Because we are traveling full time at the moment, we have to distinguish clearly between what we would do if we were on vacation and our responsibilities of daily life. It is so easy to sleep late when kids allow you to, and it seems only natural to act like a tourist when you are in a new environment. Our family agreement is not to live like we are permanently on vacation, so we can spend time on basic writing, reading and math with the kids and work online. Sometimes however we make a true exception and willingly decide to break the budget. Visiting a National Park by boat is…
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Back on the road to discover Alaska
It is the middle of the summer. The sky is grey for the better part of the time, and it rains at least every few days. Not that this is something to complain about. It is not unusual for it to rain all summer here where we are, on the Kenai peninsula. There is even a fair amount of sunshine compared to last year. In spite of this supposedly reasonable weather, I struggle with being here. The campground is beautiful and the workload is okay, but we are so far away from everything that it paralyses us. In the morning, the campground chores need to be done. Before we are…
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Is tidepooling just for kids?
Yesterday we went tidepooling. Not growing up by the ocean, I had never heard of the term before. But I’m quite sure that we have discovered a new hobby. Going to the beach has always been a sandy and wet affair, with lots of work involved for mom and dad. Dad in our family does not nearly get bothered by the work as much, though he takes his fair share. The need to pack towels, swimsuits, dry clothes and lots of snacks (oh the snacks) and then lug more than one can reasonably carry. All while burning feet that have lost those cute flip flops long before we even get…
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Learning about solar power. Rookie mistakes?
For about ten days now, we have had the luxury of borrowing a generator. We prefer to run our life solely on solar power (and some food), so adding a gas guzzling machine to the setup is certainly not a perfect solution. But what peace of mind has it been for me. To be able to reliably have electricity when I need to charge my laptop has changed my world. We went so far as to add the expense of a generator purchase to next month’s budget. If the solar panels are not cutting it, we have to find a solution. Being completely powerless last week did not feel very…
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Power is out in our Avion trailer
It’s the middle of the night when I hear the furnace fan blasting away. Usually it stops within a few minutes but not this time. Slowly it dawns upon me that this is not a good sign. Our battery must be nearly dead. The trailer has no power. We have been here before, about a year ago when we went camping off shore power and pretty much wanted to try out how far we could go. Maybe not the most intelligent thing to do, have we learned since. It really is not good to let your battery go below fifty percent of its capacity. At that time, we were on…
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Visiting Homer, where we meet a bush pilot
While we are fulltimers, already camping in a stunning place and pretty much living the life of campfires, beach walks and forest hikes, we decide to drive our Avion out of the park and head south to check out Homer. If you go to Alaska, you visit Homer, right? On the Sterling Highway, we stop at Anchor Point where we park in another State Recreation Area for a couple of nights. We get there late after we have first finished our jobs up north, but with the sun never leaving it’s no problem. Immediately we notice a big relief from the overload of mosquitoes that have been bothering us for days.…
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Learning about solar power. Rookie mistakes?
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Composting at the Kenai River Festival.
Finding your tribe can feel impossible when you stay in places just long enough to get familiar with the lady at the laundromat. Friends are maybe a phone call away, but if they are in a different time zone, catching them can be challenging. This is one of those things we have not figured out just yet. The kids don’t have an issue with it. They easily make friends, even if it is for a day. We have great conversations with campers and are sometimes invited to join them by the fire. We make some great new connections, but I still miss my tribe. The other day we went to…
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Finding a new routine in Kenai.
I forgot how it feels to go to bed when the sun is still up. Or maybe it is that I have never had to try to put kids to bed when that very same sun is still right there. Up here in Alaska it has been a daily challenge. You know how it is to drive when the sun is really low and shining in your eyes? Every night when I sit down on my bed, the sun is right there, prying into my eyes. We won’t have even one hour of darkness until the end of August. On our way north, when we because of circumstances had to…
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Five earth nomads in Paris.
Our 7 year old has been talking about the Eiffel Tower for a very long time. While we skip the city of lights traveling south, there is no way we want to deprive our kids of experiencing Paris, no matter how young they are. Absolutely last-minute we decide on accommodation through Bookings, and we land in an apartment on the Quai De Marne inside of the Périphérique, walking distance from the metro. To be clear; we had to drive our ancient diesel bus into Paris, where we supposedly needed a vignette for environmental reasons. We could never obtain this vignette with our Berry Bus, so according to all the official…
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Pastries and coffee in the rain.
According to the blog, we have been stuck in France for a few months now, but nothing is further from the truth. Since the last blog, we made our way back north to The Netherlands with our little Berry Bus, ferried to England, flew to Colorado and drove all the way to Alaska with truck and trailer. Pfew. We choose to drive up the west coast of France because the weather just seems to hold out a little better here. Of course that turns out to be just a theory, and we are once again at the mercy of major fronts, dodging rain storms. It doesn’t matter as much as…
