Author Archives: Catherine Namee

Happy belated 4th of July (aka my sister’s birthday)! 🎉🎆 This stop was, again, a purposefully planned one. We have a Godson in Omaha, and his family graciously hosted us for a few nights (yes, we slept in normal beds in a normal house). 😱

We had a great time blowing things up, testing the acoustics in a huge Catholic Cathedral, and spending our waking hours in lengthy discussion. There were regular resting periods in there as well. I mean… having 9 children in a space kinda makes that necessary.

Something I realized after this stop, I took for granted so many wonderful things about living in our house, and I can be ever more grateful for them now. But I’m also really grateful for our current home. It has become a wonderful home. Living here is simple, and we really like it.

So, some of our stops are just stops to get us to our destination, but others are planned for a specific purpose, and most of the time it means stopping in to see friends. This time we met up with Jude’s Godfather and family, so it worked out that we could attend liturgy and visit with them. It’s been over a decade since we last saw them, so it was great to catch up and visit for a while!

In addition to visiting with the Smiths, we ventured down to one of the loveliest city parks I’ve ever seen. We were just looking for something to do with the kids before dinner time, and Matthew found this awesome ag museum, which just happened to be sitting amidst a really amazing public park.

Well, we’ve made it half way to our destination without any major catastrophic events or dismemberment. Yay! Sites have been booked, and we know where we’re staying until we’re finished visiting North Carolina. After that, well, that’s still up in the air. We will have the rest of August to figure that out. We’d love to see all of our wonderful friends who are scattered across the states. Unfortunately, we can’t see everyone. Disclaimer: if it’s ridiculously hot where you live, that means you. 😉

A few things I love about living in an RV so far:

• Being able to see and experience so many different beautiful places and the lovely people in them
• Less of a house to clean up
• Meals are simple
• The kids are entertained by a few Hot Wheels cars, some magnetic toys, and each other
• Hand washing the very few dishes we have
• Sitting around a fire
• A recliner couch with seat warmers and massage function

A few things I miss about a sticks and bricks home:

• Hanging out with friends and family without worrying about getting the house settled before moving it
• It doesn’t shake when people walk around in it or a strong wind blows through (at least it shouldn’t)
• Rocking the baby to sleep in a rocking chair
• Resting while the kids play with toys or go out in the yard
• The whole house not heating up when I cook inside
• A washer and dryer
• A bathtub
• A bed large enough to fit Matthew, me, and baby, and perhaps a stray child having a hard time falling asleep

I have it on good authority that one of the homebodies is enjoying herself a lot more than she expected to. And one of the adventurers realizes how much he enjoyed having a traditional home. We’re all learning from this experience, which is what adventures are for, after all.

What a lovely stop! Presho, SD is between Rapid City and Sioux Falls, along I-90. The population is 588, according to the sign. But what a great park they have here! It has an abundance of sites, but not too many campers, so it’s rather quiet. The playground was much loved and appreciated by the younger kids, and the fire pit was an added bonus (not every site had one). I enjoyed our time here. It felt like we could actually slow down and relax a little.

We’re currently experiencing a thunderstorm in Presho. Matthew’s putting Micah to sleep in our room. The baby is passed out in my arms in the main living space. The older boys yell whisper exclamations about how big and bright the lightning is. Genevieve can’t sleep because it’s too loud, so Marina goes in to the bunk room to tell her a story to take her mind off the storm. These are the kinds of memories I hope they remember. I know I will.

So, normally, we don’t take detours or do anything particularly fun on driving days. It’s hard enough keeping a three-month-old happy for the 4-5 hours as it is. However, I heard from a reliable source that The Badlands were definitely worth checking out. Thank you Dn. Alexei! Pictures just don’t do it justice. If you haven’t been there, put it on a bucket list. It was so awesome we want to return and hike through the area some day.

We also stopped at the iconic Wall Drug, which is like a western themed strip mall on steroids. It’s pretty cool!

It’s hard to believe, but we’ve only been on the road for two weeks! 😳 It feels more like two months, but that’s okay. It means there are a lot of memories being made!

I had no idea South Dakota was so beautiful. Spearfish is one of those small towns with beautiful sites and beautiful people. We really enjoyed our time in this city, short lived as it was.

Part of our stay was spent down at Mount Rushmore, and wow has it become a giant tourist trap. One museum after another. Reptiles. Dinosaurs. Old McDonald’s Farm. The Presidents in wax. Businesses popped up everywhere, taking advantage of the traffic coming into the area. We managed not to be lured in by most, but we did have to stop in Keystone on our way back. Why? Because Bigfoot was there.

I’m not sure where it got it’s name, but it’s fitting. Things are hard in Hardin… sorry, I had to. There aren’t many place to go. One grocery store with limited stock. A gas station. A pizza place. An RV park that swindles people. You know…. But it did have a lovely museum!

This area is part of the Crow Reservation, and it’s very close to the site of Custer’s Last Stand. The artifacts here were given to or loaned to the museum, and I’m showing them to you because the chances that you’ll ever visit this spot are slim to none, unless you’re a reenactment geek. Unfortunately, we arrived two hours too late to see one.

So, if you’ve never towed a significantly long trailer, let me tell you, it’s quite the experience.

We’ve towed for about 835 miles thus far. And while I’m really not a fan of the wind and how that causes sway, most of the time it’s been smooth sailing on the highway. There have, however, been a few of those moments where I’ve wondered, “What on earth are we doing?”

Like that one time when a pickup, also towing a trailer, was merging onto the highway, but neither sped up nor slowed down, just paced alongside, and pinned us between it and another motorhome for what seemed like an eternity. By the way, Ford needs to do something about the horn they put on the Expedition. It belongs on a Fiat.

Or that time when our gas tank indicator was computer based and said we had 230 miles to empty, but it averaged our towing mpg and non-towing mpg together, completely overshooting the actual number of miles we were able to drive while towing. It’s really more like 180…

This stop was kind of a strange one. I couldn’t get us booked at a site for both nights, so we stayed at the county fairgrounds (which were actually quite nice) and then moved the trailer 2 miles away to another site.

We happened to be at the fairgrounds for opening night of Cirque Ma’Ceo, so I surprised the kids with tickets. It was a lot of fun! It was a small troupe, and they probably had as many horses as performers in the show.

The second site was much prettier, with a wonderful play area, completely suspended amongst the trees!

We were also able to attend Vespers and Liturgy at St. Anthony’s, but unfortunately, we had to leave early due to checkout. It was a very young and very full parish!

Since we don’t want to have to rush off after church in the future, we will be changing our plan to stay three nights at certain stops.

Montana is one of the prettiest states I’ve ever seen. I know that’s not saying a lot because I haven’t been to that many, but wow, it’s just gorgeous out here!

The town of Alberton is pretty small, but this lovely site really stands out. It’s right on the river, which of course meant fishing!

There were a few things I needed to get and a few I needed to return in Missoula, a 30 minute drive. In all, the kids and I went to 6 different stores to accomplish everything. If I had to compare the exhaustion I felt after pulling a trailer through windy Montana to taking 5 kids and an infant shopping for 3+ hours, I’d say it’s a draw. Coffee helps. So do their sweet smiling faces.

Oh, and Montana has these coffee steeping bags, like tea bags but for coffee. I had no idea I had been missing out on such a revolutionary product design. Will update when said coffee has been consumed.