As I write this, I’m sitting in a Fairfield Inn hotel room in Longview, Texas. Okay, that probably doesn’t sound like an epic family road trip. No offense Longview, you’re a great city. I’m sure if we were sticking around, I could write an entire blog on Longview, but we’re just passing through. Even so, being here right now has so much significance for me. It’s so significant in fact that I had to write this blog post even though it’s late and my family is asleep, and I probably should be too.
The reason this is surreal to me is because of everything that has transpired over the last several years that led to me sitting here late at night in my “I love coffee” pajamas listening to my sleeping family breathing and the hotel AC running while rambling on about why it’s epic for us to be in Longview. So, I will explain.
The Dream
When we first started taking road trips with the kids, we would make it a point each time we got to a new state to find a welcome center and take pictures of the kids in front of the “Welcome To…” sign. Then we started talking about how cool it would be to get one at every state. That led to us creating a goal to road trip the entire 48 contiguous United States before our oldest leaves home.
Then about a year and a half ago we decided to sell our house and move to Waco, Texas which is my old hometown. We started talking about how much easier it would be to do a 48-state road trip before we got another house. So, the decision was made to sell our house and a lot of our belongings and just travel for however long it took. We kicked it into high gear getting the house ready, saving money and working on our online businesses so we had a way to make money while we were traveling.
Planning and Adjusting
Things don’t always go the way you originally think they will. We have decided it would be better to break it up into about four different road trips then one long continuous one. One of those reasons is our dogs, who are staying with my parents. It’s hard enough to be away from them for a month, or two months…. seven or eight months feels like too much.
Another reason is we plan to get another house and we don’t necessarily want to wait until we see all 48 states first. We want to get settled again as soon as we can. So, we have had to make some adjustments, but such is life. We will still get to all of them but right now we are just focusing on one piece at a time.
Between all the planning, working, saving, packing up and selling the house, putting our stuff in storage etc. it has been a really long journey just to get started! But we are finally here. Here are our current plans.
May 9th 2019
We had to go back to Arlington to take care of a couple things, then we drove to the hotel in Longview. It’s been an incredibly long day. Tomorrow we drive to Pearl, MS and stop there for the night. We will just be passing through then too. Our first real goal is to get to Georgia to spend Mother’s Day with Anthony’s Mom. Then we will be spending a little time in Savannah before heading up to South Carolina.
We’re still in Texas, so we haven’t seen much yet that we don’t also see all the time. Some pretty severe storms came through here the other night and we could see some damage as we drove to the hotel. We passed by one house where the fence had fallen down, and part of a tree was laying on the roof. Some traffic lights were also out.
We also found out that our favorite Dallas based radio station goes out right about here. We got Chick-fil-a for dinner and I spent the rest of the night mentally kicking myself for getting french fries instead of the much healthier kale salad. I keep telling myself I’ll do that next time. Now if I can get myself to enjoy kale salad as much as chick-fil-a waffle fries that will be epic in and of itself.
Making Money On The Road
There are many ways to make money while traveling. I will write an entire blog post about that soon. For now though I will share one of the things I have actually been doing since long before we decided to do this trip and that is freelance writing. Click here to visit my writing website.
Do what you love and then be prepared to do whatever it takes to make it work. Maybe that’s writing or maybe it’s something else. I’ll be honest with you, writing is more difficult when you’re on a road trip. That’s because you are almost never alone. That’s why I’m sitting here writing this late at night while everyone else is asleep. When you want something badly enough you just do what you need to do because not doing it is just not an option.
Tell Us About Your Road Trips
Our trip is obviously just beginning, but I hope you will follow along the journey through this blog.
In the meantime, what are some most memorable road trips? Do you have a bucket list trip you want to take? Tell us all about it in the comments below!
I loved reading this. Sounds like things were a bit stressful to get to this point, but I bet it’s worth it or will definitely be worth it. And I love how positive you are about doing what you need to do in order to get what you want.
I have yet to do a long road trip, but one of these days I’ll do a massive one, either across America or Europe.
Wow! I wish I had been brave enough to do this’s when my kids were still at home. Keep us posted!