My husband and I sold our home to become full-time RV’rs in July of 2014. We are in our fifties, the parents of three grown daughters, grandparents to four girls and one boy. Family camping vacations are some of the best memories we have. My husband’s early medical retirement prompted a lot of soul searching on how we wanted to spend this new phase of our life. We came up with a three year plan to live the camping life, we figured it would take at least that long to visit our list of top ten places to go. Good-bye yard work, broken dish-washer, homeowners association! Hello new life!
October marked the beginning of a six month stationary journey. Getting our “sea-legs” before hitting the open road. We parked our little home on wheels in a beach front campground in South Carolina. The winter home to Canadians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers (lots and lots of New Yorkers), and other Yankees smart enough to escape the cold and snow. April is the bookend to October. We are pulling up stakes, literally, and heading out for some road adventures. But first, a review of the things I have learned thus far…
1. Coffee tables are not a good idea in a space only eleven feet wide. Stubbing my toe elicits the f-word everytime.
2. Avoid food with other people’s pet hair baked in. In other words, do not sign up for every pot-luck the campground hosts. Added benefit: saving money by not feeling compelled to buy sweet Miss Betty’s hand-made sequined tee-shirts on sale at every pot-luck.
3. Cleaning supplies require their own budget line. Purchasing candles, wax melts, bio-degradable soap, and other fresh smelling cleaning supplies really adds up. Two hundred and ninety square feet with two dogs and a husband whose sweat smells like B.K. Whoppers with onions festers really quickly.
4. We are not good at corn-hole. Not familiar with corn-hole? Google it. There are such things as corn-hole tournaments, with t-shirts and everything.
5. People really do run meth-labs in campers. An almost certain meth-lab parked next to us for a little over a week. Strange comings and goings, lots of trash and the crock pot was on all the time. ( I know about the crock pot because they parked so close to us that I could see in one window. The crock pot’s little “on” light glowed orange day and night.)
6. White Boxers scare people. Our white Boxer, Snow, came in handy with #5, I felt safer. I have gotten really good at explaining to people that she is not a pit-bull, but if she was, I would love her just the same.
7. Coffee tastes better when camping. No explanation needed.
8. My husband is friendly, I am not. I always thought it was the other way around. This adventure has taught me otherwise. I am annoyed when people stop by to chat and I am trying to read or write…or drink wine. My husband initiates waving at passersby. If they should stop, he will further encourage them by asking, “where do you hail from?”
9. I do not like the phrase, “hail from.”
10. Negative is funnier than positive. See above list. Turning negatives into something you can laugh about really helps in almost all situtions. Positive things are just… well…positive.
I loved daily walks on the beach; salty air; roaring ocean; campfires; being outdoors, etc. But these things I already knew from vacation camping. I am an experienced vacation camper. Living full time in an RV with no other home is like, without a net, free-falling, no helmet , X-games extreme sport. I have a lot to learn. Looking forward to the journey.