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Unlike most people, we were fortunate to have generous family leave. We chose to have one of those months overlap: the glorious month of June when West was two months old. Everyone told us IT IS NOT VACATION, but we could never waste an entire month of time off together!
We built our relationship on maximizing every moment of freedom for adventure. Never a weekend wasted. Every ounce of paid leave filled to the brim.
We packed the month full of adventuring, hitting the road with our newest, tiniest family member. We spent a week wandering in New Mexico and road tripping through the Colorado towns of Durango, Lake City, and Creede. It can feel scary to take such a little tiny thing out of your home base. You still aren’t sleeping. You still have no idea what you are doing. But we know the road and trails as second homes so we just kept moving through the chaos. Walking was always the most grounding act when West was first born.
Tiny humans are very portable and sleep a lot. The driving never seemed challenging when West was really little. And because he spent so much time road tripping right from the get go, as he got older the car was built into his routine.
We ate our way through New Mexico. Give us red chile any day. We hiked up high to Wheeler Lake and down low to the mighty Rio Grande River. We learned the keys to vacation rentals with a baby. Mostly the importance of dark quiet spaces away from where you want to hang out when they sleep. We always prioritize some outdoor space in lodging when we travel now so we don’t have to worry about being on top of each other.
In Durango, we drank beer at Ska Brewery and toasted our success. Look at us, on a patio drinking beer like the good old days.
We hauled a screaming infant out of the car to look at old mining relics by Creede. Turns out he didn’t appreciate history quite yet.
But you go and you learn and then you go again. And then the kid changes the rules on you and you relearn. It’s a constant state of flow and flexibility, but isn’t that adventure?