We're On the Road!

I had hoped to post more about our trip preparations and packing strategies and whatnot in the weeks leading up to our trip, but turns out that I really don't have a whole lot of spare time for blog posting!

We are really going to make a solid effort to keep up on the daily blog posting while we are traveling though, mostly for our own scrapbook to look back on, but hopefully a few people will read and enjoy as well.

Katy had her final ballet class and recital yesterday and our plan was to have everything packed up and ready to go so that we could leave right after, around 7pm. I also really wanted to be mindful about keeping calm, avoiding having anyone yelling, and getting off to a pleasant start. For the most part we were successful. Joe and I not only had to have everything packed and planned for the road trip, but also had a lot of work to do for our real estate business before we left. I put in a 10 hour work day on business related stuff, including some last minute unexpected surprises, but we still managed to leave at 7:30pm.

In our driveway, just before departure!

Shortly after leaving the house, I made the mistake of handing Katy some dry erase marker activity cards, and she accidentally made a black mark on Mary's new Squishimal, and then felt so horrible about it that she threw a screaming yelling tantrum and tension in the van was definitely running high for everyone. We worked through it though, and here's a trip log of our first night:

• Left our house in Waukesha yesterday at 7:30pm. 
• 8:05 pm - first pit stop at McDonald’s, seeing as we had been too busy getting everything packed and loaded in the van to have time for dinner at home (probably would have helped with that tantrum if everyone wasn't STARVING!)
• 8:20 pm - back on the road
• 9:32 pm - second pit stop at Walmart (bathroom break, and picked up a few essentials we still needed, including ice for the coolers), total miles traveled: 114
• 9:58 pm - back on the road
• 11:15 pm - crossed the Mississippi River and entered Minnesota! Thought about stopping to take a photo at the “Welcome to Minnesota” sign, but some of the kids were sleeping
• 1:15 am - third pit stop at a gas station. Filled up the tank, 26.583 gallons, $68.03 ($2.55/gal). Total miles traveled: 337
• 1:50 am - final stop of the day, Blue Earth Rest Area, Total miles traveled: 366

Admittedly settling down for the night at 2 in the morning was not ideal, but there were not many rest areas to choose from on the route so we decided to push through. It was our first successful night of “boondocking”! Here’s a little video I took this morning showing our sleeping arrangements.

Joe and I slept on our comfy bed in the back of the van. Lily and Katy laid down on the two benches. Joey slept in a hammock that we strung up diagonally towards the front of the van. Joe cut a piece of plywood to fit across the front seats and Mary slept here since she is the tallest. We purchased self-inflating camping mats at Aldi she said it was pretty comfy. 

Everyone started to wake up around 6:30 am. It was surprisingly chilly, in the 50s. The forecast for where we are headed later today is in the 90s though!

I brought along some “surprise” road trip activities and handed out the first one this morning - a new notebook for each kid to use on the trip. I pasted in the back cover of each one a United States map so they could color the states on our route, or cross of license plates, or whatever else they want to do with it. Katy proceeded to color in Wisconsin, and then Alaska and Hawaii - ambitious goals! 

Mary's been practicing drawing figures from the side; here are some of her road trip sketches.

Here's our trip log for today:

• 7:20 am - Left the rest area and headed out on the road again
• About 9am - Finished crossing Minnesota and entered South Dakota
• 11:29 am - Pit stop in Presho, SD to get gas and eat a picnic lunch from our van (groceries we bought at home), and also let kids purchase a small candy treat for the road - Gas was $2.79/gal, we got 19.846 gallons for $55.55. Miles traveled so far today: 311

  

  Road Trip CANDY!

• 12:03 pm - Back on the road again!
• 12:34 pm - Arrived at Badlands National Park!

We purchased an annual National Park Pass for $80 since we are visiting so many national parks on this road trip - it will definitely be a savings in our case. 

We drove to our campground just outside the park to check in. We hoped to get our whole campsite set up, and then spend the rest of the day in the National Park. Unfortunately when we tried to set up our two tents for the kids (we were planning on two kids per tent), we discovered that one of them was completely broken. It must have gotten stepped on or something at home, and was so bad that we just threw it in a dumpster. Maybe we'll pick up another tent on the road, or maybe we'll keep sleeping a couple kids in the van. It was pretty windy, so we decided not to set up the sleeping tent, but we did set up our screen tent over the picnic table.

Our first stop in the park was the Ben Reifel Visitor Center. We filled up all of our water bottles because by now it was HOT and SUNNY, and everyone took a bathroom break. The visitor center was actually pretty neat - they had a Paleontology Lab where you could see scientists actually working on fossils, and some cool displays on fossils found in the park. They have a huge wall with photos of people who have found and reported fossils so far in 2019 - so many! We all decided we wanted to find a fossil and make it up on the wall. 

We decided to hike the "Door Trail" first, because it was the easiest. 

Ready for our first hike! We went to an REI garage sale the week before we left and picked up six "Kool Ties" and I'm glad we did, because it was very hot and these helped a lot! They are neck ties filled with absorbent crystals of some kind - you soak them in water and they fill up and become a gel-like substance and it stays wet and cool around your neck for several hours.

It was hard to stop taking photos of the Badlands because everywhere you look the landscape is amazing. The kids were so excited to get out and explore! One cool thing about this park is that off-trail exploring is permitted, and you can climb around everywhere. The Door trails started off with a super easy boardwalk hike, but then there was a section at the end where you could continue beyond the boardwalk for a more adventurous experience. Of course we went for it, and it was super fun, but on the way back everyone was really hot and tired and hungry.

Joey was the most excited about being allowed to go off-trail and climb up on things. We have SO MANY photos of him on top of things! People were exclaiming, "Look at that kid up there!" multiple times today. He had a blast!

Walking back to our van after the Door Trail, Katy noticed this butterfly on the grill of another vehicle and wanted me to take a photo of how sad she was. She proceeded to examine the fronts of all the vehicles and found a lot of them. 

For lunch we again did a picnic, this time at a table outside the visitor center. We are trying to minimize restaurant food purchases to keep our expenses down. Here we had cut up apples, cheeses, deli meats, crackers, and baby carrots. Plus drinking lots and lots of water.

Again Joey could not keep off the rocks. He's the tiny speck in between Mary's fingers up on those rock hills in the distance!

After we finished eating, we decided to investigate the rest of the Visitor Center. They have a lot of interesting exhibits and a nice gift shop. The kids got booklets for the Junior Ranger program, so maybe we'll fill those out tonight so they can earn a patch. We also watched a film in their little theater about the Badlands. Turns out we were all pretty exhausted from our low amount of sleep last night though, and we were all nodding off during the movie. So we decided to head back to the camp site and rest for a bit, maybe go swimming in the campground pool, and head back to the park for another hike when it was cooler. Did I mention that it was SUPER HOT? Must have been in the mid nineties.

We have a great view of the Badlands from our campsite!

Unfortunately when we got back to the camp site we found that strong winds had kind of pushed over our screen tent and bent it a little bit. We also learned that there was a tornado watch and thunderstorm warning just issued, so we decided to pack up all the tents and load everything back into the van. The kids were also disappointed that they were now unable to go swimming, but on the plus side the temperature dropped about 20 degrees so it was now in the 70s. It also seemed like the worst of the storm was going to miss us. I took this short time lapse video of the storm going by.

Shortly after this it did start raining, so we were especially glad we had packed everything up in the van. The kids were happy to learn that our campsite had free Wifi, and so they started to zone out on tablets after a very hot and exhausting day with lots of driving and hiking in the sun. Joe and I were itching to get back into the park though, we didn't want to spend all evening cramped in the van. The rain didn't last very long, but even after it stopped the kids were all a bit whiny and saying they just wanted to stay in the van for the rest of the night. Fortunately we had a miraculous sign from above that we needed to drive back into the park - an intense rainbow that ended RIGHT back in the Badlands! We drove off on in hot pursuit of the treasure at the end of the rainbow.

The girls all wanted to pose with the rainbow. You can guess what Joey was off doing.

It was at this point that Joe realized that Lily was no longer wearing her glasses. We searched everywhere in the van and came up empty. Tears were shed. We reviewed all of our photos and saw that Lily last had been wearing her glasses on the Door Trail. She remembered that she was so hot and sweaty at the end that she hooked them on her shirt collar and that's the last time she saw them. We decided to go back and look for them, even though the odds seemed low on finding them. Then I remembered the girls had all been laying down in one shady spot along the boardwalk, moaning about the heat and exhaustion and hunger, while Joey scampered around on the cliffs like a mountain goat. We headed for that spot, and I was thinking of my Grandma Diane and how she prays to St. Anthony for help in finding lost things ("Tony, Tony, look around, something's lost and can't be found!"). Mary climbed down below the boardwalk and found Lily's glasses! Whew!

It was now getting to be later in the evening, but the air was so pleasant and cool and we were already at the Notch Trailhead, so we decided to hike it tonight instead of first thing in the morning like we originally planned. We all had gotten a second wind anyway. 

Warning sign at the start of the Notch Trail. There are lots of warnings, but we haven't seen any rattlesnakes yet.

We did see lots of tiny toads though.

The Notch trail hike was AMAZING and the weather was totally perfect. We ended up having to hustle a little bit because darkness was falling fast, but this was a great hike. We took a lot of pictures and here are the best ones.

Probably the coolest thing that happened was that I said out loud, "It's my dream to see bighorn sheep" and then about 30 seconds later a family of them came scampering by quite close to us!

We made it back to the van just in time - would not have wanted to get caught out there in the dark! We headed back to the camp site and it was pretty buggy and everyone was tired and our van is not quite as organized as we would like but we managed to get everyone to sleep and then I pulled out my laptop and took advantage of the campground Wifi to do some business work and create this blog post. Good night!

Crunch Time

Wow, time is flying! When in the planning stages of a trip, everything always seems so distant and that you have tons of time to take care of everything.  But here we are just 1 week out from our departure and we have SO MUCH to still finish!

I've been slowly finishing off the van conversion.  Wiring in the second battery ended up being relatively easy, although it's taken a good amount of time to finish everything off properly.  We can write up a play-by-play guide for that if anybody wants to hear it OR when time allows, but here's the gist of everything:

• Bought a battery isolator kit from Amazon. The kit came with most of the connectors that were needed, the isolator module itself,  and enough wire to connect from the starting battery through the isolator module and back to the rear of our van.  We chose one that is a "voltage sensitive relay"(VSR) so that the secondary battery will only pull from the starting battery when the van's alternator is actively charging battery #1 (ie. the van is running)
• Mounted isolator to the van within the engine compartment
• Ran cable from isolator through whatever gaps I could find, along the passenger-side frame (away from exhaust pipes to minimize heat) and up through a hole in the floor. That I drilled. Use a rubber grommet anywhere your wiring will be travelling through metal  
• Connect secondary battery to cable, run a ground line as well.  The second battery we chose is a Deep cycle AGM battery (from Walmart, it was around $100)
• Connect isolator to the starting battery, as well as ground.  My van had side posts, so I ended up needing an extended connector so I could attach the cable. 

Congrats, you <should> have a working secondary battery!!!

That being said, it still took me several trips to O'Reilly Auto Parts for different connectors, fuses, heat-shrink tubing, and whatever else I needed. And an Amazon order for the different 12V USB sockets, fuse block, etc. And I also wired in an old power inverter from my parents just in case we need something that requires a 120V outlet.

extended battery bolt to accept additional wiring

Engine compartment with finished isolator system. Black square thing is the VSR

The platform utilizes the same legs as our test platform, as well as much of the lumber. We are fitting our queen mattress sideways rather than lengthwise, so there was some adaptation of course.  The "leisure" battery and all other wiring, fuse block, and connections, was isolated by framing a box, although I made sure to leave some air gaps in case things get a little warm in there.  I've done a good job of making everything out of scrap lumber that I already own, thereby cutting our costs as much as possible!

Planning stage of the van conversion

Platform is IN!

Leisure battery compartment framed in (could have planned this a little better haha)

Finished "leisure battery" compartment, with fuse block for 12V sockets

Finished charging panel. Plenty of room to add outlets/whatever in the future

Cutting this slick paneling for the floor - easier to slide our stuff under the platform

We've also been making a VERY strategic packing list so we have room to store all we will need below the mattress platform.  I found some storage totes at IKEA that are the perfect size for under the platform, a short bucket from Walmart to use as an emergency toilet: emergency only.  

Even though we ordered child-size hammocks, they are still to long to fit across the van. 

We are adapting this platform for one more kid to sleep on, we can use ONE hammock 

diagonally (will post photos after completion)

Test fit before top of platform goes in. Easier to visualize the space

As of today, the wiring is done, platform is done, we have a good idea what can fit where under the platform.  And so, we just have to fit our packing list into the available containers, totes, coolers, and whatever else we reserved to HOLD OUR STUFF ! But we have a whole week to do that.....

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It's Time for Another Adventure!

It's been almost three years since our family traveled to Europe six weeks. When I think about how much has changed in the those three years it's incredible to me. We've moved houses (again!), transitioned to both Joe and I working full time in our own business (we flip houses and help others do the same!), and the kids are attending school instead of homeschooling. A lot of big life changes - all of which have made it a little more difficult to take big trips. We have done lots of smaller trips here and there, of course, but have decided that it's definitely time to start gearing up for another epic adventure!

This time the Yatzecks are going abroad within our own country and taking a trip out west. Three of my brothers are currently living in Seattle, and one of them is married and recently had their first baby, so that's motivated us to go out and visit. Our family has visited Seattle before, but it was six years ago, before Katy (our youngest) was born, and our other three kids were only 7, 4, and 1 - so they don't remember that much about the trip. The last time we went, we flew to Seattle and spent the whole time in the Seattle area. It was a great trip, but this time we have bigger ambitions and want to see more places. We knew we wanted to see Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, and lots more, so over the last several months we have been planning a ROAD TRIP!!!

Initially we considered using an RV or travel trailer, but ultimately decided that wasn't the best fit for our family. For one, they are very expensive, and the gas mileage is terrible. Additionally, we plan on doing lots of traveling all over the country, and wanted the flexibility of being able to drive a more normal sized vehicle into all the cities and parking spots. We didn't want the hassle of a super-long and extra-tall vehicle, nor the hassle of towing something. Just like on our European trip, we wanted to embrace the idea of being minimalist and flexible. So naturally that led us to the idea of a camper van!

We spent a lot of time researching all sorts of different camper van conversions, deciding what kind of van we wanted, and shopping around. On June 28 we pulled the trigger and purchased this beauty:

It's a 2010 Chevy Express 15-Passenger Van

It has four rows of bench seats. Our plan is to remove the back two rows and build a platform and put a mattress on top where Joe and I can sleep. Underneath the platform will be storage for all of our stuff. This leaves two rows of bench seats up towards the front, each with three seatbelts, so even with the back two benches removed the van will still have seating for eight passengers. This is essential so that our four kids can each sit on one end of the benches and have plenty of room to spread out during our travels. Hopefully this cuts down on the bickering ("Mom, she's TOUCHING me!!!")

There's lots of camper van conversion stories out there on the internet, including people who live full time in their vans. We aren't planning anything that elaborate - and definitely aren't planning on living in the van. Our goal is to use the van to take LOTS of road trips, and rig it up so that we can all sleep in the van if we need to. Obviously it will be a little cozy to have six people sleeping in a van, and honestly, a lot of the time we will be camping and the kids can sleep in tents, or we will be visiting others and some of us can sleep in their house, or we will occasionally splurge and get a hotel. But the idea is to make our trips more affordable by cutting down on lodging expenses, while not requiring Joe and I to sleep on the ground or have elaborate camp site set up/take down routines.

"Boondocking" is a term I learned of recently. It's basically camping, but not in a designated campground or campsite, and with no hookups for water or power. It's often used to describe "stealth" camping, where you are sleeping in your vehicle in a location where that's typically not done. For example, we might be driving in the evening and decide it's time to pull over and sleep for the night. Instead of having to worry about finding/reserving a campsite or hotel room, we could pull over just about anywhere we felt safe, sleep in the van for free, and then wake up and head back out on the road when we are ready. Freedom and Flexibility!

We definitely don't want to be boondocking every single night of our road trip, but being willing to suck it up and sleep in the van gives us lots more options of what we can do and where we can go. It also will save us quite a lot of money on lodging. We still plan on utilizing hotels and campgrounds occasionally, but it will be a big savings to not have to do so every night.

Looking at our summer calendar, we were able to block out a little over three weeks to drive out to Seattle and back. At first it sounded like it would be plenty of time, but it turns out that Wisconsin to Seattle is a HUGE distance and there are SO MANY amazing things to see along the way that it was difficult to fit it all in. Over the past couple of weeks we've plotted out this route and I can't wait to start on our adventure.

We did do a test run in our van over the 4th of July weekend and drove it out to Joe's parent's cabin overlooking the Mississippi River - about a 3.5 hour trip one way.

Sunset over the Mississippi from the Cabin Deck

I'm glad we did, because we learned some valuable things and I think that knowledge will help us better plan out what we want to include in our van on our big road trip. It's less than three weeks away and we have a lot to do to get our van road ready. I decided to revive the blog early to chronicle our preparations (something I wish I would have done before our Europe trip!). Here are the big goals:

• Build a platform in the back with a mattress on top. We are planning on using our existing Queen size 12" memory foam mattresss. It will need to be cut down slightly to fit, but we wanted to upgrade to a King size anyway so we don't mind using it in the van. Joe thinks we have enough scrap/leftover wood around, so we won't need to spend any money on this part of the conversion.
• Rig up hammocks of some sort so that all the kids can sleep in the van while boondocking. I've seen lots of ideas for this online, but we need to pick out which setup we want, buy the materials, and build it. Shouldn't be terribly expensive.
• Rig up curtains/window coverings and screens of some kind. On our test trip we realized how stuffy it could get inside the van, but didn't want to sleep with the windows open because of bugs. I'm sure we can install some kind of window screens to get some air flow. We also want some privacy curtains.
• Power. We aren't planning on doing anything complex like running appliances or installing solar panels - again, we aren't living off grid, we are just vacationing in this vehicle. But we do need to be able to charge our laptops so we can work while on the road, and charge up our cell phones and the kids' tablets. Probably also a fan - we had a battery operated one on our test trip, but it makes sense to get one that plugs in or is rechargeable. 
• Storage/Organization. Our test run was very last minute - we bought the van and took it on the trip just six days later, so we pretty much just threw everything into the van and left. It worked, but it was a little chaotic. I definitely want to be much more mindful of every item we choose to bring on our big road trip, and everything needs a "home" where it can be put away and stored.

So that's what's coming up on the blog over the next month or so - enjoy!

There's no place like home!

Sept 21-22

After a wonderful buffet breakfast at our amazing hotel, we were off to the airport.  About a 4 hour flight back to Abu Dhabi and then 12+ hours back to Chicago.  Shuttling from O'hare to Journey Church in Kenosha. And then meeting up with Melissa after that (thanks to Matt and Lu for sticking around with me until she arrived!)

I really don't have many pictures, or anything great to talk about here, other than IT FEELS GOOD TO BE HOME!!

Farewell Gerkhutar

I no longer have information that I wrote over in Nepal, and I'm trying to catch up much later than I should.  I will try and remember what I can, but things will be much more generalized!!



Sept 20 (Thurs)

Today we said goodbye to our new friends in Gerkhutar. We had a long drive back to Kathmandu ,although it took much less time as the traffic wasn't too bad. This morning some of us ended up drinking some local (bad for foreigners) water, and ended up feeling rather ill later on

We visited the Nepal Theological College, where we had a ceremony celebrating our time in the country.  Service was again segregated on each side, as well as celebrated barefoot!

Nepal Theological College

We also spent the afternoon shopping in town, for all the little gifts/souvenirs we planned on bringing back with us.  We stayed in a very fancy hotel, and had a late dinner saying our farewells to Michael and his family (the missionaries that helped us organize the trip). 

Huge thanks to Michael (center) and Nathan (right), the architect and student

It turned out to be the most relaxed day of the entire trip, even though we probably did the most walking around! Shop till you drop :)