Wes' thoughts on Rv-ing Life

Our adventures in Washington~

We stayed in Fall City Washington for a week , only about 30 minutes from Seattle. ( Without traffic, which we were often stuck in. ) While in Seattle we visited Pike's Fish Market, and the first Starbucks. We all enjoyed the yummy coffee/hot chocolate. Although the kids may have not tasted the full chocolatey goodness because they often had their hands over their noses to muffle the strong aroma of fish.  Wes bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers so we could bring home some of the amazing ambiance from the market. The whole market is full of these bouquets.

First Starbucks

We also got to  see the international Fountain  in Seattle - it is a MASSIVE fountain about half a football field wide and about 3 stories high situated right in front of the Space Needle with music from around the world playing.  The little kids ran and danced around the fountain, and of course got wet even though it was cold out.

We really enjoyed our day trip to Whidbey Island - We took the fairy with our  car to the Island. We were able to get out of the car on the fairy and walk around and look out over the boat. It was a short ride only about 20 min.

We took the boat from Mukilteo and got off on Clinton. From there we drove to Langley and had our lunch at a cute little beach . From there we drove Green Bank and bought an apple pie to take home. From there we drove to Fort Casey state park, an old military base . We walked around there and looked at the huge cannons.

From there we to  the town of Coupeville and got some awesome ice cream at Kapaws Iskrem . Last of all we drove off the island over the Deception Pass bridge. Super fun day.

We stayed in a town near Bellingham Wa for a week so that we could travel to Canada.

We drove into Vancouver and went to Gastown , which is where Vancouver was founded. It was busy and super hot the day we went.

-The second time we drove into Vancouver we went to Grouse Mountain. Pretty intense hike , but very beautiful.

~Wes' Thoughts on Rv-ing Life below~

Driving - And I thought driving a minivan was big deal….I never thought I would be driving a 50 foot long vehicle in my life!!! The RV is 32 feet long and we are towing our 16 foot long minivan behind it...Needless to say, I can relate a little to truck drivers.The Coachmen Freelander 32bh handles pretty nicely though on the road. It’s basically the biggest class C RV that you can get. I believe that the bigger (bust like) RV’s are class A and you need a special license for one of those. I rarely drive the RV at night (only when we are pulling into our next site later in the evening. Sandy has yet to drive it. To date the hardest stretch of road that I was driving the RV was the tunnel to get out of Yosemite National Park.  It seemed very narrow and I had to keep the steering straight as an arrow so as not to hit the side curb. Here is a snapshot of our floor plan.

Work - I wake up most weekdays at 6am and start sending emails and grading the kids math. Then, either I work in the RV, or just outside on our picnic table, or at a coffee shop, or at the RV site lodge. I try to finish up by 2pm so the fam and I can go check things out or go to the pool, or go on a hike in the nearby national park We tackle wifi with both AT&T and Verizon. We have a mobile “hot-spot for both. We have found that sometimes AT&T gets better service than Verizon, and vice versa. It depends on where we are at. Typically my work breaks are filled with pleasant conversation with older folks (over 60) explaining what we are doing and how this “wifi” technology works. It continues to amaze them when I tell them that my kids will never know what it was like without wifi.

Wifi - Every time we choose our next RV site, we look at verizon and AT&T coverage maps to make sure we are covered. Typically we are. The kids and I always do speed tests to see what our bandwidth is going to be for my work and the kids online school. Sometimes we can jump onto the RV sites wifi (free), but other times, it’s super clogged with other users at the RV site.

Home school technology - This has continued to floor me! As the kids are starting online homeschooling classes, it is super fun to be a part of helping the kids learn this new way how to take a class. Once the kids our up in the morning, the older kids and I go the RV lodge and set up our wifi. Ally and Shelby both have classmates all around the country; New York, California, Washington, and some of their teachers are from Pennsylvania. They all log in to the class with ease and are able to be instructed from the teacher. The classmates even break up into groups sometimes and video chat with one another. Ally even has a classmate in South Africa. Crazy! It will be interesting to see how we all adjust to the new time zones. Right now their classes start at 8am. But on the east coast their classes will start at 11am. This will be interesting indeed. So far so good. We are only 2 weeks in, but the kids are getting good grades and seem to be learning well.

Onward to Montana/Wyoming