Gypsy Mom Ready to roll – NOW

My little ugly trailer will arrive.

It has a new holding tank and the oven, range & plumbing are in working order. It needs a new ventilation fan and flooring. The fabric on the cushions is in good shape, but that won’t stop me from recovering them with something pretty and.. me. I’m severely inspired by Justin & Tara’s work on Benny (and the fact that they named their camper)

I can’t wait to get the damned thing into my yard and start tearing it up. My husband isn’t down with it. He wants a big, full-sized camper. A Class A. I just want to be mobile. If I end up naming her, maybe it will be Tallulah. She’s a girl. because she’s mine. He’s not into renovating and fixing things, everything we’ve ever had has been a fixer-upper. He’s done with that:) I just want to sand and scrape and recover and paint and take things apart and put them back together. I want her to sparkle and shine and I want shimmery beads and curtains and woven fabrics and… well… gypsy stuff.

I’m glad he’s handy because I’m sure that if I do something stupid or dangerous he won’t let me get away with it. Plus, he likes to hang out with me, so if I’m out there working on it, I know he will step in to help me out. I like hanging out with him, too And I love that he wants us to have a class A, because so do I. I know we’ll get one, probably in the next few months, I just had to do SOMETHING. And the price was right (less than $200)

I have gathered up supplies for redecorating
1. fabric I bought that I don’t know what to do with
2. spare paints that are less than 1/2 gallon
3. tons of sandpaper
4. an old Lowe’s gift card for flooring
5. tools (Ok they’re not gathered, but they’re handy

Now, all I need is for the DMV to open so that the guy I bought it from can get a trip permit and haul it over here.

Today, it’s all about the art. I just want to make it pretty and feel like I’m DOING something toward “life on the road.” to be honest, though, when it’s done, it will still be a bit small for our family, so I might just sell it. Who knows. I can’t wait to post the before pictures. Aww who am I kidding, I promise I’ll take before pictures, but probably the last thing I’ll be doing is rushing to post them. I’ll probably lock myself inside and come out when it’s done.

And the adventure begins…

We’re already breaking the mold since our children have never been to school, but looking forward to road-schooling is an entirely different issue.

Or is it?

When we first started homeschooling, I was stumped by people’s initial impression that we’d be “doing school at the dining room table.” I mean, why the heck would we duplicate a classroom’s methods at home, when learning is a NATURAL thing? I was surprised how many people “didn’t get” that we could learn from the world, not from books about the world. facing a real-life-road-tripping experience has me realizing that soon we really will be using the world (Or the sea, or the US) as our classroom. Awesome

I have a couple of favorite quotes that sum up our educational philosophy;

1- Children learn by asking questions, not by answering them

2- It’s not our job to prepare children for life, we just need to let them live

I could probably write pages and pages explaining those two statements, but that’s not why I’m here today. I wanted to log this train of thought somewhere I won’t lose it talk about road-schooling and open a discussion about the value of true experiences and passionate exploration over workbooks and curricula with an obvious political and social agenda.

So- what are your thoughts on Road Schooling; Unschooling in an RV, like the fictitious Wright Family? or perhaps a boat?

I’ve found several resources for free RV campsites, free places to spend the night in your RV.

Dangerous Free RV Campsites

First of all, avoid highway rest stops. “Bad guys,” the pirates of the open road, can be anywhere. They park next to you, rob you blind (or worse) and then just drive away while your head is still spinning.  It’s not smart.  Some rest stops have security. If you choose to stop, introduce yourself to the security guard and possibly leave him a tip, if you feel comfortable doing so.  Ask him how safe it is.  It’s better than finding out too late.  The presence of a security guard doesn’t necessarily mean that the area is dangerous.

Directory of Free Campgrounds

At Free Campgrounds.com they list parks where overnight stay is $10 or less.  In my book that’s free. Searching the database is easy and the site refers to unofficial and free overnight parking as  “boondocking” and also keeps a warning list of Wal Marts that don’t allow free overnight parking.  The site is built on user reviews and listings, so when you browse, you can see personal testimonials and warnings from other RV travelers.

Free RV Park Listings (not a list of Free RV Parks)

Unfortunately sometimes useless RV travel information, like www.rv-travel.info comes through, too. (I didn’t want to give them the honor of a clickable link) This site uses the word “free” all over the place, but doesn’t really list free RV parks, it lists RV parks for free.  Which is basically junk.  There are ten million lists of RV Parks and consumers don’t really care what the business paid to be on the list. Do you?   So this website is capitalizing on the consumer’s hope that they’ll find free RV parks and the RV park’s hope that maybe they will find customers for free. How does the website capitalize? Because when readers get annoyed, they end up clicking on an ad that tells them that they will find a free RV camp, a guide to 10,000 free RV camps, or an RV campsite that’s advertising on the page.  The site (like mine and every other site with google ads) gets paid when people click on the ads. Sites like this make suckers of the consumer (because the website gets paid for adclicks) and also makes suckers of the RV Park (their name is on the page and they’re probably paying to advertise on it, if they use keyword based advertising)

Free RV Camping in exchange for Working

This site, The Happy Vagabonds is absolutely genius, it lists places where you can live in your RV for free or discount, in exchange for full or partial space rental.  Some major campgrounds are listed, I saw a KOA job listing that gives the worker 5 free nights to stay at a KOA camps along the way. When they arrive, their job is to keep bathrooms & laundry rooms clean and take out trash in common areas, in exchange for free RV campsite.  Other jobs listed are in State Parks and National Parks.

Best Free RV campsite directory

So far the easiest one to use (just click on the state and it brings up a list, with a pinpoint map from google) is Freecampsites.net. Clearly, when you camp for free you’re not going to get hookups, so you’d want a decent map so you can either choose pay camps in between free camps, or locate the nearest dump station.

Finally, I found a great article about how to FIND free RV camping and places to park overnight for free.  It gives you the scoop on the Bureau of Land Management camping and a little introduction to things like slab city.  Another focuses on the USFS dispersed camping.

This year, we’re outta here.

Boat or RV, we’re leaving.

No more crappy rented house.

No more stupid little town.

No more trapped-by-stuff.

Instead, this year is the year of

Exploring

Investigating

Learning

Being together

Being somewhere else

Being wherever we want

Meeting new people

Making friends all over the country

Making peace with my gypsy heart, and going to bed each night knowing that I am collecting friends, knowledge, experiences and fun memories with my kids.

This is the year we make our escape.

2010.

The dreaming, wishing and fantasizing is over. 2010 is here.  Happy new Year, fellow travelers.