Van Life Critique

In one word: Amazing! I love the feeling of taking only what we need, not having excess, but still having the freedom to take more than I would be able to take in an airplane I think I also have a soft spot in my heart for driving because even though it takes longer, you see so much more, you can do anything you want, and (at least in our van) you have plenty of space to move around (compared to an airplane). I honestly wasn’t sure how I would feel about van Life. The idea excited me, but I didn’t know if it would excite me the same way a 100 mile race excites me (I love the idea of it, but when it comes to actually doing it it’s not so great after all ) But all my fears were in vain. It was incredibly freeing, even the not-so-comfortable aspects of not having private showers and bathrooms for two weeks.

I should probably preface by saying I may or may not be a slight germaphobe, so the thought of public bathrooms is but you gotta do what you gotta do to live the life you want.

So here’s a collaboration of a few pros and cons that Levi and I came up with:

Pros:
– Easy for camping (no setting up a tent or looking for a campsite)
– Homey feel being able to sleep in a bed, and having coverage from the elements
– Access to electricity (21st century probs)
– You don’t need to worry about packing too much because there’s so much space!
– You can see SO much in a short amount of time
– You start caring less about possessions and more about memories, and sights
– It feels good to have a minimalist mindset
– You can workout from your van

Cons:
– no private showers or bathrooms (unless you install them in your van which we haven’t yet)
– Not taking my fur babies (still working on how to get them on the next trip with us )

We’re still in the process of fixing the van to how we really want it to be for our travels. But we learned a lot, and we have a few plans for improvement before we take our next trip Do you enjoy traveling? What’s your favorite way to do it?

Feel free to ask any questions you have!
Or, if you’re someone who’s made the leap into van Life, do you have any suggestions for us (particularly of how I can take my cats, but still go on big day hikes )

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Venturing in Mammoth Cave

By charity sampley • August 1, 2023

I've been trying to get to Mammoth Cave for 6 years and today I finally made it! Woohoo! I have a bucket list goal to visit every national park in the US (hopefully I can get to them faster because they just keep adding more), so there's another check mark to one! One of the things I've been realizing lately is just how many national parks are within 8 hours or less of where we're located. An 8-hour drive isn't too bad with the kids, and several are even closer. Mammoth Cave is about 1 hour from us (I know, it's almost wrong that we haven't gone before now). Prior to making the trip, I had looked on Pinterest for different recommendations and I had seen where the guided tours fill up quickly so it's best to register for them online before going. However, I decided that with the kids being the ages that they are, I didn't want to do a guided tour and would rather do the self-guided (called Discovery tour). I'm also not a big fan of guided tours anyway, but I did see some pictures of some cool views that you can only get to through a guided tour, so I think it would be worth it to do that one day. However, we spend 45 minutes in the cave, and I couldn't imagine spending any more time in there because the kids were about spent. I'm very content with the decision I made for this trip! All the information you'll need can be found on the national park website here . I had also read that the park is free to enter, but you have to pay for all the tours. This ended up being the case for us as well, even though we did the self-guided Discovery tour. It was a bummer because we have the annual national park pass, so I feel like we've already paid to enter all the parks for the year, but the tickets were only $8 a piece, and kids under 6 are free, so it wasn't expensive. As it turned out, I was very glad that we did the Discovery tour because the kids ended up being scared in the cave! We walked all the way down from one end to the other, but by the time we were leaving, they were definitely done with the cave. Killian is 2, and Reagan is 3, so if you have toddlers, I recommend just keeping that in mind when you choose the right option for you and your family.

I Finished My Nutrition Certification!

By charity sampley • June 23, 2023

I hope your week is off to a great start. A couple of weeks ago, on a Friday morning, I woke up early (okay, not that early), opened my laptop, and took the final exam to my Precision Nutrition Certification. It has been, and continues to be, so important to me to be able to continue my education in order to better serve my clientele, formally or informally. This certification is just one more step on my journey to improve myself as a coach and expert in the field of nutrition. I started it back in October, and continued to work through it during all the phases of life with two toddlers: sleep regressions, meltdowns, potty training, and all the things in between. At times it felt like I was never going to finish, and just like that I'm done, and it didn't seem all that rough! 😅 Soon after finishing, I decided to register for an NLP and Life Coaching certification, and who knows what else is in store. The sky's the limit!

Why I Started Coaching

By charity sampley • June 16, 2023

I didn't grow up being athletic, in fact, it was the opposite for me. When it came to races or playing tag, I was always the slowest. When it came to a sport, I was always uncoordinated. When it came to body weight strength, I was the weakest. When it came to being picked for a team, I was always picked last. Throughout high school and college, I managed to improve this predicament slightly as I played sports, began training on my own, and eventually made it onto my college basketball team. But I still always struggled. I always tended to be the most uncoordinated and the least athletic. When I started CrossFit in 2018, I was surprised at how my body adapted to the training. With what I felt like little effort on my part, I was able to do pull-ups and skills I had given up on ever having the ability to do. It taught me that everything is learned for everyone at some point in time, and we all have the ability to change what we've known about ourselves even if what we've known to be true about ourselves is something that has haunted us since childhood. While it was amazing that I could change my ability to perform physical movements, it wasn't until I improved my nutrition in 2019 and began to see the start of a 6 pack (which genetically speaking, wasn't really in the cards for me) that I started to truly realize how every decision we make and every step we take is an action either in the direction of what we want or what we don't want, but either way, we have the ability to choose in any given moment. Often times our ability to choose is determined by the beliefs we have about ourselves and about our circumstances. I think what shocked me the most is that I wasn't doing what I had always thought would be required in order to see these big physical changes. I was leaning out while eating ice cream sandwiches, chips, and fast food. And it wasn't just on my "cheat days" either. Although my diet was balanced, it didn't fit what I always believed I would need to do. It didn't fit m idea of "healthy" and it definitely didn't fit into most of society's definition of healthy. Most people would have assumed this was my way of having a "cheat meal", or that I was allowing myself to "be bad". But neither were the case. This was simply my way of life. And I was seeing amazing results with a very flexible approach to my diet. If we believe it's our calling in life to be fat, or weak, or slow, or addicted to food (all of which I believed about myself at one time), then those beliefs are what we'll live by. Those beliefs are what will dictate our choices. When I realized it was a choice for me to live in food freedom, and eat from a place of celebration and joy over how I can live my life and how my body can perform physically, that's when everything changed. I want all women who are where I once was to know that if they want to see change, then it's possible. But I don't want to just tell you. And I don't want to just show you. I want to help you get there. And that's why I started coaching. I started for you, and for all the women out there who are living a life making choices they're not happy with, in a body they're not happy in, but who don't want to sell their souls in order to see results. I'm here to tell you that there is freedom on the other side.

Van Life Critique