SOME JOY'S OF FULL TIME RV'ING
This page will contain the little incidents that I happen to think of from time to time that make this lifestyle particularly pleasing, and will be updated on a sporadic basis.
September 1, 2001
This morning we awoke to the gentle rain noises on the roof, skylights, and awnings. This was our first night/morning back in the Pacific Northwest and we've not been in the rain since our visit in June with the kids in St. Louis. It seems that one of the recurring joys to us is the various sounds we are awaken with now that the alarm doesn't wake us very often. The night before last we were in the parking lot of Stalick International where the truck came from, and the noises we woke to (in addition to the alarm -- had a 7:30 AM appt.) were the "normal" traffic noise of any area like that. People going to work. (grin) One of our favorite memories is the mockingbird that sat on top of the light pole right next to our Road Abode in Quitman, GA, who delighted us as he yelled his head off telling the world that he was king of the universe and they'd darn well better respect him. Or maybe it was "her", I don't know about things like that. The ever changing environment this lifestyle provides is great fun. This morning we're doing "housework" in our sweats. Last week we were sweltering in the heat doing the same thing with the A/C running at full blast at this time of day, 11:00 AM.
April 22, 2001
Waking up to the birds.... or more accurately having the birds wake us up rather than a man-made alarm clock. Today the alarm clock went off at 3:15 AM so I could open the gate at 4:30 AM for the last day of turkey hunting season. As I got out of bed I reflected on how nice it was to not have to do this on a daily basis.
The experience of volunteering has brought with it multiple joys. Doing things we'd never dreamed of doing, and getting our "thrill a day" while at the Avon Park Air Force Bombing Range. Seeing the wildlife up close and personal. Meeting the staff and seeing the challenges they face on a daily basis while spending so much energy to make sure the public has a safe and enjoyable experience while spending time on the range. Either as birdwatchers or hunters, fishermen or just campers.
Of particular note is the pleasure of meeting other volunteers and camping with them for enough time to get to know them well. Forming friendships that I'm sure will last a lifetime. Some of them were newbies like us, others have been here 6 or 7 years and have been volunteering longer than that.
Barb seems to be ready to go volunteer again someplace, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand the experiences I've had have been tremendous and I wouldn't trade a one of them. On the other hand, I don't like "having" to be a certain place at a certain time doing what somebody else thinks is important. Perhaps it's because this whole season of life is so new to me and the memories of going to work are still too fresh. I'm fairly certain we'll volunteer again someday someplace, perhaps even here. But for now I just want the freedom to come and go without constraints other than time and money. And the joy is, that we'll be doing just that starting May 16.
October 2, 2000
A brief list:
Waking Barb up at 3 AM so she can listen to the elk grazing near the Road Abode.
People coming up almost before we can get out of the truck to ask about either Moby Dick or the boat, or the license plates (Alaska) and being so friendly.
Having the "right stuff" and having it mostly work very dependably.
Finding a deserted gas station about a mile off the freeway where we can park safely for free for the night.
Having truckers come up while re-fueling to ask about our rig and mentioning how they wished more people would replace their overloaded pickups.
Being allowed to work with the technician and get my hands dirty while doing some tire work on the trailer.
The surprises around the next corner ..... sunsets in the mirrors so brilliant it's hard to concentrate on the driving.
Mostly, it's the people. Strangers who share bits and pieces of their lives and leave as friends when we swap "business" cards.
July 5, 2000
Yesterday afternoon about 3 we pulled into the parking lot of the University of Idaho as "early birds". The parking crew made us feel right at home, helped us find a good spot for the week and a half, and left us to "set up" as unhooking the truck after making the trailer level, letting the slides out, unfastening all the cupboard doors, pulling the temporary packing materials out of the shelves, and stuff like that is called.
The main parking guy then came over, asked us what we had planned for the evening, and since I half expected to get invited to a potluck or dinner someplace, I told him all we had to do was to take showers. He said, "Good. Then you can help us with some parking, right?" Well, turned out that he had a party to go to, and was looking for volunteers to fill in for him! Three of us were "appointed" as the parking crew. Kathy (the single woman next door) would stop the incoming rigs, make the motorhomes with cars they were towing (called toads!) unhitch them and drive to John who would direct them to me (and later Barb). I (we) were sitting in the sun in the middle of a big parking lot (see "Parking Lot") waiting next to a truck and trailer for the next rig to come in so we could make sure they parked correctly making room for the rest of the rigs.
Soon a couple came by who had walked over to the field where the band was supposed to be playing (turned out they were an hour early) and asked us about the bicycle rack on the back of our trailer, assuming the rig we were sitting by was ours. After explaining our "job" they opened their chairs and sat with us to chat. Then another couple, friends of the first couple, came with their chairs, opened them and joined in. Then the owners of the rig came home from the laundromat and they joined us. Then some other couple and later a single man all joined us. Just because. No reason, only 2 couples knew each other, the others just came and sat and chatted. Pretty soon the conversation got around to "Stupid Stunts" and they heard about us getting stuck in the sand and my hair/fire story, and they all had something to add. We were laughing so hard we hurt.
As it got cooler and closer to fireworks time (in the field below us - perfect place to be watching from) Barb mentioned we needed a fire because it was getting cold. One of the guys said he'd get his barbeque cooker and some wood. (No open fires in the gravel parking lot, of course) This gave me the chance to tell about my friend Steve Pribnow who can't just sit around a fire but has to be improving it and is so much fun to have along because the fire never dies out from neglect. Several others had friends like Steve and we all agreed that we needed friends like that. Barby told about her dad who'd fallen asleep tending a campfire and was covered with ashes when the other guys found him and thought he'd died. Another of the guys got some wood from his rig and a hatchet to split with. All kinds of activity as we all adjusted around the smoke and small but friendly fire. A little later one of the women said she had some stale marshmallows and maybe some graham crackers. The single fellow said he'd go get his Hershey bars, and Barb and I took off to find our shish kabob skewers. Again, all kinds of activity and we were eating some pretty tough, but typically delicious Schmores. Laughing at each others stories and enjoying each other like we were the best of friends. And we were. But except for a couple of the people I couldn't tell you their names today. But I know that if I saw any of them in the store while we were running errands, it would be like a long-lost best friend had just been found. That simply doesn't happen in "normal" life. Or at least it hadn't in ours.
I suppose it's the people that makes the experience most enjoyable. There's the four beautiful doe mule deer that were standing in the road, that we slowed down to watch as all 4 of them lightly leaped over the 5' fence into the field and bounded away. Later in the day there was another doe that we'd startled in a wheat field. When she was standing we could only see her nose and the tips of her ears, but she was bounding through the field, and we could see her back, neck and head when she was on the high end of a bound. Beautiful brown/gray in the lush green of the wheat. There's the almost constantly changing scenery as we're driving, and some of it starkly forbidding, and some of it breathtakingly beautiful. The contrasts between the irrigated fields and the scruffy (by comparison) bushes and dry grasses of the plains. But so far (it's been a bit over 5 weeks now) it's the people we meet and are looking forward to meeting that seem to stand out.
Another joy of this lifestyle are the service people we run into. In the Challenges page I mentioned the hassle of getting together with parts that need to be shipped. The joy came when the installer at the Onan dealership in Billings got right on the job promptly and the part was waiting for us. He let me play a major role in which pipe got welded and which got clamped, and which way the system would point. The trucker who was waiting for service struck up a conversation with the 1/2 dozen or so of us RV'ers from the Gillette rally standing around waiting for our rigs to be worked on. Since I'd purchased some units that needed to be installed by a tire shop I asked him for his advice as to where to go. He told us about J.P.Anderson and how to get there. We left the trailer and after capturing our mail (and yes! my medication was included -- the same day in which I'd run out. Whew!) we went over to the shop to see if they could do the work on both the truck and the trailer. Since it was July 3, there were a line of cars and trucks needing work. The owner chuckled and said there was no way he could take any more work that day, but after taking a phone call he came back and told us where to park and he'd see what he could do. We hurried over to get the trailer, parked where he told us, and within the hour Lee had started to work. At one point after finishing the truck with it's 22.5" wheels, we (yes, that's right, again I got to get my hands dirty and work with the technician :-)) discovered that the clamps used to hold the device on the trailer wheels were way too long. I lamented that we'd have to find some clamps after the holiday and then hope to find a shop that could do the work. Lee volunteered to do some phoning to see if he could find any. When he came back he said he thought he knew where to get some and would be right back. Nearly 45 minutes he returned empty handed and apologetic about not finding anybody open who might have the clamps and that the places he did check didn't have the right size. He put the wheels back on the trailer and went to fill out his timesheet. Since we'd been there nearly 3 hours including the time Lee had been chasing our clamps, I expected the bill to come to $150 to $200 since he'd installed longer extensions on the truck tires and fixed the loose ones on the trailer and changed the air pressure in all the tires (14 of them) on the rig. After consulting with the owner, Lee handed me the bill and we gratefully paid $85 and left vowing that if we were ever near Billings and needed any tire work at all, we'd go to J.P.Anderson's place.
