Why Now Is The Time to Get BackOnTrack

When we dreamt up this crazy idea, we had to find the right time for us to be able to pull this trip off. When it was just Jamie and me, our original plan was backpacking through Europe. Living the life on foot, by train and subway while staying in hostels, catching, cleaning and cooking our own food …. ok, not that last part, but still, living the nomad life in Europe.

Once William came along, the idea morphed into something a little more reasonable. Jamie became infatuated with the Trans-American Highway and, to me, cruising around in a camper sounded a little more fun than hitch hiking through Hungary, bumming rides in Berlin, thumbing our way through Turkey … you get the idea.

It came down to timing. In AZ, elementary schools typically run K-6th, middle school for 7th and 8th, and then high school for 9-12. COVID happened when William was in Kindergarten and 1st grades and it wasn’t the best time to try and get BackOnTrack, so we figured that middle school would be the idea position for us to leave our jobs, home school our budding teenager and drive all over North and South America. That put us in a departure window of 2026. What could possibly be an issue by then? Close quarters with a preteen, who is addicted to Roblox and his phone that Santa brought him a couple years ago.

But here we are, 2026, we’re making this happen. We got the truck, we got the camper, we got the planner (Jamie) and we have me, who is ready for the adventure and William, who is ready (he guesses, in a soon-to-be teen kind of tone). We’re ready to make this dream a reality; we’re no longer finding the “whys” and going with the “why nots”; our plan is set, nothing but road and time ahead of us; WeirbackOnTrack!