A Look Back at Our Years of Fulltime RVing and Worldschooling {A collection of our 'Year in Review' posts}

 Some of my favorite posts to read are the annual reviews. I decided to make it easy and put all of them here for quick reference. While living in the RV for the first five years, I wrote a recap of the previous year on our nomadiversary in April, but I later switched to calendar year. Click on the year to read.

2014: Began Fulltime RVing. 22 States, 33 state & national parks 

2015: 12 states, Hawaii, Japan, 22 national parks, Began birding, work-camping at a National Wildlife Refuge 

2016: Drive to Alaska for the summer. camp hosting. 6 new states and 3 provinces of Canada (Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta). 13 national parks 

2017: East Coast plus New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Downsized from 37ft to 16ft RV! 13 new states, 37 national park sites, first birding festival. Birding the Everglades.

2018: 2 new states, Established a home base, Road trip to Vegas, hosted exchange students, training trip to Kenya with ITEC, Uganda to visit friends, Birding Colombia 

2019: Five months in Ecuador, visit with Waodani in the Amazon Jungle, Birding Ecuador. Colombia, Trip to Ohio, Tennessee 

2020: The good, bad and ugly year. The Keys

2021: Florida Keys. Charleston, South Carolina. Ohio

2022: Four month RV roadtrip out West. Our 50th state together! North Dakota. Minnesota

2023: Three months in South America: Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. Tunisia. 

2024: Southeast Asia: A month in Thailand and a month exploring Cambodia, Vietnam and Taiwan.  Turning Teenagers and flying airplanes.

Farm Fun with Friends

We've been friends with the Fugate family since Asher and Journey were 4! Look how much they've grown since our time together in Alaska. Their two oldest sons are now grown and serving in the military! 

It's always fun to see the animals they have. Asher, Journey and I took turns accompanying the kids as they completed their farm jobs. 

Then it was time to milk the cows.

Straining the milk, then separating the cream. Afterwards I made butter for the first time with Jessica's instruction!

I was able to accompany Jessica at the Farmer's Market where she sells the food her family raises, bakes and grows. Her sourdough bread is delicious and now she makes specialty flavors also. Despite the rain, it was a successful day and we enjoyed our time together. 

Have you ever seen such a beautiful pantry? All the fresh, organic food they've grown and canned, or freeze dried line the shelves. 

I had no idea you could freeze dry avocados or oranges!

And then I spotted this pork leg- aged prosciutto! I was really intrigued by this, so Johnny cut us a slice. It was actually really good! 

Twice we took a trip to the nearby river where the kids had tons of fun!

 

Journey gave everyone an arial acrobatics show!

This may be the last time we get to visit our friends at this beautiful farm. During our time together, they decided to put the farm on the market. That same day the packing and painting began. We're excited for what's ahead for this sweet family.

Hiking to North America's Southernmost Glacier {Great Basin NP}

Daddy has been talking about Great Basin National Park pretty much since the day I met him! It's home to North America's southernmost glacier, and only five hours from Las Vegas. Weird, right?! We camped at the Border Inn, which is not surprisingly straddles the border of Nevada and Utah. I found it a good sign when I spotted Horned Larks from the RV!

Our morning drive into the park. 

Lots of flat terrain and then all of us sudden you're winding and climbing up the mountains.

SNOW! 

We drove the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive to the trailhead of the Bristlecone Pine Glacier trail.

This 4 mile trail took us thru an area with ancient bristlecone pines. 

We crossed a patch of snow and LOTS of large rocks to get close to the glacier. This is not a trail for those with stability issues or weak ankles!

This alpine rock glacier has been melting quickly. Daddy was shocked to see how much it had receded since his last visit, maybe 20 years ago. The rangers said they expect it will be gone by 2030. 

On our way back Asher slid down a snow bank!

Teresa Lake is a short jaunt from the Bristlecone trail, and worth checking out no matter how tired you are.

We arranged for a tour of Lehman Caves. This place was used by Native Americans long before it was found by Absalom Lehman in 1885. He began charging people to explore it and even let them take what they wanted. Fortunately there's still plenty of cave formations to admire- stalactites, stalagmites, popcorn and draperies. 

As our guide, Sam, introduced herself, she seemed vaguely familiar, and then it hit me. She was work camping at Bahia Honda State Park in the Keys last winter when we were there. She is actually the one who turned Journey's conch shell into a horn! Small world!

When we mentioned Great Basin, our friend, Susan, said we MUST attend their Night Sky program. Lucky for us, it was happening this day, so we went home for a short nap and returned before sunset. At this outdoor amphitheater a film explained Great Basin was a certified International Dark Sky Place. This area has some of the darkest skies in the US plus it's combination of low humidity, and high elevation give people the opportunity to see amazing views of thousands of stars, galaxies and the milky way.  After the film, three very large telescopes were aimed at a nebula, and a few other cool features, however I forget what they were called. We also saw the International Space Station and the Russian Space Station, shooting stars and the Milky Way.