Fostering to Full-Time RVing: How the Wandering Rocks Family of 6 Hit the Road | Community Spotlight

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey there. We're back at the Learn to R V podcast. Tonight is a community spotlight series, and we have Rhea Gibson here, and she's from the Wandering Rocks family. And I'm so excited to have her on and talk about her journey and like where she's come from on this. RV life is full of all sorts of people, and that's what I love so much about it. So hello, Rhea. How are ya?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Great. How are you tonight?

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Good. So, you know, I'm gonna kind of jump right in. So let's start with what year did you guys launch? It was October 2024. So we've been at it a little over a year.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

That's awesome. What would you say is your favorite part about traveling? The favorite part? I love the freedom and just kind of being able to curate our lives wherever we want to be. Um, that's probably my favorite right now.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

So one of the things that I loved was your name. We all have the name we pick out for ourselves on the road. I was drawn to yours, and and this is kind of a funny story. So I actually two years ago for Mother's Day, my husband got me a rock tumbler. And so we collect rocks on the road. So it's kind of like Lucy in the long, long trailer, only we tumble them and then we give them away. We call them magic friend makers. But your story is very different than that. Where did the name the Wandering Rocks family come from?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yeah, it is um well kind of twofold because wandering rocks, right? It's just awesome to live, be able to live this life. But my husband's great-grandfather, his name was Cephus, and he went by rock, and his name was Rock Watson, and he was known all over town. And Cephas is, you know, in the in the Bible, it talks about the church that was built on the room, you know, go build, you'll be the rock that the church is built on. Um, you can dig into that a little bit, but his nickname was rock, and we've just kind of loved that. I mean, we've gone through that name. My husband had an IT business, and he and he did call that that was rock IT. And then we we I love the name for for a child, but we did not use it for any of our kids, uh, like a little rock or rocky. But so the wandering rocks, it just kind of fit us, and we love the mountains, and um, it just it just felt right. So we love it.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

That's fantastic. You are traveling as a family, correct? With kids, yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

We have four children.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

And how old are they?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Our oldest is six, and we have a five-year-old, a four-year-old, and an 18-month-old.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

That's awesome. So you're doing them all together while they're little, they'll be all the same age, and when they're teenagers, they're kind of gonna eat you out of house and home. We're planning, we're starting to save for that now, yes. I actually have a girlfriend that actually that's how she intentionally did it was having all four kids within four years and having them just grow up super close together in their traveling family. So when you got started, your dynamic's a little bit different. You planned for this for a while, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:56

We did. It was probably 2020, um, when the idea kind of, you know, snuck in and we started researching it. But we were, you know, we wanted to finish our family um back in Wisconsin before we kind of hit the road. And we had a lot of pieces to put together. We needed um a remote job. I was still working full-time, but my husband needed a remote job. We needed a camper, we needed a truck, we needed all kinds of things. And our last child was born in July of 2024, and we put our house up for sale four weeks later. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

I mean, scary, but absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I guess I mean, some people could do it, some people couldn't. Our first big trip we took in our fifth wheel, and before we're, you know, we were just going on a road trip to visit family, and it was like a thousand miles, and I was on maternity leave with our third child. So we had a one-year-old, a two-year-old, and a six-week old, and we headed out, never been anywhere in our camper before. We made it back home, so it all worked out.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

So, do you go home regularly or is that something you hit seasonally? I mean, you said you came from Wisconsin. Does that mean that's where home is now?

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Yeah, my family is there. I lived there my whole life. My husband has lived there the last 25 years. His family, though, is in Kentucky. So we went back last summer for a good part of the summer. We were there about four months, but we also went through our storage and kind of resituated some things. Uh when we left, we did we really sold most of our stuff, but we still had a storage unit, and we knew that I think we knew once we hit the road and we were doing it, we would know. We would know if we were in love with it or not. And so we went home and we visited family, moved our storage unit around, got rid of some more stuff, downsized. I mean, you're always downsizing when you're on the road. Um, and that'll be our plan again, although we won't stay as long. I think four months is too long for us to stay in kind of one spot, but we'll wait till it's warmer up there and we'll probably head that way uh in the spring or early summer.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

That's fantastic. So I'm living with littles. I mean, it's it's gotta be a constant busy. I'm a mom of seven kids, and we traveled when my youngest was 15 months old. So I remember well, although it's been a few days because he turns 14 next week. You know, I remember well what that busy felt like. What would you say is maybe a challenge that you face on a regular basis that you'd want to give some encouragement to other people about?

SPEAKER_01 5:39

You're traveling full-time. I I call it like we have the slowest chaos in our lives because every day is is every moment can be a little chaotic, but we still do move slow. I mean, we kind of move at the pace of the 18-month-old. He still naps, we're still just living life in our in our camper. We do school, we you know, go grocery shopping, and I think trying to stay slow. Like sometimes this life is really busy and people feel like pressure to keep moving or keep doing all the things, or now that you're here or there, like you need to go out and see everything. You know, we have days where we just don't go anywhere, we don't do anything, and I mean many days. So I think, and right now we're in Florida. I mean, we can there is you could do something different every day here and see a different attraction and kids' play area or whatever, um, zoo, petting zoos. We went to the orchard. I mean, it's it's almost nonstop. So I would say the encouragement is to not feel that pressure to, you know, be a tourist and just keep building your life in your home.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Right, because there's laundry days and there's days where you have to prep cook and there's days that you have to just plan for. So I get that, you know. You have a seriously unique journey though, because you didn't just have babies and go on the road. You actually were a foster mom, correct? We were, yes. We were a foster family. What did that look like for you, like transitioning into this? Was that hard to make that decision? To stop being a foster family? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Um, it was, it felt good at the time, but that was part of our weight as well, is um kind of closing some ties there. And that took, you know, there was 2020, 2021, day 22. And I think the desire and our dreams for our family, uh, it was time for those to take precedent over or priority over anything else that was going on. So it was sad. It was sad to give notice and say, you know, we're, you know, we're we're gonna be done fostering. And I still kind of look. I just had a conversation with a friend of mine about fostering. She had some questions, and I thought maybe some, you know, I would do it again. I would do it again if we're gonna do it. Well, and I know X. I mean, I don't know who's gonna let us do it now, but right.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Well, I know a lot of families that have actually adopted not from the road, but took their adopted children on the road. And I think that's the case for you as well, correct? Are all your kids bio kids or did some of we've adopted adopted twice and we've had um then two kids through pregnant. So you have your total of four, it's a blended family in that way. What does that look like on the road for you? Do you feel like there's any differences because of that?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

No, no. I mean, I I it honestly, I mean, rarely crosses my mind. But we do have um our daughter was born in Florida. She has family here, so we, you know, get together with them. Um, it's just another opportunity we take advantage of is to build those relationships while we're here and see them. And you know, if we didn't travel, I'd I mean, maybe we would have met up with them once 2020, but we've really had a time to like build this relationship with some of her family members that that are in the area, and it's been great.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Yeah, I had a pastor years and years ago when Frank was still active duty that was in North Carolina, and he had three daughters, and he adopted his sister's daughter. And he talks about how, you know, the Bible talks about adoption and how we as believers are adopted into and so I just love the beautiful parody of what that looks like in real life. We've uh known a lot of adoptive families on the road, and it's just such a beautiful connection. And my son, actually, one of his best friends growing up on the road, was adopted and their family traveled with their three kids that were all adopted. It's it's just it's just a neat thing that you know you have that a lot of people don't. I know a lot of people that have gotten off the road to be foster parents and adopt again, and so I think that there's a lot of that, you know, that you have to make those decisions for your family. But yeah, it's it's it's definitely a unique style for you guys that you know you're doing that. I love that they're all in six and under. So I mean, the next question's kind of crazy, but what does a school day look like for you for road schooling? What does that look like? I remember what it was like for me, an artist.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

I still um I keep telling myself we're still practicing, although our oldest two would be uh in kindergarten. And you know, once you're kind of in the homeschool mindset and you see the benefits of homeschooling and what it can look like, um, I think it's different for people who are who are doing it or what they might envision compared to people who, you know, haven't researched homeschooling or don't know what that would look like. Totally. I have a plan, and every day my plan fails, but we you know, we do language arts and math, and they have a curriculum that I've purchased that I really love, and we just walk through it some days, some days I only get you know to maybe my daughter to go through um her lessons. They kind of do math together, they're obviously very close in age. So today we did math together while you know the my 18-month-old slept, and we woke up in the morning and I said, Go grab some books and we do some reading. Um, we've done it, you know, we go outside, we do science projects with friends. Uh, we have like little science kits. So yesterday we did, you know, the dye in the celery, put in the the cups of water, and they rushed out this morning to check it. So we do all kinds of things. If we know, you know, if I know we're going to a park or uh anything, we went to Gatorland or and so we start researching, you know, we watch videos, we read the books we have about the animals we're gonna see, and so they kind of have a foundation before they get there, and then they can ask like more questions about it. So they love they love learning, they love animals.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Of course. So my granddaughter was actually born when she traveled with us for two years, and so I know how busy littles can be in a household where there is somebody like traveling and working. So, what do you do during the day to keep them busy while your husband's working?

SPEAKER_01 11:57

So, um, like to keep them away from him?

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Well, I don't know that away from him is the right answer. I mean, it depends on the position he has. I mean, like if he's taking calls, I mean, obviously that's different than if he's just working on something in the background. So, like, I mean, what does that look like for you guys? Because I know, you know, we, you know, we run a company from our rig. And so some days we're like, shh, you know, but you know, for me now the biggest noise factor I have is the dog barking in the background because the teenagers sleep till 11 o'clock every day.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Yep. So so actually, right now I'm in my husband's truck. We have a Peter built semi-truck, and it has like a toter home built on the back of it. We get we get a lot of attention for it, a lot of questions. And so every morning at eight o'clock, he heads outside and comes in his truck, and this is you know his setup here. So he gets all the peace and quiet he needs. I usually send him out, I even send him out with the dog, and the dog will spend the day with him out here. And so we we really have there's times like if we've lost for some reason, I can't remember why he had to work inside one time. Maybe the truck didn't fit in our spot. I think this was last year, and he worked, there is room in our bedroom. We have a desk that he can use, and that was hard. That was hard knowing he was up there and having to be quieter. Um, so I really appreciate that we uh had this truck built so that he could have his own peace and quiet. That is really cool. So, is that your daily driver then? No, I have a minivan. So he's in the truck and I can do whatever, you know, I can take the kids out, go get groceries. So we do have the two vehicles that we do travel with.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Well, that's a blessing and a curse because we actually traveled with a minivan for many years. I remember how much easier it was, like potty breaks, steps like that. So when you travel, do you travel together, or do you like let him know, hey, I'm pulling off here to stop at the bathroom? What does that look like for you guys on a travel day with all the littles?

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah, we usually do all the kids ride with me in our truck. We do we had seats put in, so we have like sprinter van seats that were put in. So we can seat seven in our truck. We had, you know, we didn't know when we started what it would look like. Ideally, I didn't want to drive another vehicle, but I do not want to go get groceries in this semi-truck. So it works out, but we do have seats for everybody, so we could ride together. We wanted to keep that option open. I chase, you know, I we stick together, I follow him, but I'll stop off to go to the bathroom, or one of the kids needed to go to the bathroom. And it depends where we're going. Now that we're kind of, you know, this is our first year that we're in the thousand trails system. We did not have a thousand trails membership last year. And so we've kind of we're bouncing between parks and we're familiar with the areas now that we're going over the winter here. So he may just kind of go ahead of me. I might stop off for a coffee and I said, I'll meet you there, and he'll work on getting set up. But usually because we're we have a big rig, um, and if we're going someplace that we're not familiar with, I mean, we do our due diligence on the, you know, looking at Google Maps and the driving directions, and we call the campground ahead of time, make sure you know we're all set up. But if it's someplace unknown, then I usually stick with them so that when we get there, I can help him if he needs it.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

For sure. So is there any campgrounds that you've been to that you've been surprised that you couldn't get into? How big is the camper? I guess I should start by asking that.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Yeah, we have a it's I think it's 46 and a half feet. We have a fifth uh that's a big fifth wheel. It is, it is. We started with a little smaller one. Um, I think it was like 42 or 43 feet, and we were a month into full time and we uh bought a new camper, but it works great. I have no regrets. The floor plan is amazing, it suits us much better. But the truck is like 32 feet and with the fifth wheel.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

I mean, it's big, it's big. Do you domicile out of out of Wisconsin or do you domicile out of Florida? Oh, somewhere else.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

No, we're still in Wiscons uh Wisconsin. Um, I think you know, we might have to change it at some point, but I feel like we're in a little bit of limbo there, and I think we'll we'll figure that step out later, but if we need to change it, but right now it's still in Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

That's cool. Okay, so when you picked the truck and trailer, you know, did you like know that this was so do you have a game plan? Like, you know, some people come out on the road and they have like, oh, I'm gonna do this for two years. What does that look like for you guys? Is there a plan?

SPEAKER_01 16:32

There is, there's a loose plan. I think we're really flexible. You know, some days we're like, and there are few, but where we're like, you know, how long do we want to do this for? When we started, we were just I thought we'd easily we could do a year, and and we got on the road, and I I know we can do it for a few years and be happy and do it easily. I think our plan is though, like we are looking for land and to move out of Wisconsin. I mean, we sold our house, I guess we've already moved out of Wisconsin, but more where his parents live, we want to be a little bit closer or his mom. Um but we like Tennessee, so we're gonna go explore Tennessee in the spring. And I mean, I think within the next two to three years, I think we'll buy some land so we have a place to, and even if the land just had we're just gonna put a concrete slab on it and septic sewer, and then we can stay there when we want, maybe a few months out of the year, and then travel just to give us some more options, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Well, that's fun. I mean, our dynamic's very different. Not everybody can do what we've done. You know, we launched in 13 and this community became my family, and so it was definitely a different dynamic. The thing is, it constantly evolves, and so you have to be okay with that. And so it's it definitely has its ups and downs because there's gonna be years where the people you launched with and made friends with, usually that's between two and four years, are gonna roll off the road. And so, like learning how to roll with that and then make new friends, and it's kind of a cycle you have to be willing to step in the gap and do it over and over and over again. I was different because Frank was, well, I mean, he's a retired Marine. And so that was my life before we did this. So, like people that come with a 25-year-old that's where they live their whole life background, it it's hard for me to even comprehend that. And then when we went on the road that first year, when we came back, it was very different. Like my kids like had changed because they had traveled, but the environment around them really hadn't changed. And I feel like the more you travel, the more that tends to happen. And yours are still little, so you're not gonna see that so much, but you'll see it with you guys, like you and your husband will see it within each other, and so that's just a different perspective. There's no wrong answer to it, like having land, doing it, however, you're gonna do it, like whatever works for you. I mean, life on the road is, you know, amazing and wonderful and hard. All in the same breath some days. So, but you know, sometimes you do hard because it's what's right, and sometimes you find that family that you didn't know you needed that was out there all along. I always said it was easier to find friends when my kids were little because I could take them to a playground and it made it much easier to get those connections. How do you find friends on the road for you and your spouse?

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Yeah, last so in 2024, we, you know, we had no idea what we were doing. We did all the research, but you still don't know. And we spent the winter among the snowbirds, and the kids were really missing out on friends. And those friends, you know, their friends are the kids they see at the playground. They don't need their phone number, they don't need to know their names, they just want to see kids their own age and run into them at the playground. Um, so when we went back this summer, you know, we really, we really thought about it and really wanted to put effort into finding more families. And that's why we did get the Thousand Trails membership, um, you know, and kind of integrated ourselves into ourselves into, you know, an RV life network. I mean, um, it takes effort. Even when we were in our home, it took a lot of, it takes a lot to make friends, you know, to find to find the families that you like spending time with and the kids and the parents. And um, then you get to a homeschool age, and it's easier to have friends at homeschool than don't because they're not going to school during, you know, during the week. Um, and you can do other things and do school things with them. So we have met some families, like we're in the season now where it's still, you know, where last winter kind of felt a little long, you know, weren't hitting the right spots where this some this winter has just been, it's been great. We've been we've met, I mean, a handful of families. Um, we went to a family event not uh last spring, and we met another family, and uh our kids are the same age, and you know, everyone has a lot of a lot of common interests, and we've been traveling with them this this winter. Um, for the most part, usually we've been at the same place, and um the kids see play every day, and um we've been meeting new families, so it's been great. Like everybody that we've been meeting is like kind of new to traveling within the last year or two. Everyone's got young kids, and I feel like we're in the community building stage right now, and it's been exciting, it's been good for them and for us.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

That's awesome. You know, and those magical, like I say it's never the first. So for my kids, it became not the first time they met that they connected, but a lot of times it was the second or the third time we came back together. Would you say that's true for the family you're traveling with? Or did you hit it off right away? Were you one of the lucky ones?

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Right. I think um we hit it off right away, I think. Um, you know, and it was the first time like we had met, we had met a group of families, and then we went and met up with them like a few weeks later, like everybody was kind of settling back up north, and we made sure our paths crossed and we went camping um at like a state park, and that kind of it was probably the second time that kind of solidified it. And then all summer, you know, they kind of asked about them and talked about them, and what are we gonna see them? again and so that was nice. It gave the kids something to look forward to and a sense of community for them too.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

For sure. The the first family we connected with like that was at a road school rally in Tucson, Arizona in 2014. And we are still friends to this day. And the kids have literally grown up together and we all still travel. So we're very intentional. The kids all went to prom last year in South Fork, Colorado together. That type of relationship is just so important. And so you're looking at it as littles right now, but like our kids met when like my kids were like one and a half and theirs was two. And so they're still good friends. And they're they're turning 14 and 15. So it's not like you know they're not getting older together. So and we're all in Florida together. So that's nice too. So we've been able to see them some. Um all right so let's tie this up with a bow. I guess I love you know just talking to people and hearing their stories. And so let's talk about a few of your adventures. What do those look like on the road for you? Can you think of a time where you know you did something you didn't expect to be doing.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Yeah. We uh spent last winter we spent some time in southern Georgia and we went over to um a national monument and it was the Fort Frederica National Monument and it was like the best day ever and it's just this huge park. I took the kids and they had you know a bunch of artifacts and it was where it was where the British army was stationed in like the 1700s to stave off the Spanish from invading Georgia or Florida. And it was just the most beautiful day and the most beautiful park. And it's days like that and when you see things like that that just I mean really add to the experience. The kids don't really get it you know quite yet that they're or maybe they won't remember it obviously but to see these things it's like I never would have been able to see this if we hadn't been traveling. And that goes hand in hand with like seeing my husband's family that you know usually we probably saw them once every 18 months we used our you know week or 10 days of vacation to travel down there. We flew one time or we'd have to rent like an Airbnb and just being able we've been through Kentucky to see them I mean it's probably been four or five times now and our kids get to um know their cousins and know you know better and and build relationships with their grandparents. Like I said too you know we have other family um in Florida and so our daughter to build that relationship. We never would have had any of it. Yeah we never would have had any of it without traveling. So I'm excited for the next year. We still have more more things to do and more things to see. I mean we've been in Florida now for a while a few months so I'm kind of getting excited to leave and and go see some mountains and um go we're gonna head out west this summer and I'm really excited just to kind of add to all these other things that we've seen that it could take a lifetime to see for someone else and we're getting to experience them all in this, you know, this year.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Well and the most beautiful part of that and you said it earlier is you don't have to do it all at once. And so that's actually one of the things that I love about being on the road and probably why I'm still doing it is so there's towns we have favorite restaurants and we go back to them when we go places but we also always find something new to do no matter where we are no matter how many times we've been like you know I can come to Florida you know and I don't come every year we kind of flip-flop but I mean I can find new things to do new places to go new things to experience um one year we took up kayaking and so we now carry around kayaks and so that was when the kids were a little bit older but then you have to carry around all the other stuff you know I mean you know it's one of those things that it's just a beautiful lifestyle and if you can embrace it you know you can find things that make you fall in love it all over again on a regular basis. So sounds like you've got a great big year planned where to this year.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Yeah we're going to um probably in April start heading north and we're gonna go through Tennessee. We're gonna spend some time there we want to explore a couple areas and we'll go visit family in Kentucky and then head towards Wisconsin spend some time there and then go out west and you know I don't know what we're gonna do next winter. I don't even know what we're gonna do out west. We I'm I'm excited to plan it like I'm a planner I love I love planning. I put it off a little bit because I kind of I look ahead and then I but I still need now you know the next couple spots so we have everything's kind of solid through April um and I'm good with that and we'll see we'll see what happens next like I think we'll go through the Dakotas maybe over to Montana Wyoming I wanted to go out to Utah Colorado there's just too much to see I kind of realized the other day that maybe I'm taking off too much like I want to you know we don't travel we don't move every week we like stay in put for probably about a month at a time and it just it's just like there's almost it goes by so fast.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Absolutely so we follow something that's often called to is the 333 rule. We try not to go more than 300 miles a day. So and we don't usually we're not we're not I have teenagers we're not on the road at 6 a.m or 8 a.m we're pulling out right at 11 and so you know I've just accepted my fate in that side and then we want to be parked before dark. And so as summer comes we'll drive later but you know ultimately we don't like doing double drive weekends. We can we do when we have to but you know I think that there's so much to say for you know just experiencing and and enjoying the ride you know that that's that needs to be a part of kind of everybody's adventure. And with Littles you've got a whole lot of other factors potty breaks busy fingers you know need snacks whatever's coming from the backseat. Right. So it just keeps it even a little bit more interesting.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Yeah my whole thing works during the week so we do only travel a few hours a day on the weekend. So I mean we don't move very fast.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

We just don't okay so if you were to give like your top two tips to somebody that's brand new what would you tell them?

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Be flexible like if they're already doing it be flexible yep and um and enjoy it. I mean there is like you just said there enjoy the drive or there's that cliche of what is it um the journey is the you know not the destination um it's about you know the journey enjoy enjoy today enjoy today enjoy what you're doing today don't look forward too much and just and have your heart set on that one thing or your next stop because you're missing out you're missing out on what's you know what's happening right in front of you or right around you and just take it all in and every day's a good day.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Well thanks Rhea thanks so much for joining us we appreciate you and we just want to invite you to likes and subscribe if you're out there listening and you want to be part of the podcast we do have this community spotlight series. There's only a handful of slots left for season two we're just glad that Rhea could join us for this one. Thanks and don't forget to like and subscribe to the Wandering Rocks family. Where can they find you online if they are looking for you?

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Yeah we um most everything's on Facebook right now the Wandering Rocks family on Facebook or the Wandering RocksFamily.com we have our website and we have a blog there with some things talking about getting on the road and some tips for newbies um you know it's really building it's it's becoming a passion of mine just to kind of help people chase their dreams it might not be selling everything you own and hitting the road but like do what makes your heart happy and I'm I'm loving it.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Awesome thanks so much for joining us tonight.