So we homeschool. Specifically, we are unschoolers. There are lots of places on the web where you can read about unschooling - for us, it has grown into our preferred lifestyle. We are curious by nature, nearly always passionate about something or other, and don't mind a few hours in a hot car as long as we are on an adventure.
And, you know, life is an adventure.
For the past few months, we have been slowly figuring out how to be together, mostly in a small RV, a lot of the time.
We have discovered some of the banal things: cloth diapers are a really pain on the road. Honestly, laundry in general, can be a bit of a drag, although you meet some really interesting folks in laundrymats. Early in our trip, we stopped at a grubby burg in southern Pennsylvania, hoping to find some huge industrial washers to clean everything at once - who sorts on the road? - but ending up in a dead-ish looking strip mall, plastered with signs warning police that certain individuals were not allowed on the premise. Jason stuffed as much of our clothing, sheets, towels, diapers, and several sleeping bags into washers as he could, and we sat in the RV, biding time time the dryer switch.
The folks loitering outside the 'mat eyed us curiously, as my tribe eyed them back. They did not look like the kind of people we'd want to cross; on the other hand, our RV, as we would be reminded of numerous times during our trek, looks a lot more like something out of Breaking Bad than the Mystery Machine, so they were probably worrying about their well being as much as we were worrying about ours.
As drying time neared, Jason hopped out, with several kids, to change the laundry and one of the fellows, sauntered forward.
"I had one just like that", he called to Jason, pointing to our beat-up ride. "Never could get her on the road. Did you really drive here from New York?"
And that sparked a spirited conversation about old RVs and missed opportunities and how cool it was that ours was actually taking us somewhere. And I found it pretty awesome that we have one more example of goodwill to add to our growing stack.
Mostly, though, we discovered that we really like what we haven't discovered yet, which may be one of the tenets of good unschooling. I know that hitting the road with an open heart and an open mind has led to incredible adventures, and a ton of learning.
And, man, we do love driving over just one more bridge, rolling our old Travco onto just one more ferry, and planning just one more route into the great unknown.
For the past few months, we have been slowly figuring out how to be together, mostly in a small RV, a lot of the time.
We have discovered some of the banal things: cloth diapers are a really pain on the road. Honestly, laundry in general, can be a bit of a drag, although you meet some really interesting folks in laundrymats. Early in our trip, we stopped at a grubby burg in southern Pennsylvania, hoping to find some huge industrial washers to clean everything at once - who sorts on the road? - but ending up in a dead-ish looking strip mall, plastered with signs warning police that certain individuals were not allowed on the premise. Jason stuffed as much of our clothing, sheets, towels, diapers, and several sleeping bags into washers as he could, and we sat in the RV, biding time time the dryer switch.
The folks loitering outside the 'mat eyed us curiously, as my tribe eyed them back. They did not look like the kind of people we'd want to cross; on the other hand, our RV, as we would be reminded of numerous times during our trek, looks a lot more like something out of Breaking Bad than the Mystery Machine, so they were probably worrying about their well being as much as we were worrying about ours.
As drying time neared, Jason hopped out, with several kids, to change the laundry and one of the fellows, sauntered forward.
"I had one just like that", he called to Jason, pointing to our beat-up ride. "Never could get her on the road. Did you really drive here from New York?"
And that sparked a spirited conversation about old RVs and missed opportunities and how cool it was that ours was actually taking us somewhere. And I found it pretty awesome that we have one more example of goodwill to add to our growing stack.Mostly, though, we discovered that we really like what we haven't discovered yet, which may be one of the tenets of good unschooling. I know that hitting the road with an open heart and an open mind has led to incredible adventures, and a ton of learning.
And, man, we do love driving over just one more bridge, rolling our old Travco onto just one more ferry, and planning just one more route into the great unknown.
Every time we talk to people about how we live and laundry comes up it usually gets talked about as a downer. "Spending time in laundromats..."
ReplyDeleteBut as you found they are often a place to meet those you would'nt otherwise. In campgrounds laundromats are the great melting pot of tenters, fifth wheelers and rockstar class A folks are forced together...and that can be a beautiful thing.
Agreed. We were sitting outside a laundrymat the other day, and a guy, looking a bit teary-eyed, came over and stuffed a bunch of money in my husband's surprised hands. He came from a big family, he said, and was so thrilled to see us and our little ones. He wouldn't really stay to talk, but we invited him to Medusa for a meal. Crazy life...
ReplyDelete