Wait, What's Boondocking?

(I wrote this post a few days ago. We spent a total of 10 days at this site. Today we head to Rhode Island.)

We've been cut loose from The Cloud House for about 7 days now. Actually, Travis has been anything but cut loose. He is still going there daily to square up some things before we head out. Ezaias, Micaiah, Simeon, Cappy (that's the dog) and I have been boondocking in The Green Mountain National Forest, specifically at Mt. Moosalamoo, when we weren't meeting up with friends to say so long. We were joined on Monday by one of our cats, Gwendolyn, while she recovers from surgery. The park ranger came by the day we had her out on a leash....great, so now we are those people!

The kids have a made an easy home in The Lightning Bug! It has been a very seamless transition as far as they go. Everyone seems comfortable with the tiny amount of personal belongings we have brought. In fact, no one has even opened the designated toy drawer yet! They are too busy splashing in the stream just behind our camper or building forts out of small tree branches. The other night, as we were going to sleep, Micaiah (age 8) was just talking and talking all about his day and what he plans to do tomorrow. I asked him if he was excited and he said yes. Travis and I have many, many objectives for this trip but the biggest of those is getting back to true, meaningful and concentrated connection with our kids. It's amazing how school, work, social lives (of the kids. Not really the adults cause I can attest to having absolutely none to speak of since March 12, 2009 (Happy Birthday, Ezaias!!) home maintenance and all that stuff, which is actually meant to bring families together, can draw families apart. That's been our experience, at least. So to glimpse a tiny reward so early, was really amazing and a tiny bit emotional for me.

In the past week the most frequent question we've been asked is, "what is boondocking????" It's a fairly new term for us as well! In fact, when we were first researching this trip I refused to use it. But, over time, it became clear that it is the way everyone describes and differentiates what they are doing. Boondocking is camping in an RV without the typical RV amenities like electricity, water and sewer hook ups. It's useful to use it when searching for free sites across the country. It usually occurs on federal government land, which is free to camp on!! And it is typically, though not always, disbursed and remote. It happens more frequently in the west, since there aren't as many federal lands in the east. I think it's thought of as a pretty radical thing to do. So far, I don't think so. I have never camped with the amenities mentioned above and we normally live in a remote place, so we've transitioned fairly easily so far. Next week, in Rhode Island, we will "dry camp" - dry camping is camping at a designated campground that does not offer any amenities usually. It is cheaper than traditional campgrounds. We'll be around lots of camping neighbours! The kids are excited for that but it may be a bit of an adjustment to Travis and me.

So, here's what boondocking has looked like for us this week.

We have a propane powered, tiny refrigerator, grill and burner (for morning tea!). We have lights that are run by a 12 volt battery. It charges when our car is running. Since it was only a 30 minute drive we didn't get too much power! So our lights have come from battery operated lanterns. We also have onboard water storage, though it is small because it's a pop up camper and when available we can plug in and go totally electric. The creek was a perfect water supply for doing our laundry! The kids loved to help! We tried as much as we could to simulate a true boondocking experience, in order to be sure we were taking the appropriate things and the right amount of them but we did sneak some dishes and laundry to Travis' Mum's a few times!

Enough talking! Here are the pictures! Thanks for following along with us!!

The Lightning Bug, looking good in her natural habitat! It was a bit of work sneaking in around all those trees but Travis is a man of many talents. We are working on an outdoor kitchen set up. This week we hope to finally choose the best screen room so we don't have to deal with water and bugs. When camping in bear country (Vermont is that sort of place) it's advised not to cook in your camper. They may be attracted to the smell and though black bears are rarely ever a threat to humans (you can scare them off pretty easy) if you aren't there they could really destroy your camper looking for the food you cooked. So, outdoor kitchen. 

Cleaning is a breeze in 80 square feet but it gets dirty fast too! I probably cleaned twice a day. It took 2 minutes, literally. We brought a small selection of decorations to make it feel homey (including 5 geckos that "wander" around our Wanderling home. You have to get creative when your walls are vinyl!). This week we are planning to paint constellations on the ceiling with glow in the dark paint!

Making the tea!
Beyond this lovely tea maker you may be able to see the kids' bunk. We zip tied message boards to their tent pole so they can still collect stuff (and ooohhh do they collect stuff). So far there is a mini spear in Ezaias' that Micaiah made for him out of a stick and a sharp rock fastened on with a long piece of grass (we are reading the Hatchet series about a boy who is stranded in the northern forest when he is the sole survivor of a plane crash. This week we made a spear, too!) They also chose to bring a strand of kukui nuts in their favourite colour that their grandparents brought from Hawaii during their last visit (Simeon's are rainbow coloured - until he tells us his favourite colour and are hanging on our bunk end) and a battery operated paper lantern that really gives great ambiance! When we are all snuggled up before bed the The Lightning Bug must glow beautifully because it feels that way inside. (Even when Vermont decided to give us four days of torrential rain that eventually permeated the bunk ends!! We love you Vermont!!)

Exploring on the first day! This is the creek (and eventually the river, after all the rain) that ran directly behind our camper.  For the first few days Simeon could just splash around in the rocks with the supervision of a big brother, which was fun for all. Beyond the log there is a Micaiah waist deep swimming hole, so parents had to join before they ventured there. 

Look Mom bear marks! (They were actually ant tracks but a little adventure never hurt no one.) The ranger did remind us that we were camping in bear country but we reminded him we live 20 minutes away, still in bear country. The boys and I hiked Mt. Moosalamoo mid-week and at the top there were tons of ripe berries. My guess was that those would keep the bears occupied, all the way up the mountain, during our stay. 

Our normally laidback dog, Cappy, was in doggy heaven being so closed to this swimming hole (water gives him severe obsessive issues). Whenever we had to leave he would protest long and loudly! 

Can we NEVER leave??! (Cappy is probably loving this trip already! He hasn't been alone for over 10 days! He's actually sleeping beside me right now as I type. For a dog that LOVES his family, this has got to be the best thing ever!)

I get by with a little help from my bro.

The three of them spent most of the day designing and building a tree fort with small branches. They may have done this at home but with fewer distractions they really put a lot of effort into it. 

Frogs, frogs everywhere.

Especially in the muddy puddle in the road!

All hands on deck for laundry day! (Don't worry that is a brand new plunger and biodegradable soap!)

Simeon was the most enthusiastic about laundry. In fact, it's probably more accurate to say he did our laundry this week. 

I did try to help. 

Then they were on to making torches our of tree sap. 

See?! (It actually helped me light our fire during typhoon season.)

Beautiful and dead. (It's a poem.)

We went up to the mountain. 

It took six hours, but we won't talk about that. 

Feels like home! We really felt at home in The Green Mountain National Forest (I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that we actually live there) and we were a little sad to leave.

So long Vermont! On to the next thing! 

So Long to The Cloud House! Hello to The Lightning Bug!

Yesterday we said goodbye to our beloved, beautiful home in the Green Mountains of Vermont (our living room and bedroom windows have uninterrupted, panoramic views of the lovely and majestic Mt. Abraham! This place is amazing!) and moved into our new-to-us pop up camper, affectionally named The Lightning Bug. Next we drove, just 30 minutes, to our boondocking campsite and home for the next 11 days. We have a few loose ends to tie up in Vermont before we take off to Rhode Island next week, not the least of which is how the heck to boondock* in a pop up camper with three kids, one in diapers, and one camping novice (that's me) and one out of practice wilderness expert (that's Travis and I use the word expert quite loosely) and a dog, in a pop up camper that we don't know how to use. But we are, perhaps to a fault, go with the flow types. So we are confident we'll figure it out or have a good laugh trying. Maybe both.

We are so excited to share our experience and adventures with you all if you choose to follow along. So far a lot of people have asked what the kids will do without school. We plan to unschool/world school. We have studied a lot about this method and feel confident that we learn with our children every single day. We'll keep you in the loop about it! We are choosing to boondock across the country (we have traveled across the country many times, once with two kids, so we know something about how it goes. We thought we'd add a camper for some convenience this time and to save some money, maybe).

Before we start we wanted to pay a little tribute to the home that we have in Vermont. We have lived here for the past five years and we love it. We often ask ourselves how we got so lucky to score this beautiful house! God knows we aren't wealthy!! Goodbye for now The Cloud House! We'll miss you!

Oh, lovely The Cloud House! We will miss you so...

We will miss your chickens (each one called Mildrith) and your cats (whom we forgot to photo)

And your floor to ceiling windows which may sometimes make a mother of toddlers cry ugly tears

And, mostly, your breath taking views, even on hazy and hot summer days.
But the open road is calling (as it has often done ((at least before parenthood)) and so we must say adieu....)

A

good

photo

is hard

to come by!

*boondocking - camping without any amenities (no running water or electricity, except what you can store) and usually dispersed (away from other people) and on federal land (in the US).

If you have questions, we are happy to try to answer them!