A new thing we’re learning is that when living in an RV and doing a cross-country trip for a month, we have to create space for downtime and to catch up on life stuff (e.g. laundry, cleaning the RV, grocery shopping, etc.). It is hard for us to do when there are so many amazing things in front of us to explore but it is necessary. It’s more important than life not in an RV because space is so confined and VERY quickly gets out of sorts. For example, you can’t leave dishes on the counter to deal with later because your counter is tiny and the dishes will fly onto the floor when you start driving…because your home is also your car 🙂 RV living is the original tiny house (on wheels)! It works to have such a small space be your car (with car seats installed), your dining room (with car seats removed and table installed), and your bedroom (with car seats and table removed and Pack ‘N Play and bed installed) but it does take a lot of work. I’m already tired of installing and uninstalling car seats each day.

Once we got life in the RV somewhat in order (and had a little playground time for the kids), we headed over to the Rocky Mountain National Park visitor center near us to get national park stamps for the kids Junior Ranger Passports, postcards, a Christmas ornament, and learn more about the park. We asked a Park Ranger for something kid friendly for us to do in the afternoon and they suggested Hidden Valley. We bought our countrywide national park pass, drove in to the park, and made our way over to Hidden Valley. We geared up for a hike through the valley and along a stream. Shortly after starting though, sadly an isolated thunderstorm popped up. We ran back to the RV to take cover, had lunch, played, and waited out the storm (another example of why RVs are awesome). Once the storm passed, we set back out on our hike and were having a great time…until another storm popped up. At that point we decided to give up on the hike and drive through the park to take in the amazingly beautiful scenery. We drove all the way to Bear Lake (where we planned to hike the next morning) while the kids slept in the car and then back to the campground for dinner and bed.