they didn’t work.

After a week in New Braunfels we went to San Antonio, TX to meet up with the Valentine family on Saturday.  On Sunday we went to the market district and walked through the shops then we met some of Polly’s relatives for lunch at Mi Tierra Café & Bakery.  Polly had not seen them for years and since they lived in Corpus Christi they were nice enough to drive to San Antonio to meet us.  That night we watched the Super Bowl and had a little party while cheering for the Saints!  After just leaving New Orleans we were pretty excited.

Later that week we went to see the site of the Alamo and also do the River Walk which was near.  We also visited the Mission San Jose and did the Junior Ranger program with the kids.  The rest of the week was spent with the kids playing with the Valentine kids.  It is really nice to see the kids get a chance to have quality play time with other kids.  We also enjoy hanging out with “grown-ups” too.

On Friday we said goodbye to San Antonio and headed west for the long journey to our next stop Carlsbad, NM.

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The drive was uneventful but much cooler than the previous week. After a stop at Walmart to stock up on groceries we arrived in Westwego, Louisiana just around sunset. The GPS tried to instruct us to make a sharp left turn into the entrance of the Bayou Segnette State Park Campground. Due to this mishap we had no choice but to drive down to the next intersection to do a u-turn.  If you are driving a normal vehicle a u-turn is no big deal but driving a 40’ motor home towing a car makes this driving procedure slightly more difficult. Brian was able to make the u-turn miss a road sign and get back into the right lane with no problems.  We arrived at the campground and found our spot as the sun was setting. The campground was located about 20 minutes from the city by car or 40 minutes by ferry which made it one of the closest state parks to New Orleans.

After getting setup we visited our new friends, the Valentines family, to plan our visit into New Orleans the next day. We left the campground around 10:00 am the next morning to catch the ferry to visit New Orleans.  The ferry ride was a little windy but the kids enjoyed watching the barges as the passed along the river.  Once we arrived in New Orleans we were able to see the New Orleans Saints fans getting ready for the big game later in the day. The kids enjoyed walking around together and visiting the Jean Lafitte National Park and learning about New Orleans from the beginning when the area was owned by the Spanish through the present including the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. New Orleans is a very history rich city and you could spend weeks learning about the history and culture of the city.  The kids enjoyed making a native boat, watching a historical account of New Orleans and listening to jazz music in the national park visitor’s center.

There were so many choices for lunch and we finally found a sandwich shop that we later learned had been a long standing breakfast and lunch spot for locals and tourist.  We had lunch at Johnny’s where we enjoyed a Shrimp Po’boy with Cajun fries, although we could have selected alligator, chicken, or oysters for our sandwich. Everything that was served was fried except the gumbo and you could chose either breakfast or lunch until closing time which was 3:00 pm daily.  Johnny’s has been serving breakfast and lunch in the French Quarter since 1950, and it is now being run by the third generation of the De Grusha family, making it the oldest family owned po-boy  restaurant in New Orleans . This landmark in the French Quarter has only a bout 30 tables and people line up out the door to experience the variety of po-boy sandwiches and homemade side dishes.

After lunch we continued walking along the streets of New Orleans and kids were able to catch some beads that were being tossed from balconies above the streets of the French Quarter. The French Quarter was crowded with people showing off their Saints jerseys and other attire and getting an early start “partying” before the game. Our afternoon snack consisted of beignets and coffee at Café De Monde which has been at the same location since 1862. Café Du Monde is open 24 hours a day serving Café Au Lait (coffee mixed half and half with hot milk) and hot Beignets (French doughnuts), year round.  The kids really enjoyed the beignets which were covered by powdered sugar. After our snack we walked along the river back to the ferry around 3:00pm. We had fun-filled day in New Orleans and we started discussing our next visit into the city.

On Monday we went walking around the campground and got an “up close” look at an armadillo which Carson tried to touch when it walked within a few inches of him sitting on the ground. We also learned about scaling catfish from a local fisherman who had two in his bucket. The kids enjoyed playing on the playground and playing Lego rockband with their friends.

On Wednesday, we decided to get up early and make one last trip into New Orleans. On our way out we stopped by the front office to see if we could extend our stay through Saturday, since we were supposed to be leaving on Thursday. We were fortunate to be able to extend the stay but his involved moving to another site, so we packed up everything for the short move, made a stop by the dump station and then moved across the street from the Valentines. After all this moving our early morning start for New Orleans ended up taking a couple of hours we decided to eat lunch before going into the city.  So on our way into the city we stopped at Copeland’s for lunch before going into the city for a less crowded look around the city.  Copeland’s was a restaurant that we discovered in Atlanta on a business trip and we love their Cajun and Creole dishes.  The lunch was good especially the macaroni and cheese and biscuits.

Once in New Orleans, we enjoyed a jazz concert performed by the Rangers at the New Orleans Jazz National Park.  Carson and Beca were picked to play the tambourine as the rangers played guitar and harmonica to New Orleans based jazz songs.  One more drip to Café De Monde for beignets and coffee and this time we purchased a box of mix so we could make beignets later in our travels.  On Thursday, we decided to pickup some local seafood and have a cookout with our friends the Valentine family. So on Thursday night we enjoyed grilled shrimp, grilled chicken, chips, salad, and about 4 loaves of French bread ( the six kids enjoyed the bread). After dinner we roasted marshmallows and made smores. Brian and I enjoyed sitting by the fire with Aly and Dave and talking while the kids played Wii inside the motor home.  It was beautiful clear night, with a large moon, and we heard coyotes howling in the distance.  The week went by quickly and we made plans to meet with the Valentine family, again in San Antonio in a couple of weeks. The last major adventure was washing clothes for the week, this would not be worthy of adding to the blog except for the fact that the washers and dryers were “FREE”.  We pulled almost everything we could find to wash (this included the couch covers and blankets) and spent most of Friday in the laundry room taking advantage of saving about $30 on laundry for almost the last two weeks. The laundry was next to the playground so the kids were able to play once home school in the laundry room was finished.

We had very nice dry weather while we were in Louisiana until the Friday afternoon, then it turned into a very soggy day. The rest of the day was spent planning our next stops which included New Braunfels and San Antonio, Texas.  We are hoping for warm dry weather in Texas.

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