Our nomadic story isn’t the glossy RV life with autism people imagine. It’s the dirt that never leaves the floor or the couch, the frogs and snakes our boy brings inside, and the slimy fish hands that somehow end up on everything in the fridge.
It’s the meltdowns that ring in our ears, the scratches and bites we work through, and a mama who gives everything she has while a dad tries to keep it all together.
Most of all, it’s a little boy fighting a body he can’t fully control, relying on his family as the only protection he has in this world.
How our story began
We are the Clark Family.
We weren’t always this way. Brittney and I are your average Utah couple—falling in love and excited to start a family.
We are both religious and family-oriented. I was an entrepreneur, and she had two bachelor’s degrees and was a stay-at-home mom.
She dreamed of homeschooling, and I dreamed of financial freedom.
We had our first child 18 months after we were married, the next one three years later, and the third one 18 months after that.
We worked hard and focused on doing the best we could.
We didn’t plan for this
But life throws curveballs. I always remember the saying, “Man plans, God laughs.”
I provide more details about our son in my original post, so I won’t elaborate here.
Suffice it to say, we are now living a form of RV life, but it’s not the one I saw on YouTube. When we first considered this option, we did a lot of research on YouTube to see what it was like.
There were lots of beautiful pictures of adventures and RV parks, along with really cool, well-decorated RVs featuring custom layouts.
There were tons of kids playing with other kids around the RV parks. It all seemed like a dream.
It didn’t take long for us to realize that this version of RV life simply wouldn’t work for our family.
Why RV parks didn’t work for us
RV parks were simply too busy, and our little boy couldn’t handle that kind of environment. So we started boondocking as a family instead.
Dirt and sand are constantly tracked into the RV. Our little boy spends most of his time in bodies of water, looking for all kinds of creatures. He brings them back to the RV to keep as trophies.
Covered in mud and water, he climbs around the counters to get the containers he needs for each new creature he catches.
At any given time, we have multiple snakes, frogs, fish, crawfish, and whatever other creepy-crawly he is fascinated by hanging around the RV.
We have to bring water to the RV to fill it up and pump our black tank into a bag for disposal.
Our new life
It’s not the life we pictured, definitely not the life we planned.
It’s not even the RV life we once imagined would feel romantic for our family.
But it’s what works.
And because it works, we love it.
When our boy is happy, mama is happy. And when mama is happy, everyone is happy.
This is us—raw and somewhat unfiltered.
We aren’t in it to win it anymore. We are in it for our kids. All of them. And we’ll do whatever it takes to meet their diverse needs.
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