Ironing out the wrinkles – hitting the road!

So it’s officially been a week since we left!

We’ve already seen a lot and experienced a lot! And it didn’t take long for Tim to get me to cave: we have already spent the night in a wal-mart parking lot (practicality overrules pride PRETTY quick at midnight).

This week has been mostly about ironing out the wrinkles. (Though I’m sure there will be more). We lived in our trailer for 6 weeks before hitting the road and got practiced at how the systems work, how to pack up and move every few days, how to keep kids semi-clean while camping, how to cook on a propane stove with one adjustable burner, that sort of thing. But this first week? We got a taste the roadtrip aspects to our trip. Our adventures have been: explaining to Sara that no we can’t pop over to see Grandma at the drop of a hat; figuring out where to camp and buy groceries when we don’t know in advance where we will be or when; and rediscovering that oh, right, kids don’t like carseats for multiple hours every day. (Or as Jacob put it one day: “ALL DONE TRUCK!!!!”)

Time for a new approach.

We’ve had a lot of fun though! While the first 5 days and 4 nights were spent just getting to Edmonton (yeah, I know), we saw a lot of neat things on the way! We spent a night at the Twin Falls Gorge Campground and went for a really nice walk the next morning with the kids to see the waterfalls. Jacob for some reason has taken to calling water “yoyo” so all morning he was exclaiming “yoyo fallfall!!” Sara super impressed us with her stamina and did a large chunk of the 5 km hike before saying ever-so-sweetly “can I go in the stroller now?”

The last 3 nights we’ve been enjoying Edmonton. We stayed the first two nights at Rainbow Valley Campground. For being in the middle of the city it’s a pretty awesome little spot. Now we’re street parked at my grandparents house. The irony is the usually quiet, empty street is going to be a lot busier soon when the construction crew starts tearing up the back alley for water line maintenance starting this Monday…. “That trailer taking up, like, 3 good parking spots? No sir, I have no idea who owns it….”

Goodbye’s are hard

In the last week we’ve said goodbye to many good friends. As the roadtrip idea is becoming a reality, so to is the fact that we are leaving here. Amongst the excitement of our impending adventure is mingled a sadness of “the going.” Going away from friends, family, home. Going away from the people and places that make up our “life as we know it” and the wonderful daily adventures we will miss out on by not being here.

I won’t be around when my friend has her third child. The fact that she’s due on my birthday and we, so far, have a matching set of kids (be a girl, be a girl!!) makes that harder.

We won’t be around for my mom’s first winter as a retiree – I’m sure there are many cookies that won’t get baked and stories that won’t get read with grandma this winter for my kids. Snowmobile trips with grandpa and roughhousing with uncles will also be missed.

We never got around to this movie date or that dinner with friends. Heck, we forgot to use a coupon for a local restaurant before we left town.

There have been quite a number of people that we know who have left town permanently in the last six months. In some ways that makes it easier for us to leave – “hey we’re just following the crowd, AND we will be back!” – and in some ways it makes it harder because you know the friends left behind will be forming stronger bonds in your absence and you’re going to miss out on some awesome times.

However….there is a reason there are so many clichés about not being able to move forward if you’re looking back. It’s true. We can’t (as individual people or as a family) move forward into what God has planned for us if we get caught up mourning what we sacrifice to pursue it. So while I’ve being “counting the cost” as it were, I’m trying not to cling. Because I’m OH so excited about the many things God has planned for our family over the next 8 months, not least of which is time to bond and rest. We’ve added 3 people to the planet in 33 months and Tim and I need this break to catch up. With God, with ourselves (read: SLEEP), and with each other.

So, while we’ll miss you Yellowknife…. See ya!

On the lighter side: Unexpected adventure of the day:

Always have a spare key stored outside of vehicle.

In amongst the shuffle of getting ready somehow all of our truck keys wound up in the cab. We didn’t think anything of it at first. We stopped behind the gatehouse at Fred Henne to empty and fill the water tanks. That chore completed we went to hop back into the vehicle and found ourselves looking across at each other through the windows of our locked doors, dumbfounded. All the keys were inside. So were the kids. And the dog. The dog who most likely stood up on the armrest to whine after us as we jumped out. And. Stepped. On. The. Lock. Button.

No cookie for you tonight mutt.

Maybe that was our payback for the vet trip for immunizations this morning.

Either way a phone call to the locksmith and some patient older rv’ers behind us in line for the tanks made it a smoother solution to the problem than it otherwise could’ve been. We were on the road about 30 minutes after planned and nobody much worse for the wear. Sara had her favourite book on her lap the whole time and I doubt she even noticed.

Ps: In amidst the leaving I was amazed at all the random opportunities to see people that God orchestrated for us – people I hadn’t run into in months suddenly popped up everywhere, so I got to say goodbye to everyone I planned on and more besides. That was nice.