Our big whale of a camper is surfing the black ribbon of highway between shrinking snow banks as the tide of our lives pulls us out of the mountains of northern New Hampshire and toward Indianapolis, London, Prague, the Bosphorous Strait and points unknown. We left this morning in the freezing cold; the promise of spring rests only in the calendar date: March 24. We still have 3.5 feet of snow on the level and piles nearly fifteen feet tall where the excavators were working on demolishing our barn last week.

The dawn broke grey to find us schlepping up and down the hill with our last loads for the camper: little boys on either end of a red, Radio Flyer, wagon loaded down with laundry, sleeping bags & therma-rest mats, kitchen goods, school books, Easter treasures bestowed on us by good friends at the big party they held in our honor yesterday and more.

Ezra kissed our dear house goodbye by spilling a cup full of grape juice all over the living room carpet. I crowned my excellent parenting within those four walls by yelling at him for it, one more time. Grandpa patiently helped Daddy with filling the basement of the camper and rechecking the status of bicycles strapped to every available surface of both camper and mini-van. In spite of multiple efforts the camper would not start (even though it has started like a champion all through the winter) and Murphy’s Law seemed destined to rule over the first stage of our trip.

Finally, with the house empty and the camper full to overflowing we gathered on our knees (there’s no furniture left!) in the living room one last time. Little hands and little hearts linked through three generations to thank God for our life and our home and our family and commit all three to His keeping for this next phase of our journey. His gifts to us have been many and good, every one. The kids poured from the house into their new wheeled home with great enthusiasm and it roared to life without any assistance at the first turn of the key. With our theme song playing we rolled out of one world and into another.

It has taken us another two and a half hours to progress ten miles.

We stopped to say, “Goodbye,” to our friends at the post office and gas station in Hill, then to spend an hour fixing the lights on the trailer hauling the motorcycle behind the mini-van, then at the bank to make one more deposit in the safety deposit box. Finally, we’re rolling west. Tony has his foot to the floor and our top speed is sixty miles an hour… he says we hit sixty five once… downhill, with a tailwind. The little boys have abandoned ship to ride with Grandma and Grandpa’s Great where the candy and goldfish crackers flow more freely. When I turned around last I found Hannah and Gabe at their respective tables pounding out a math lesson each… like they’d spent their whole lives on wheels, not phased in the least.
My valiant husband, who stood on the precipice of two worlds, has courageously jumped off the cliff holding my hand. Driving along, he is munching a bagel and sipping his coffee (the cup holder is a roll of duct tape!) and sailing for the mid-west with an easy confidence that is what I love about him… in spite of the fact that the only direction money flows for now is out. Mr. Plan-It has found a happy middle ground and reinvented himself as Mr. Adventure-Daddy. It suits him. As for me… I had the unsettling realization that we’ve become my parents… hauling middle sized kids around the world, to the slight chagrin of their grandparents, in a less than confidence inspiring manner. I guess if Josh and I survived then the odds are good for our little herd as well. I can think of worse people to end up growing up to be.

The perfect poem for today is the first one my Daddy ever taught me, when I was the size of the Hobbit who penned it:
“The road goes ever on and on,

Down from my door, where it began,

And I must follow, if I can.

Pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet,

And wither then? I cannot say.”
J.R.R. Tolkien