It was early September when we finally hit the road to head out on this crazy adventure. We were living in limbo in Valparaiso. The house was on the market, the new rig and truck had been purchased, but due to a variety of circumstances, our launch date kept getting pushed. The majority of our things were already packed up and waiting to be hauled off to storage – the rest was waiting to be loaded into the RV. We were hesitant to start official home schooling routines for the kids knowing that everything was going to have to change all over again once we moved in, and honestly, with as much change as we were pushing them into, one less item on that list was rather important. Finally, we just decided it was too much to sit around and wait for things with the house to be finalized. We needed to rip the bandaid and start settling into our new life. We decided to head a few hours south to be near grandparents for a week or so and deal with the remaining house variables from there. It might not be far, but at least we could start.
We’ve booked a few campgrounds over the years, but this was our fist foray into booking one as full-timers. I have to say, for our first, we completely lucked out. The campground of choice was Natural Springs Resort in New Paris, OH. This park is built on an old quarry that has now turned into a beautiful spring-fed lake. My dad can even remember coming out there and swimming as a kid.
Natural Springs Resort is a delightful little park. It’s very well maintained with a friendly staff. We were obviously there at the end of the season, so we didn’t have a chance to enjoy the water (other than to take in the views), but the WiFi was strong, the sites were decently-sized and although the playground was in need of a little love, it was definitely usable and the kids loved it. Honestly, for us, the best part about this place was that it was barely 10 minutes from the grandparents. It was one of those weeks that really drove home the point of why people chose to raise their kids close to family. Holy cow. We’ve definitely been missing that luxury.
All in all, it was a great shake-down week for us. We finally got moved in and got to stretch our RV legs a bit. Homeschooling (affectionately now called “roadschooling”) officially got underway for the kids. The house items in Valparaiso were moved into storage and project after project was tackled. It may have been a new RV, but there were a million things that needed to be done to make it ours. By the time the week was said and done, we felt like we had finally dipped our toes into this new world.
