"What? You are going to do what?" "I'm going to home school the kids while traveling the United States for a year." Thus began the dialogue with my husband about an ingenious plan I concocted to solve a schooling dilemma.

My husband Steve is a linear thinker, so this broadside caught him completely off guard. My idea was hatched at the beginning of Kira's fourth grade year. When she was seven years old, she skipped second grade and moved on to third. This advancement worked very well; Kira was back with her dearest friends from preschool and continuing to excel in her studies.

Her progress academically did not however allay my nagging fear that Kira would enter sixth grade as a ten year old. Remembering well the agonies of middle school, and the oncoming hormonal train, I sought to delay Kira's entry into that time when the body snatchers arrive and children move into some unrecognizable category of being.

How to hold her back without actually holding her back? Ahhh, I haf...an idea; let's take a year off and travel the country! Steve hoped beyond hope it was just another of my passing fantasies. Like a dog on a good bone, however, I just was not going to let go.

After working and setting money aside for several months, and continuously reassuring Steve that we will, indeed, return at the conclusion of our continental adventures, we recently packed our things and left Bluff for the greater expanses. Before leaving I started to tell Rosita that we had everything but the kitchen sink. Then I realized that, thanks to our camp kitchen, we actually did have the sink stowed away in our traveling van. Below is our story.