Life Happens

Okay, so remember all those plans I told you about? Niagara Falls, Maine and the quest to find out what our final summer destination was going to be? I want you to

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Act like it never happened. Is it gone? Good! Because nothing is ever as it seems. All of those destinations will occur, some sooner than others, but not when I had anticipated. And all for good reason.

You see, we’re currently dealing with a family crisis. One of my tween daughters has been exhibiting signs of an eating disorder. It seems to have morphed into a life of its own and we want to handle it immediately. When the doctor asked us to report back to her in three weeks, at the very time we’re supposed to be in Niagara Falls, well, we knew it was time to focus on her. Therapy is recommended along with a dietician to get her back on track. So, that coupled with the fact that I don’t know how frequent these therapy sessions will need to be, prompted me to go home and cancel all of our summer reservations.

Now that doesn’t mean PERL will be gathering dust. What it does mean is that we’re staying within a day drive of home AND we’re going to take it easy. One week away, one or two weeks home, another week away, one or two weeks home. (These photos are ones I’ve taken in my travels, they have nothing to do with this post. Just for your viewing pleasure).

If you ever wanted to know about some of the Thousand Trails (TT) on the East Coast, now’s your time. To be honest, what I’ve seen of TT’s, I really don’t want to know about too many but…….once you buy into a

year, might as well get your monies worth, right? Honestly, they haven’t been ALL bad. And since the East Coast doesn’t offer the wonderful, cheap (sometimes free) camping some of you West Coast folks might be enjoying out there, say it with me, “We get what we get and we don’t get upset”. Yeah, you know the lingo. I’m making the best of it for as cheap as I can. Besides, boondocking with four people (three being kids) really isn’t all that practical. I have to dump the gray tanks about every three days as it is!

Flexibility, that’s the name of the game. If there’s one thing we can all count on, it’s change. And I do believe the RV lifestyle really demands that we remain flexible. Whether we’re full-timers, wannabe full-timers (like me), part-timers or wherever we are right now. Life happens, things change and we flex or give up. I don’t give up too easily so, I’m pressing on, changing plans. We do still hope to get to the Maine coast by mid-September,  onward to Niagara Falls and attend a Ohio wedding at the end of September. But time will tell. And I’m not writing that one down in concrete because I might just jinx myself, AGAIN, haha!

To put a silver lining in a pretty crappy week, it really was proving to be quite difficult to secure reservations in Maine this late in the game. Beep, beep, beep, beep, look out, words of advice coming up.

If you plan to hit the Northeastern states in the summer months, start your reservations EARLY. It seems the state parks and various other campgrounds open up reservations when the snow is still miles deep, like February. I mean, in all seriousness, coming from an Upstate NY born gal, what else do these poor folks have to look forward to than their tiny glimpse of summer!! Also, as a homeschooling parent who doesn’t have to adhere to a ‘school calendar’ we really love to take advantage of ‘off times’. So a few pluses on the board.

This is what we *hope* to accomplish this summer/fall:

June

• Five days at the Kings Dominion (Cedar Parks) campground. I’m buying a Cedar Fair Parks Platinum Pass, which allows usage at all of their locations. We’ll hit up the park and have fun with friends. This is a whopping 45 minutes from my house.
• The end of June will find us at the TT Harbor View RV & Camping Resort at Colonial Beach, VA for a few days. That’s located an entire hour from my house, getting a little further away :-). But hey, it has a pool AND I get to celebrate my nieces 2nd birthday, so big SCORE!

July

• A week in Allentown, PA and plan on staying at the TT Timothy Lake South RV. We’ll hit up the Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom. I need to do a little research to see what else is available in the area for the kids.
• A week near Charlotte, NC and staying at the TT Forest Lake. Here we’ll be checking out the Carowinds Amusement Park. We may choose a different campground as the TT is almost an hour from Carowinds. The free part ropes me in though. I hope to hit up a few other spots for the kids.

August

•  We’ll finish up our stay in Charlotte and be back during the first week of August.
• Heading back to PA, this time staying at TT  Hershey RV & Camping Resort. The twins have been asking me, since they were, oh…………about 3 or 4 to head back here. They stopped asking a long time ago but the mommy guilt still grips me! The youngest has never been to Chocolate World so here we come!

September

• Plan on heading out mid-September for that ever elusive Niagara Falls/Maine trip. Our first stop will be at the TT in Wells, Maine. I think the weather will be just warm enough and the lobster divine!
• Onward towards Niagara Falls. Not sure where we’ll stay in Niagara but I’m sure the campgrounds will be cheaper and mine for the picking.
• Then we’ll steer PERL towards Ohio for a wedding followed by a stopover at home.

October thru the end of 2015

• This is all up in the air, depending on my daughter’s progress. I hope to head West and be near California by the end of the year. But I’m not banking on anything.

So where were we planning on heading for the summer? Anybody out there curious? Not a soul played along with my little game. Oh sure, I got a lot of spam comments, haha! We were planning on parking it in Nova Scotia for the summer. We were hoping to get away but not too far. Hang out in another country but not have to fly. The passports were all updated and we were ready. And in due time, it will happen, it just wasn’t our time.

Do you know someone suffering from an eating disorder? I never thought I would but alas, here I am. If you do or even have a bit of suspicion, it doesn’t hurt to make a trip to the doctor. Four out of ten individuals has either experienced an eating disorder or knows someone else who has. This is a good website and here is some more information on eating disorders in teens.  Here are some recommended books:

Life Without ED
8 Keys to Recovery From an Eating Disorder
Surviving an Eating Disorder: Strategies for Families and Friends

{HUGS} from the Crew!

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