We are leaving on a five week RV road trip today!

I've been holding out on you.  I never got around to telling you that our homeschooling family of five is leaving on a five week road trip to Arizona in our little 25 foot RV.  Today.  If this seems abrupt to you, I'm sorry.  We got really sick after Christmas, with fevers, belly-splitting coughs and lots of misery.  I didn't have much energy to think about our trip, let alone write about it, and after spending two full days packing and organizing everything we need for the next five weeks, today is the beginning of our adventure, and I can start breathing again.

It's going be awesome!  (I hope.)  We did the same thing two years ago, so if you are curious, you can search my blog entries starting January 2013.  Last time, we made our way South very slowly - along the Washington, then Oregon, then California coasts, with lots of stops and adventures on the way.
This time, we want to reach Arizona fast, so we will make it as far as Portland tonight, and then spend a day fishing on some Oregon rivers.  And then: onward!  We have a date with the sun.

Why do we do this?

1) Last year, Marblemount received a record 120 inches of rain.  That's like a rainforest, folks, and rain gets very, very depressing after months and months of it.  We need sun.

2) We home school.  There is so much to learn on a trip like this, and I'm not just talking about things like geography.

3) We love adventure.  Five weeks of hiking, mountain biking and exploring is right up our alley.

4) We work hard and push ourselves to the max, and we need breaks from that.

5) We like spending time as a family.  Sure, we get on each others' nerves in a tiny space like our RV, but we mostly like each other.  The kids are growing up.  Kai is 12, Luke 10, and Eva 5.  Pretty soon, they will move out of the house, and I bet I won't wish that I had worked harder and played less.

I'm nervous about leaving my almost 14 and a half year old dog Pluto at home.  We have wonderful house sitters who will take care of him and the house and the other animals, but what if something happens to him?  What if he decides to die, and I won't be there to hold him in his final hours?
What if the house burns down?
What if the ducks get eaten by raccoons?
What if a tree falls on the house?

Okay, enough obsessing.  We're off.
We need to stop at a RV repair place on the way to Portland because our RV generator won't start, and because our big water tank has a leak.  A good beginning, eh?
Wish us luck, and join us on the trip via the blog.  Did you know you can subscribe to our blog, so you automatically get updates in your e-mail inbox?  Just go to the top of the blog page, look on your right, and enter your e-mail where it says "Subscribe to our blog so don't miss any posts!"