Interview with Phil and Tracey

March 2007 (6 months into the trip)

Phil: I think the best thing for me is no more Monday mornings. It's funny that as we got into the trip, we started losing track of the days. After a couple of months, it became harder to remember the date. Now just the other day, Josh swore blind that it was already March. Imagine not knowing what month it is! I still get a kick every Sunday, knowing that there's no awful Monday morning to follow. The second is getting to know the kids. The kids have always been important to us and we've always made an effort to do things together as a family such as sit together at meal times and go somewhere or do something together on Sundays. However, it was hard to really spend time with them as many times we were either too tired or too busy doing jobs. On the trip, we are literally together 24x7 which gives us a great chance to get to know them, what they like, dislike, and as well to help guide and coach them as their personalities continue to develop. With Josh it's also been very useful to be able to control their diet. I know that might sound a bit 'Big Brother', but Josh reacts really badly to sugar and before we left, he was living on a diet of sugar and carbohydrate. Their was very little we could do, as if he didn't eat at home, he was able to go to snack bar at school, have dessert at lunch and also get candies from teachers and other students. Now that we've got him off it, he eats like a miner after a hard day down the pit, and even tucks into his veg!

Tracey: Everything! I've loved it even more than I'd expected to.

Like Phil, it's been great getting to know Ally and Josh to an extent that I know we'd never have achieved before. For me, I was lucky enough not to work before we set off, but it is still nice not to have the mad, hectic school mornings and the charging around afterwards taking the children to this activity and that, every night.

But the very best thing is the overall experience of sharing all the sights of this amazing country with my family.

Phil: It's hard because I only have from my perspective (we plan to get the kids to share their thoughts for the blogg). I think a re-balancing of their lifestyle has been very important. By that I mean that in the Bay Area, it's a very hectic lifestyle. They had school from 8am to 5pm, then homework, plus Tai Kwon Do three times a week and soccer 3 times a week. It sounds a lot I know, but it was pretty normal and many of their friends did a lot more. On reflection, I'm not sure it was right. There was too much pressure, and their life was too scheduled, not leaving enough time to just be kids and play. What time they did have wasn't useful because they were too jazzed up on all the activities, they needed more stimulation so ended up playing XBox, computer, going over to friends etc. Now they are much more relaxed, much happier and when they have free time they are happy to read, play outside (remember that, playing outside on your own? On RV parks you can do that as everyone looks out for each other), or play imaginary games with their plastic toys or animals.

Tracey: Worldliness, by seeing and experiencing so much. Hopefully their breadth of knowledge will make them more interesting people as they grow up. We have noticed already how they are able to connect with a wide range of different people we meet because of the experiences they can talk about. I also believe that it'll make them want to explore and travel the world and in their life time. It'll become even easier for them to see a lot more of the world than even we have (and that's a lot!).

Lastly I believe that they have gained a lot from Phil and I being more involved with their education and hence able to help them more, in addition to being able to integrate our trip into their curriculum.

Phil: I'm not sure that I was convinced at the beginning that this was the right thing! It was a big step and at times I wondered if we were in fact doing the right thing. After having been on the road for 6 months, and having un-plugged from everything that was going on before, I am now totally convinced that it was the right thing to do. I'm just so glad I had Tracey who also felt the same way as me and gave me the courage to take the plunge. Without her support, I think I might have chickened out!

Tracey: I was convinced at the beginning, I knew it was something we should do. I'm just glad we did it now rather than waiting and missing the chance to do it with the children.

Phil: A couple of things have been hard. The first that springs to mind is being together 24 x 7 in a small space. It's rare that Tracey and I ever argue, and even if we did, we always made an effort to keep it from the children. Now we're all together, there is no place to go, so unfortunately at times we have argued in front of the kids and they found that hard. On the humorous side, they've also started to try to 'help us' by making sure each of us gets a 'chance to speak' and makes sure that we 'flush it' afterwards as we try to tell them to. Acting by the same rules that you teach the kids can actually be harder than it sounds sometimes! The other thing that's been hard is balancing between teaching the kids and sight seeing. Sometimes when we have a slow start in the morning, it can be gone 2pm or even 3pm by the time we've done our 3 hours of lessons. Then it feels as if we're not getting anywhere or are wasting our time as we have so little time to explore, especially if we have to travel as well. Another thing has been keeping up with the blogg. It does take quite a long time, especially to edit and post all the photos. However I do enjoy it, but sometimes when I'm tired it's a bit of a grind and I think the other family members sometimes resent my time in front of the computer.

Tracey: Obviously there's been challenges but those are so insignificant compared to the overall experience we've had.

Motivating the children to do their lessons every day is probably been the hardest for me. Because we only wanted to teach for 3 hours a day we opted to do school every day, no weekends off - every day's a weekend for us! This is difficult because it can get to seem like a grind, day after day. If there's something special going on, or a lot that we want to do one day we'll give them the day off, as we don't have scheduled holidays either. We opted for this as we didn't want Ally and Josh having these ridiculous 3 month summer holidays where they've forgotten everything they've learnt by the time they get back to school!

Phil: Wow, this is hard, we've seen so much! In no particular order, Crater Lake, Moab (Arches, off-roading), Dunes National Park (driving the dune buggies), Craters of the Moon (Idaho), Goblin Valley (Utah), Tucson (Tombstone, Sonora Desert Museum etc), Sante Fe (Taos, Christmas festival of lights), Dude Ranch (Texas), the Cruise (duh, no contest there) and finally the New Orleans Cooking School.

Tracey: Can I only list 10?! Wow, that's hard, here goes.

Places : Crater Lake, Oregon (the total experience); Delicate Arch at Arches National Park, Utah; Santa Fe and Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico; Tucson and Tombstone, Arizona; Big Bend and San Antonio, Texas; Everglades and The Keys, Florida; Hells Canyon and Craters of the Moon, Idaho; Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado.

Things : Holding a wild sting ray, Grand Cayman Island; Mayan Dude Ranch, Bandera, Texas (everything about it); Dinner at Mona Lisa's for my birthday, Boise, Idaho; New Orleans Cooking school class, (Kev was brilliant and so was his food); Costa cruise, particularly Honduras; Tabernacle Choir, Salt Lake City, Utah; Queen Mine Tour, Benbow, Arizona; Ghost Tour, Albuquerque, New Mexico; snorkeling in Roatan, Honduras.

I think I cheated a bit, but only 10 seemed impossible!

Phil: Not at first, but as we got past the 3 month mark, some of the novelty wore off and it settled down into more of a way of life. At that point, it would be easy to lose sight of how totally amazing this adventure is. So we pinch ourselves and each other when that happens and keep focused on the big picture. We've also got a little frustrated with each others little bad habits or foibles, so each of us has had to make a conscious effort to fix what we can and accept feedback in the spirit with which its given. I would however caution someone from just jumping into something like this with the family, particularly if they haven't spent much time with their family to date. It's not going to fix any issues that may exist, in fact, it may make things worse. But if you're already close and fancy an adventure, go for it! All I would say is talk about it, and have a plan in case things don't work out (unlike us who just jumped in the deep end).

Tracey: Yes and no. It hasn't bothered me at all, although it is easier now that the weather's good and we can sit outside all the time. But I do feel awful for the kids as I know they miss their bedrooms and having some space of their own. At first I thought the small kitchen was going to be a problem, but actually we've managed really well - full christmas dinner, huge spread for boxing day - if we can do these we can do anything! The one rule we do have is only one of us can cook at a time, so Phil and I take turns, although more recently Josh has become a dab hand in the kitchen so he gives us both a break sometimes.

Phil: In general yes. We definitely learned a lot with Herman (he's a 2005 National Dolphin). We love the layout and especially the rear window with table and chairs at the back. It was excellent value and has pretty much everything we need. However, we're already thinking about what we'd like next (someday!). I'd probably go for diesel rather than gas next time for two reasons. Firstly, you get a lot more torque with a diesel and Herman does struggle up some of the hills (like 20mph!). Secondly, the brakes and suspension are generally more up rated on the diesel models. Tracey and I test drove a Monaco which had air suspension and the difference was amazing! None of the rocking from side to side which we seem to get a lot with Herman. So in summary, I think Herman was exactly the right choice for our first RV.

Tracey: We love Herman, and he's been perfect for our first RV. I think when we buy our next one though we'll probably buy a second hand one for a number of reasons. Firstly we had a lot of teething problems with ours (even though it was the previous years model it was brand new), we had it back in the garage constantly for the first few weeks and we still have things that need fixing. Secondly you do loose money on the earlier models, that's why we got a good deal on ours so we'd either buy a new one that is the previous years model again or preferably we'd get one that's used and just a year or two old; it's older people that tend to buy them and they keep them immaculately, especially when you're talking about RV's that cost a few hundred thousand dollars.

Phil: A love Layla! She's the best $800 I've ever spent. When you're driving a 50' rig, it's no small task trying to do a u-turn. With Layla, we generally get straight to where we are supposed to be (as long as I'm concentrating), and if we do have to turn around, it's easy to see if the roads to the right or left will come back around rather than attempting a u-turn. As for improvements, I'm really happy with her (for the record, she's a TomTom 900). A couple of things that would be useful are 1) a 'reverse the last route' function so if you go somewhere you can easily retrace your steps, 2) a light sensor so you could have the option to automatically switch to night colors (at the moment it's a manual switch), and 3) use the location information to update the clock (at the moment you have to do it manually and it's stupid 'cos she knows where we are - think it's because she's designed in the UK and the concept of driving over time zones is somewhat foreign to us Brits).

Tracey: I know I moan a lot about Layla, but we couldn't manage without her. In fact we had built-in navigation systems in all our cars back at home and Layla is probably the best. The frustration is only because Phil believes every word she says! I do still have to keep an eye on the overall map but mostly she gets us from A to B which is all we could wish for.

Phil: Not really as I think we brought everything but the kitchen sink! Having said that, there were a couple of things that we ended up buying that we could have brought with us. 1) A small electric heater. It does get cold in the back of the RV and at night, the electric heater in the RV is too noisy as it uses the aircon in reverse mode. A small electric heater is useful to just put in the back and keep the chill off. 2) A slow cooker. When we're hooked up at a site it's nice to put something on in the morning and leave it cooking during the day so that when we come back knackered there's our dinner waiting for us. 3) A deep fat fryer. That may sound a little extravagant, but because we cook a lot, we found it a problem not being able to fry. I tried using a pan put the smell gets into the RV whereas with a fryer, they have a filter that gets rid of the smell, plus they are a lot easier to store. 4) A bread maker. OK, so that is extravagant, but we used to love having our own fresh bread at home. Since we've got one at home and we have the space, I'm going to pick it up when I go back.

Tracey: I think Phil's right, we did manage to bring lots of things - good job there's lots of storage underneath! Cooking wise I wish we had the wok, but ours was just too big to bring and we haven't got round to buying a smaller one. Also I wish we had the ice cream maker, as I love ice cream, and I used to make it with just fresh organic fruit without having to add sugar, a much healthier alternative that even Josh could have. Unfortunately it weighed a tonne and Phil adamantly said "no, we're not taking it!". Otherwise, I feel ashamed to say I haven't really missed anything of our huge lot up full of stuff - scary!

Phil: I've loved home schooling. I wasn't sure when we started, but I quickly got into it. When they were at school, it was very hard to help them as I really never knew what they were doing or what they were struggling with, all I used to get was the 'phone calls' and it was hard to know what to do. Now we can pace the learning at a speed that's right for the kids. Sometimes we go really quickly when they've got it, other times I really slow it down and go back to absolute basics to make sure they understand it. The other nice thing is that we can take the competitive element out of it which is good for Ally as she's naturally competitive and if she's not the best, tends to give up. Now we can focus her energy on improving against herself, not other people. That may not be the 'American Way', but hey, they're our kids and I think it's a route to unhappiness if you always measure your success against other people.

Tracey: I've enjoyed it too, a lot more than I thought I would, plus I've learnt loads. The K12 curriculum is excellent. I was worried at first because we've invested so much (money) so far in getting a good education for the children that we didn't want to loose any of that. But K12 is easily as good as the Harker curriculum and better in some areas, plus as they work through it we can move them on quicker if they're ready or take more time if needed, it's perfect for both Ally and Josh.

Being both parent and teacher can be hard sometimes and probably harder for the kids as they get no break from us! What we try and do is to keep the two separate so if they have a bad time in class, we don't let it spill over into the rest of the day or our parent role.

Phil: That's a tough one as it depends a lot of how long the money lasts and how we get on the back half of our trip. At this stage we still want to see some of the states we missed on our dash to Florida such as Tennessee, Georgia, the Carolina's and then up the East coast. There's still so much to see and it's hard trying to balance that against time and the weather.

Tracey: I hope it never ends! At some point though we'll have to put a stake in the ground and move on to the next phase. I think after this though that we'll continue to travel more so it won't seem so bad having to finish this stage.

Phil: At this stage, the only thing that's certain is that I have absolutely no interest in going back into what I was doing. It would be all too easy to slot back into a high tech job in the Bay Area, put the kids back into school. But to do that would be missing the biggest learning from this trip, which is that this life is not the life that Tracey and I truly want as it doesn't enable us to continue with what we now value in our trip, namely, lots of time together as a family and the ability to continue to travel. Nor would it help us with our end game. A big part of the reason we did this trip is to figure out what we want to do for the second part of our working career with a view to building something that will give us the income that we need to retire with the quality of life we want. The current favorite plan is to do something around the RV leisure industry on the basis that 1) there's a lot of money in it, 2) the baby boomer generation is living longer, more well off and more open to traveling than earlier generations which suits the RV life-style perfectly. Plus, we both love it! The other thing that I would like to do is to write a book about our adventures which is another reason why I am taking so much time with my blogg.

Tracey: Who said we had to finish!! The most important thing for me when we finish is to do something that primarily we all enjoy and can have fun doing. Secondly it needs to give us plenty of time to travel, we've always loved exploring and I want to make sure that this remains a focus. Lastly, but most importantly, I would like to spend as much time together as a family as possible, before the children "flee the nest".

All that being said, I know I'd really like us to have our own business, but this also brings reservations. When I was growing up my parents always had their own business so I know just how hard work and how many sacrifices have to be made; it's a very difficult balance.

Phil: I must admit that I don't miss a lot. It's definitely not work although I do miss many of the friends I used to work with. I hope you guys are all well and I think of you often. Mostly it's the little things, like the bar, the pool table and of course, my beer kegger. I miss being able to take the Corvette for a blast, and I miss our garden and pool - it was so perfect and so much fun. But the main thing is our friends - we miss you all so much!

Tracey: As Phil says, it's our friends. Our friends. Our friends. Our friends. Our friends - we miss you all!

I miss our house too, especially the garden (pool, hot tub, outdoor fireplace.....), we loved it, it was a special place for us.

Phil: Probably the most is the constant change. It becomes a way of life, and we find that after staying in a place for a certain amount of time, we get itchy feet and need to move on. The lure of the open road is a wonderful thing - there's nothing quite like starting Herman up in the morning, pointing him down the highway with really no idea of what's in store for us. It a wonderful thing and something that I don't think will ever leave us now. After doing somethnig like this, it's not like you can throw a switch and go back to how things were. It changes you, for the better hopefully. Our challenge as we think about what's next is to find something that incorporates the best of what we've found we love whilst being sufficient to pay the bills.

Tracey: Just being on the road. As soon as you're ready for a change of scenery, the house is packed and we're off, it's so exciting seeing new places and new things all the time, I never get fed up of it, I could live this life forever! The RV saying: "home is where you hook-up" couldn't be more true.