Bringing Summer Vacation Back..Road trip style

This year’s journey is Operation Beach Gypsy (June 25-July 25, 2015)

Your Gypsies

My best friend and I from college are both teachers:  2^nd grade and an adjunct college professor. We have four kids between us, ages 8 to 15.   I live in a small ski town high in the Rocky Mountains and the Thelma to my Louise lives in a suburb outside Sacramento. Last year we decided to hit the open road together, all six of us in my pathfinder with no plan other than to spend as much time at the beach as we could and to have no plan.   We had the summer of our lives and plan to do it all over again this year. 

Why Do We Road Trip?

Lady Date Love

We both love pina coladas and cheese enchiladas (all things cheese and rum really).  Spending most of the year in two different states requires a full month of talking non-stop to catch up.

Generations of Friendship

Our children to get to know each other.  There is nothing more special than watching your kids learn to love each other the same way you love your best friend. 

Breaking Amish

My small town boys get to see the big city life.  Living in a small town is a gift and an amazing place to raise kids resulting in a magical and sheltered life. Our road trip gives them a front row seat to diversity and what the “real world” looks like.  As we introduce them to the “real world” Thelma lovingly calls my boys, her “Amish babies”.  Let's not forget that it also gives us the opportunity to show her landlocked babies the love of the sea.

Comfort Zone-Schomfort Zone, Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Living in the mountains allows me to live a life of adventure.  The kinds of folks that live in a ski town tend to be adrenaline junkies that love to travel.  Road trip'n allows a little bit of my reckless abandon to rub off on my dear my friend, a suburban “dance mom”.  Oh the stories she tells at cocktail parties at home about our adventures.  Her friends cannot believe that two mom’s would brave the open road with four kids. 

Reality Reset

A much needed escape for two underpaid and overworked educators.  We love what we do, but there is absolutely a reason why teachers need the summer off.

Fun Without Funds

There is one catch, as teachers our incomes are modest and of course since our husbands are not invited it is difficult to claim budget dollars for a family vacation.  From the minute we got home last summer, we knew this special time with our kids would be limited by them turning in to a-hole teenagers, so we immediately started planning for summer 2015.  Thelma and I have each taken on odd jobs during the school year to help scrap together money for our trip.  We text each with photos of checks and cash we collect, completely comfortable with pimping ourselves out for road trip dollars.  

In fact, we have joked with the kids that when we pull into each “port” they will have to earn the meals and spending money.  Two of them will dance for dollars, possibly painted all silver or gold like the street performers in San Francisco or Vegas.  The other two will use their special powers of agitation.  The thought here is that strangers my pay them to be less annoying.  Surely our superior dancing skills and razor sharp wit will pay off somehow.  It is never too early to teach our kids the power of grifting.

Oh the glamor of summers off... the sad truth is that not many teachers with school aged children are able to take full advantage of their time off.  Financial reasons and/or spouses without time off tend to get in our way.  We would love to show you the world what can be accomplished with a small budget, the willingness to wander, friends that open their doors and share their floors, a whole lot of smiles, laughter and patience.  Please help us celebrate the power of a road trip.

The Power of a Road Trip

Facebook Post from July 17^th…

“Rolling into Crested Butte with 2,600 more miles on our pathfinder, sand in our floor mats and sun kissed. The kids, a little more grown up and all of us, a little more young at heart....thankful for new friends and old ones...thankful for beaches and mountains...thankful for big cities and small towns..road trips rule”