We’ve been living, working, and traveling in our RV for just a little over four months now and have been on the move ever since. Sometimes, you gotta slow down.
By this, I mean we usually drive 2-3 hours every other day or two, rarely staying in one place longer than 2 or 3 nights. We’ve become pretty adept at being tourists, hitting all the local breweries, sampling the local fare, and even managing to get in a hike or a mountain bike ride, all within a couple of days.
Then we’re off, barely a chance to catch our breath, to do it all again at the next town. Considering we are still working, this pace is a little hard to keep up, yet it was an exhilarating way to leave our home state of Colorado. But sometimes you gotta slow down.
While we have loved every moment of being on the road, we are already craving time. Time to get to know a place, its people, its quirks, its treasures, its heartbeat. Me must have subconsciously known this early on. We spent the first two months wandering the mountains of Colorado.
Being in Denver for 30 years, this was our test-drive. Could we make it work? Would our kids be ok with the house and on their own? (They are adults, but young adults, and we are always the protective parents. If you’re a parent, you understand). It was also time to really get to know our home state, and we fell in love all over again.
Once we left Colorado, our pace quickened, and it didn’t really slow down until we hit Maine. Spending two weeks within a 300 mile radius gave us time to breathe, time to take in the sights, time to fall in love with Maine and its people.
But, wanting to be in South Carolina to help celebrate our two friends getting married, our pace went back to gotta-see-it-all-in-no-time-at-all. And that we did: Boston, Baltimore, New York City, DC, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Myrtle Beach. It’s enough to make anyone’s head spin. Every moment of every vibrant city woke our travel bug up, allowing it to sleep no more, but it also caused us to reflect once again on the beauty of slow travel, the beauty of a single place to open up multiple stories.
So, I am now writing to you on our 8th day in the same campground, Hanna Park, just outside of Jacksonville, Florida. We planned on only staying six nights, but it is so peaceful here. With our spot being lakeside, jungle biking trails a mere two minutes from us, the beach less than 1/2 mile away, and breweries and restaurants a hop, skip, and a two mile bike ride down the beach, there’s no reason to leave. So, we stayed.
Ironically, slowing the pace fuels the fire and keeps the travel bug alive and kicking.
So, here’s to slowing it down a bit, taking it all in, because by not trying to have everything, you will end up with everything you need.
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