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Do you daydream about taking more family vacations to learn on location? With a little planning, it can be totally doable to take your homeschooling on the road! In fall of 2022, Larry and Stacey Fischer sold almost everything, downsized into an Airstream trailer, and took their children on the adventure of a lifetime during a cross-country move from Lancaster Pennsylvania to Florida farm life. Their goal? To build family memories and make their kids’ education come alive by seeing the places they were learning about through their Veritas live online classes in person.
In between their travels, they enjoy the freedom that Veritas Scholars Academy gives them as they homeschool their kids, run a farm, and operate their equestrian supplement business, Equine Leg Magic.
Episode Transcription
Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.
Marlin Detweiler
Welcome again. This is Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. I am Marlin Detweiler. Today we have some very interesting guests. This will be incredible to talk about. But before I introduce them, let me just mention that one of the benefits of working with Veritas, particularly homeschooling and taking classes with us, is that there's a great deal of flexibility available to families.
And today, we have Larry and Stacey Fischer with us. They recently had an opportunity, a combination of things that changed their lives pretty dramatically and put them on the road a bit. Larry and Stacey, welcome.
Stacey Fischer
Thank you for having us!
Marlin Detweiler
Yeah, you bet. Larry worked for us at Veritas in 2022. And two reasons caused a major change in their life. One was some health issues, but also an opportunity to help run a farm and a business from that farm. But before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about your family. Tell us about you and your children.
Stacey Fischer
Well, we have five children, two home school graduates already, 22 and 20. And then we have three younger ones also that are in the Veritas Press program at 12, nine, and seven.
Marlin Detweiler
And when you left Veritas, you left in a camper.
Stacey Fischer
Yes, we did!
Marlin Detweiler
So it was a major lifestyle change. But the flexibility that we've worked on together and now you enjoy as a family has allowed you to do that. Tell us a little bit about your involvement at Veritas professionally and then personally.
Larry Fischer
Okay. Well, obviously, working as the VP of Sales and Marketing was an incredible experience, and it allowed us to grow and learn a lot more about Veritas, obviously. But then in 2022, obviously, we had this opportunity to come to the farm, but there was actually a house that was the house that was here was rented, so we needed to have a place to go until that house was empty. And the house had basically they said they were going to be out in about a year. So we thought we were going to be going on the road for about a year, but ended up that he left earlier than that.
So it wasn't as long as that. But it did give us the opportunity to go traveling. So we bought an Airstream, a 30-foot flying cloud airstream that we'll sleep eight, but we only have really most of the time we only had five us in it. Occasionally we'd have the seven, all seven of us in there. But so that was fun.
We just we, packed everything and we sold everything in the house, and we moved it all to our daughter's house in Ocala, Florida, and then just got in the camper and went. Actually, I think the first place we went to was Jersey, New Jersey, the Jersey Shores. And then we started traveling. I don't know how much you wanted to hear about the the different places we went or…?
Marlin Detweiler
I think it would be great because I think it's and we'll talk, of course, about the fact that you can easily do school on the road. I say easily. That's going to be up to you to agree with! I don't know how easy it has been, but you have been doing it. But tell us where you have been. It was, I think, August 31st was your last day at Veritas. And you basically hit the road the next day.
Stacey Fischer
We did! So the funny thing about realtors is when they want you to sell their your house, they want you out of it! We actually lived in our Airstream, kind of in our front yard, and had a campground nearby our house, and the moment we put our house on the market because they wanted us, you know, to be out.
So we lived there kind of stationary setting, which a lot of people that travel are that do the- they call it the full-time RV life. A lot of people choose to stay stationary. That was not our choice. I never want to be stationary. So I spent that time mapping out our route. This year, our kids are studying American history with Veritas. And so I looked at: what are we studying, who are the authors that we're reading, and where do we want to go?
So we went for, you know, and there's different elements like geography. So I remember one day we were in the White Mountains in New Hampshire, and it was about time for one of our kids to be in geography class. But the thing about the White Mountains is if it's foggy, you can't see anything. And so we had gone out the day before, and it was foggy, and we couldn't see anything. And it was still an experience, but we couldn't see anything. So the next day, we were sitting at a park and getting ready for class. We'd already done one class, and we looked up and the mountains had cleared, and we could see the top of the mountain. And her class is about to start. And I turned to Larry, and I was like, “Do we go? Did we skip her class?” And we said, Let's do geography today. And instead of just being in the geography class and I was like, “Okay, that's respectable. Let's do that.” So we did that.
And the beauty of the live classes is that there's always an archive of the class. And so when we got down from the mountain, she was able to watch the archive so, and we were still able to enjoy it. And then, she was able to share that with her classmates. So that was wonderful.
Marlin Detweiler
Sometimes connecting using a cell phone will work. Did you try that for connecting to the class?
Stacey Fischer
Oh, there's no internet there. Oh, we found that. Yeah, we found that the most difficult places to have coverage was in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, which is, of course, where we started off our journey. But the thing about traveling, too, is libraries are very generous with their Internet. And so if you don't have wifi somewhere, you usually can go to the library, and in that instance, we went to the local library that didn't open till ten. We had classes at eight, but we went the day before. They said, Yeah, you can sit in a parking lot. We parked our camper in the parking lot, and we did school inside the Airstream until the library opened.
Larry Fischer
McHomeschooling is what I call it. We actually went to McDonald's one morning before the library opened. We did some McHomeschooling.
Marlin Detweiler
Oh, well, there you go! Another option.
Larry Fischer
It's good. Yeah! Another place that we went was– well, we're reading this year. The kids read Little Women. So Louisa May Alcott's house is in the Northeast, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose house is in the Massachusetts area. And then there's Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain, whatever you want to call him. And then, right now, our son is reading The Yearling. And so that book and the author is in Alachua County, Florida, which is where we are right now. So we'll be taking a field trip to there. So it's neat just traveling around and connecting it.
Marlin Detweiler
Did you go in the Yearling author’s house?
Stacey Fischer
Yes, it's a– she donated it to the state of Florida, so it's actually a park.
Marlin Detweiler
Oh, that's great. That's great. What a hands-on experience! How has that impacted your kids and the education they're getting?
Stacey Fischer
I think it's significant. I think the kids being able to see the places that we learn about. I think there's just always something special about that and them being able to not only recall, “Okay, I've learned about a moose and where mooses– whatever the plural of that is. Something about where those would live.
Marlin Detweiler
They’re not meese.
Stacey Fischer
Ha! Yes! And then going to Maine and seeing moose on the side of the road and then, you know, seeing how the people live off of the moose. You know, it's not just the majestic creature that you see. It's also meat. And so we happened upon the weigh-in or the scales where they weigh the moose. And so one day when we were driving by, we just drove by, and there was, you know, 1,000lb moose hanging up that someone had hunted. There was like four or five of those. Not alive!
Larry Fischer
I think I think the impact is profound because they now get to put a real experience with where it is and who is who was from there. I mean, I know that I've heard the kids talking at church to other people about, you know, having been to Mount Washington or having of their just their adventures and their experiences.
So I think it gives a little more rounded at least– I feel like that you get all the way around.
Marlin Detweiler
What you are doing is consistent with what we tried to do, as you all know, with the Omnibus self-paced courses by filming on site of historic activity, whether it was World War II or the Battle of Arathon, the teachers in those filmed from many of the historic sites and brought great context. And it really does bring a level of reality, but not the level of reality of actually physically being there that your kids have been able to experience. And I'm sure this will prove to be a really a memory of a lifetime.
Many people, as you know, like us, probably like you travel in the summer to these things, but the ability to schedule your travel timing with what they're studying is just a very unique opportunity that you've seized. And the versatility that we try to offer gives that to people whose work can be that flexible also. So it's been really cool. It's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you about it in the podcast here to hear more about it.
What have been some of the unforeseen challenges? You've mentioned some of them a little bit. I imagine there are some more. I have not traveled in a camper, but I've traveled in an RV, and I can tell you there are some challenges I don't want to face again because I'm curious.
Stacey Fischer
Organization is key. And you know, when we sold everything, we kept the essentials, and as any bibliophile, I think that's the word I'm looking for, will attest to trying to pack just the minimum amount of books that you need is a struggle. The great thing about the Airstream is that it's not the largest camper out there by any means, but the amount of storage that it has is pretty remarkable. So we had minimal clothes, very minimalist wardrobe, but we had maximum books.
Larry Fischer
By far outweighed everything else!
Marlin Detweiler
You sound like a family with education being very important. Those are the kind of folks, as you know that we like to hear about. So that's great! So things, packing books was a challenge. Timing sounds to me like it was a challenge. You know, we've got to be at a certain place a certain time. Have Internet access and that sort of thing. What else has been, maybe some of those are foreseen? Did you have any other foreseen challenges that you planned for and maybe unforeseen ones that you hadn't thus for?
Larry Fischer
Unforeseen would be things like the kids breaking headphones, things like that, or losing the headphone, things like that, or cords, lost power cords and stuff. But Stacey did a great job of organizing, but it was– that was definitely by far the most difficult because campgrounds get filled up, or in our, you know, the seasons make it where it’s difficult to get into certain campgrounds. And so, Stacey had to work hard to organize and plan those things. That, by far, was the most difficult.
Marlin Detweiler
How far out did you plan things? Did you have to go out a few months? Or were you able to work a couple a weeks or two at a time?
Stacey Fischer
Well, for the national park system, those get full up, fill up filled up pretty early on, but we– I usually planned about two weeks in advance. And so, like when we were at Acadia National Park, we were there for two weeks, and we were at one campground for a week. And then and while we were at that one campground, we actually had to move campsites because we couldn't get a contiguous, you know, amount.
But those kinds of things are not really a huge, big deal. And we're flexible. And it didn't bother us. Some people might get hung up on. I don't want to I don't want to move campsites while I'm there. But, you know, sometimes you rent out like your neighbors so…!
Marlin Detweiler
That’s one of the beauties of campsites compared to a physical brick-and-mortar home; it's hard– you can't pick up and move from a neighbor!
Stacey Fischer
Yeah. And we found there's a lot of great resources out there for families that travel and for just, you know, anybody that travels. And I mean, I don't want to necessarily plug another business, but there's a company where you can go camp at like vineyards and farms and museums, and it's free. They just want you to patronize their business.
So we camped at a military museum in Maine, which was amazing! We stayed overnight. The docent came out, gave us an amazing tour of the facility, memorabilia from several different wars. And it was just, you know, it's just a really good experience.
Marlin Detweiler
That's really neat!
Larry Fischer
And the kids get the hold some hold actually more tactile–most museums, you just look at it. This military museum actually had a 400 year old pin, and they were able to hold and look at this pin. And then they have cannonballs that were old. So they got to actually touch and feel and hear stories directly from a veteran who had been he'd been there during the Vietnam War, told some stories. He was not terribly graphic. He was pretty sensitive. But it was good. It was really, really good.
Stacey Fischer
One of the other things that we really liked, Marlin, was that our daughter, she does Irish dance, so she was just at the point where she was starting to compete, and they call them Feises, the Irish word. And so, as a family that could travel, they have Feises all over the country. We were able to go to several different Fieses in different states and have her to be able to participate in her, you know, her hobby of Irish dancing, even though she wasn't going to her in her school anymore, the Irish dance school, she was still able to participate in these competitions.
And so we traveled and worked our schedules around so that she could be at a competition pretty regularly. And so that was another added thing.
Marlin Detweiler
It, you know, the internet is clearly a mixed bag, but our ability to research and find things and then take advantage of them is really a wonderful tool for the kind of lifestyle that you've been living the last few months to be able to find those and connect with those people and then do that. I know in our travels, one of the things that Laurie has really enjoyed doing is finding museums with which we could connect our boy's education and things like that. Have those been a significant part of your travels at this point?
Stacey Fischer
I will say that it was surprising that we did not go to as many museums as I thought because of the ability to visit. Well, I mean, like I said…
Marlin Detweiler
Home sites were made in a similar fashion.
Stacey Fischer
Right. So home sites and then mostly outside. So if it was an activity that we could do outside was really something that we focused on. And, you know, just getting to be a part– every Sunday, even though we were traveling, we were at somebody's church and in their Sunday school class. So being able to really see how other communities across the country really worship, even though maybe it's the same denomination, there's a different worship, there's a different community feel and environment there. So that was unexpected and interesting.
Marlin Detweiler
Yeah, I, I assume that you were in Presbyterian churches, knowing a little bit about you. Tell us what differences and similarities you observed there. I think that would be very interesting to hear about.
Stacey Fischer
Well, we kind of felt like missionaries on Sundays.
Larry Fischer
There were some very interesting experiences for sure.
Stacey Fischer
I'm pretty conservative about what I want for my Sunday school and for my children to learn. And I remember we went to one Sunday school, and they asked the kids how Sunday school was, and she said they played this game with this magic eight ball. And I thought, “Hmm, okay!” So like that. But also, I mean, it was kind of– it was a beautiful opportunity to share grace– a lot of even that maybe it's the same denomination.
The Gospel of Grace was not as predominant in some of them. And so, I mean, one time Larry actually brought this woman to tears because he was just preaching the gospel to her. It wasn't preaching. It was in a Sunday school. We were just having a discussion about grace and God's sovereignty, and she had something that clicked in her mind that she had not trusted God with and recognized that he was sovereign over this particular hardship in her life. And it just clicked with her. And so it was interesting. And we were very thankful for that.
Larry Fischer
It was a great experience to see how different, you know, people worship. The style of worship as well, whether there's a– it's a small church that doesn't have a lot of music, you know, instruments and that sort of thing, but just sings straight out of the hymnbook versus having a full band up there with banjos and that sort of thing. So it's definitely was a diversity in that sense.
Marlin Detweiler
How would you say your travel has enhanced your children's education? What will they- and I realize that this is overlapping with things that we've covered, but maybe unpacking even more. How do you expect this will have made their education better? And when I say this, obviously, the flexibility to be on the road is a given. So what you've been able to do with that being on the road, how has that made it better?
Stacey Fischer
Well, I think a lot of what when I look at, you know, when you read about families in Scripture, there is a discipleship mentorship aspect to a lot of dynamics there where the father learns from the son and the daughters learn from the mothers and the community there about how they don't come from the sons.
Marlin Detweiler
But did you mean sons learn from fathers?
Stacey Fischer
Yes! Yes. Sorry.
Marlin Detweiler
Yeah, well, fathers learn from sons, too. I know.
Stacey Fischer
Yeah. And just being able to be all together and traveling, and at one point there's this huge it's called the American Quarter Horse Congress, and it's in Ohio. And they have, I don't know, like a million people a day that goes.
Larry Fischer
650,000 people at that show.
Stacey Fischer
Yes. 650,000 people at this horse show.
Marlin Detweiler
Wow!
Stacey Fischer
So, yeah, it is unbelievably massive! And so that was one of our big events, to, you know, working concert with our new business that we had acquired. And so just the kids, I think being able to say, “Okay, I'm going to go basically to work with mom and dad and see what this is like and, and to be able to learn from that experience. But then I'm also going to be able to go back and do my schoolwork. At the end of the day, this is what real life is about. It's about managing your time, managing your aspects, managing what you learn.”
Larry Fischer
And they also have responsibilities in the camper there. They have responsibilities. When we move, you know, they each have jobs that they do when we move. I don't I mean, I yeah, I can do it, but I include them so that they have, you know, it makes it faster, it makes it more enjoyable for all of us if we each have a piece of the load and they, they understood that and I think they enjoyed that aspect of travel as they have a job.
When we stop, they some get out, and they do the stabilizers. Some of them have to do the x-chucks and all the different things to hook up the water to power. So, you know, they are all involved.
Marlin Detweiler
How would you describe the rhythm of the school day for them?
Stacey Fischer
Uh…Not! Ha!
Marlin Detweiler
No rhythm?
Stacey Fischer
Travel days are hard because there's a lot of packing and there's a lot of, you know, getting everything set up. So those days are harder. And I would say it’s like when we're– so now we're stationary in on the farm right now, and so those days are more predictable. And what most might imagine that a homeschool day looks like. So you have more of a routine, but when you're out traveling, your routine is really just accomplishing goals. And whether you accomplish that goal in the morning or in the afternoon or before breakfast, or after breakfast, those things are much more fluid.
Marlin Detweiler
So there's a sense in which flexibility becomes more important on the road. And you have a list of things that you know you need to do. But when they get done could vary greatly. So the idea of a regular rhythm is part of what you have to be willing to live without.
Stacey Fischer
Yeah!
Larry Fischer
So if there’s not Internet, for example, you're going to have to do that archive when we get to internet.
Marlin Detweiler
Yeah. And, of course, I would assume you're looking for internet and that's the priority. But if you can't, you've got the next best thing. So there's a sense in which the live class time becomes a priority, but it's not an absolute priority because you can't always fit it that way. Yeah. Interesting.
Stacey Fischer
Yeah. And it took us a little bit that– we ordered StarLink, which many people that travel on the road use, but it took some time to get it to us. So StarLink enabled us to then have much more predictable access to the internet while we were traveling.
Marlin Detweiler
Very good. Wow. When you settled down in Alachua near Gainesville, well, are you going back on the road again?
Stacey Fischer
We have plans for the summer. We've got a big rally in Wyoming, and of course, I want to go to Alaska because we're going to read the Call of the Wild and whatnot.
Marlin Detweiler
With your trailer?
Larry Fischer
Yeah!
Marlin Detweiler
Wow, That's a long haul. How many miles would it be to say Anchorage from Alachua?
Stacey Fischer
Goodness, I don't know. I mean, it would take some time.
Larry Fischer
I don't really know.
Stacey Fischer
But I've already got arrangements there for us to stay with some friends and park on their property. So…
Marlin Detweiler
Wow. Well, the experience that your kids are getting and you, you know, we always want to say this with the kids get their experiences that we get, and to have them together becomes a bond and a connection that is hard to get. And in many other ways, that's remarkable.
Stacey Fischer
If you're traveling with part of your children and not all of your children, it's really great it making the older children jealous and want to be with you.
Marlin Detweiler
I have seen that strategy work, too!
I still hear about a cruise. We dropped one son off at college and had one other son with us, yet. And we headed– after dropping him off to go on a cruise to Bermuda. And I have never heard the end of it from the son that we dropped off at college. “You leave me behind, and you go on a cruise to Bermuda, and I'm starting school!” So, yeah, it works!
Oh, that's great. Well, changing the subject completely here at the end. Fun fact that listeners may be interested knowing. We ran some ads on Fox News not long ago, and one of your children was the star in that ad. Has he ever been identified on the road?
Larry Fischer
Not, but he has told some folks in his classes and stuff.
Stacey Fisher
Yeah, we had a meet-up with his class. So even though they're all over the place, one of the teachers was like, “We're going to meet up at this ice cream shop.” And we're like, “Okay, well, we'll see you there!” And so there were some of his classmates there, and they were like, “We saw you on the commercial once!” So he always gets a little recognition from his classmates.
Marlin Detweiler
Well, I'll tell you, you all have really leveraged some of the things that Veritas has tried to make available, and that is flexibility. One of the things that we have really emphasized, as you all know, is to provide means of flexibility for families based on their lifestyle, based on their needs. And you all have really been a wonderful example of taking that flexibility to a level that says not only can we do lots of different things, but we can do them in lots of different places and still carry on. So thanks for being such a great example of that. Any final words of wisdom to somebody who might consider this?
Stacey Fischer
I don't know. I think when you were speaking, and I was just thinking sometimes traveling there can be some tensions.
Marlin Detweiler
Yes there can!
Stacey Fischer
And one might lose their religion. And so I was just thinking it was always nice that the kids were in that Veritas class because I knew that maybe mom and dad weren’t showing the gospel and they weren't being super glorifying, but they were still going to get that modeled in class.
Marlin Detweiler
Yeah, that's great!
Stacey Fischer
So that was helpful.
Marlin Detweiler
Well, it's time people are as this is viewed, people will be available–- it'll be available to register for live online classes. And I hope you, as the listeners, will see what flexibility you can have and join us with that.
You've been listening today to Larry and Stacey Fischer, Dear friends of Veritas, folks, thank you for joining us on Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education.
