Here we go!
Quick side note: We are keeping a pretty detailed Instagram Story feed going with tons of photos. You can see the highlights HERE (on Sarah’s profile).
Day 1 of our Weddingmoon adventure was a blur. It’s hilarious to me how much there is to do in preparation for simply leaving home for a couple of weeks. But then again, it’s been 8 years (almost exactly) since I last went on tour, after touring regularly for the 10 years before that. I was pretty good at “up and going” back then, but I have since settled quite comfortably into home life. I have grown fond of the routines, systems, and simple comforts of everyday life off the road.
So Day 1 was a blur and we barely made it out of the house about 2 hours later than we wanted to leave. God bless Jeremy’s patience with me. Everything in its right place! No, not like that! Wait, I think I can make it all fit even better. Lord have mercy. I hope this guy still wants to marry me by the time we get to Yosemite.
On the way out of town, we stopped by Crema Roastery + Takeaway for a couple of spice-y oat milk lattes made possible by a “local coffee” donation from our friend Mel. Our grocery haul in Memphis was paid-for with donations from our friends Jill, Megan, Mel, Cara, and Brian. Our friend Joe topped off the gas tank outside of Memphis, and thank goodness because we found ourselves in a two-hour traffic jam in Arkansas that inspired some pretty hilarious car games. Jeremy narrowly won at “Alphabet,” and then we played one of our favorite games — which I think Jeremy actually made up??? It’s a word association game but the goal is to end up on the same word. And instead of taking turns, you shout out the words at the same time. This one has us belly laughing every time because it shows how differently our brains process and brainstorm things, but here was a round where we actually did a pretty good job:
[ LINK: https://youtu.be/kaPy2hLsaK8 ]
As much as we were laughing at this point, we were also feeling stressed about getting so far behind schedule and being somewhat unprepared for our first night in the teardrop camper. The hours crept by, and our ETA changed from 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM to 8:00 PM. We stopped one last time for gas, topping off the tank with the help of our neighbors Heather and Jonathan. Realizing we had forgotten our iron skillet at home, we also swung by a Cracker Barrel and picked up a new one with a “supplies” donation from my coworker Elizabeth. Priorities!
Finally we pulled into what we thought was our RV campground around 8:30 PM, with our very confusing instructions from the reservation confirmation email. After driving around a couple of times and surprising some unsuspecting campers, we discovered that our itinerary details did not match our reservation email, and we were in the wrong place. Our actual campground was about 20 minutes away! With growling stomachs and rising stress levels, we made our way to our actual campsite, arriving around 9:00 PM. At this point we probably should have just crashed in the back seat of the van, but we were determined to try out this new camper and eat some FOOD, so we powered through, got the camper level, and popped open the galley.
While Jeremy whipped up a fried rice dinner with olive oil, rice, cashews, chickpeas, bok choy, and liquid aminos, I scurried around trying to find a place for everything to go, thinking through the systems that would make setting up and tearing down faster and easier in the days to come. Everything in its right place!
Dinner was delicious and we finally hit the hay around 11:30. Then we woke up to this:
It always works out in the end. Doesn’t it?
Onto Day 2!