The emotional side, third post:

Ok, it has been a while since my last post! We have been in Canada for 3 weeks and since we spent most of the time in the National Parks (Kootenay, Banff and then Jasper) we were quite often without Internet (we actually still are...even with being back in the US). The parks were gorgeous! I think I said this before; but the majesty of the mountains, the color of the lakes, the endless forests and the incredible wildlife (yes, we saw bears…..black and grizzly) are incredibly beautiful! What a treat that we got to see all this beauty!

Our happiness about the incredible wilderness (by the way: not much traffic….Manfred liked that a lot J ) got a bit damped by the pretty high prices for almost everything. Campground fees, gas/diesel, groceries, restaurants, souvenirs…all were way more expensive than in the States. So shopping, even for necessities was no fun at all.

We are now almost 6 weeks into our trip and I have to admit that the last 2 weeks were not too much fun “mood wise”. Surrounded by beautiful nature … and we unfortunately started to get onto our nerves (which had nothing to do with the nature and all with our different personalities and ideas of how to spend the time and of course the tight space we live in).

David, I had been thinking about you a lot J ! You gave me two month, right? I started thinking that you (though annoyingly) might be right!

Manfred had very precise ideas of when, where, how long and which way we all (!) would go hiking….Benjy really started to miss friends, play dates and social contacts and I needed MY space. I had/have the hardest time to never being alone anymore….

My original idea from having peace, time and quiet to meditate and study completely fell apart or to be exact, never ever actually surfaced at all. So I am frustrated and not the most patient wife or mom anymore. And I probably have been naïve to believe that this would be possible in the first place. Many days we travel for hours, the days we do not travel, we explore or prepare the next days trip.

I am homeschooling, I have to do laundry, buy groceries and cook meals. I underestimated the time all those things take, especially preparing the next trips. We often research for hours to find THE (!) RV park, the one that is in beautiful nature, has hook-ups and is conveniently located. Then we also have to research the route in detail because it is very, very stressful if you accidentally take the wrong route with a big rig like ours and you, for instance, have no way to make a U-turn, or no gas station with diesel for the next 100 miles. We already encountered several of those situations and believe me: that is no fun at all. Usually finding the actual campground is the tricky part; finding the right road and taking the right turns is trickier than you might think (remember, the options to turn 60 feet around are limited). And do not believe that our navigation system knows its way…oh no! If we would have relied on that one as our only source I would be most likely writing from Timbuktu right now.

So, not much “Silke-time”! BUT: spending time with my only son 24/7 is priceless!!! On a normal school day he used to be gone for at least 7 hours and often for more than 10-12, depending on after school classes and play dates. Now I have the chance to really connect with him, the home schooling gives us time to talk and to explore, I newly discovered how he really “ticks”. The talks we sometimes have on our hikes are so wonderful, stunning and hopefully life forming! I just love it and consider it my biggest blessing yet!

We are also finding out that 3 never seems to be an easy number in relationships. What works fine are all combinations of 2: Manfred and I, Ben and I and Manfred and Ben. In those combinations we ALWAYS have a good time. If it is the 3 of us our interests seem to clash and we start fights in all of the possible above combinations of 2.

So the solution seems to be, instead of always doing everything in threes, we should start doing more in pairs. That also gives the 3^rd person a breather and time in quiet and solitude.

Which brings me to the problem that Benjy does not need quiet and solitude but a friend and play date. Hanging with his parents gets old after some weeksJ

This seems to be developing into a problem. He starts getting irritated and complains daily that he misses his cat so much and he wants a dog! We see almost every RVer having a dog or cat and we are the only ones without a pet the complaining goes!

Benjy told me that he prays daily, sometimes more than once, that his Dad will allow him to have a companion, preferably a dog. I know that this would need a miracle to become true but encourage him to keep praying because we all know and trust that God works in mysterious ways.

Follow the next post about THE MIRACLE!