How to Road Trip Like a Boss, Make Your Home Seem Like a Mansion, and Other Tidbits

Enjoying some much needed drinks after two weeks on the road

We made it!  Two weeks, one 19-foot Airstream, Beechnut, me, Vanilla Bean and 6 of his new teeth that came in while on the road, and we managed to have a wonderful time and come home intact. This was our first long road trip with Bean and the first one since he could walk and since graduating from being an infant to a little boy. This life stage presents numerous challenges.  First off, no matter how hard you try, it is nearly impossible to child proof an Airstream.  There are corners and places to bump your head everywhere….and, things to get into, everywhere. Everywhere. It took Bean about 2.2 seconds to figure out how to open every cabinet and explore every inch of the trailer. An 18 month old wants to get into everything and they take it personally if you don’t allow them that luxury. They just don’t understand why they should not be allowed to play with the fire extinguisher, the extension cord, or any cord for that matter, and the list goes on. This led to a tantrum by approximately 7:30 AM each morning.  To prevent Bean from causing himself permanent brain damage from falling and bumping his head or injuring himself in other ways, we were on close vigil from about 6 am until 9 pm every day.  If you can’t imagine, this is exhausting.  This little boy ran us ragged.  Somehow, he made it through the trip with only one goose egg. As we have figured out and was most recently described by our friends the Happy Glampers, many of the preconceived notions you have while pregnant go out the window once you actually have children. So it was with this trip.  We began with best intentions and gradually loosened and loosened. Gummy bears – they are delicious and fun to play with – win!  Baby Einstein on our old cell phone – sure, why not?  We got to the point that if Bean wanted to sit on the trailer floor and empty the entire contents of his diaper bag – I was happy for him to go ahead.  These were 10 minutes when he was relatively safe, not likely to fall off the bed, not likely to hit his head, and occupied enough for me to put on sunscreen in peace.   When I wasn’t clenching my teeth trying to maintain patience, I was tittering with silent laughter at his antics and clenching my teeth with love.  I know this makes no sense, but I do it all the time. 

Colorado and states between, of course, were fabulous, but being home after two weeks on the road is just as fabulous.  Work on Monday might even feel like a vacation.  After living in 19 feet for two weeks, our home definitely feels like a palace.  I know the idea of a blog is to write as you go, but due to my paranoia about announcing to the world that our house would be empty for two weeks, and also (mostly) because of the lack of wifi in the areas we stayed, I have waited to post our tales until returning.  The following snippets share reviews of the places we stayed, tales, and tidbits about things we figured out along the way.