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We looked at LOTS of ideas for Adali's birthday. She and I searched and searched all over Orlando for something that she would love. That's when we came across Exotic Animal Experience in Orlando! Not only were there a bunch of wild animals, they were all pets and you could hold, pet, feed and play with them. This was made for Adali!
We made our appointment for 11:30 on Tuesday morning! We drove over an hour to get to Leslie Rush's home where she has raised all these wild animals from infancy. They have run around her house in diapers, slept in her bed & they have even gone to the grocery store with her! Can you imagine seeing a wallaby in your local Publix?
Upon arrival Leslie greeted us with a smile and excitement. You could tell right away that she LOVED what she was doing and you could also tell that the animals loved her!
We signed a waiver and we were ready to hold some wild animals. Leslie started off with a young Wallaby named Rooby.
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After our INCREDIBLE stay at Lake Harmony RV Park, we needed to overnight in Orlando before we made it to our next destination - Thousand Trails Orlando RV Resort. Also, we had another birthday celebration coming up and wanted to be near something fun for our oldest daughter who was turning TEN!! (say what? how did that happen?)
Knowing that it's hard to find free overnighting in Florida, I called a week pryor to ask if we could park at the Bass Pro Shop overnight. They told me I would need to call the mall security because they patrol the parking lot. No problem, I would be happy to call and ask permission. I did, and they said they couldn't tell me that I could park there but that if I wanted to, parking lot #2 was never busy and that would be the best option but to make sure we were gone by early morning. Great! That was our plan.
We arrived at the mall that Bass Pro Shop was located at the coolest 'mall' by the way. You nailed it Artegon! We parked in parking lot #2, where there were no other cars and went in to grab some dinner after driving for what seemed like forever that day. There was some crazy concert going on that night outside the main entrance and tons of security officers outside. We figured, let's just double check to make sure it is ok that we park there. I was passed around to several security officers until I got to the head of security who quickly told me I COULD NOT park overnight and we would most likely get a ticket from the police. Fan-freaking-tastic. It's now 6:00 pm, dark outside, just started raining and we have to try to find a RV park IN ORLANDO, on a weekend....piece of cake (eyeroll)
After serval failed attempts we finally found that Pondarosa RV Park in Kississimme, FL had an open, pull-through spot that we could stay in for the night! Sweet!! 30 minute drive and we made it! It was a torential downpour. We found our site and waited a few minutes to see if the rain would let up so that we could get out and go hook up to set up the house for the night. (cue moment when an Airstream or a Class A Motorhome would be SUPER helpful!) The rain was NOT letting up and we just decided that we had to make a run for it. Jonathan and I both have our routine of setting up down pat so we just had to figure out how to do it MUCH QUICKER in the rain and without me being able to bend over (due to my broken butt).
It was like a really bad, funny movie. As soon as we stepped out of our truck we were ankle deep in water (and grass clippings) and it was still coming down hard! By the time we got the RV set up it looked like we had just stepped out of the shower, with all our clothes on. It was definitely a memory and a funny one at that.
We finally got the kids in the RV, everyone got dry clothes on and warmed up and we were so ready to call it a night. Big thank you to Ponderosa RV Park for letting us come in after hours and being willing to help us out last minute.
The next morning was Adali's TENTH birthday! I always let the kids request a special birthday breakfast and Adali always picks the best options. This year was no exception. She requested strawberry crepes with homemade whipped cream! She knows what's good!
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Sit down, grab a mexicoke, and get comfy. I want to tell you about the day I broke my butt.
Cue birds chirping, a gentle cool breeze, sun shining, happy kids laughing.... all is right with the world...
We pulled up to this beautiful RV park in Townsend, GA.
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On our way to South Carolina, we needed to overnight in Georgia so I found a ‘campground’ via PassPort America. By ‘campground’ I really mean it was a couple’s house and they turned their front yard into a place that 7 RVs could stay at. We were thankful that they came out and sprayed the gigantic ant hills that surrounded the electric box. While it was just a place for us to spend the night, I am so thankful that we didn’t have an ant problem while we were there. The couple was really nice, though. It was Halloween and she brought our kids some candy since they didn’t get to go trick-or-treating, which is something we never do anyway.
We made it to The Oaks at Point South RV Park which is a park in the Thousand Trails system. This makes our 3rd time staying at a TT Park and we have yet to be impressed with any of them. It’s making our decision to NOT buy the full membership very easy. We’d much rather spend the money getting solar and equipment so we can just boondock wherever we want!
The one thing I can say good about Thousand Trails is we have always had very pleasant interactions with all the workers there. Not once have we had any issues with the employees. If TT would just put some money into their parks I think they’d have a great system that a lot more people would buy into. But the run down buildings, huge pot hole roads and lack of irrigation in the parks make for a not so pleasant experience.
This park in particular was a hug muddy mess. It had rained many days before we got there but also the first week we were there it rained the majority of the time. Spaces were blocked off due to standing water, if you walked outside you were immediately attacked by tons of mosquitos and it was a fairly miserable first week there. We stayed 13 nights and by the second week the sun was drying up some of the park but the mosquitos were so bad we didn’t spend a whole lot of time outside unless we drove to a nearby town.
We were able to meet up with some more of Jonathan's friends for lunch one day. Why is it we can NEVER remember to take pictures when we meet up with people?? Geeze O' Pete! I've got to do better about that!
While in the low country, of course we had to visit the Sheldon Church Ruins.
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Once upon a time, Ashley and I were furiously discussing how in the world we might turn this dream of traveling full-time into a reality. Not like, angrily discussing. Maybe furiously wasn't the best description. Anyway.
We made lots of lists, did tons of research and even wrote our own Pros/Cons list. You can check out hers here or mine here.
We did, in fact, make that plunge - and hit the road 6 months ago to travel full-time. We thought it would be fun to re-visit all our pros and cons and see how things shook out. Ready? Here we go.
PRO - NO HOUSE PAYMENT - We actually decided to sell our house instead of renting it, so we don't even have a mortgage anymore. However, we found that staying in decent campgrounds with full hookups cost just about as much as our mortgage - ouch! Not only that, but there's a ton of stuff to buy when you transition to a different lifestyle. We're just now to the point where we're not spending large amounts of money each month on that. We've been working through this, finding cheaper ways to camp and learning a lot. Ask me again in 6 months if it's cheaper. The answer should be a more definite yes.
PRO - SPEND LESS TIME CLEANING - There is definitely cleaning more often, but we can get the whole place spotless in like an hour if we work together. This has definitely opened up more time for us to spend together. Like tons more time.
PRO - MORE FAMILY TIME - We are definitely spending more time together, but it's not quite as much as I thought. We usually move on the weekends since I work during the week, so that extra time we spent cleaning on the weekends gets spent tearing down, driving and setting back up. This is a long-game kind of goal, though - and I can see us adjusting things in the future as we learn more.
PRO - CREATING WITH THE KIDS - Haven't done this as much as we should have. Partially because of the space and flat surfaces, and partially because we've had so much mental overhead during the transition. Now that we're mostly through said transistion I can only chalk it up to be being lazy. Time to make changes!
PRO - THE OUTDOORS - YES! There has been so much more hiking, biking, exploring and enjoying nature. I'm craving it even more, though. We've been talking a lot lately about what it would take to start boondocking and really be in nature all the time. Right now, most of the campgrounds we stay at are like RV parks - and they're often 30+ minutes from any nature adventures. I hope we can change that soon, but it'll take some more equipment like solar panels and a generator. But in general - yeah we are loving the outdoors.
PRO - MEETING NEW PEOPLE - Ok, I'll admit it. We've met some really awesome people. And I enjoyed hanging out with them. Totally outside my comfort zone, but that's a good thing. Here's to hoping I can get better at making even more new friends.
PRO - FURNITURE MOVING - We really haven't rearranged that much! And I'm ok with that. Ashley may or may not be, though.
PRO - DEBT FREE - Since we sold the house and used the money to pay off the truck and RV, yes we did end up debt free! Personally I quickly moved into the "we need a huge savings account in case anything goes wrong" mode, though and probably didn't spend the proper amount of time celebrating. But yeah - it's pretty awesome!
CON - LAUNDRY - We totally called this one. The laundry is probably our biggest inconvenience. You never know how clean the facilities are or how much it'll cost. Or even how far away. Sometimes it's in the campground, but they're so gross you end up driving 30 minutes to do a couple of loads. Thankfully we only need to go about once a week.
CON - CLEAN SHOWERS - Our fears here were also confirmed. Campground showers are pretty much gross. Thankfully we have a nice tiny shower in our RV so we just use that. The biggest downside here is that we can't take long hot showers. Our tank fills up pretty quick. So we either need to be somewhere with a sewer hookup (or now that we have a honey wagon, just somewhere with a dump station close by).
CON - FOOD & STORAGE - As far as storage goes, we actually have plenty of room. Our outdoor fridge holds anything that won't fit in the main one - and our RV came with a nice full size pantry. What has been really hard is just being near a good grocery store. More often than not, we're 30 minutes from a Walmart, and don't even start talking about anything organic or real. Our healthy eating has really taken a hit these first six months, and we're just now working on a plan to get that back on track. Hint: we're going to have to get creative.
CON - MY WORK - We were able to get an RV with a perfect little space for a stand up desk so all those fears have been moot. Yeah, sometimes the kids noise level gets a little crazy, but I can always go work somewhere else if I really needed to.
CON - THE MAIL - We ended up using my parents house as our address. I bought them a Doxie scanner, shared a Dropbox folder with them and they just upload scans of our stuff as it comes in. They also take our business checks to the bank for us. They're pretty awesome!
CON - HOUSE RENTAL - The more we thought about this, the mental overhead of dealing with renting a house while living on the road wasn't worth the hassle. We just sold it (in 12 days no less!)
CON - WAY LESS STUFF - We did end up getting a small storage unit to combat my sentimentality, but I have really fallen in love with having less. It's amazing how freeing it is to not have to keep up with so much stuff. I'm ready to get rid of even more. Let's do it!
CON - CHIROPRACTOR - We still miss this, but it really encourages us to stay healthy, limber and strong so that we don't get sidelined by a bad night's sleep or a weird twist while hiking. I may or may not have asked our Chirpractor for a few stretching techniques before we left, too.
CON - CHURCH - We're still struggling with this, and don't have an answer yet. We travel most weekends, and leaving our kids at a strange children's church isn't something we feel comfortable doing. While we still do simple church by ourselves, it's a short term solution until we figure things out.
So all in all, a few of our worries have been true, but most aren't that big a deal. Whatever tradeoff there is in those inconveniences are totally offset by the freedom, adventures and time we get to spend with our kids. 6 Months in, and we're just getting started!
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Ashley Longnecker / December 02, 2015
Jonathan Longnecker / November 08, 2015
We’re Jonathan & Ashley Longnecker. We love weird ideas, great food, travel, drawing, music, homeschool, tattoos, dreads, woodworking, design and our 4 amazing kids.