#sprinter4x4van

Hello, writing hasn’t seemed very interesting or important to me in quite a long time, and I’m not really sure why it seems to be today.  Perhaps it’s some kind of normalization or maybe the anticipation of spring or our preparation for the travels ahead in just a few short days (even though the days are finally getting longer).

It seems that we’ve been on a whirlwind of travel and adventure ever since Gwen and Eliza both passed away in 2017.

It seems like just yesterday they were here with us, traveling on our 90-day road trip while we renovated our home in Gwinn for them. That home now belongs to a wonderful family who has a daughter with a rare genetic disease, called KIF1A. Their daughter and Eliza met just as Bean was beginning her progression toward Hospice Care about a year and half ago.

The good news is that Eliza left a treasure-trove of therapy equipment and a house where she can live her best life possible. Regina and I know firsthand what a difference that makes in a caregiver’s life, and how we longed and dreamed of that chance for our children, which we were fortunate enough to have realized. How wonderful life is to see that gift continue for others.

It reminds me of how I was first inspired by a few friends in Marquette who are both teachers,  who worked hard, played hard and traveled hard. Reflecting on when we first met them and thinking that will never be us…”But maybe someday I’d think to myself…” and I always really knew that meant, only if two of my children died, which was immediately followed by guilt.

We ended being lucky enough to have traveled on a surf trip with the teachers, only taking Violet with us because they had kids around her age, and they became some of our closest friends here in Marquette. They inspired the beginning of our adventure traveling until we had the strength to make them our own - and that’s the nature of traveling to make it your own.

We first discovered that when Gwen was awarded a Make-A-Wish. It was the pivotal moment we found out - even if it was out of necessity - that traveling with all of our girls could be managed (albeit never, ever, ever via an airplane). One fateful drive home from Florida taught us that we could travel in van with our entire family. It was an awful trip home but one that gave us strength and hope.

The next year, we rented two vans and drove to Florida learning along the way  how we can travel, and who we have the patience to bring along with us (we took a couple of extra hands along). It amazes me to look back at how fragile and thin we were on those early trips, operating on the tiniest of budgets and propelling forward with only a few coping tools for 14 years of caregiving/marriage/parenting.

Several-trips-with-our-girls-to-Florida later and the aforementioned epic-90-day-road-trip later, we have continued to lean on road trips and travel for helping us shift our perspective. This was particularly true when we could see very little in front of us in the fall of 2017. We were so grief-stricken and psychologically wore down (and probably certifiable unfit to parent Violet at the time), during our cross-country road trip to the West Coast.  We were also financially wore down to the point where we had to raise money to get back home.

But that’s the thing about travel: you don’t know until know (or you go...into the unknown).  In that spirit, last year we decided to make one big trip a year as part of our yearly family goals. We created a list of places we all wanted to go, discussed them as a group and then made a master list to put into a tin cup, to be chosen each year.

Our most recent adventure sent us to the islands of New Zealand. And the trip, although not documented in writing all that much we managed to take many photos which can be found on this blog as well as Instagram: @timgort and @reginagort. We rented a van a drove from home rental to home rental, and created many memories along the way through place, people and experiences with new and interesting wildlife. New Zealand is truly a wild place! We all truly got respite in the ways we collectively and individually needed.

But now, we begin another chapter of the “road trip” as we prepare to drive our van for our annual migration to the Southeastern U.S. as well parts of the Southwest we’ve yet to visit. We are excited that Eliza’s former van has had many upgrades to help making living in it much more comfortable, and easier. After all life should be easy - just like our Gwinn home was made for caring for all of its inhabitants our van will carry us into the unknown.  Despite our natural resistance to change we are grateful for all of it.

Stay tuned for this adventure, and we’ll try to be more timely with our updates. Violet will be doing blog posts as part of her school curriculum. She has most recently joined an international online academy where she connects with students all over the world on a weekly basis, and continues to do her own adventures, including but not limited to surfing, ice climbing, rock climbing, and most recently tried figure-skating with her friend.

Best,