Ben Wymore and his family are no strangers to extended travel. This year’s goal was more modest than usual: just a four-week excursion to witness last week’s solar eclipse.
Total solar eclipses would be much more common if the moon were larger and a total solar eclipse would never occur if the moon were smaller since the moon would never fully conceal the sun. Since the moon and sun are almost identical in apparent size totality only occurs along a narrow path where the moon is positioned precisely in front of the sun. Photos by Ben Wymore
Y ou could say my family and I like traveling.
In August 2013 my wife and two children ages nine and twelve at the time embarked on what we thought would be a one-year RV trip exploring the US Canada and a bit of Mexico. We had enjoyed summer RV trips over the prior three years and decided that our children were now at the right age to get the most out of a one-year trip. They were old enough to tolerate long car rides and remember the experience yet young enough to endure extended periods with their parents.
We rented out our home and drove west homeschooling (or as RVers call it “road-schooling”) our children as we traveled. We thought finding kosher meat would be a problem but it turned out that most Trader Joe’s stores stock kosher ground beef and a few cuts of chicken even in areas with no frum population. With solar panels on the RV’s roof and a sizeable water tank we could easily camp for free on public lands allowing us to stretch our savings and maintain the RV lifestyle. Nine hundred eighty-four days later — a bit off schedule — we returned home to Monsey in the spring of 2016.
Create a free account to keep reading.
