Marco…Polo!

Jill's Journal: Originally we planned to fully move out of Lexington today, but Rob needed to devote a little extra time to his job (you know, the thing that makes all this possible!) so we decided to stay put for an extra day. (Normally, we’ll do our moves on the weekends, but this first week or two while we hustle to catch up to our original plans and the one place we have set reservations will be a little abnormal due to our earlier delays). The girls and I spent the day just bumming around the campground and getting organized, which was a fantastic way to spend a day.

Rob joined us for a nice walk before dinner and happened to spot a polo team practicing their sport. I’ve always wanted to go to a polo match, so this was an awesome substitute. Those polo “ponies” (they’re actually full-size horses of any breed, as long as they’re quick and agile and competitive) fly around the field. It’s definitely a contact spot and actually reminded me of hockey on horseback. How they don’t crash into each other is a mystery and how those riders manage to hit the ball and not the other horses or riders (while at a full gallop) is an even bigger mystery.

We came back to the trailer to enjoy flat-iron steak, corn on the cob, and fresh watermelon in the open air on a perfect, cool summer evening. We can definitely get used to this.

Reservations Required

Jill's Journal: We just made the funnest reservation online!! My friends Heather and Eryn, along with their husbands and kids and us, are all going to go camping together in April! Three couples, nine kids…what a blast! Heather has a tent, Eryn has a pop-up trailer (I believe), and of course we have the fifth wheel. Both of them have been camping before (albeit separately) at Levi Jackson State Park near London, KY, and highly recommend it as a family-friendly, fun place.

They’re the pros at this camping thing. It may very well be our first official trip before we truly venture out into the camping world full-time, so what fun to do it with friends. We have camping sites reserved all practically right next to each other for the whole weekend. I invited my sister too, who is camper extraordinaire and loves kids, but we’ll see how interested she is in camping with that many kids!

Several months ago, I also made reservations for this coming July at Assateague State Park (with the wild ponies!!) in Maryland. And on New Year’s Day, reservations open at the place I want to stay on Chincoteague Island in Virginia for the annual pony swim (also in July). I’ve only been wanting to go to that since I was about eight years old and first read the wonderful Misty of Chincoteague. (I’m pretty certain I wore out my school library’s copy, as I checked it out repeatedly over the years and surely read it dozens of times). I’ll be reading that to my girls before we go. We’re living the dream!

Making all these reservations is making our upcoming adventure seem very real and very close! And we’re also piecing together a very loose itinerary. We’re going to follow the seasons, starting on the East Coast and gradually moving our way west over a three-year span. Spending our first fall on the road in New England with all the beautiful colors is a no-brainer. Next Christmas though? Who knows where we’ll be! I love that bold freedom.