J.D. Lott and his wife Britney were eating lunch with their eight kids on April 30 when he missed a call on his cellphone. The family was three years into a cross-country, home-schooling, Instagram-documented road trip in a bus they refashioned into an RV. A day earlier they had been staying at a Florida campground. The next day, they were in Georgia on their way to meet friends—or so they thought.
Half an hour later, the missed caller sent a text saying that they were from the Department of Children and Families (DCF) in Florida. It continued: "Please respond we need to follow up and verify the children are safe. If we cannot complete this we will have to see an Order To Take Into Custody which is enforceable nationwide. Please work with us so we do not have to do that. Thank you."
