"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams"

And we're off! We left for the big trip on January 28, racing to get away from the Polar Vortex. Keep in mind guys, we have LIMITED experience with the camper. We bought it in March, took it out for a couple of long weekends and spent a few months packing it up before leaving. Most people would have probably waited until they were more experienced before setting out on a 10 month journey but not us! We like to keep interesting... And hey, so far we've only got one dent on the truck and one on the camper so we're doing alright.

On day one we were still in the driveway when we noticed some water leaking underneath the camper. We were 99.9% sure we just overfilled the water tank but decided to head to the nearest camper service center to make sure. Good news- we were right. Moving on...

Our first stop was Gypsy Wind Farms, a Harvest Hosts location in Blair, South Carolina. Harvest Hosts is an absolutely phenomenal program that connects campers with local farmers, wineries, museums, etc. for a free place to stay. The basic idea is we get free camping from our host and in turn we support their business by purchasing their farm products during our stay. Since we already try to support local farmers this is really great for us. We enjoyed meeting the animals, feeding them and wandering around the farm.

From there, we moved on to Mays Hill Alpacas in Perkins, Georgia. It was there that the Polar Vortex caught up to us with a low of 26 degrees that night. Whoa! We were cozy in the camper though. Fortunately, it was warm enough during the day for us to visit with Glen Mays and his sweet alpacas. How often do you really get to meet locals when you are traveling? We always do our best to meet people but it takes effort! With Harvest Hosts it is really easy and truly adds to the journey!

If you are interested in joining Harvest Hosts, click HERE to learn more and save 15% on your membership. Our membership paid for itself with these two stays alone!

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And so it begins! Monday we hit the road for our epic 10 month cross country journey. After a slight detour to the repair shop to make sure we did not have a water leak (yep, on day 1), our first stop on the run from the polar vortex was a #harvesthosts location in SC. We had a great time checking out Gypsy Wind Farm!

A post shared by leighlee218 (@leighlee218) on Feb 3, 2019 at 5:00pm PST

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Our next stop was an alpaca farm. I mean... how cool is that? The kids however were only mildly impressed and were way more interested in playing on this pirate ship. Surely I’m not the only one excited to hang out with alpacas right? The owner, Glen Mays, is a fifth generation farmer on this land and he made us feel right at home. This was the coldest night of our trip so far, around 26 degrees. Shockingly we stayed quite toasty in the camper. #propane #harvesthosts #roadschooling #homeschooling #worldschooling #localfarms

A post shared by leighlee218 (@leighlee218) on Feb 3, 2019 at 5:16pm PST