CARLSBAD, Calif. — Last year was the perfect opportunity to pack everything up and drive away from your pandemic problems. In this Zevely Zone, I caught up with a Carlsbad family who took the road less travelled in 2020. Last August we met Dave and Lauren Feehrer and their two boys, Lucas and Jesse as they were packing up for an epic road trip. They had just bought an RV to leave COVID behind in their rear-view mirror. Dave told us at the time the trip would either last three days or three months, so which was it? "We made it to three months," said Dave with a huge grin.
The Feehrers figured if their boys were going to take remote learning, why not do it from remote places? "Yeah, we were out in Utah along a river for our first day of school," said Lauren.
She owns a consulting firm and Dave is a Healthcare IT Project manager, so they hit the highway and the books at the same time. "You know they were learning about indigenous people in their classes, but we were able to go to the Battle of the Little Bighorn and explore that," said Lauren.
Somehow, the Today Show found the Feehrers during their ten-state tour. "They spent some time with us, right? Six hours with us and they made it into three minutes. Yeah, they made the story into three minutes," said the family. Network TV didn't have time to hear about the bathing moose the family discovered in the Grand Tetons or the Montana man dog sledding on an open highway. "Fun," said Jesse about the trip. The family was supposed to travel up the Oregon Coast, but wildfire forced a reroute. They suddenly had to veer east. "Two very hard right turns and got out of the way of the fires," said Lauren who was the chief navigator.
Fire was chasing them all right, especially on the day they were unknowing dragging their suspension down the road in Texas. "Actually, someone flagged us down and we looked, and we saw a plume of smoke behind us," said Dave. Two nice people fixed their RV for free. "They would not accept any money, after the fact it was amazing," said Dave. The Feehrer family sold the RV in Austin. Texas and downsized to a Mercedes Sprinter. Even when the family found themselves between rocks and hard place, they followed Mark Twain's advice of not allowing schooling to get in the way of an education. Jesse told us about his favorite moment from the trip. "The number one rule about sledding down the hills, do not open your mouth when you are sledding down hills."
They showed me picture of the family sledding down steep hills as the Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado.
Afterall, when life gives you COVID, make sand angels. I mean when would they ever get that chance again? "Exactly especially when they are seven and nine years old," said Lauren. "Through coronavirus we didn't want them to feel like they were trapped and stuck."
The family is sharing their memories on their Instagram page. Go to maggie.nomad on Instagram or click here to see pictures from their trip.