Another “Homeless” Family
May 27, 2009
by Craig Wilson, USA Today
COLORADO SPRINGS — Tom and Mary Claire Wahl are homeless. Well, kind of homeless. They don’t have a house. Or a hometown.
What they have is a 41-foot recreational vehicle that they are driving around America, joined by their three children: Joe, 12, Anna, 10, and Sam, 7.
In the past eight months they have traveled almost 16,000 miles, visited 26 states, stayed over at 29 national parks and clipped at least seven trees. They’re about halfway through their journey. Sometime in the next six months, they’ll pick a new hometown, buy a house and settle down.
“We always kind of joked about this kind of trip, but it never seemed it could be a reality,” says Mary Claire, 46, a nurse/midwife who retired as a lieutenant colonel from the United States Air Force last July. “Then at retirement we didn’t have a home, we had no job, and we realized that was a blessing.”
So they bought an RV and hit the road, loading on one gas grill, one digital piano, three kids and five bikes, towing the family Volvo behind. They stay a few days in one place then move on. A map on the Wahls’ bedroom wall chronicles their ever-growing route.
The family, which lived the last four years in Germany and another four years in Japan before that, is rediscovering America, stopping for a few days last month at the Peregrine Pines FamCamp on the grounds of the U.S. Air Force Academy here in Colorado Springs.
As they grilled sausages and ribs in the shadow of the Front Range mountains, their youngest son, Sam, wielded a wooden sword from the roof of the family’s RV.
“The kids had gone to the baths in Budapest, skied the Alps, but they didn’t know America,” says Tom Wahl, 48, an online business writing instructor at the University of Maryland and enthusiastic house husband. “We thought this was a good way to show them the country their mother served.”
But he admits at times he feels like “a stranger in my own country.”
“What struck me most is we were used to living in a small, clean village in Germany with no crime. The kids walked everywhere, played outside without any cares,” he says. “I’m not sure we can find a place that has that.”
The Wahls, who also have lived in Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas, say they’re also taken aback by the rampant commercialism here — billboards, strip malls, Wal-Marts that dot the landscape. For that reason alone, they travel the back roads and byways, avoiding the interstate whenever they can.
“We find little places to eat, the diners we stumble on, that’s what makes it so wonderful,” says Mary Claire. “We want to maintain a simple lifestyle.”
“America is still there,” says Tom. “You just have to look for it.”
So how will they know when they find their new hometown?
“I don’t know. I think it will speak to us,” says Mary Claire, who grew up in Southern California. “We still have half the trip to go. We’re still exploring.”
Basically they want a safe community (for the kids), near a hospital (she might return to work), near a military base (commissary) and access to the great outdoors (so they can bike right out the front door).
Oregon was nice, but has no military base. They liked Santa Fe although it was “a little too pueblo” for them.
Los Alamos, N.M., however, had a good vibe and is a possibility. “And the schools are some of the best in the country,” says Tom. Fort Collins, Colo.; Grass Valley, Calif., north of Sacramento; and Whidbey Island, Wash., are also in the running.
The Wahls are home-schooling their children at the RV’s kitchen table this year. They call it “road school” so their kids can be “roads scholars.” They might continue home-schooling when they settle down.
Not that they aren’t getting suggestions along the way as to where that might be. Readers of their website — wahlsacrossamerica.com — are trying to lure them to their towns. Hope, Idaho; Mount Airy, N.C.; Beaver Creek, Ohio, to name a few.
The Wahls are working their way east and plan to tour New England this summer. Most relatives live in the West, but they say they’re open-minded as to where they might land, although they’re quite frank about where they won’t.
They only recently decided to visit North Dakota. And while they took a sentimental trip back to southwest Iowa to visit some family roots, they doubt that will become home.
Someone suggested Lawrence, Kan. “I don’t know about Kansas,” Mary Claire admits.
“We’d like to be near other people who have lived overseas so our kids wouldn’t be the only ones with passports,” says Tom.
In the end, it will be a family decision, says Tom, meaning “Mom and Dad will make it!”
Until then, they’re just happy being footloose and house-free, something they realize some might envy and others might not understand.
“It takes a lot of courage to do what they’re doing,” says Lt. Col. Ben Paganelli, a neighbor in Germany and a family friend who now teaches at the Air Force Academy. “It’s a huge jumping-off. Most people want a place where they can park, and these guys just walked away for a year. They’ll be better for it.”
The Wahls look upon their journey as hands-on schooling for the whole family.
They watched the presidential campaign from the road, realizing how polarized the country had become, with McCain signs in one state replaced by Obama signs in another.
They also have visited civil rights sites in the South. “We’re trying to teach the kids the positive as well as where we went wrong as a country,” Tom says.
Sixth-grader Joe, who speaks German and is becoming an avid birder, is thriving on the experience, crabbing on the Oregon coast, listening to jazz in New Orleans, collecting Junior Ranger badges from national parks.
He does admit, however, that “we don’t have any permanent friends” and adds that he gets bored now and then, just moving on and on.
What he wishes for most is a door. “I miss my own bedroom and a wardrobe,” he says, adding that he has only two drawers for all his clothes.
“It’s teaching us what we can live without,” says his dad.
Anna, a red-headed fourth-grader who was born in Japan and misses her friends in Germany, agrees that the RV world can be a little close at times — “not a lot of room for toys and books.”
“I miss a bigger closet,” agrees her mom. “But in a way, it’s liberating to be without a lot of stuff. We just pack up and go. We started with one pot and one frying pan. It’s amazing how little you need.”
Anna wants only one thing from her new home: snow.
And Sam? He seems happy just being Sam, going along for the ride.
The three siblings rely on one another for friendship.
“You get a lot closer to your family doing this,” says Tom. “The bathroom is the only room where you can be alone.”
“I thought we’d be at each other’s throat by now,” says Mary Claire. “But I’m energized by the fact we’re not.”
They even survived a night when friends stayed over during a freak snowstorm — four adults, six kids and a German shepherd.
What the Wahls have noticed is how friendly the RV community is. Some 400,000 Americans are full-time RVers, according to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association.
“People have been so wonderful to us. It’s what I wish the whole world was. Maybe it’s the law of the road,” says Tom.
That doesn’t translate to the highway, where politeness isn’t so abundant. The worst drivers in America? Miami.
“They’re a little like Italians on the Autobahn,” Tom says. “Unfortunately, it’s bad overall. I have new respect for truckers now.”
The RV gets eight to 10 miles a gallon, “pretty good for a home,” Wahl says. When gas was at its highest, it cost $500 to fill up.
But now that gas prices have fallen, the journey may continue for a bit longer than expected.
“We’re open-ended,” says Tom, who might ultimately write a book about their journey.
Working title: “RV There Yet?”
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