We are coming up on two months in Texas. That is about the same amount of time we spent traveling from the East Coast to the West Coast and then to Texas itself. It has been a wonderful experience here and I know we will look back on it fondly.
We're also ready to leave.
We're ready to put this business plan into action and see what will happen with this crazy self-employment idea. There's nothing here pushing us to go, but that is the thing pulling us back toward the Carolinas and "home."
"Home" is a different word for us now. This camper is Home. When we're out adventuring we say, "Time to go home." And we feel it. We haven't been homesick - we've been home the whole time we've traveled East to West and back again. Of course we have missed family and sometimes the familiar (like when we couldn't find Duke mayo anywhere west of the Texas-New Mexico border) but we haven't missed home. We are home.
We are a nomadic family right now. But don't children need roots?
Yes, of course they do. But as I'm sitting here on the couch in the "living room" and looking at my "kitchen" five feet away I see two pothos plants thriving in upcycled topo-chico bottles of water. These are the same plants that withered and almost died when in a pot with dirt as we traveled. I was able to salvage only a few stems with straggly leaves. I put them in water as a last ditch effort to revive them, unsure if it would work or not. It did. Even beyond my expectations as week after week has seen new leaves unfurl and new branches grow.
So yes, children need roots. Plants need roots. But the medium in which each can thrive may be different than what we expect.
One of the things we have loved most about this time in Athens, TX is the campground where we are staying. It is attached to the campus so Josh is able to walk or ride his bike to class and the kids and I retain use of the truck for our adventuring and errands. The community here is a good one - and a safe one. We have made lifelong friends here. Currently there are still two families with kids about the same ages as ours. As soon as the kids are done with their schoolwork in the morning they are out the door with a "bye mom!" and I don't see them again until they are hungry. They are building forts, climbing trees, finding tadpoles and frogs, looking for petrified wood (and finding a lot of it!) and playing volleyball using a rope tied between two trees and playing tag and a game called "wild stallion" which to my untrained 80s-born eye looks like "sharks and minnows" but I haven't fully understood the rules of the game yet. One mom is handing out a box of gummies to share one day and I'm making icees for a dozen sweaty children another. I'm going to miss the community most of all.
But we aren't leaving it entirely. This RV life, this nomadic way of living, is itself a community. We now have friends across the United States and an open invitation to visit anytime. Where we were once traveling to see the country I feel like in the future we will be traveling to see friends, and experiencing the country as we go.
This is mostly a rambling update but I had the time and quiet of a sunny day with children outside getting grubby and sweaty and I couldn't be happier about it.
Two more weeks after this one and we will be back on the road toward the Carolinas, ready to test out this business idea and continue building on the theory that Wild Flowers can grow anywhere.
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