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Emerson once said, "Life is a journey, not a destination."
When I was young, I understood that
differently than I do now.
Life has a way of putting bumps in the road
just when you least expect them.
I guess it's through these trials that we grow,
so long as we can push through them.
My name is Kelly.
I'm a wife, a mother, an adventurer,
though life hasn't felt so adventurous these days.
I spend most of my time folding laundry
and scrubbing food off the floor.
The world feels no larger than the four walls around me.
It hasn't always been this way, though.
Before we met each other, my husband
was an extreme whitewater kayaker, and was working
for a ski movie company filming extreme sports.
Meanwhile, I was guiding wilderness trips in Colorado,
doing volunteer work in Africa,
where I summited Mount Kilimanjaro
and did safaris in the Serengeti and in Ngorongoro Crater.
I backpacked through southeast Asia, Australia,
and New Zealand, then studied for my EMT
and started as a NOLS wilderness medicine instructor.
Right after we got married, Eli and I drove
a 15-passenger van 3,000 miles to southern Mexico
to do volunteer work in Oaxaca.
We traveled three times to Uganda
in service of organizations bringing hope,
fresh water, and education to remote villagers.
We did a safari together, visited my ranger friend
in Australia, tromped through Tasmania,
backpacked New Zealand, hiked to Machu Picchu,
and spent many days in America's back country.
Then our world began to crumble.
In a three-month period, we miscarried at 11 weeks,
had an accident that forced us to amputate our puppy's leg,
and then moved across states.
A year later, the joy of giving birth to our first child
was overshadowed by a traumatic 56-hour labor
ending with a fourth-degree episiotomy,
a vacuum extraction, and a torn umbilical cord.
Along with physical wounds, I was left with PTSD
that manifested itself in night terrors
and inescapable, obsessive anxiety
that required EMDR therapy.
Then came 12 months of health issues
with our baby boy that added massive stress.
And on top of all that,
our marriage was seriously struggling.
Life at home was full of loneliness,
isolation, and exhaustion.
I barely recognized myself anymore.
And I did not want to have any more children.
I needed a change, a chance to explore again
and reclaim the joy and hope that my husband and I
had shared in our early days.
I wanted to share it with my son.
So we did it.
We scrounged up all we could
and paid $15,000 for a 1995 Fleetwood Bounder,
our 32-foot Class A motorhome.
We packed up our house, handed the keys over to the renters,
and drove out the driveway, not knowing
if or when we would return.
(UPLIFTING MUSIC)
This story's about us, but it's told from my perspective,
because I was the catalyst for the trip,
in a good way and bad way.
(CHUCKLING)
- Right? - Yeah.
- I was the one who... - You can have credit for it.
I needed to escape my reality.
Howard Thurman said, "Don't ask what the world needs.
"Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it,
"because what the world needs
"is people who have come alive."
What can I say?
I come alive on the road, and in beautiful places.
And at this point in my journey,
I needed to come back to life.
(SOFT MUSIC)
Life on the road is not all it's cracked up to be,
and I learned that very quickly,
living in such tight quarters with a two-year-old and a dog.
We have a really small kitchen,
so we kind of bump into each other a little bit, you know?
Our table is right next to our stove and our sink,
and that's the hallway that connects the back to the front,
the bathroom to the front door,
and so it's tight quarters.
KELLY: Eating healthy is important for us,
and not many gas stations sell organic food.
So we stopped at every Costco we could find along the way,
and tried to buy enough stuff to make it to our next stop.
The challenge was finding a place for it.
How is it?
Good.
(LAUGHTER)
Oh my God, is that a tiger in the car area?
I need to hide!
Oh my goodness, that's so scary, a black leopard!
For sleeping, we gave Dakota the back bedroom.
It was a sacrifice for us,
but it did make a great play area for him.
(GIGGLING)
And the bed popped up to create
a little nest for him on the floor.
He sure loved snuggling in at night.
Our sleeping situation, however, was a little less ideal.
(PLAYFUL MUSIC)
Eli and I shared the foldout couch,
which lost its comfort with every passing night
and had to be converted back and forth
between bed and sofa every day.
Our amazing and shedding dog Tassie got the floor
right underneath our couch.
Everyone could hear everything, all the time.
(TOY MUSIC)
The smoke alarm went off almost every time we cooked,
despite having the windows open.
And we had to pull in a foldout chair
to fit the three of us, which we stashed
behind the driver's seat when we weren't using it.
Living in a small space means keeping it simple.
That means paper plates, and sometimes
washing and reusing paper plates.
Low on storage space, we kept a number of pans
and Tupperware in the oven.
We found it worked better as a cabinet.
At least we had a bathroom,
and that's about all I can say about that.
I'm thankful that Eli took ownership of the systems.
When it comes to technical stuff,
I had rather just not think about it.
Over here I have nothing.
Learning the systems is kind of the big hurdle,
you know, learning how to empty your tanks,
where you can fill them up and dump them,
learning how to keep them clean
so your sensors work so you can have an accurate reading
on how full your gray tank is or your black tank.
KELLY: I put a high priority
on clean, safe drinking water.
Drinking water out of an old plastic tank,
filling up at random gas stations and roadside spigots,
it was a challenge for me.
An additional challenge we faced
was moving our film and video business
from the studio and equipment trailer into the Bounder.
Eli stashed his gear down below,
in a compartment right next to Dakota's toys,
and then bought a laptop and used the side table
and front seat as his workstation,
converting it back and forth each time we traveled.
Being a video production company,
I can take my work on the road.
It's not easy, let me tell you.
I left the comfort of a beautiful home studio.
I'm basically able to do what I do because I have internet,
but without a hard-line connection to broadband,
sometimes it's terribly frustrating
to try and download a song or even an email.
KELLY: You transitioned well.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Thanks.
I think it was probably hard for you.
I know, I think I hid most of my transitioning.
(LAUGHING)
KELLY: Then, while he was working,
Dakota and I would drive the campgrounds on his quad,
explore the trails and creeks,
or sometimes we'd just hang out in the Bounder.
Eli's first job was a 10-day shoot in Colorado,
so over the next couple months,
we journeyed east from Oregon,
through northern Idaho and Montana.
We explored Yellowstone National Park,
then headed south and visited countless friends
and beautiful places in Colorado
before turning back up north again
to Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone.
(UPLIFTING MUSIC)
How are you doing, Dakota?
Oh, are you using your binoculars?
What do you see?
I see a big head and big eyes.
KELLY: Cool, I love your binoculars!
We've seen herds of pronghorn
just cruising out across the Wyoming plains.
And we've seen bull moose pretty up close
in the marshes east of the Tetons.
We've seen grizzly bear twice.
The first time we saw the grizzly,
he was eating an elk carcass, literally
pulling chunks of meat off the elk carcass,
defending it against a wolf who was waiting for his turn.
And after the grizzly left, we sat and watched the wolf
chew away at this elk carcass for hours.
And everywhere we went, Dakota, his signature story was,
"A grizzly bear eating an elk carcass and a wolf."
And people would look at him like, "You saw what?"
Dakota's at this age where everything is new,
and he's experiencing things for the first time,
like seeing a grizzly bear in the wild
or seeing a bald eagle or catching a fish.
And to be able to introduce him to wild places
and just watch his eyes get so big.
And the overwhelming joy of being able to experience
these things with him for the first time was so, so sweet.
I hadn't foreseen how lonely it could be at times
on the road, away from the people we love.
I think the biggest loss of going on the road
was taking Dakota away from home, 'cause he gets weekly
if not daily interaction with his grandparents.
Dakota had his share of homesickness.
ELI: Do you want to go to Yellowstone?
No!
ELI: Why?
Because I wanna go back to the Prairie Nest.
ELI: What do you want to do at the Prairie Nest?
I wanna ride my mini John Deere.
I bet Papa is gonna let me ride in Honey Bee.
KELLY: Honey Bee is my dad's vintage Model A,
and our son has spent many hours with his grandpa,
trying to get that old car to start.
Dad, it started up, huh?
GRANDPA: Yeah, I got a little air problem.
KELLY: The Prairie Nest is my parents' farm,
which served as our base camp when we'd visit our hometown.
There was enough room there to park the Bounder
and spread out a little.
And Dakota loved riding all my dad's tractors.
ELI: We'll go back there in October or November, okay?
I want to go back to the Prairie Nest right now!
It's just us, Kelly, Dakota and myself.
That is why it is sweet to have friends out there.
It was always wonderful to roll up into our friends' homes
and be able to reconnect, tell them about our journeys
and our adventures, and that was just special.
Just getting that meal time and some late night time,
evenings after the kids go to sleep.
KELLY: When can you do sleepovers?
I mean, it was so fun to just be living with people.
I hadn't ridden a horse bareback for years,
so when our friends in Oregon's Wallowa Mountains
offered for me to ride their gelding,
it was a special opportunity to share
in their life and passions.
(BRIGHT MUSIC)
Kelly has gotten a lot of time with her girlfriends.
She has a lot of friends in Colorado,
so we spent a month and a half in Colorado.
I did a big job.
While I was gone, Kelly stayed with her friend, Ashley.
For her to be able to do that
and live in community with a good friend,
that was a huge gift, and we couldn't have had that
without being in this motorhome lifestyle.
(UPLIFTING MUSIC)
We stayed a week with some dear friends
and helped with their daughter's wedding,
and that was sweet time, both being at the wedding
and also just being with them for that time, for that week.
Our friends are our destinations.
We shoot for where our friends are at
and create community there.
With the motorhome we're able
to not impose too much in their home.
Dakota has his own space, he can take a nap,
he can sleep well, we're not concerned
about changing his environment,
and that just seems to work really well.
(GIGGLING)
In the twilight
I reach for the stars
If they'll tell me what happens now
When dark cloud spreads cross my sky
Can you make it so I can see
If I've fallen down
Would you pull me up
KELLY: Good job hiking the mountain, Dakota!
Look at you, you're such a big hiker!
Will your arms reach round
Can you hold me now
Then maybe I won't fall
As the weather changed, I could almost taste
the bitter chill of winter,
and the struggles of years past.
Seasons change
The leaves of your spirit
Have colors like I've never seen
If I live today
Will time change the secrets
Of loving so I will know
When I married my husband
and exchanged vows in the setting of celebration,
I could never have known the struggle and fortitude
it would take to uphold those vows.
Over nearly 10 years of marriage,
Eli and I experienced incredible highs and devastating lows.
I remember our pastor telling us during the wedding
that marriage would be harder than any peak I'd climbed.
And I appreciated his metaphor,
as I'd suffered through some tough days in the mountains.
But now those days pale in comparison
to the suffering I'd experienced
during seasons of pain and betrayal in marriage,
seasons that were so absent of love,
belonging and connection.
It's staggering that in a relationship
as intimate as marriage, that I could feel so alone.
We've both been at that point of saying we're done,
we want to walk out, and that's intense.
I never ever thought I'd be at that point.
That's the fickle thing about relationship.
It can feel so doomed, and then she says something loving,
I do the same, and all of a sudden
we're in a different place.
So, with all that to say, one of the reasons
we left our house is to help our marriage.
KELLY: While still in our house,
Eli started writing me notes with these pictures
of a motorhome in various mountain settings.
It was an invitation to dream together,
to pursue my longing to be united on a shared adventure,
to road trip like we did in our early days.
(UPBEAT ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
Where do you go when it glows
When the night is coming to a close
The sky is painted red
But the darkness it can't settle yet
Leaving Colorado and Wyoming, we headed north during autumn
to explore Glacier National Park
and the parks of the Canadian Rockies:
Kootenay, Banff, Jasper, and Yoho.
(ROUSING MUSIC)
I love getting out into beauty and wilderness,
whether backpacking or traveling overseas.
These remote settings force me out of my daily routine
and provide a respite from this fast-paced culture
that causes so much stress.
These places allow me to pause,
to be present to each moment as it passes,
to make room in my life to attend
to the vulnerable places inside me.
It seems the best environment to cultivate change.
I think a lot of people get stuck in the same spot,
the same job, the same routine.
It's funny to think that that's actually what I crave,
yet here I am saying that I've changed on this journey,
and I probably wouldn't have made the same changes at home.
It also really forced us to unplug,
as we were often far from cell towers and internet.
It was like a detox from technology,
and allowed us to enjoy a slower, more simple pace of life.
I was pretty lonely, pretty isolated.
I think I was dealing with some post-partum depression.
And so, being able to be on the road was amazing,
because we were all in one place,
and it just allowed Eli and I to be reunited together
on an adventure, which was very, very, I think,
a huge rescue for our marriage and for our life.
The simple pace also allowed us to connect
with other travelers in the campgrounds.
That's how we met this Australian couple, John and Linda.
They reminded me that I can never be
too old to live adventurously.
Well originally we sold our business,
and we were just gonna do what most Australians do
and grab a caravan and drive around Australia.
And then we saw an ad for a guy who wanted to travel
across to Europe, going through China.
So we thought, well that sounds like fun.
We'll go onboard with that,
so that's how it all started, 11 years ago.
We shipped to Singapore, drove through Malaysia, Thailand,
Cambodia, Laos, rode across China, through the Stans,
and then basically across the Caspian Sea
and we were in Europe.
Probably China was a real surprise.
We had kind of a bit of trepidation
about going into a communist country,
but the Chinese were so friendly, so interested.
Our first motorhome was just a front wheel drive Fiat,
so it lasted up okay, but we were limited where we could go.
You couldn't go down by a riverbed or up a dirt track,
so we decided we wanted a four wheel drive one,
and we bought an Isuzu cab chassis
and had 'em build the back on and modified it to our needs.
KELLY: I love the Australian mindset.
I learned it in college when I did a semester abroad there,
working as a park ranger: to invest more in experience
than material things.
So then we shifted over to Lima.
Took us three weeks to get it out of customs.
We have confidence that, if something happens,
we can fix it, or we can talk our way out of it.
We ended up in a situation in Bolivia.
There was a big strike, and we kind of drove
into the middle of it, and the guys were throwing dynamite
and all this, and my wife's like packing it, you know?
I said, "Ah, it'll be all right."
We spent a day there, mixed with the locals,
and played their games, and drunk their rocket fuel,
and then they showed us a way we can get past and carry on.
Nah, we just have confidence in ourselves
and trust that everything will work out right, you know?
My accountant said once, "If you have a passport
"and a credit card, you can go anywhere." (LAUGHING)
KELLY: With fresh inspiration from our new friends,
we continued north to the Canadian border,
passports in hand, 'cause, hey,
with a passport and a credit card, you can go anywhere.
(ROUSING MUSIC)
Mark Twain said, "20 years from now,
"you'll be more disappointed by the things you didn't do
"than by the ones you did."
Eli is a bit crazy.
He literally swims in any body of water,
no matter how cold it is.
I think he just wants my attention,
even though he says he truly loves it,
floating down ice-cold glacial snow melt.
There are glacial lakes up there
that are as turquoise blue as you could ever imagine,
surrounded by towering, beautiful granite peaks.
One of the lakes is up in the Valley of the Ten Peaks.
Both Kelly and I got some time up there,
just to be and to look around
and breathe in the beauty there, the majesty of it all.
She came back to me after her walk and said, "I'm going in."
And that is so unlike anyone, really,
because people just don't swim in these lakes.
They're frigid.
But the thing about them is they're so beautiful,
and they look so inviting, that to really experience it
there's that allure of you've gotta just dive in.
Really, really, really cold! (LAUGHING)
ELI: Can believe you did it!
No! 'Cus it's really cold! (LAUGHING)
I had to just go for it, and I'm glad I did.
It's like many things in life:
This trip wouldn't have happened
had we not taken the risk and dove in.
Both marriage and parenting require jumping in
to our own frigid and dark places.
One might say that anything worth doing
in this life is like that.
Theodore Roosevelt states it so eloquently:
"It is not the critic who counts,
"not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles
"or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
"whose face is marred by dust, and sweat, and blood,
"who spends himself in a worthy cause,
"who at the best knows in the end
"the triumph of high achievement,
"and who at the worst, if he fails,
"at least fails while daring greatly,
"so that his place shall never be
"with those cold and timid souls
"who neither know victory nor defeat."
Here we are coming down the switchbacks from Takakkaw Falls.
You can see it's pretty tight here.
I guess the tour buses actually back up and down.
There's the switchbacks right there.
One, two, three.
Yay! We did it!
That was intense.
We thought we had failed on numerous occasions
and feel like we escaped disaster on every one of them.
We had to dump our black tank.
A little bit chilly out, but you know,
didn't really think a whole lot about it.
Cold air had gotten in there and frozen water
in that sewer intake and clogged it up.
It hit a certain point, and it just started coming back up.
I went straight to the black tank and turned it off,
but the whole tube was still full then,
so the stench was horrible.
It was bad.
It was really bad.
The worst part is it just felt horrible.
I mean, there was just poop everywhere.
It's one of the most disgusting things
about living in a motorhome
is that you literally have to handle your own poop.
KELLY: Like I said in the beginning,
I'm glad Eli took care of the systems.
ELI: Well I'm about to saw into the toilet.
It's all moldy 'cause it had a leak in the back.
The valve was leaking for months, I guess.
I got my tools here.
Black tank is plugged up with a trash bag right now.
And you can see this completely moldy,
nasty piece of wood here, in the back especially.
Seven o'clock p.m.
Kelly is sleeping at our friend's house with Dakota.
And I'm gonna go for it and try to get this thing replaced.
Slide it in like so.
Bring in this piece, drop it in like that.
Now this piece like this.
There it is, a new toilet base.
(WIND WHISTLING)
KELLY: The weather didn't always cooperate,
so we made most of our decisions at the last minute.
There's Waterton!
(SHOUTING)
Once we were caught in a snowstorm
coming down a Canadian pass 300 miles
north of the border, with no cell service.
We scraped our rear end numerous times.
We've definitely had some conflict
over driving the big motorhome.
I mean, it's a 32-footer.
With the bikes in the back, it's probably about 35, 36 feet.
We've had some encounters in parking lots.
There was a time when I ran into the gas pump
and hooked the bumper of the Bounder around the gas pump,
and that was slightly stressful.
ELI: That was a rough day.
Sorry for being hard on you.
Yeah, you didn't deal with me too warmly on that moment.
ELI: I've had my share of mistakes in fixing things
or not doing things right as well.
Eli and I have some pretty massive differences.
I'm an extrovert, he's an introvert.
I'm a thinker, you're a feeler.
Yeah, oh yeah.
I'm all about simplifying, getting rid of things,
living in small spaces; my husband, not so much.
Being in cramped quarters can be challenging at times.
I like having some space, a little place of my own.
I don't have that in this life.
I have like a cubby of my own up in the upper cabinet.
Give me a house anywhere.
Just stay in the same house.
20, 30 years, I'll be there.
Kelly, she doesn't like that idea.
She has a really hard time staying in one place.
I really have a massive free spirit,
like I wanna move, I wanna change, I wanna go places.
And Eli would love to just stay in the same house
for the rest of our life.
Anyway, it presents challenges for us,
'cause it's highly stressful for him to have to have change.
It actually, to be totally honest,
can cause some major stress and conflict
that we've had to work through
and continue to work through in our marriage.
He checks out, I turn cold, get controlling,
he lets his anger fly.
We'd see that whether we were living
in a motorhome or not.
It happened plenty in our house.
It's happened plenty on the road.
We live in a 300-square-foot box.
There's no room that I can go retreat to,
no closet that I can go hide in.
We have to face our issues head-to-head,
and we just have to work it out.
(ROUSING MUSIC)
KELLY: Yeah, we work it out all right,
right in front of our son.
Dakota is very in tune with how Kelly and I are doing.
We can see literally his anxiety level.
We could see him being affected
by our fighting or our anger.
That's one of the hardest things
that I've experienced in life,
is seeing my issues affect him, or our issues affect him.
But we'd see that whether we were living
in a motorhome or not.
KELLY: One of our marriage counselors told us
that conflict is actually a gift,
because it is required for a relationship to grow.
Though not totally convinced, it was enough anyway
to keep me moving toward connection despite the dysfunction.
(SOFT MUSIC)
After we left behind the towering mountains of Canada,
Eli's work took us toward Seattle.
We ferried the Bounder across the Puget Sound
and explored Olympic National Park
before returning to our hometown
for the first time in over three months.
The national parks were our amazing home away from home.
The campgrounds are beautiful, peaceful,
and the most affordable option out there.
The children's programs and visitor centers
were so interactive and helped us
teach Dakota about the natural world.
And the scenery and trails are breathtaking.
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Dakota
Happy birthday to you
Can you blow 'em out?
ELI: Blow 'em out.
KELLY: Keep blowing.
- Yay! - Good job!
Dadda, I want Monkey to see it.
ELI: Where are we Dakota?
We're at the Prairie Nest.
ELI: Oh my gosh, it's been a long time, huh?
DAKOTA: Uh-huh.
KELLY: Dakota was quite the adventurer
on that first leg of our journey,
but we knew how much he missed his grandparents,
so it was a sweet time for him to experience
his third birthday in Central Oregon.
Happy birthday to you.
We planned to stay a week or two.
We had to find new tenants
and get the house ready for winter.
Eli had a film shoot to take care of.
And we had to dig a few things out of storage.
But the day before we were to leave,
the unexpected happened.
(SOFT MUSIC)
Temperatures plummeted to -10 degrees Fahrenheit overnight,
dumping over a foot of snow.
The temperature didn't get above freezing for two weeks.
Despite the beauty and wonder of the ice and snow,
it was a little too cold for us
in that foam and metal box we called the Bounder.
Dadda, what's that?
It's funny ice, huh, Dadda?
It's around and around and around and around and around.
KELLY: But more troubling were the frozen pipes.
No water, no sewer, and the concern that,
if left unattended, our Bounder
would be a sopping mess when they thawed.
How do you thaw out pipes when it's
five degrees high and negative five low?
KELLY: Eli had to get creative.
It was tense, it was stressful, it was an adventure.
It actually gave me an opportunity
to put my fix-it mind to work, and I rigged up something
with a little six-inch space heater,
and some heating conduit, and some insulation,
and I blasted warm air into the subfloor
of our Bounder for a week, 10 days straight.
It thawed the pipes out within an hour.
We endured about a week, 10 days of subzero temperatures
at night, with temperatures not getting anywhere close
to the non-freezing level for that whole time.
Thankfully things thawed out,
and we saw a window to get out.
The storm was coming, but we prayed, we drove really slow,
like 10 to 15 miles an hour, and we got out in time.
KELLY: We didn't have a clear plan
of where we were headed,
but we knew we had to move south for the winter
if our Bounder was going to make it.
It felt so good to be escaping the chill of winter.
But what's that saying?
Out of the frying pan and into the fire?
It is just pouring rain.
We had to take Tassie out for walks,
and then we had to get out of the house sometimes too,
so we'd go out in the pouring rain.
It was fun.
We'd get completely drenched, come back,
and have soaking wet clothes, hang 'em up,
cook some food, steam, it's cold outside,
older motorhome, not insulated so well,
condensation, moisture on our windows.
We've had some mold growing around the edges.
We have to wipe that off with Clorox every day.
This thing is soaking wet.
It's terrible.
Mmm, yum.
It was kind of crazy there when it was raining so much.
KELLY: Here we are!
DAKOTA: Where we at?
KELLY: The laundromat, woo!
DAKOTA: What's this? What's this water.
KELLY: Don't touch too much, bud, come on in.
Laundromats.
I have a love-hate relationship with laundromats.
They're sort of a necessary evil while living on the road,
but I tried to make the most of it,
having fun with Dakota while doing our family chores.
Aside from the muddy clothes and the moldy windows,
we enjoyed exploring Redwood National Park,
then continued south on Highway 1,
past Mendocino and Monterey, settling down
on California's Big Sur coastline for Christmas.
DAKOTA: Look at that tree, Dadda!
- Oh my God! - Look at the other one!
KELLY: Wow, that one's huge!
It's giant!
Look at that one!
Oh my gosh, look at that one!
- Look! - Wow!
(SOFT MUSIC)
KELLY: "We have grown dull
"toward this world in which we live.
"We have forgotten that it is not normal
"or scientific in any sense of the word.
"It is fantastic, it is fairytale through and through.
"At what point did we lose our wonder at it all?
"Even so, once in a while something will come along
"and shock us right out of our dullness and resignation.
"We come around a corner, and there before us is a peacock,
"a stag with horns as big as he.
"Perhaps we come upon a waterfall,
"the clouds have made a rainbow in a circle around the sun,
"and for a moment we realize that we were born into a world
"as astonishing as any fairytale."
I love this John Eldredge quote
that speaks of the wonder that I want to live with,
that childlike amazement at nature and life.
It's so easy to become complacent,
numbed by the everyday ordinariness of mundane routine.
Being a new parent, exhausted and in survival mode,
I was just trying to get through one day at a time.
As I watch my son explore the world around him,
I begin to notice more and take time to remember
the seasons of awe I had as a child.
(SIRENS BLARING)
Highway 1 along the Big Sur is a 100-mile stretch
along rocky bluffs littered with hairpin turns
and steep drop-offs.
JOHN: Three-car accident.
They just took the people of the crash back.
It seems like it'll take like an hour.
KELLY: There's still one more ambulance and a firetruck.
As we hoped for the best for the rescue crews and victims,
it seemed like a great time to cook up a little dinner
for our family in our luxurious kitchen on wheels,
and get in a little playtime before bed.
My house, it's red.
(RELAXED MUSIC)
Take me to the breaking of a beautiful dawn
Take me to the place where we came from
Take me to the end so I can see the start
There's only one way to mend a broken heart
Take me to the place where I don't feel so small
Take me where I don't need to stand so tall
Take me to the edge so I can fall apart
There's only one way to mend a broken heart
ELI: Kelly loves whale watching.
We'd be driving along and see a spout.
We'd just pull over at a little turnout,
and she'd hang out the window with her binoculars
and watch the whales.
Take me where love is not for sale
Take me where our hearts are not so frail
Take me where the fire still owns its spark
And there's only one way to mend a broken heart
Teach me how to see when I close my eyes
KELLY: In the beginning I said
I didn't ever want to have kids again,
a combination of the trauma from Dakota's birth,
along with the struggles we've faced in marriage.
But the desire to have a second
kept coming back to me in the recent days.
Maybe it was the romance of the ocean,
the sunsets with the hubby, or the desire to give Dakota
the gift of being a big brother.
Maybe with Christmas approaching
I was hoping for my own Christmas miracle.
Either way, it felt good to at least
have the desire back again.
Show me to the wisdom of the evening star
And there's only one way to mend a broken heart
Take me to the place where I feel no shame
Take me where courage doesn't need a name
Learning how to cry is the hardest part
There's only one way to mend a broken heart
Twas the night before Christmas when all through the Bounder
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse, thankfully.
The stockings were hung by the cupboards with care,
in hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there.
Whoa!
How does it feel?
Can I walk outside?
Of course, we can hike today in your new shoes.
And little did we know,
I had a Christmas gift growing inside of me.
How are you doing today?
MECHANIC: All right. How about yourself?
We're good. Thanks for being here.
No problem.
This is what I was talking about here.
KELLY: That's supposed to be flat?
MECHANIC: It's supposed to be a little smooth, yeah.
KELLY: Yeah, so this is definitely needed.
MECHANIC: Metal to metal, yeah.
There was grooves all around the rotor.
You could see where the back of the brake pad
was just grinding into that rotor.
Super dangerous, and I'm so thankful
that we didn't have any accidents because of it.
KELLY: And thankfully, we found a mechanic
who was willing to work on such a big rig.
But we had to stay overnight at the shop
in an industrial aree in north LA.
It makes it all the more wonderful
to tell those stories in retrospect,
- 'cause they're just... - Yeah, you can actually laugh
- when it's over. - Funny.
After it's over.
It's not funny in the midst of it.
We drove away after a full rear brake replacement,
only to start hearing another screeching sound
from the right rear wheels.
Shortly after that, we spent another night
in front of an RV mechanic shop
while they diagnosed a generator issue.
Needless to say, we spent a lot of time sitting on the curb,
wondering what would become
of our 20-year-old home on wheels,
and how long we'd have to keep living
in front of mechanics' garages.
I'm driving, and suddenly I start hearing
this high-pitched grinding noise somewhere
underneath somewhere, and I was like, "Oh, no!"
That was right before the vinegar fell, or the oil bottle.
Oh, the olive oil bottle falls out,
literally smashes my iPhone into bits
and falls onto the floor.
Were you laughing?
Not at all.
Like I said, in the moment it's not pretty.
But afterwards it's funny, if we survive.
I think I realized maybe the only difference
between a road block and an adventure was my perspective,
'cause if everything went exactly as planned,
it wouldn't be much of an adventure.
(SPIRITED MUSIC)
Leaving the cities behind, it was time to spend
the rest of the winter in the souther deserts.
We had booked another job in Colorado for the springtime,
so that gave us three months to work our way out there.
(ROUSING MUSIC)
We camped in Joshua Tree National Park,
Mojave National Preserve and Death Valley,
then continued east through Zion, Bryce Canyon,
Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches National Parks.
(SPIRITED MUSIC)
Like this, raise your right hand.
I promise...
KELLY: To be the best Junior Ranger...
Ever.
KELLY: That I can be.
That I can be.
KELLY: And where are you going?
To the Visitor Center to get my Junior Ranger badge!
KELLY: Well I can't wait.
Bye-bye, what's your name again?
Ranger Dakota.
KELLY: Dakota was really excited
about the Junior Ranger programs.
And I loved that he was so proud of his badges.
It's been amazing to see Kelly in these national parks
come alive with everything having to do with rangers
and introducing that to Dakota.
KELLY: What map are you looking at?
Yellowstone.
KELLY: Oh, cool!
What are all the animals you see on there?
I'll show you, Mamma.
Bison calf.
KELLY: What other animals to you see?
DAKOTA: That.
KELLY: What is it?
DAKOTA: A big grizzly.
ELI: Those badges mean so much to him.
Junior Ranger, Joshua Tree National Park.
Another raven statue.
And another lizard statue.
- Wow! - See that one?
KELLY: Yeah, I didn't even notice that one.
Wow, look at how long!
And another bighorn sheep.
KELLY: That one's a big one, isn't it?
He learned so much on this trip.
His brain is like a sponge
soaking up information everywhere we go.
As a parent, I want to teach him through experience,
getting out there and really learning firsthand.
DAKOTA: R.
A.
KELLY: I.
I. L.
It's a beautiful thing.
You know, he's done almost every ranger program.
So they give little booklets that have
different quizzes and animal pictures,
and you have to mix and match and color animals,
and Kelly does a lot of it with him,
and then when he fills it out,
he goes down to the ranger station or the visitors center,
and he hands over the booklet, and they give him a badge.
RANGER: There's your badge right there.
You're done, congratulations!
There's a bighorn sheep, our son, and Scotty's Castle.
- It's a one-of-a-kind. - Bighorn sheep!
KELLY: Yeah!
Thank you.
RANGER: You're very welcome.
Congratulations.
Nice work.
KELLY: All in all, Dakota did 17 ranger books
and collected 17 ranger badges.
And he's so proud when he says, "I'm Ranger Dakota!"
Are you five, or are you three, or are you four?
Am I three?
KELLY: You're three.
I'm five.
KELLY: No, you're three!
You're three. Three?
DAKOTA: Uh-huh.
Okay, well I gotta go climb.
Nice to meet you, Ranger Dakota.
Bye.
KELLY: We met Laurie while camping at Joshua Tree.
Dakota thought she and her climbing partner
were pretty silly.
She let Eli and I borrow some ropes
and helped us set up a climb
so we could get in some rock climbing together
while Dakota entertained the other climbers.
She shared her story about trying
to pursue her passions while on the road.
I love to climb, and I'm also a professional.
I want to work only enough to enjoy life,
not to live in a job where I'm constantly working.
So what I did is I bought a Mercedes Sprinter
four wheel drive van from Germany,
and then I spent it to Sportsmobile,
and they spent about four months designing it.
I don't know whether I'll decide,
wow, I still like coming into LA and teaching,
I teach at Pepperdine, or I might say
I want to do really mostly online.
But I decided that the first step was getting in the van.
If you ever see a yellow Mercedes Sprinter
and a yellow Jeep, you kinda know it's me.
Bye, Lori.
Bye!
KELLY: Inspired by his new friends,
Dakota put on his climbing harness a couple days later
and got up on some real rocks for the first time.
Climbing.
ELI: Climb on.
KELLY: Okay, you're ready.
Look, I'm coming!
KELLY: Good move, remember to lean in,
have your hand holds and your foot holds.
Nice!
Good job!
Oh my gosh!
You did it!
KELLY: How was it?
Great!
KELLY: Did you have fun?
ELI: Okay, I gotcha.
Thank you, Dadda.
KELLY: When we started this journey,
we wondered how Dakota would handle
being away from his friends and grandparents
and if we'd made a really bad decision.
But as it turned out,
Dakota made new friends everywhere we went.
Among the eclectic community of fellow nomads
living in the national parks, we met Cornelia and Werner.
They had another fascinating travel story.
Two years before we started this tour,
we bought this Big Grasshopper.
We started in Germany and shipped our rig
over to Halifax, Nova Scotia, down to the Smokey Mountains.
We turned west to New Mexico.
We followed the Rocky Mountains north,
and we visited all the national parks,
especially Yellowstone and Jasper, in Canada.
Then we go further on north to Alaska.
And now we go south to Central and South America.
We have a mission to make a combination of travel and help,
and therefore we have two projects,
one in Mexico City and another one in Honduras,
and both projects support children to get to school.
"Be a Brick, Buy a Brick" is on our car.
Buy one of these bricks,
and then you can do something
to support poor people in other countries.
If someone says, "I give you some money,"
he get a brick like this.
KELLY: Cool! That's great.
WERNER: Yeah, this is the idea we have.
KELLY: We were happy to be a brick and help their cause.
After months of living on the road,
we had experienced some sense of purposelessness.
Adventure, travel, exploring, they're all great things,
but life can feel very self-centered at times
if there isn't a greater purpose.
Some of our richest times were spent
living in community with people,
offering our time and gifts to make a difference.
I had the opportunity to help out by playing djembe
during a camp for troubled teens.
Eli pitched in and helped build a cabin
at a Young Life youth camp.
And we had to keep reminding ourselves
that one of our greatest purposes
is showing abundant life to our son.
(UPLIFTING MUSIC)
We're both very involved in our son's life right now,
and I am very present for him.
And I know at other times I haven't been so present.
I probably worked 50 hours a week average,
and now I probably work 20 hours a week.
Some of the best times with my boy are in the morning.
Whatcha doing there?
I'm warming up.
Dakota will wake up, I'll come over and go back
into his bedroom and just tell him stories for an hour.
And then we'll get up on the bed
and play around with him with his toys.
And that's time that I didn't get before.
I'm giving him a lot of myself right now
in this season of life.
C.S. Lewis said, "Children are not a distraction
"from more important work.
"They are the most important work."
I guess this renewed perspective was preparing me
for the changes ahead.
It had been a long, hard road
toward healing from my first birth.
But on this day I couldn't have been more overjoyed.
(SHOUTS OF JOY)
And our families were too.
Brené Brown says, "We run from grief
"because loss scares us.
"Yet our hearts reach toward grief,
"because the broken parts want to mend."
My desire finally overcame my fear
and set me on this irreversible course
towards another childbirth.
In my heart, I was so hopeful that this second time around
would redeem the trauma of Dakota's birth.
In my body I felt morning sickness
like I hadn't known the first time.
Then Dakota and I caught some sort of virus,
and I was not only pregnant, but sick as well.
The couch bed in the Bounder
was beginning to feel like a torture rack,
metal bars poking through the compressed foam.
The fowl smells from my dog on the floor became nauseating.
My food cravings would go unfulfilled for days
before our next grocery stop, which were few and far between
in the open deserts of Southern California.
So when I found my favorite ice cream
at a small health food store,
I was just a little bit excited.
DAKOTA: What's that one?
KELLY: Chocolate peanut butter swirl ice cream.
What's this one?
KELLY: That's cherry amaretto.
At least Dakota benefited from my cravings.
Which one do you want with your chocolate cookie,
coconut or cherry amaretto?
Amaretto.
Okay. Do you want a big cherry in it?
Uh-huh, a big one!
Yummy!
Delicious!
(CHUCKLING)
KELLY: Enjoy, my son.
Thank you, Mamma.
KELLY: You're welcome, bud.
Yummy!
Dakota also benefited from my exhaustion,
as my zero gravity chair became my new best friend.
Dakota and I took up birdwatching.
To be honest, anxiety was creeping in.
A tiny baby inside of me, hours from trusted doctors
or hospital care, spotty cell coverage.
There were days that I wanted to kind of bail.
I just was like, you know what, this has been awesome.
Let's just head home.
One of the things, too, that was playing into it
was fear, because I was early in my pregnancy,
I'd had a miscarriage prior.
We were pretty far out in the parks at that time.
The decision of whether to end our trip
weighed heavily on me.
In the end, the potential benefits outweighed the risks,
and we pressed on into the rugged Colorado plateau.
(DELICATE MUSIC)
I've heard the saying many times:
"you cannot give what you do not have."
I want to make sure I'm giving Eli and Dakota my best.
To do that, I first need to be filled up myself,
with life and beauty, wonder,
community, solitude and adventure.
I need healing for the vulnerable places within me.
And I just need more time.
There never seems to be enough of it.
In talking with a fellow traveler named Kyle,
from North Carolina, it was great
to share some similar experiences.
We were in the grind and planning this trip,
and we tried to carve out a month,
and a month seemed like this huge amount of time.
And then, now that we're out here,
a month's gone by in a flash, and it's kind of sad,
because I feel like right now,
we're just now kind of getting to a sustainable pace
and just slowing down enough
to really start enjoying things.
I try to be a good father and be at home as much as I can
and spend as much time with my kids as possible.
But being on the road with 'em,
I've gotten to know 'em a lot better and more intimately,
just the little things about their personalities
that I probably didn't take the time to notice
when we were at home and everybody's
going in their different directions
with school, and work, and that sort of thing.
It's been really cool, and it's gonna be hard to go back
and send them off to school for eight hours a day,
five days a week, after spending every moment
with them for the past three weeks.
DAKOTA: See, that's my home.
ELI: Oh, I like it. That's a nice home, woodpecker.
You have a nice view from up there.
What is that?
It's my nest.
I'm building a brand new house.
KELLY: Dakota's imagination really came to life out here.
He had just a few simple toys,
and he got creative with them.
One time he hiked six miles round trip,
up 2,000 feet in elevation.
We found if we brought his animal friends,
we could make a game out of it.
He really grew up on this journey,
and he has fond memories of his days in the Bounder.
I love Dakota, and I'd be happy if it was just him,
but I have always wanted a second child.
To think about the words that Kelly spoke a year ago,
"There's no way in hell I'll have a second child with you."
And now we're pregnant.
Last night, she came up to me and said,
"Eli, I just want to tell you,
"I don't think I've communicated it yet,
"but I am so excited that we're having a second child."
And it's very redeeming, very, very redeeming.
(UPLIFTING MUSIC)
KELLY: Mother Teresa said,
"Not all of us can do great things,
"but we can do small things with great love."
I can so easily get caught up in wanting a big mission,
something epic to undertake, when right there
in front of me is the biggest endeavor of my life.
Dadda!
ELI: Whoa!
Heart apples!
Is it Valentine's Day today?
ELI: Yep!
Dadda, look!
ELI: Look at that!
- What is it? - I want this one.
ELI: Okay.
(CHUCKLING)
As much as we love our son,
we do have to remember to stay focused on each other too.
Really, it's a testament to not giving up,
'cause there are many days where I wanted to give up.
And again, everything's not perfect now,
but I think we're doing better than ever.
I think to be a wholehearted human
and to have a marriage that is beautiful
and full of life and love, you need help.
We need help.
We still need help. (CHUCKLING)
How many counselors have we seen?
Like a half dozen?
I mean, we invest in counseling!
(UPLIFTING MUSIC)
Along with this turn of events of now being pregnant,
we also are considering moving back to our house.
I could go either way right now.
I could stay on the road another couple years.
I've enjoyed having the adventures we've had,
but I've been looking forward to a day
when we might return to the house that we had.
KELLY: It was bittersweet.
I needed to set myself up well for this second delivery,
even though I didn't want this journey to end.
It wasn't easy, but we decided that
after our jobs in Colorado were over,
we would make a beeline for home.
And since our second tenants also fell through,
our house was just sitting there,
ready for us to move back in.
ELI: Do you wanna go back to the Tollgate house?
DAKOTA: Yeah.
ELI: Are you excited?
DAKOTA: Yeah.
How are we gonna get there?
It's really far.
You're right.
We're gonna have to drive a long way.
Tomorrow morning, we get up at seven o'clock and drive west.
I would say, as I look back on this trip,
it has been an epic collection of travel,
exploration, adventure with my three-year-old son
and my wife, and Tassie, the dog.
And I'm gonna miss it.
KELLY: We watched the sun set over the Snake River,
our last night on the road and in the Bounder.
When we got back home, we cleared everything out,
cleaned it all up, and got it ready to sell.
ELI: Being in here brings up so much nostalgia.
This Bounder has become my home.
I know it so well.
I know every in and out of it,
and I've fixed so many things,
and now it's just gonna sit here until we sell it.
It was our adventure vehicle, and the adventure's over,
and a new adventure begins.
KELLY: We signed the title and handed over
the Bounder keys, and then watched it drive away.
ELI: You wanna do another trip some time?
Yeah.
We'll do another trip on another Bounder today.
Take care.
Enjoy!
BUYER: All right.
Good luck on Isabelle.
Thank you.
Thank you, I know.
On to our next adventure.
But we will be thinking of you
as you're out on the roads.
We love you, Bounder.
Bye, Bounder.
KELLY: Bye-bye, Bounder!
There she goes!
Oh!
Say bye-bye Bounder, Mama.
KELLY: Bye-bye, Bounder!
Bye-bye, Bounder.
DAKOTA: Bye-bye!
KELLY: It was sad for a little while.
But soon the excitement of our new baby girl
took center stage.
DAKOTA: What's she saying?
KELLY: Hello, big brother.
Hello!
I love you.
(UPLIFTING MUSIC)
It was one of the best days of my life
when I finally pushed her out.
That I had the courage to believe
that it would go better this time, and it did,
and that was such a victory for me.
At the beginning, I said that life
is a journey, not a destination.
And I haven't arrived yet.
I'm still in process.
And it seems that every day
presents another opportunity to grow.
I wouldn't have chosen many things that happened in my life.
And I wouldn't wish pain and heartache on anyone.
In those moments of grief and suffering,
it's had to hold on to hope.
But somehow, through those struggles, I've become who I am.
Hope is risky, because to hope in something,
whether that's a marriage or a pregnancy,
you're putting it all out there.
And as we know, we can't control things, but
the only option for me
is to choose hope.
So I'm risking even though it's scary,
loving even though it hurts.
I'm choosing hope, because there are far,
far better things ahead than any we leave behind.
(CHEERFUL MUSIC)
It's the calling.
I think it's the same reason that anybody does it.
To me, it's about really engaging in life.
Just do stuff when you can, you know?
Get out there and do it.
Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
There you go
Tapping at my window
There you go
Rattling my heart
Far away
I want to go with you
Every day
And never be apart
When you're feeling empty
When the skies are gray
I will be your honey
And chase the blues away
Let's go out for a drive
Need a little sunshine
What a day for feeling alive
Want a little more time
Just a little more time with you
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