Remember our sweet Bayside fresh off the lot (and smelling faintly of new car dreams)? 

We christened her “A&H Express” and set off with the gusto of true beginners. Armed with overly ambitious itineraries and woefully over-packed checklists, we embarked on our shakedown cruise.

Lesson #1: Maps Lie (or at least get creatively optimistic)

Turns out, those squiggly lines on Google Maps don’t fully represent the “adventurous” nature of backcountry roads. What was marketed as a scenic 4-hour drive transformed into an 8-hour marathon of potholes and praying the RV wouldn’t sprout wings.

Our Lesson learned: add a solid dose of “it’ll take longer than you think” to every plan. Plus it didn’t help that my disoriented sweet navigator was holding her phone in landscape view 😍 

Lesson #2: Space = Sanity (and other ‘vanlife’ revelations)

We quickly discovered that the term “cozy” is an overly polite euphemism in the RV world. 

On Day 3, amidst the glorious chaos of gear Tetris moving stuff around, a particularly vigorous round of toothbrush wrestling, the romance of tiny house living lost a bit of its shine.  But hey, at least it forced us to embrace minimalism and the importance of clear communication in a space less than 100 square feet!

Lesson #3: The Magic is in the Mess

Yet, somewhere around the black tank miracles 🙏  the symphony of crickets under a star-drenched sky, something shifted. Our rigid plans faded, replaced by the simple rhythm of sunrises, shared meals, and those quiet moments where the world seemed to pause just for us to be amazed by God.

Sure, there was a minor electrical meltdown (note to self: double check my connections) ⚡️ a humbling encounter and miracle with our sewer holding tanks (let’s just say an “Almost experience” is right up there with the best teacher”). 

Yet, nestled in those imperfect moments was the heart of it all – the laughter, the problem-solving, the shared vulnerability, amazingly summed up in a five decades old yet fresh prayer hanging in our Chinookie…

“Thank You Yeshua, for leading us to each other “