Yes! The day has come. Everyone is all packed. You are going on an ADVENTURE! Maybe you’re headed out to the Grand Tetons for some thrill-seeking hiking, or to the Outer Banks for some relaxing salt life beach sunbathing. It doesn’t matter. You’ve checked the weather, and you’ve packed everything you’ll need. The vehicle is full of fuel, and even made sure it is up to date on all of the other maintenance. Nothing is stopping you from an outstandingly epic adventure. Until…
You have a flat tire…
You hit a tire tread flying off of the semi-truck in front of you…
Your transmission coolant line blows off…
You find yourself in the path of a tornado…
The jack stops working on your camper…
The batteries keep dying…
An unexpected cold front comes through and now the temps are in the negatives…
These are just a handful of the countless problems that can occur when you hit the road for your grand adventure. Your once in a lifetime trip. The one that you have thought about for years, and have been making plans about for just as long. Now it’s ruined. No more road trip. No more outstandingly epic adventure.
If you have read any of our previous articles, or followed any of our YouTube channel, then you know… We have had every single one of these problems happen to us on at least one of our road trips. Some of them on the same epic road trip that we are on today. All of them. Some more than once! Like the tornado! And the jacks. And the batteries. We have never taken a single road trip where SOMETHING didn’t go awry that could have stopped our trip in its tracks. Or stolen that excitement about whatever adventure we were on.
Our adventure problems aren’t limited to our road trips either. We write about and share our RV life, but we have had several problems when we traveled through the airports too. On our honeymoon, we landed in Jamaica and we were missing a piece of our luggage. On the same trip, we almost missed our plane for our return flight home. On a trip to Las Vegas, we arrived at the hotel and were told that they didn’t have a reservation for us. The first time we brought our son out of the country, we sat in the airport for several hours instead of the scheduled 30-minute layover because the flight for the next leg of our trip kept getting delayed.
So, it is really an Adventure?
YES!!!!
Even when we lose a week in the middle of South Dakota to replace a fuel pump located inside the gas tank of the suburban with nothing more than a pair of vice grips in a gas station parking lot. IT IS STILL AN ADVENTURE!!! It may not be the same adventure that you set out for when you packed everything up and left the house. But it IS still an Adventure!
Obviously, this is an attitude. This is keeping that positivity flowing and desperately seeking the silver lining of a crappy situation. Or maybe, it’s coming to terms with the fact that I can’t control the universe and shit does in deed happen. That’s an adventure too.
An adventure isn’t always good, it isn’t always grand. That’s why we have always used the word ‘adventure’ to describe our trips. It IS always an Adventure, good or bad is determined by how we handle it. We make it epic… Sometimes the epic doesn’t come until you are telling the story to friends and family and they can’t stop laughing at whatever crazy thing happen this time. Still an adventure though.
We have learned to laugh. Personally, I laugh at everything… Doug has often teased that he could be stung by a scorpion and that my first reaction is going to be to laugh. The truth is he isn’t teasing… This really WILL be my first reaction. But then we figure it out. We assess the situation. Is this something we can control? Is it something one of us can repair (by one of us, I really mean Doug)? Can we work around this, continue on, re-adjust timing, or do we need to turn around?
When we’re little, grandma always said, “we don’t cry over spilled milk, coffee maybe, but never milk.” If we just focus on the negative of the trip, we forget to remember the fun of the journey.
We literally sold our house, Doug sold his business, I resigned from my work, and we embarked on this crazy once in a lifetime adventure that many people only dream of doing. We set out with a goal of living in our camper and traveling our magnificent country for two whole years. Here we are, 2 months in, and we have had several issues. Plenty of moments that have made us want to second guess the decision we made to head out on this grand adventure.
We miss our friends. We miss our family. I know Doug misses’ access to all of his tools, and friends with the tools he doesn’t have, or help on a project. Mostly we miss our support system. But at the end of the journey, whether we make it the full 2 years, or we have to settle down in 6 months… We are enjoying the Adventure. We’re still doing this! We are still checking bucket list items off the itinerary. We are still seeing some of the things we always dreamed of seeing, and doing things that we’ve always wanted to do. Even if there are some speed bumps along the route.
So next time your car breaks down, or your holed up in an airport waiting for your flight that has now been delayed for 3 hours, or your beach vacation has been a complete rain out – take a moment to evaluate that. The 3 hours in the airport, or the rain at the beach shouldn’t be allowed to define the entirety of trip. They’re just little hiccups on the journey. At the end of the day, the adventure is the part we need to continue to focus on. It IS always an adventure.
