baby steps | Chaos roaming the world

This is probably the least planned trip we have ever taken. One reason was obviously that we were somewhat busy in the last year or so. The other is that we, frankly, have become pretty road hardened. It just does not worry us to not know what tomorrow will bring like it used to.

The downside to all of this is that we have not had the long planning conversations to alingn our expectations and get exited about places. Neither the long days researching our destinations. So it is day 3 now, and we are getting more and more a hang of our setup. That brings the issue even more into focus. What do we want?

I mean to get to Portugal, first of all. But that is a bit of a useless thing to know. If we just wanted to get there, we could have flown, or taken the train. Good weather and beautiful nature then? Well, why not stop at the first opportunity then, like southern France? Should we push south; rest a bit; go to Spain and start exploring then? Quite frankly, we haven’t figured it out yet.

But we know that today was a good day. Smooth start. The sun came out (but not too hot). We like the campsites we are finding through iOverlander. Traditional sites, but a bit off the beaten track. And empty anyway, so early in the season.

To top it all off, Number 3 slept a lot during our 2.5 hrs of driving. Worth taking the motorway for a bit from Dijon just past Lyon to get to camp nice and early. 4 pm was a perfect time to catch up on the blog, cook dinner and even get a shower for all of us in time.

We will have to figure out what we want from this trip, though. Maybe tomorrow …

Does it make it better to know that you are going to mess something up the first try? A little bit, I suppose. We are by no means greenhorns when it comes to travelling. Yet, it is inevitable. There will be mistakes. After all, we are trying something new for us. And most importantly of course, this is the very first time number 3 is experiencing anything like this.

First mistake: Our newest crew member has a LOT lower tolerance for chewing kilometres. No iron butt to win on this holiday. It obviously did not help that we allowed him to fall asleep for his mid-day nap while still at home. But look at him. So adorable, who could interrupt su… wrong! Sleep now means no sleep later – and the car seat is the only valid daytime napping place for this trip.

sleeping_linus — Bad mistake – should not let him have his nap before the car

So why did we tarry until lunch time? Well, our pre-packing over the weekend showed a fatal flaw in our overall packing strategy, which meant last minute adjustments and thus an early morning trip to the hardware store. What was the issue? We thought we could keep our sleeping gear in the tent. No chance in hell! With the thicker mattresses, the moisture barrier mats and the inner tent, there is not even enough space left for a sheet. I know, I tried. I think I opened and closed the iKamper Skycamp about 10 times on Sunday trying to somehow make it fit.

So without fully re-doing our luggage and throwing out a substantial amount, I had to find space some other way. I ended up taking out half the rear seats – something I intended to do anyway. But for that, I needed a bloddy T50 torx bit, hence the trip to the hardware store. It still is quite the squeeze. To fit everything in. But everything is secure and the rear view is not obstructed.

That left us with one final goal: Getting going – far enough away that if feels like we have actually gone. That was a bit of a known mistake from the get-go, given the afternoon start. In the end, we made it in a crunch. 340km to a super lovely campsite in the French grand balloon region. A bit too much driving in one go, a bit late on the arrival, but necessary for our minds to feel like we are actually on the trip for real.

Setting up camp was almost as easy as imagined. Even though we arrived at 6pm, we had a full spaghetti-and-home-made-sauce dinner and were all in bed by 9pm. The temperatures at night explained why almost no one else is camping here this time of the year, though. It was about 1° C when we crawled into our plushie-down rooftop cave.