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They Quit Great Jobs, Pulled Their Kids from School & Hit the Road · High Five Hot Mess Podcast

• High Five Hot Mess Podcast: If anything, it talks to like how brave you are and how you say yes to like all of these things. So you are in your early forties and your husband's in his early forties. Your kids are five and seven. You quit really well paying jobs for most people. That would have been one of the answer became no. You had great paying jobs. You pulled your kids out of school and you hit the road. You went van life like all in a hundred percent. ⁓ and that is, that's a lot, but I got to, I got to ask like, why, like, what was, what was the big motivating driver in that? So we had that dream for over 10 years, almost immediately when we started getting serious in our relationship. When we, after, you know, we go from dating to like, ⁓ this is, this might be my person. We started. dreaming of this life where we are on the road and we're like, we did a lot of outdoor activities. used to go, ⁓ rock climbing and ice climbing and skiing and, ⁓ hiking a lot. And so I think naturally we were like, ⁓ wouldn't it be great if we could just van life it. But he and I are both very practical people and I have a frugal bone that I was born with. I saved every penny that I got and never spent it on anything. And as an adult, that natural inclination combined with ⁓ having this period of my life where I was like so poor and just so afraid of. debt because I didn't know how I would ever pay it off if I accrued it. just living on a shoestring. I had this knee-jerk reaction to spending money that was like, no, we can't do it. ⁓ my husband did not. And he really struggled. to find the logic in it. Well, he was a practical person. He was like, ⁓ life's for living. Why are we pausing it? Because you're afraid to spend a dime. He found this blogger called Mr. Money Mustache. And this man would write about how he reduced his cost of living in order to save up money and eventually achieve what is now known as ⁓ financial freedom, also called the fire movement, which I think is financially independent, retire early. He infused logic. Also, he's an engineer. My husband's an engineer, so you know this. He infused logic into the situation of why you would want to save money in the way that I naturally did. And so at that point was like, okay, I should get on board with this money saving thing if we have a goal that we're going to spend the savings on. And of course I was like, that's where the light bulb went off for him. He was like, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to save, save, save. And then we're going to do something big. And you were like, Because it was way out there. It was way out there. And I was like, in my head, I was like, ⁓ that money is for when we all lose our jobs and the world comes crashing down again and we can only eat free apples from the hotel in the morning. Like that's, that's when that money is for, but okay, sure. We'll save it up for a dream. And it was fun to like, make this goal together and create a target savings number and work towards it. And it was fun to figure out how to live in a way that coincided with our values and that felt like we were actually living. But also kind of felt like we were gaming the system too, because we're like, we get to live and experience life and be happy, even though we don't have all these consumer things. And in American culture, that feels like you're bucking the trend. I mean, that is like, look, that is how they're selling everyone on van life. Right. It's this whole like financial independence, financial freedom. Don't you know, the nine to five is this chore. as somebody who is a little more pragmatic and does not have money problems as a child, I will say that I was like, mine was you have to work and you have to save so that you can retire one day. but working is non-negotiable. So you guys kind of like bucked it out. Like again, like you did throughout your whole life, you know, and I've gotten lots of questions on Hillary's episode on how she went from job to job and why she did all that. So here's what I'm gonna tell you guys. If you want more questions answered on Hillary's main episode, go to YouTube, watch it. If you haven't watched it, subscribe to the podcast. Watch it on, listen to it on Apple, send us comments. we will do another episode that walks everyone through like how she decided to do this or that or this direction or that direction. But that philosophy is very much alive. The bravery philosophy is very much alive when you guys decide to just like, like get in a van. And I'll let you guys know, like I went to their wedding. I was a big part of Hillary and her husband's wedding before the kids came along. And I remember in their vows, that they promised to be each other's Sherpa and to travel the world. And I remember distinctly, my husband looking at me and he's like, they're not gonna work. They're just gonna travel the world. But here's why, like my husband values intelligence very much like me. And he thinks that Hillary and her husband are two of the smartest people he's ever met. And they had amazing jobs that people would like work their whole life to get. So I'm going to take us from like, you guys were planning this from like 2010 until you actually like said, hey, this is really going to happen. We're going to do this. And at the time, you know, kids had come into the picture. You were living this great life, you know, in Oregon, you had a community, had lots of friends and you were, you came to Las Vegas and you were talking to me and said, okay, so listen. we are going to quit our jobs, we're going to pull the kids out of school, and we're going to go travel the country in our trailer, in our truck, in our RV. And I remember really controlling myself and being like, you know what? If that is what is going to make you happy and make you feel fulfilled, you got to take it, you got to go for it. And I remember me breaking the news to Doug, and he was like, not happy about it at all, but I trusted you to know what was best for you, right? And I can't imagine that this conversation went that easily with other people. So what did people say when you told them? Like what was the most guttural reaction? So parents come to mind first because they also had a very loving but worried, you know, train of thought when we told them this and my parents much like you were like, no, you have to work. And they absolutely could not see how this was an option for life. And they struggled with it. And we were like, we can't worry about it because they'll see when we're doing it. It's all okay. But my mom did worry about me a lot. If my dad worried about me, he kept it to himself. and now that it's all over, they tell us how proud they are. What about the other moms that were in your mom group that you were like your little network in Oregon? was that? They were, they, ⁓ my friends in Oregon, they were so sad and I was so sad too. They're like, you're leaving me, which is a great reaction because I also thought I'm leaving them. And that was one of the scariest parts of it for me was leaving. these, this community that I had built and this mom's support group that I had and these friends that, you know, if I was having a big day and needed some time to myself, but I could send my kids to them and I trusted them and I knew my kids would be safe and happy and they'd be having fun with their kids. the same for them. If they needed anything, they knew I was there and I was taking that away from them. And I was taking that away from me. And ⁓ and it was just sad all around and they were so kind though. And they would ask all the questions of the, you know, about cure, just curiosity. They, they were staying curious about it whilst also being sad. ⁓ my, my husband's parents, I think their reaction was the best, ⁓ cause they were very supportive. They are. lovely people and they just think he's so smart and wonderful and I hope that when my kids are adults I look at them like they look at him like they're just like ⁓ how smart are you ⁓ what a good idea to just about everything and ⁓ and so we tell him this and they're like ⁓ you guys really know how to live like and of course they were all so worried and they asked a lot of questions but they're like We're so excited for you." that actually surprised me the most because I think their reaction was just not what I was expecting. I was expecting them to be worried and us to have to explain it and give them comfort. they immediately were just like, you're brilliant. Tell us more. I think that that's great. So before I continue this, welcome to the High Five Hot Mess podcast. Oh yeah. It's me, Hillary, back again. But we're talking about her van life because I just can't believe I missed that in the first episode. Again, we might have a trilogy with Hillary because her life has been so dynamic. But I want to tell you, so I broke the news to Doug. So Doug and I don't think anybody could love Hillary more than how much Doug does. He was just like... like, I need to talk to her. He had like a million questions that I'm sure most people have. So one, who's going to teach your kids because that's crazy. Two, how are you going to make money? How are you going to earn money while you're on the road? This is crazy. Let me get you a job. Let me give you something you can do remotely so that you're working. What are you going to do about health insurance? You've got to health insurance. What do you like? Some hippie in a van? You're just going to put some mud on it? You've got to have health insurance. I think he even said, your husband making you do this? He was upset. So I probably want to get into like all of those things we just brought up. So one, the idea that you guys had well-paying jobs that you you quit. It wasn't like you guys decided on Monday to throw the kids in the van and like go buy an RV and travel. So you saved from like 2010 until you went in 2023. Yes. Yes. Yeah. saved and we saved a lot and we hit, we had all along the way, we had a financial target and pre-kids, the financial target was much different than post-kids. Yeah. So, and obviously we didn't do the trip pre-kids. Yeah. So once we had the kids, the goalpost shifted and we were like, ⁓ we have to save more money now because we have these little lives that we've we've got to make sure are taken care of. so we kept saving, kept saving, kept saving. And then the only time that we would go on a date was once a month. We would go to this pizza restaurant during happy hour where we had a punch card and we would get like a free slice of pizza when we got the punch card filled out. We'd each get a beer, we'd get our pizza, and this was our date. Once a month we went to this pizza place while the kids were in school. And so it's like a daytime date also. ⁓ I'm telling you this to demonstrate the frugality of even our date nights. But, and then we would sit down with a binder that we were keeping. that had all of our expenses, all of our income, ⁓ all of our assets, like our car and our house. And we looked at how much money we had. And then we looked at what is it that we're trying to do. And at that time, because we had two kids, we decided we were going to buy a truck and a travel trailer, which is like a pull behind kind of camper. that you see so that we would have enough space and we would talk about at these dates, which I learned later after we stopped traveling that it's not really a date. It's like a business meeting with your partner. But that's for another day. but at these dates, we would go over our financial target and then our goals for how we were going to improve our savings or reduce our expenses ⁓ or like if we wanted to go ahead and start buying something or looking into like when's the right time to buy the travel trailer. So we hit our financial goal. you comfortable sharing what that target goal was the number? Honestly, I don't remember. Okay, so So we were very conservative. Well, and this is, think I need to, I need to right size this in my head. So hopefully the listener will not mind. to me, when I'm hearing, I need to cut back. That means I, and I'm being as honest as I can, so don't be mad at me, but that means I, I don't go to the spa. That means that I don't buy new clothes. If I'm grocery shopping, I don't buy like stuff that. isn't absolutely necessary to feed us. But I still buy brand names. I still buy the laundry detergent that I always want to use. I buy the hair products that I want to use. I just cut out the extras. But you owned a home. You guys had a mortgage on your house. You were paying for Montessori for your kids, which will come up later. Paying for Montessori for your kids. 13 years. But we, because we are very practical, we wanted to make sure that we had enough money to do the trip that we wanted to do in the way that we wanted to do it. And that if we couldn't get jobs when we got back, or if the jobs that we got were not at the same level that they were before we left, that we'd still be okay. We wanted to have enough money to make sure that you know, the trip was taken care of, but also afterwards, we didn't know what that would look like. And so, and we were like, let's just go ahead and plan for the worst. That's amazing. So, so in order to make that happen, what did you have to give up? Like, cause it's, I want to be as specific as possible so that we're, none of us are out here fantasizing about throwing our kids in a van and hitting the road because we didn't buy Slurpees or whatever Starbucks. What did you have to give up in order to make that happen? You know, I gave up some pretty big things that my other peers at the time, especially people that were like friends that we had made through work ⁓ because we did, we were in higher paying jobs. So we're our friends and coworkers, which is like such a blessing for everyone. ⁓ But also like we were like, ⁓ we can't live. at the same level that they are living at. And so sometimes some shame came with that for me because I would like, I felt like I wasn't... Give me an example, Hillary. I think the best example I have is just going to a friend's house and they have like this wide assortment of beverages to entertain people with. Maybe they have like different types of wines that they might have gotten from wineries that they visited. They had different types of liquors because their husband was like into whiskeys and like to taste different ones. They might have the fridge stocked with like kombucha or La Croix. The sparkling waters, you know. And at our house, if you came to visit us, if I had orange juice, like That was a big deal. There must have been a party that week. I might have like a six pack of of like weirdly assorted beers and maybe a bottle of cheap wine. And I would go to their houses and just be like, I can't do this. And after a while, it did take a toll on me to the point where it was like only inviting people over that were really close to me and that I knew would love me no matter if I had orange juice or not. you and, but I didn't, don't think I realized it at the time. Like I definitely felt, you know, like, ⁓ I can't do that. know, but talk to me about something Hillary that I want to share because I think you, I think you were more aware of it than you actually thought you were. So Yeah. I remember we were having a conversation and you were telling me that you went over to your friend's house and they bought a new house and how it was and how awesome it was. And you're like, you know, it's really hard for me because I really want that for me and I want it for my kids and I want to be able to have a big yard and I want to be able to have all those things. But I can't because we're taking this trip. And even then that was still years ago. I think the kids were like, like, one and a little. They were very little little babies and I remember thinking like I don't think I could do that. It was, yeah. two friends that bought these gorgeous houses. ⁓ they were so beautiful and I was like we could buy one of those if we weren't going on this trip. Like I think that's what we would maybe do with this money if we weren't. going on this trip, would get a bigger, fancier house in a better school district. And, ⁓ and I, I was sad about it a little bit, but I also realized that we were, we were going after something that, you know, our friends, I don't think anyone was ever jealous of us over it, but I think they were proud of us. And I think they appreciated that we lived our lives in that way for a little period of time and that we connected with our family and we got to spend that time with each other. That's the part that I thought was it. So I had talked to your husband, I talked to your husband and when I asked him what he was hoping to get out of the trip, he said, I want my kids. to realize that their entire environment could change and they're always gonna be fine. Like the more that they learn that just because you have things or you live in a certain place or you have certain securities that afford you like a house and food and school and they could have none of that and still be fine. And I thought that was really awesome. Cause I was like that is... I understood his motivation at that moment. I was like, this makes sense to me. ⁓ I think that was the first time I was ever really okay with it. Because I was very worried about you. kept sending Hillary all... So they went, and we'll talk about the trip in a minute. I promise we're going to talk about all of it. I kept sending her, they were going to all these national parks and that's really where you guys spent a majority of your time. episode of people are getting murdered and dying in national parks TV shows, podcasts. I'm so worried that her or these kids that love so much where you get murdered by serial killers. So, okay. you know, it came from love. It did. It did. And I knew it. I knew it every time. And I also enjoyed those podcasts. And, you know, it made me aware of the dangers of serial killers in national parks, which is actually pretty low. you know, not a whole lot people die that way, but it does happen. Let's talk about the kids because the kids were a big part of this whole like, like I don't, I don't think I, from my own perspective, I didn't, I never imagined in a million years, like the journey with the kids as it ended up being with the kids, right? Like, So, you pulled your kids out of school and they were in Montessori their whole life. I remember Hillary talking to me when her daughter, her oldest child, her daughter was getting into Montessori and how jazz you were about it because it was like this experience. And again, I want to reiterate, Hillary and her husband are two of the most intelligent people I've ever met. So they've got these two super smart kids that are like, we're gonna have super smarty kids and they're gonna, you I don't know, maybe like invent plastic eating fish. Like, I don't know, something really cool and not a story. And as someone who had no children and did not really get the whole like, like, why aren't they just going to public school? Like, I didn't get it at all. But we went on that journey. So you and your husband were both like, we'll just homeschool. And it will be fine. And so what did you learn about your kids and their education when you guys went on the road and you be responsible for homeschooling that? husband's family is, ⁓ they're all so smart. He, his parents did such a good job with their kids education and they raised two engineers and a doctor and they're all lovely people and everyone's just so smart and they put their kids in Montessori school and they did Montessori school through part of elementary school. We thought everything was going really well and we hit the road and we realized my son is five years old. He should be in kindergarten. He's in kindergarten. He's in homeschool kindergarten now and he cannot say the ABCs. We spent the first month on the road just singing the ABCs every time we got into the truck, we sang the ABCs. So it took him a month to learn the ABCs and it took us a while. We thought he was just messing with us at first because he's a five year old. every five years. I think, I don't know how old you are when you learn the ABCs, but it's before five. we were like, ⁓ okay. Turns out his interest is art. And he just drew pictures and did whatever art things they would let him do. And he didn't learn anything academically at Montessori school. And then it turns out my daughter actually really loves to learn. However, she is dyslexic and we did not know that until she went to public school and her second, her first grade teacher was like, something's not right. ⁓ Keep an eye on this. She's reversing letters. She can't read and she's seven and like that's not normal either. Like some kids learn to read late, but she... I remember when this conversation happened. Yeah. And I'm going to tell you guys because I have to just, we got to come as clean as possible. So I remember that Hillary and her husband had this very hard conversation. with her daughter's teacher, but it really felt like she was blowing it all out of proportion. Like she is making it like, she's telling me my kid has a learning disability and she's, there's no way, there's no way we would know and you know, blah, blah, blah. And so I remember that conversation. And then I remember that when you guys were here for Thanksgiving, when we had the real, so there was a... thing that had happened on the car on the way here. So you guys were maybe four or five months in. So it was still kind of in the very beginning. And she had written a letter to us. But when you held it up, it was completely backwards. And I was like- mirror image. You wrote like that on it. was the, are you a witch? I was like, that's like witchcraft. But I was like- was the wildest thing. It's the wildest- if you've never seen it and that's when you really were like, okay, this is serious. This is a real learning disability that no one told you about. You were prepared to homeschool your incredibly brilliant, exciting children. You probably weren't ready to homeschool with a son who did not want to do it because he just wanted to draw pictures all day and a daughter who had severe dyslexia, right? How did you adjust? So first of all, it is very humbling to go from someone else teaching your child to teaching your child yourself because you realize, like, you know, you know it's a hard job just from, think everybody knows teaching children, teaching anyone is a hard job. You know it instinctively because everybody's tried to teach someone something and struggled with it, but also like, We just hear that message all the time too. ⁓ teachers, it's such a hard job. They're not joking. ⁓ And you give teachers this like praise and they hold this higher. ⁓ They're kind of put on a pedestal in your head when you are a parent and you see your child growing underneath them, growing under their care. when they're not growing or when they're still, you know, a year into school and writing paragraphs in mirror image. Can't spell, can't read. And you're like, what's going on? Still that teacher is up on a pedestal, but you're like, is it the teacher? Is it the what's happening? And then I start teaching her how to read. I look, I do. all the research on homeschool products and what's going to be the most, give us the most chance of success for her learning how to read with the fewest tears because she hated reading. And I got the book, I got the curriculum, would drive the truck. We would be driving from place to place and I would be sitting in the back of the truck with the kids doing their reading lessons with them. They were crying, they hated it, they never wanted to do it, it was so painful. I would get so exhausted from the 30 minutes to an hour that I was teaching them that I, it was like I got hit by a tranquilizer dart when I was done every day. I thought something was medically wrong with me, but it was just exhaustion from trying to school them. And by the time we reached you at Thanksgiving, I was like, this can't be right. based on all the reviews that I saw from all these homeschool curriculum things. Like, I didn't think it would be a cake walk, but this is crazy. This is too hard. And we talked about, you and I talked about, you know, what the teacher said. And I was like in distress too, because I was like, I think she might be dyslexic, but I don't know. And like, maybe she's not that dyslexic. Maybe it's just because of her age, because she was still in this age range where it's like, You can't really tell with a seven-year-old if they're dyslexic or not yet. Sometimes they, turns out they have tests for that and you encouraged me to just get it done so that I could, it was expensive. We had to schedule it. You let us stay at your house for a month so that we could get this thing scheduled and get her testing done. And she is dyslexic and we got her tutoring and she got tutoring on the road with a specialist for three months. We completely changed the curriculum that she was using. And this kid loves reading so much that she is now, she is in fourth grade. She's nine years old and she reads above a 12th grade level. Her teacher showed us her test scores. ⁓ Her teacher showed us her standardized test scores. She's like, you're going to see some dips. They do a lot of testing at the school she's in now. There's five or six different marks for how she was doing throughout the year. She's like, you're going to see some dips and some up and down. She's like, what I really want you to take away from this is that she's at the very top of the chart. She can't get scores higher than what she's getting. So all that fluctuation up there doesn't mean anything. Like basically just she's beyond the testing range that we have available for her. And that was incredible. So that's a beauty of homeschool is that you can like dig in on where your child needs more help or where they're thriving and have lots of interests and want to do more of. But it was also just incredibly hard and I was like, we're not cut out for this. Like, I don't know how to teach a dyslexic child how to read. it was so hard. was hard to watch. Like, remember, I want to just point to give a shout out, her kids are super, super smart. Like one of her daughter, loves Greek mythology. And I was just messing around with her one day and I was like, and she's just watching TV, putting up with me asking her questions. She was watching TV and she was seven at the time. And I said, hey, ⁓ you know, who is your favorite mythological woman? And she was like, Artemis. And I was like, why Artemis? She's like, because she's goddess of war. Like I'm an idiot. I'm like, what about And she stops and she's like, Hecate? And then she goes on this full rant about why Hecate should not be in the top, like you guys off the top of her head. So like, I didn't even learn that in high school. That was college for me. And she has it all like super, super like off the charts, super smart, super sweet. and your son is just a hoot and he is a very talented artist. But I think just from the person observing that did not have a dog in the fight, I felt like I think that everyone in the van thought that they were going to be able to live like this very luxurious life of like not having to be anywhere by a certain time, like getting up when you want to get up, I'm going to drink my coffee. I mean, that's what people think is going to happen. And then you're like, oh, and we'll set up from two to four every day for school. And then the kids will go to the national parks and they'll get their badges into the national park books, right? Because they'll learn about the parks. And that's the whole thing, if you don't know. And that is not what happened at all because the kids really thought they were on vacation. Like they felt like they were on vacation because they weren't going to school every day and they didn't have anywhere they had to be by a certain time. Like the parents didn't really think out like, okay, half or more of our days that we have on the road are going to be teaching our children. Not like living our best life, like walking around, you know, the national parks and enjoying this freedom that we have. It's going to be teaching our children. And I felt like that was a hard adjustment for everybody. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. They were not. The kids. had no interest in us being their teachers. Which is the piece of advice that I get to everyone who's like, ⁓ you homeschooled. Did you like it? I've been thinking about doing this with my kids. And like, ⁓ buckle up, baby. Because if you haven't been, if you have not trained them from a young age to look at you like you are their teacher and your small segments of your day are meant to be spent with you teaching them a very specific lesson, which you can do. You know, as soon as they're babies and toddlers, you just set aside a little bit of time every day, if you want to homeschool, set aside a little bit of time every day where you put your teacher hat on, they put their student hat on. And you they learn from a very early age that you are not just your mother, their mother or their father, you are also their teacher. And that's a different space. and you act a different way when that is happening. My kids didn't have that. We were their parents, we were their friends, we were people that discipline them sometimes, but we certainly did not make them sit still and learn something. but you also, I'm proud of you, Lori, because you guys also switched, right? So like, think that, you know, that's the dynamic and we'll talk about like what it's like to live with everyone you love. like within a hand reach for two years or however long that you were on the road, because that's a whole other vibe. But you and your husband really started out with this ideology about what you were each going to do and what your roles were. But this homeschooling thing threw everything off, right? Because you were as caring and sweet and as sensitive as you are. It was killing you. The homeschooling was not your jam. And to your credit, you and your husband worked it out where he was doing the homeschooling. that changed the whole vibe. But I do want to share one morning, ⁓ you were somewhere. I don't know why I was here with your kids and my husband and your husband, and you weren't here. don't remember. Maybe you were out touching some grass. And ⁓ I remember your husband is sitting there with your kids like... trying to get them to focus and your son is like up on a chair like flinging pancakes above his head. And then your daughter's like, don't know, two more minutes. I'll answer one more question than I've done. Like bargaining with your husband. Doug was so upset. He had to get up and go outside. He was like, I remember like that night when you guys had all gone to bed, he was like, I don't know how they're doing this. I would have quit like day one. I would have been like, you're going back to school and I'm going back to work and we're all happy. But I think, I mean, I think that it's, you would not have the lesson I walked away with with all of this was that had you not done that homeschooling yourself, when you did it, you would not have caught that your kids were grossly behind where you thought they were at the time or where they like statistically should have been. I mean, That's important. It is important. I don't think my daughter would have had, I don't think she would have gotten her dyslexia diagnosis, at least not as early as she did. when you have a person that is dyslexic, the earlier you can come with the intervention, the better the results are going to be. So it was a gift to be able to get her, for us to see. ⁓ something's not right. This is way harder than it should be. That one's paper. It was like, ⁓ my god. It was like literally a mirror. never, I did not have dyslexia, nobody in my family had. So I had never seen it other than on movies and sitcoms and stuff when they talked about it. But again, like it had to be frustrating for all of you because you're also so smart, but specifically for her because she couldn't like do it what she what she wanted to do. couldn't read the paper and she loves to absorb. I'm really happy that that all got worked out and that she continues to thrive. ⁓ So the other thing is whenever I talk to the kids, because you guys should know Hillary would come here usually for Thanksgiving. Sometimes during the summer they would do a stop just to like get their lives together. Someone had to go to the doctor, whatever the case may be. And the kids were always like full of stories of their last stop. or the thing that they were most excited about. And sometime it was like a place, but there was one place that they always talk to me about, they probably still talk about it, but what was your most exotic stop on your, I because the whole point was to see the country and to see it with your family, right? So what was your favorite stop? Where you're like, this was awesome and I don't think we would have ever done this normally. Yeah. So we hit all the... all the national parks that you know of, and then at least half of the ones you've never heard of. And ⁓ we drove from Oregon all around Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, through Texas into, and then to the East coast, all of our family, extended family parents. But on our way, we took this road. called the Dempster Highway up to the Arctic Ocean. There are two ways that you can drive to the Arctic Ocean. One is through Canada on the Dempster Highway and it takes four days and the road is terrible. And then I found this other route through Canada. So it takes a lot longer, but we could bring the travel trailer. So we slept in our own home that we were dragging. ⁓ The whole way there, the roads were terrible. was, we, the max we could drive ever was 35 miles an hour. And it was like white knuckle driving eight hours a day, 35 miles an hour, just trying to dodge rocks on washboard roads. We got to this town called Inuvik and it is a city near like I think it's past the Arctic Circle. I'm not entirely sure, but they have two gas stations there, an airport, you can fly in there. They have a post office and they had a proper campground. So we stayed at the campground and we like did our sewer dump and water refill. there were paved roads. We drove onto paved roads and I remember, I think it's... It was our third day when we got to Inuvik and I was so just amazed at this city. And I texted you and I was like, we need to come here on vacation sometime. It's amazing. And you're like, yeah, hard pass. We finally got to all the way to the Arctic Ocean and it was so cool. It was, there's like, The only people that live out there are First Nations people. Like maybe there's a few others, but mostly it's just First Nations people that have this little town set up. And one of the first things we saw when we got there was this husband and wife fishing. Their two daughters were playing out on this jetty and our kids went and played with their kids. And she gave me a fish and we ate our Arctic Ocean fish a couple of days later and it was delicious. And then we're hanging out and we meet this wild character of a man. He was a Canadian. He was like, I have 11 kids. And he just loved to talk and meet people. And he was like, like his shirt, he had on like a Hawaiian shirt and the buttons were off by one and his hair's like gray and sticking out all over the place. And so we're parked right beside him and he's like, ⁓ you gotta go see, what did he call her? I can't remember what her like American name was. But when we met her, I learned that her name was Quotzi, which means cutie in their language. So cutie, he's like, you gotta go see cutie. She'll make dinner for you. So this grandmother, beautiful soul, invites us to her home and she was, oh man, just full of life, but also full of opinions and had a clear way that she saw the world. And we get there. She tells us, come at five. We're going to have dinner at five. And she had invited like six or eight other people to come. So we show up five minutes early. And as we are walking towards her door, she is scolding this Irish man who had also showed up for dinner. ⁓ she's scolding him because he came too early. And who does he think he is for coming so early? And then she sees us and she's like, ⁓ you have children. Come on in. And she invites us in and like, she gives us a tour of her home. She's got Afghans, like handmade crocheted Afghans thrown on the couch. The furniture doesn't match. it's just, ⁓ it's an, it's a grandma's little home. And we were hanging out in her kitchen. She's telling us about this like dried fish she has in a jar and offering us pieces of it. And the kids are like looking around, trying to figure out what they're supposed to do. And then we ate whale blubber with HP sauce on it. Dried fish, muskox, caribou stew. And she's like, I was forced to eat food that was strange to me when I was a child and I will never do that to another child. She had two cans of Vienna sausages. She fed my children and some bread. She just had some bread that she made. Nice. And it was such a cool experience and we learned all about her. But this is where you're like, was a really cool experience and I think that whole story should end with, we did not get murdered. Like seriously, yeah strange people at the beach that are fishing that you're giving bags to you don't know them They could have fucking killed you and then you're like and then some rando walks up to us and his shirts on button his hair's crazy Could have murdered you Then you go to someone's house that you do not know in the Arctic Circle where none of us are gonna be able to find you after a four-day Excursion on a road that none of us are gonna do eat whale blubber and Vienna sausages and you're lucky you're not dead. Like... was. There were a few times where we were like, this is a little... alright. But here's what I will say. So when you guys were here that year after that trip, I was sitting outside and your son is just like kind of meandering around kicking stones into the pool like we know he loves to do. Out of nowhere, he's like, yeah, I swam in the Arctic Ocean. Yes. I'm like, you did? And he's like, yeah. Yeah. That's pretty cool. I'm like, okay. Like out of nowhere. So that tells me he really, it made an imprint on him for sure. We did. We swam in the Arctic Ocean. spent like 15 minutes in it too. It was disturbingly warm. Warm is maybe not the right word, but not cold is the disturbing part because it's the Arctic Ocean. You would think it would be icy. the beach in the Pacific Ocean off of Oregon was colder, is colder than that little area of the Arctic Ocean that we were swimming in. So when your kids are 30 years old and they're talking about this trip, what do you think that they're going to remember? Like what will be the memory that they walk away with, the core memory? I got a little glimpse into the mind of my son the other day. He brings back a moment from our trip and he links this to our trip too. We were staying at your house. We were watching your dog and he loved to watch Otis. Otis is his favorite dog in the whole entire world. And we were making this special bread for Otis that Otis really liked, the pumpkin bread. I had made the bread and I was cutting it into these tiny little pieces so that we could feed it to them when we were going on golf cart walks. I just wasn't paying attention and I cut a fairly large piece of the tip of my finger off. Yep. And there was a lot of blood and Doug was trying to like super glue it back together on the spot. And I'm like, you will not super glue. There's nothing super glue won't fix. And then. Uh, the second time that it happened, it's just like, clean it up. I bandage it, but it was such a bad cut. I didn't feel like I could wash my hands properly enough to be the one doing kitchen things. So it kind of like knocked me out of the running for one of the main tasks that I enjoyed and was good at, which is like kitchen things. And, and this is what stands out as one of his. biggest memories is when I almost cut my finger off is what he called it. And I was like, that was like not even a big deal at all. Like I was more in a paper cut, but. Well, I mean, that's so we took our similar, but not the same. So my niece, when she was that age, we took my nieces to Disneyland, which for me was a very big deal that I was able to afford to take my family to do something we could never afford when I was a kid. And so Doug and I very proudly take my mom and my brother and his wife and their kids. We go to Disneyland, we do all the Disneyland things. And we stay at like this little like a courtyard Marriott, right? Because it's close, it's what we can afford and it's close enough to the park that it would be easy to get back and forth from the park. So three years later. I'm talking to my niece and Disneyland happens to come up and I was like, do you remember when we went to Disney? And she's like, I remember a yellow hotel and free breakfast. Like was like free pancakes, right? That's what she remembered. The big, the momentous Disneyland trip. She remembered the yellow hotel and free pancakes. I love it. you. When anybody asks them where they enjoyed going the most, they usually say, ⁓ it's not Great Sands, White Sands. White Sands, you know, the National Park where the missile, missile, Tylo is. It might be confusing things, but I know there's like a military base nearby and I think there's some missiles and there's these sand dunes and That is one of the least memorable trips for me. The thing I remember about it most was arguing with my husband about whether or not to keep the sleds that we had gotten. We got these sleds so that we could climb up the hill and slide down the sand, which the kids loved it. But it was just really hard for me to climb up a sand dune. then... I don't, it wasn't really worth it. Sometimes it was fun. Sometimes it just felt like a lot of work and there was sand everywhere. But I have a feeling that'll be a memory for them too. When I was looking up van life and like what people would want to most know about it, big thing that kept coming up besides the money piece and number two was like, what is it like to really live long-term in a very, very tiny space? So. It took a lot of organization. I felt like I was always organizing and reorganizing the trailer. And when we first left, it was just piled high with stuff because I thought we needed all these things. And I spent the first three months every time we made a stop in a city that had a Goodwill nearby, just taking donations, taking donations. It was so early in the trip too. I think there were. kitchen utensils, kitchen tools that I was like, we don't have room for this. I have to figure out how to do more with less. yeah, a lot of like home things when we got to his parents' house, there were some things that we were like, we don't want to donate this, but we definitely donate it on the road with us. And they let us store some things at their house. for anybody listening that is considering doing this insane thing. I don't know what you're thinking, but if you are thinking about doing this, what is the one piece of equipment or thing that you had that you were like, would pay seven times if I had to have this one thing? It really mattered. there were two things. There were two things. Two things. One was we almost didn't buy a generator. So we... usually stayed ⁓ in places that you call dry camping or boondocking where you don't have electric or water sewer hookups. And for the most part, it was fine. But if you are in a place like that and you need electricity for some reason, for us, the electricity was usually like, it was so hot and we needed to run the air conditioner for just a little bit. Or maybe we needed to power. There was a time when it seemed like it was cloudy all the time and just for for weeks we were in cloudy areas and we weren't getting enough solar to recharge the batteries that we had that would like charge our cell phones or ⁓ power the refrigerator actually the refrigerator ran on propane, but ⁓ so Anyways, when we needed to charge up the batteries and we couldn't do it with solar, we would have to use the generator. And it was hard enough being without electricity. The electricity that we had could not run a microwave. It couldn't run an air conditioner. It couldn't run our refrigerator. But it could run the radio and the phone chargers. Very, we could plug a laptop into it. ⁓ That was hard enough, but living without those things too was like even. we had, ⁓ eventually we got Starlink, which I enjoyed our time without it. It was much harder. We would go somewhere and then we would need to go to the public library. for wherever we were. So we have visited all sorts of public libraries in rural towns all across America. And they're lovely. And after we got Starlink, we didn't have a reason to do that anymore. And it was a little sad for me. I liked going to those libraries. I enjoyed it. Yeah. But for my husband, it was very calming because we couldn't do any logistics or planning. And there's a lot of logistics and planning that goes We're going to talk about that in a minute. To moving from place to place all the time. What was the second thing? was the second second thing was our stove, our oven didn't work. And so I looked, I figured out how to bake things on the stove top in a frying pan, which is not advised, but can be done. And we couldn't get the oven fixed. Got this camp stove. It's just an aluminum box. And we would put the Dutch oven lid in there to keep it at a steady temperature. And then I could bake. And I love this little oven, because it would fold down and go away. And then when I needed it, I could put it on the stove, heat it up, and I could... bake things, not in a frying pan on the stove top. I'm very proud of you for figuring it out, but that sounds terrible. was bad. I mean, I just, so I love the fact that you made lemonade out of lemons, but yuck. What was the thing that you got that you thought was completely useless and not worth the money at all? ⁓ Can you think of anything? So there are several things that we brought with us that we thought we would use a lot more than we did. One is books. I was like, we're gonna, we're not working. I'm gonna read all these books. I'm so excited and I do enjoy reading, but I was so busy doing all the other things that you have to do. The logistics, the planning, the homeschooling, the dishwashing. ⁓ the dishwashing. ⁓ The grocery shopping and Laundry at the laundromat and all that. didn't I never I didn't read any of them I think it was six months into the trip before I read my first book and So books were sadly Not that useful and then we had like we a lot of outdoor fun stuff like ⁓ Something called a slackline, which is kind of like a tightrope that you hang up between two trees and It was fun, but we put it up probably twice and we got it for that trip. I think that's important to bring up, I'm going to talk more about the reality versus the dream versus the reality in a minute. I did not anticipate or understand until you were living it. So your total trip was how long? Two years. don't think that people really got like the amount of work that they really went into this lifestyle. Yeah. Like I felt like everyone is like you said, you think you're on vacation, you're gonna have all this time to read, you're gonna get up when you want to get up, you're gonna go to bed when you want to go to like go to bed, you're gonna have campfires and look at the stars every night. Yeah. But nobody really talks about what it's like to like... have to the sheer logistics that go into every single day. So leading up to the trip, you were planning, planning, planning, planning, planning, planning, planning, you're a planner and you're good at that and you're a bright girl. But I think even when you were on the road beyond like probably the honeymoon period, it was like, this sucks. Like this is a, like you were telling me, you're like, this is a lot of work. So walk me through a little bit of what I mean when I, people so they'll understand what I mean when I say logistics. So I had our first year planned out for where we were going to go. It was a very detailed plan for the first six months. And then the farther out you got, the more it was like, we'll roughly be in this place, you know, and going to see these things. So I did that for the first year because the national park campgrounds at the time, released camping reservations a year in advance. And if you did not get them when they came out, you weren't getting one. So I had to make our campground reservations a year in advance for everywhere we were going along the road, along the calendar. ⁓ And that meant I needed to know where we went. were going. So it was a lot of Google Maps and spreadsheets and ⁓ keeping track of all those reservations. And the other thing is when you're driving a travel trailer, you drive slower. When you're pulling, when you're towing this like 8,000 pound house behind you, you have to drive slower. And you can't drive on every road that's available. There are some roads that have low bridges. And if you drive on that road, you're going to destroy your camper. because your camper is bigger than the bridge. it was usually we tried to stick to interstates when we were driving anywhere if we could. But if we couldn't, we had to figure out well in advance. We were like using trucker apps and websites to try and figure out like where those low bridges were, where obstacles would be that we couldn't drive with a camper. that Just getting from point A to point B, you have that and then you have the fact that you're driving slower. So you have to account for that, but you also have to set up your home whenever you get to where you're going. And maybe sometimes that's just pulling into a spot and making sure you're level and that making sure your level part isn't as easy as it sounds, but ⁓ neither is the pulling into a spot part. Right. So you need to get there before the sun goes down. So you have to leave. You have to back into whatever time you have to leave to make sure you're there with enough daylight to get all those things done and get everything set up. So you're not like punching a clock at work. You're punching a national park clock. You got to make sure that you get to where you... And I think that people really underestimate the amount of planning and logistics that's involved with that, right? And like the shower and bathroom situation, right? Like just the logistics around how are you going to clean yourself and your children? Do your laundry. Like everybody thinks, we'll go to the laundromat. It'd be great. Like no problem. But what was that reality like? So I was like, oh, the laundromat is going to be my time. I'm going to get to go do. I'm going to go to the laundromat by myself. That'll be my time. But the reality of it was we had to find the laundromat. And when we were driving through very rural areas of Canada and Alaska, they were hard to come by. And we would have a pile of laundry by the time we got there. So I'm like way down with the laundry, I had like a laundry backpack and a laundry bag. And I've got like, know, tens of four pounds of laundry on me and I'm walking to the, I drive to the laundromat and then I have to bring it in. And then I had so many loads of laundry to do that I'd have all the washers going and they're going off at different times. I could get them started and then they're finished 20 minutes, 30 minutes later because they're commercial washers and dryers so they're pretty fast. And then by the time I get the last load started, I have like 10 minutes until the first load is done and needs to go into the dryer if I'm lucky. Or maybe I'm sitting there and waiting because other people are there doing their laundry too. And I need four washers, but there's only two available. So we have to like, nigh out for the next one. One's available. And I thought I was going to have this like every week I'd get to go to the laundromat and do the laundry. And it would be this relaxing me time. No. It was just constant. We did have a shower in the trailer. However, we only had so much storage capacity for ⁓ what's called gray water. And mostly I needed that storage capacity of gray water for like washing our hands and doing kitchen things. ⁓ the first several months that we were on the road. we used campground showers. And I had to take these two little kids into campground showers and shower them. And sometimes you go to campground showers and it's just fine. It's very clean and you're surprised. ⁓ I have a high level of anxiety around germs and like shared bathroom situations. So this was extra hard for me because little kids drop stuff all the time. And I'm like, you have to wear shoes. because I'm not trying to you know, pick up weird foot funguses. like, so I would make them wear shower shoes. And then they had a particular way they had to do their towel and get dressed so that we weren't just like touching everything. And this is really hard for little kids. like, not only do I just have this low level of stress about being in a public bathroom and showering in the first place, but then you add them on top of it. And it was a lot to deal with. So we find this laundromat and it wasn't just a laundromat. I sent you a picture of it, not because they had those gigantic washers and a shower there, but also because you had to enter it through an enormous cow skull. Do you remember the cow skull? It was so, it was like this huge cow skull and you, I think you walked in the mouth. to get in. ⁓ I'm going have to look at the picture, but it was like you went in through a cow skull and you get in there and it's a laundromat and they have showers, but the showers were you had to put quarters in and the water that came out when you first put the quarter, there was no way to change the temperature. just like you put the money in, the water came out and it was freezing cold and I was like I have to wash these kids because I don't have like we don't have time to go stop somewhere else for me to wash them and for whatever reason we had to do it then and I'm like torturing my children with this cold water and then I realized that you just had to kind of let it warm up for a while and eventually not conserving our quarters, but I had to use the quarters on the laundry and I only had so many and we're in a rural area and there wasn't like more quarter coming so I'm like... Kid, kids. I'm going to figure it out. It's ice cold, but your hair was shiny. We did eventually get to a point where we started using the shower in the travel trailer. And that was, ⁓ such a good change. Yeah. Especially for the kids. But for me, I did because we didn't have water, enough water where you could just sit on there and let it heat up. So every single. shower I took was for the, didn't do this for the kids. did let it warm up for the kids, but every shower we took the first two, three minutes were freezing cold. I remember going to the chiropractor and telling him about this and just being like, every shower is an ice bath in the beginning. And him being like, ⁓ it's so good for you. I've been trying to convince my wife to do that and I'm like, yeah. I didn't want to take an ice plunge. just wanted to take a shower. Maybe. Maybe. Thanks for seeing the silver lining there. We're like, I'm going to punch you in the crotch. So what is it do you think about Van Life? What do you think the Instagram version versus the real life version? What do think people need to know? Such a good question because we watched a lot of Instagram version and YouTube version and we thought we had a pretty good understanding because in in in these little reels or in the longer YouTube videos The people share their ups and downs They you know, you don't just see the rosy part all the time But yeah thing that I don't think I really understood until I was in it was that When you're watching it on Instagram or YouTube It ends. Like Instagram, you get a little 30 second snippet of their life. On YouTube, you get, I don't know, maybe an hour, maybe an hour of people telling you like what cool things happened and what hardships happened. ⁓ And then it's over, but it's not over for them. They're still going. They're still driving from place to place. They're still doing all the logistics. They're still living without electricity. They're still trying to figure out where they're going to dump their sewer. I mean, and you guys, I mean, I do you remember how big the trailer was? The square footage? Yeah. I think it was like less than 300 square feet. Very small space. Yeah. With your husband every day. And I love my husband. spend 24 seven together, but we have very, very different spaces that we can both go into and do our own space stuff. And when you're in a trailer, not only that, but like you've got your kids who you are the the star of all of their movies. In other words, there's no Hillary time. There's, here's what I need today, mom, make this happen. And then your wife, so your husband is like, got to keep him sane. And it's, it had to be hard. It had to be hard. It was hard. there's a, husband is like romanticizes boat life. He really wants to live on a boat. And I already told him. I'm not doing that. If you want to live on a boat, got to go live on a boat by yourself. I'll be here when you get back. But he and I are doing life together and I was on board with his boat life plans. I don't, I get seasick. don't, I like boats and water, but I don't want to live on one. And I think, I mentioned the boat life thing because we had read several books about living on boats. We had watched YouTube's about it. And one of the things, the themes that kept coming up over and over again was husband and wife teams that move onto a boat. It accelerates your marriage. It takes you from wherever you are to wherever you're going to be in like a year, like for the entire lifetime of your marriage. think that it really, living in this travel trailer did that too. Because we were together all the time and we were having to figure out these tough situations, these logistics that solve different kinds of problems that we had never experienced before over and over again every day. It was something new. And every day you also have these moments in time where you're bored or you need time away and you can't get it. And those constant interactions. day in and day out, really, they either bring you closer or if you weren't meant to be, they send you in separate directions real quick. And for us, I got to a point where I could say to him, like, hey, I love you. I want to do life with you. But turns out I don't love boats. And so you had to do that on your own if you want to do it. And I'm OK with it. But before that, It was just like, no, we're buds. We do everything together. There's no saying no if the other one, if it's their dream. I would be a dream killer to say no to that. And we hit a point where I was like, if we're doing life together for the rest of our lives, I got to learn to start saying no to some things that aren't gonna work for me. Listen, I was so proud of you when you did that because Hillary says yes to everything. That's what her superpower is. It's like, hey, you want to go sleep? like nailed against an ice mountain in the middle of night and below freezing temperatures and we'll call it a vacation. She's like, yes. I've heard a million of those stories about her. It's one of the things I most admire about her. is definitely up for it. Just know that she's ready to do it. So when she was telling me like the whole plan was that when this first started, it was really like we might be on the road forever because we're going to go and we're going to do this. this van life and then we're going to go do a year on a boat. And you know, I thought she was bonkers crazy because I'm the dream killer that's like, but you get seasick. Like, how are you going to go live on a boat? She's like, no, we're going to do draming. Like that's a problem for future Hillary. Like I'm not going to worry about that. This is our plan and this is what we're going to do. And my kids are really excited about it. Like, okay. Well then they go to Key West, the end of year one and, or like midway through, like I think it was the end of year one. And Hillary hated Key West. She did not like being on the boat. She did not like the water, the sand. It was really dirty. she- rash all the time. Like I got the weirdest heat rashes. It was so much humidity. And she found camaraderie with one of her kids who also did not like boats and did not like being in the ocean. It was like, this is not my jam. And it still took a few, like- Really, it took like four more months before Hillary was like brave enough to say no. like this is not we're not going on a boat when this is because I think what had happened Hillary is we got and you it's your story. But as somebody who was an innocent bystander watching all of this happen, I think it became time it became apparent for lots of different reasons that maybe this life van life was not a forever thing that like it needed to kind of come to an end and the cycle was over. But I'm going to tell a story about when I knew that we were coming to an end and I was secretly very happy because it was really hard to watch my friend struggle with all of these things that I knew would not be existent if they were just back in a normal house with kids in school and like, you know, some sort of like regularity where she wasn't having to navigate and plan every single minute of your entire lives and homes. Like it's not the vacation you guys think it is. If you walk away from this episode with anything, it is not the vacation and the free life that you think it is if you go with kids. And so you were in town and it was your daughter's birthday. And for this birthday, she wanted to get her ears pierced. here's Bougie Aunt Lisa, booked this very nice tween heaven to have her ears pierced, right? There's like registered nurses that are doing the piercings. It's not just like somebody they gave an earring gun to or like a tattoo artist. ⁓ yeah, no, nothing but the best for our kids. I didn't know this existed, but leave it to Auntie Lisa. Yeah, I was not messing around. And I was very excited that I got to be part of it. Keep in mind, it's towards the end of the second year and it's just all sorts of like checkered flags are going off. Like we're done, right? We're near the finish line. But we're still at the point where, you you don't want to let this dream go you. We're like, I don't know how we would. undo all of this. we'd have, I don't know how we'd get the kids in school. I don't know how we would get our house back. I don't know how we would like, there's a lot I don't know how to do. And you were so logistic out. You just needed someone to handle it. You just, you just needed that help. Right? So we need to go with your beautiful daughter. listened to Taylor Swift for singing all as well and all this good stuff. Like, and she's got her huge stuff there. ⁓ because there's nothing says like I'm a tween, like bringing your stuffed animal. She was scared and she wanted to her stuffed animal with her, but she's growing and she's like a tween and it's like, it's hard, you know, it was like this weird place. And so she's emotional. So we go and we sit down in the chair and she's so excited. She's like, like so sitting still and she is lazy. focused on the nurse lady and the nurse lady is she's doing the thing where you you mark the ear where they're gonna pierce it and I don't know look I don't know what was up with our girl but she was taking for fucking ever. She was taking a really long time like she was really making sure she got it right. And then she was like doing this one she's asking her daughter these questions like so you know are you gonna show off you're trying to distract her. from the sheer terror of what's about to happen, which I'm sure is normal for all little kids her age, right? But she was like trying to distract her. She's like, so, and I'm behind her watching her in the mirror and mom is filming it. Hillary's filming from the front and then there's the nurse person. And she's like, so are you going to show all your friends at school your pierced ears tomorrow? And very distracted. Her daughter was like, I don't go to school. I live in a trailer. go to school, I live in a trailer." And the nurse lady's like, oh, you live in a trailer and you don't go to school? And the lady's like, we have a school, we have a school because she's afraid that she thinks we just kidnapped this kid. And the lady's like, oh, so you do homeschooling. She's like, yeah, we, her daughter was like, yeah, you we live in a trailer and yeah, my mom. ran into the door the other day and stubbed her toe. Hashtag tape trailer life. I'm I'm like, really? Who remembers? She was like, do you have any, ⁓ you don't have any friends, but do you have a pet? She says, what did she say? She goes, so, so you're, you don't go to school and you live in a trailer, trailer life. She was like, but you, know, do you have a pet? She's like, my dog died. What? Telling this woman the saddest. games she could possibly dig out of her life. And it was so evident to me in that moment, more than any, all of the other, like, I think a lot of the other, like, with me telling you it's time to come off the road, were really kind of very still self-centered and that I was worried about, you know, what I do to get off the road. it was really like, she was done with the road. Like, And then we went and we did Halloween together where we did all this trick or treating stuff, but she kept talking about her neighborhood in Oregon and how much fun that she had when she was trick or treating. And it was almost like she was kind of like, she was just done. Like she didn't want anything to do with it. You know? Yeah. But it was, that's when I knew it was time for you guys to come off the road. When did you know it was time to come off the road? Was there a moment where you're like, I'm done? There was. We were visiting some friends in Oregon, which is where we started out. We once upon a time were from Oregon before this trip. And ⁓ so we went back and we were visiting friends and I got into a big fight. And it was... We were just so, we didn't like each other anymore. And we were having such a hard time figuring out why we were even doing this. And this big fight highlighted it in such a way that I was like, this is not us. have, this is, the stress is doing something to us. And we need to figure this out before we move another mile. And it took maybe another week before I got to a point where I was ready to do something about it. Like I knew that was the moment everything changed. But there were months before that where I was. reconsidering my life choices. And we also knew we had both collectively hit a point where we were like, my daughter really wants to have a school situation. She wants to go to school and have friends. And our son was completely happy to be by our sides and with us 100 % of the time. every day no matter where we were, but even he was ready to have friends again and be around his, the friends that he knew and, and ⁓ I was just tired and we weren't really planning any cool trips anymore. We were just sort of like, oh, what are we going to do next? And I was like, all these cool stops were becoming a chore. And he and I had, we'd come to terms with this and we were like, okay, why don't we spend the next six months traveling around and trying to figure out where we want to live next. Where are good schools? Where do we like? Where do we want to be? Where do we want to settle? But then we're in Oregon, we have this fight. And I was like, mm-mm, we can't travel anymore. Something is happening and it's really bad. And he knew it too. And I rented an apartment. We put our kids within three days. I had an apartment rented. Our kids were signed up for school and we were on the fourth day, we were at Ikea buying like basic furniture for this apartment and then finding some storage for the trailer. And we stayed in Oregon for three months and we did marriage counseling. The kids needed a little behavioral health therapy too for a few. a few traits that had gotten wonky on the road. But we all enjoyed it. We loved being still for a moment. It gave and I a chance to reconnect and not have all the stresses of trailer life, of hashtag trailer life. And figure out like, do we really still like each other? And it turns out. We're pretty good friends. And there's a reason we got married. And I'm glad we figured that out because it was, it felt for a while like we weren't going to get back there. and, ⁓ and we ended up in those three months, things got better and the kids were so happy to go to school. They were so happy and we're like, do you, sometimes we would ask them. Like do you wish that you didn't have to go to school today and we could like go on a hike instead or go see a glacier? And they're like, no, not at all. Absolutely not. It's been a year, a little over a year now. And how's everyone adapting? everyone? Yeah. Things are, things are, they just keep getting better. I mean, I think your husband will always be a nomad. Yeah. I think he will always be a nomad. And I think that you like the idea of being a nomad. But in practice, maybe you are a good person to not be a nomad, but support a nomad. And then you get to do your things. We were just talking about a trip that we might want to take later this year, just the girls. But I think now that you've been back home for a year and everyone has kind of settled back into like normal, and your daughter calls in a moving house. So you're in a normal new house. stationary house. That's what she calls it. Our stationary house. So would you do it again? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I would definitely, I would do it differently knowing what I know now. I would spend a little bit more. I would have, I wouldn't do it without a place to go back to. We needed, we needed to be able to go and travel. and have fun, but then come back home and reset. And we didn't have that. And that, I think, was the biggest struggle for us in the whole trip. you so kindly allowed us to use your house most of the time as our reset point. And I do think of all the things the kids will remember, it's spending so much time at your house. your house is going to be the yellow hotel and pancakes of their trip. Right. I hope so. I I miss them so much. need to see them. They're probably like, who's Aunt Lisa? It was really important. And I want to just talk about this and then we'll get it wrapped up. People are like, sweet Jesus. So this year for Thanksgiving, you again did what you are not great at and set a boundary and was like, you know what? we're home, things are going well, the kids are in their little routines. So rather than make Lisa and Doug happy, which would be great for them, and the kids would probably have a blast, but it would be so disruptive and we just can't, like we can't bend to that right now. I thought, and you guys didn't come for Thanksgiving and it was hard for me, clearly, but it was also like, I get it. And I'm super fucking proud of you. for saying like, this is what I need to do. I need to stay, we need to keep it, keep the boat rowing in the current environment. And it's what's best for all of us. And when things have kind of even normalized a little further, maybe we'll do a group trip or something. Right. Or the kids can come for the summer, like whatever. You know that you don't have to have a holiday to come. We'd love having you here and we'd love seeing the kids and all that good stuff. Just to kind of wrap it up, you would do it again. I just think there's a lot to unpack that we talked about over the two hours, but what I want to be super clear about is if there's something that you wanted to know from Hillary that I did not ask, put it in the comments, YouTube, Apple, Instagram. There's a million different ways you guys can get ahold of us. Let us know. And if there's enough questions, maybe we'll bring her back for a third episode. I mean, why not, right? It's our show. We can do it with the hell we want. Also, I just really enjoy doing this with you. like seeing you. it's fun. like talking to you. I know, and I love talking to you. All right, guys, have a great day. Thanks, Hillary. Bye.