One of the things we most wanted to do on this trip was see the Bluebonnets, a spring phenomenon in Texas, thanks to the efforts of Ladybird Johnson. We spent about a month in the Texas Hill country waiting for them to bloom. Later, we saw lupine (the flower family to which bluebonnets belong) everywhere. This is the last Appendix, a photo gallery of lupines.
This is the second Appendix.
We bought a National Parks Pass at Big Bend National Park in Texas, so we incorporated more parks into our trip. They have a program where fourth graders get in free. Too bad we had second and third graders!
This is the first Appendix, a summary list of all the states we drove through, in order, on our Sabbatical trip. We left January 25, 2019, and returned July 2, 2019.
I have been procrastinating writing this blog post for a month. I didn’t want to do it. I still don’t want to do it, but it is time.
I even have another post drafted and waiting, ready to release, but this one needed to be written first.
This post should have been written while it was fresh and lively, but it won’t be that now. If I had done it sooner, it wouldn’t have lived on my To Do List niggling at my peace because it wasn’t finished. Writing isn’t hard, but writing this post is.
I don’t want to write it, because writing it makes it true. Actually, writing doesn’t change the truth of it, but it changes my perception of the truth. Writing this post means that sabbatical is over.
This is the post for the last week of our motorhome trip. Once we got back, I jumped into teaching, we moved back into the house (and it was a move), and we switched back into old habits.
While this post could be writing about our fabulous visit with our friends in Laramie, Wyoming, gushing about the old cookbooks Jill introduced me to on making homemade mixes, or how our kids wanted to make their kids cousins, my sorrow that I’m not in a friend’s kitchen sharing life together overshadows it.
This post could also be about beating the Missouri heat and humidity during our short stop visiting cousins. I could tell you about the eleven second-cousins swimming or cousin Clay’s concert in St. Joseph, Missouri. But the heavy heat that engulfed Joshua as we drove home lingered in Tennessee, too, a burning reminder that the trip is over.
I know that I tend to be a private griever, and I’m sometimes abrupt in endings as I privately process. I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m doing it here, too.
Writing this post means putting a THE END at the bottom of the trip. I still plan a summary to officially conclude the blog, but this ends the experience of it, and I am not ready to let it go.
We just had the experience of a lifetime. We traveled around the United States in our own home, enjoying a spectacular spring that lasted nearly half a year, bonding as a family. We didn’t have any disasters that marred the experience. I wrote a book that I am super excited about. Naturally, I knew it wouldn’t last forever, but I am genuinely sad to see it end at all.
I feel radically different from the journey, but I’ve stepped back into my life that hasn’t changed much. Our old routines and habits cover us as comfortably as the clothes we brought back to our closets from the basement. The simplicity is fracturing into a faster paced, multi-project life with less meaningful family time and less spontaneity.
Yet, I am experiencing subtle shifts, too. Because I am different. Without planning or adding a task to my list, I’m naturally thinning out the amount of things we have. Even after unpacking the bin of bathroom items from storage, I have empty drawers and closet shelves. Space. That’s a gift I got from Sabbatical.
There is a natural thing that happens with grief. At first, it feels stunningly sad, like a crashing wave. At the same time, it has an undercurrent of other, sometimes opposing, emotions tangled together like strands of seaweed. That’s where I’ve been the last few weeks. Mostly, I’m sad that it has ended. Maybe we’ll never do anything like this again. But I’m also excited about the new school year, joyous to see my Mom and colleagues, stressed about the increase of emails, eager about a new podcast, frustrated with a big house to clean, comforted by the familiar, grumbling about the sticky heat, and grateful to be safely home.
I think today I am finally ready to type the famous words concluding this blog and this adventure. I trust that new, but different adventures will come. I can even add an appendix to summarize highlights. (Yeah, I know there aren’t appendices in blogs, but I am still an academic.)
Thank you for taking this journey with us and indulging me as I make sense of this transition. Here is where this journey ends.
THE END
I am currently reading the book A Trip Around the Sunby Mark Batterson and Richard Foth. With the subtitle Turning Your Everyday Life into the Adventure of a Lifetime, you can see why it caught it my eye when browsing at the bookstore. I have a need for safe adventure, and Mark Batterson is my favorite contemporary Christian writer.
In chapter 1, Mark writes about his early memories and how they taught him lessons about life, what Alfred Adler called the style of life. Style of life reflects how people consistently respond to the main tasks of living, which Adler classified as friendship, love and work.
The earliest memory I have is from around age two at a pool. Older kids had finished eating a popsicle and were filling the plastic sleeve with water from a spigot. I thought that was a great idea, and if they could do it, I could, too. So, I did. I learned that other people have good ideas that are beneficial.
I am not a trailblazer, although I march to my own internal beat. Trailblazing is too risky for me, too unknown. That is not my adventure, but ideas are. Most of my ideas are not original, but the way I put them together and teach them is my own unique dance. I recently felt the reward of that when I came home and taught two play therapy courses.
First, I teach these classes as intensives. One semester in four 10-hour days. That isn’t a new idea. My first professor job was teaching graduate courses in three weekends. However, I don’t know anywhere else that teaches an entire play therapy course in four days. I suspect that others would come up with a list of reasons why that isn’t even advisable. Yet, this method for this class is profound in the results.
Second, I teach the classes experientially. That means that students learn the treatment modality of play therapy while they are also experiencing it. They practice as clients, and they experience the skills I teach through the way I teach. Again, experiential learning isn’t a trailblazing idea, but students tell me that they learn a tremendous amount and they have never had a class like this. I mean never.
“Alfred Adler, the famed psychologist, is said to have begun every counseling session by asking his clients to tell him about their earliest memory. They would share those memories, and not matter what their answer was, Adler would say, “And so life is.”
Mark Batterson
I learned academic collaboration filling a popsicle sleeve with water after seeing other kids do it. I recognized a good idea and wanted to know if I could apply it to my own popsicle sleeve. It worked. The book I wrote on this sabbatical is my adventure of living out that lesson.
The ideas themselves aren’t new, but the way I apply them, well, I think it can be life-changing. Lots of people travel in a motorhome, write books or take a sabbatical. We just put all those ideas together. It has certainly changed and forever bookmarked this chapter of our family life. These great idea that worked for us with our own unique twist.
And so life is.
We made it home!
Our six-month trip is ending with a stay a local state park, the very one we stayed at the night we rolled out of our driveway. (Our house is rented until Sunday.) It has been kind of amusing how different this stay is from that one.
First, our emotions are different. Then, we had frantically finished our final push to get out the house. Five pairs of hands hauled things to the RV (some quite unnecessary), and it was a disorganized mess. We felt relief to have closed the door on “home” and nervously excited to start this epic adventure. Now, we feel sorrow that the adventure of a lifetime is over, but we are starting this next chapter from a more peaceful place.
Second, our knowledge is different. Tim and I were chuckling that the first time we came here, we didn’t even know how to plug in for electricity. It’s why our maiden voyage was a bust. We pulled into a 50-amp spot (although most of the park was empty) with our 30-amp plug. We thought we needed an adapter, but we just needed a 30-amp spot. We didn’t know how to use most of our systems at that point, but now we have camped at RV resorts with cable and pools, state parks with great hiking, and rest areas with the windows open.
Third, the unknown is now known, and we have memories (and about 2,000 photos) for life. When we left, we bought AAA for RVs so we would have roadside assistance. We didn’t know if we would be stranded in our home, but we wanted to be as prepared as possible. Thankfully, we never needed it. Joshua was mechanically sound. Other than an emergency stop to replace hot, deteriorating tires we didn’t have any worries of being stranded. Instead, those tires carried us around the country to national parks, family, friends, watery rainbows and scenic sunsets. I think we will all treasure this trip for the rest of our lives.
Finally, we are ending this trip having lived a dream. In the beginning, we didn’t know if we were walking into a nightmare. Taking a trip like this has risks. We read too many signs about traffic fatalities, saw a destroyed camper next to the highway, and learned details about Tim’s cousin’s death in an accident with an RV. Those things are beyond our control, for the most part. We had bumps along the way, of course, but mountains and beaches and kind people along the way made it amazing.
Starting anything new is often like that. We start with a little nervous fear of the unknown, making stupid mistakes, and with just enough resources to go. Each day, though, we relax into the experience, gain knowledge, and widen our vision of what could be (like adding Yellowstone to the itinerary). If we are brave enough to start, what follows often exceeds our expectations. We get to do something great.
Just start.
All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.
Walt Disney
We have lots of photos of our adventures this week, but we’ll just share a few. We started Father’s Day in Idaho Falls, where the kids learned a new game at church called “Sneaky Jesus.” Hmmmm. It was a take on freeze tag.
From there we drove to West Yellowstone, Montana, where I made New York strip steaks to celebrate Father’s Day. To celebrate Tim a bit here – he hates that kind of attention – he has been our driver this entire trip, safely shuttling us from state to state. Thank you, Daddy!
The next few days we spent in Yellowstone, the very first national park. We saw Old Faithful, Mammoth Falls, geysers, hot springs and mudpots.
We saw herds of bison and bison babies, elk, and two little black bear cubs.
We boondocked next to a lake on the way to Grand Tetons National Park. This was our view as we watched the sun rise and the white pelicans take a morning swim.
After coffee with a ranger, we went to Jenny Lake with a stunning view of the Tetons. They have a boat shuttle across the lake, so Z, ZA, and I took the boat across and did a hike to Hidden Falls. Then, we hiked to Inspiration Point where we ate a picnic lunch with a friendly chipmunk.
From there we camped on Bureau of Land Management land. We should have done this sooner. Ten bucks, hook ups, and wide open spaces made this a stellar place to watch the sun set.
Next, we paused at an RV park in Rawlins, WY, to ride out a storm with gusty wind. As they say in Hawaii, no rain, no rainbows, and we were treated to a beautiful one after the storm passed. Kind of metaphorical for me with this sabbatical.
Idaho, Montana and Wyoming were this week’s states. We loved the cool weather and wide open spaces. We learned about the volcanic activity underneath this peaceful place, and we savored spring babies growing quickly before winter. This was our last vacation visit on our way home, but we’ve got a few more friends and family to see before we hit the Tennessee border.
Maybe you weren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth, but like every American, you carry a deed to 635 million acres of public lands. That’s right. Even if you don’t own a house or the latest computer on the market, you own Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and many other natural treasures.
John Garamendi
I don’t want to go home.
I really like Nashville, my job and my friends. I’m excited that my mom and my sister are in the same state, and it’s a beautiful, scenic state.
I just have enjoyed this opportunity to live two dreams simultaneously so much. I wrote a book and made a big loop across the western half of the United States with my family in a motorhome. Sigh. I hate for this to end.
Sadly, though, it’s time to go home and back to my full-time professor responsibilities. This will post on the day we will get home. Sniff. I’m not at all sad about being back home, but I am moping about leaving this extended spring, migrating to new sights and people each day.
As you can tell if you read this blog regularly, I’ve been mentally preparing (and grieving a little) for about a month. That’s how I process endings. I count down and think about it, and when it happens, I quickly shift to the next thing.
One of the interesting things that I have noticed that I am doing is figuratively packing up and cleaning up. I’ve cleared my laptop desktop to get ready for work. I’ve been clearing out and organizing my photos – 2,800 and counting from this trip, but I’ve gone back to photos from 2012 – setting up systems for work flow, and regularly seeing email inbox zero. I’ve tallied summary lists of states we visited, national parks, and people.
It has felt luxurious to have time to think and order my to do list, but I think that is how I am preparing myself to ease back into a busy schedule. It’s how I hope to make the transition easier. It’s how I am trying to keep the sabbatical pace and peace when I step back into juggling work and family. It’s how I am preparing for the transition.
Weirdly, now that the end is immanent and even though I would prefer to continue traveling in our 300 square foot home on wheels, I am ready. I am excited about teaching an intensive class next week. I am excited about starting a new play therapy podcast (something I’ve had time to plan and prepare). I am excited about interacting with students again.
I’m still nervous about losing this happy balance with family time, but I feel better equipped. Actually, I just feel better.
Really, aren’t those the best kind of endings? When you leave wiping a single tear because it hurts a little to go. When you look back because you aren’t quite ready to look ahead. When you avoid saying goodbye because you don’t want to admit that it is over. Aren’t those the best endings? It means that it was good, great even. It means it was meaningful and mattered. It means that something touched you deeply. It means that life is different, better, because of what you experienced. Yep, that’s the best kind of ending, so it must be a little sad. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be as good. I’m grateful to be sad about this ending.
God’s creation is a life-giving inhale for all of us, and Sabbath is the exhale.
Shelly Miller
The past two musing posts have been about how to keep some of the sabbatical pace when I get back home. I love the simplicity and slower pace of this sabbatical, and I want to hang on to that when I go back to “the real world.”
I determined that I wanted to limit my projects to just two to three at a time, leave open chunks of family time, and keep a flexible weekly schedule instead of an insane daily list. But to pare down and have more open spaces and flexibility, then I have to give some things up. During this trip, I’ve had the luxury of paring down hours of meetings, office hours and teaching time that are required when I get back.
I listened to a podcast recently that gathered data from teachers and learned that they average about 58 hours a week, and some much more. The data didn’t come from professors, but I suspect that most professors work well over the standard 40-hour work week, too, for many of the same reasons. Even even when not working, we think about it a lot. It isn’t that the job requires working so many hours. I can be a great professor without working around the clock. It’s just that most of us love our students so much that we really pour ourselves into our work. It’s rewarding. So, work expands to fit all the time we will dedicate to it.
The first thing I need to give up, then, is allowing work to expand past my set work boundaries. There will always be more I want to do, another email to read, or another thing I want to create to make material easier to learn. This means I need to map out my work hours and have firm ending times.
Related to that, I want to “close the shop” to use a phrase from author Brook Noel. I’ve been practicing with 7:00 in the evening, but it will have to be 8:00 or 8:30 on teaching nights. Closing the shop just means that I’m truly off-duty, including things that need to get done at home. I love this idea! It gives me a couple hours to relax before bed, and it automatically creates time to read, watch TV or play games with the kids.
Finally, the most important thing I can do is just pare down the projects. I am delighted to report that I have. As I’m prepping for the new school year, I’ve finished things and let things go without filling those spots. Some of that I did as preparation for leaving on this trip. My list is much more manageable for this school year than it has been in the past seven.
So, to keep this sabbatical pace (and peace), I’m going to create specific work hours, keep the practice of closing the shop, and keep a shorter projects list. This opens up the time and space for focusing on just a few projects, having open chunks of family time, and keeping a flexible weekly schedule. This is much more how I want to live.
Sabbatical may have just changed my life!
This week marked our official turn of the steering wheel back towards Nashville, but not without a few more fun stops on the way.
We left Washington and dipped back into Oregon to see Multnomah Falls. We didn’t get to that on the way north, and it was mostly on our way. The falls were pretty, but the thermometer was rising and we prefer to be cool weather travelers.
We crossed Eastern Oregon quickly, already missing the Pacific breezes. Tim had a teenage memory of visiting Emmett, Idaho, so we stopped in the small town, plugged in, and turned on the air conditioning. We landed there for a couple of days. Aside from a walk-up burger and shakes meal at Roe Ann’s with prices from the ‘80’s (when he last ate there), we enjoyed a couple of afternoons at the library with librarians who clearly love their work. Let me just say again that we love local libraries!
Idaho has been the most surprising state on this entire trip. I didn’t know much about the state other than its reputation for producing tons of spuds and snow for skiing. Sometimes, Idaho has the record for coldest temperature in the continental United States. Brrr! But like my misconception about deserts always being hot, Idaho isn’t always cold. The other three seasons are pretty amazing.
It’s still full spring here, and spring is beautiful. Yes, we have been enjoying spring since February, our longest spring ever. The sun doesn’t set until nearly 10 p.m. this time of year, giving us luxuriously long days.
Another Idaho surprise was Craters of the Moon National Monument. We’d never heard of it before, but the host at the visitor center suggested it as a must see on our route to Yellowstone, so we stopped to see. I’m so glad we visited with him because he was right.
A lava rock moonscape eerily stretched for miles. We hiked the unusual geology, created by lava bubbling up from fissures, not a volcano. The highlight for the kids were the lava tubes, where we scrambled over rocks so much that we were all pretty sore and slow the next day. After earning their junior ranger badges, the kids hiked them again without a single complaint of being too tired. The highlight of the day was meeting new friends from the Netherlands.
We drove through Sun Valley and then finished the week in Idaho Falls. A recurring thought for Tim and me all week was, “We could live here!” Who knew Idaho had so much that we liked? (Don’t worry, Mom, we aren’t planning to move… to Idaho.)
Next week we’re planning Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, so check back next Friday for our next update.
Sabbatical Space 