When the Peanut Butter hits the wall

Today is Thanksgiving, our first holiday in the camper. First, I just want to tell you how thankful we are for your support. It means the world to us that you read our posts and send your love! Second, we want to invite you in for the good, the bad, and the ugly. This isn’t gonna be the highlight reel folks, we’re gonna bare all and pray for grace! I thought today would be the perfect day to share this story because who doesn’t love some juicy drama over the holidays?

Day 6 of our road trip we started to fall apart (unfortunately that is not a typo). We had been physically living in our camper for almost four months but just started on our highly anticipated trip that was planned to last an additional eight months. Lord please help me, I just said that we started to fall apart on day 6 of a 240-day trip.

Let’s paint a picture of day 5 so you can see how quickly the atmosphere changed. We had arrived at our second stop the day before the blow up and things were fantastic. I had dreamed of visiting Vermont in the fall since our first trip out East a couple years ago and we were able to make it happen as a kick-off to our new adventure. Leaves were just starting to turn on the trees giving little peaks of yellow, red, and orange. The sun was shining bright and the weather was a warm 75 degrees. If you know me personally, you know that I live for warm sunny days. Those days are my love language! I wholeheartedly thought that summer was my favorite season until I got out East in the fall. It was then that I realized I had answered all those favorite season polls with a lie my entire life. Sorry kindergarten friends!

To make our fantastic new stop better, I found a chamber event on Facebook that included wine, craft beer, and samples of food from local restaurants. I like wine, he likes craft beer, everyone loves food. We set the camper up, changed out of our road clothes, and climbed back in the truck for a day date. Beautiful weather, cute small town, a little time alone as a couple. We were on cloud 9 thinking we were nailing this full-time travel gig. Event ends, we grab the kids some dinner from the grocery store and head back. Our night is good because…wine, craft beer, food, time alone. The sun sets on day 5.

Day 6 does not follow suit. When we moved into our camper in May we didn’t actually spend that much time in it. The hubs and I were still working full-time and we were parked at my Dad’s, so the kids were hanging out in grandpa’s house or running around the farm. Now that we are all using the camper as a primary launching pad, it gets a little crowded. We are not used to spending every second of the day under the watchful eye of four other people and pressure causes stress.

To say that this living situation comes with a learning curve would be an understatement. We quickly learned that we all use too many words. Katherine Applegate explained it like this in One and Only Ivan: “Humans speak too much. They chatter like chimps, crowding the world with their noise even when they have nothing to say.” The hubs was sitting at the table and I was standing by the sink. We chattered like chimps and used WAY. TOO. MANY. WORDS.

Crumby internet, (which we have learned happens at most every campground in this beautiful country), was the start and it spiraled out of control faster than a nine-year-old in a Lego store. He was trying to find our next campground and do a little work on the side. It was Sunday. I had visions of our family biking around the campground with smiles on our faces and rarely ever using technology, especially on the weekends. If you’re thinking, “wow, she has some unrealistic views,” I’m fully aware of my shortcomings at this point in the game so no need to give me advice on that now. Where were you realistic people before we left though??

Words are being flung at each other, the kids are sitting in their bedroom pretending they don’t hear us, the neighbors are probably getting ready to call in the domestic. He says, “I hate this life!” I fire back with a loud, “I hate you! I knew we should have never done this!” That’s when the peanut butter hits the wall. I grab the peanut butter from the counter and chuck it as hard as I can. I miss the window by about an inch. It makes a loud BAM and falls to the floor. It wasn’t organic peanut butter either, it was the Reese’s spread. There isn’t one good thing going on right now.

A look of shock comes over both of us. I’ve been known to lose my temper a time or two because I have a habit of letting things build up until they explode but I don’t typically throw anything around besides words. I then retreat to our bedroom and ugly cry. I feel defeated. Everything I said, I regret. I’m barely breathing and I’m wondering how in the heck we are ever going to make it 8 months when we can’t even make it 8 days.

After a few minutes the hubs does come in and lay next to me. We laid in silence for a what seemed like a month of Sundays. After the cool down period we both apologized. Then we laughed. The scenery is angelic, but the ins and outs of life definitely has some ugly spots!