Category Archives: RV

Published

14 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in Campground, Marketing and promotion, RV, Self-publishing, Vanlife

≈ 9 Comments

http://books2read.com/cici

I’m at Trimble Park, one of my favorite campgrounds, and I spent all day yesterday on the computer, fighting to post Cici in the various places that I publish books. All the usual suspects, in other words, including Google Play, which honestly has such a ridiculously bad interface that I’m not sure it’s worth the bother. I kept telling myself that I should just wait until I went back to my dad’s house because internet is a lot faster when it’s not a cell connection, but I guess I felt persistent. 

By evening, it was up in most spots — not Apple, of course, because Apple takes forever and a day — so I went ahead and sent an email to my mailing list. This morning I posted to Facebook, my three different pages, and paid $5 for an ad, so that people might actually see the post, and now I’m posting to my blog, and then I will be done with publishing Cici. This is why I’m really not a very good self-publisher — one is supposed to do all kinds of marketing, release day promotions, newsletters, giveaways, ad campaigns, blah-blah-blah. Does knowing what one is supposed to do and not doing it mean that one is: a) bad at business, b) rebellious in all the wrong ways, c) lazy? All three, obviously. But Cici is available for purchase, so at least I’m getting the “Step One: Write a Book, Step Two: Publish It” part of self-publishing right. 

Meanwhile, it is raining. Not heavily, but persistently. The main reason why I am sitting in this lovely campground is to dump the tanks and I cannot express how unenthusiastic I am about doing that in the rain. Also, I left stuff outside which is now going to have to come into the van and be wet and drippy inside. Sigh. But! The good news is that it’s a lovely tropical summer-feeling rain, so I should be counting my blessings. And I need a shower, anyway, so probably I should just enjoy it. But sewage in the rain always seems to smell more: psychological, I think, not real, but still.

And the clock is ticking, so I guess I can give up on the rain stopping before I pack up. It’ll be good for me, right? Right. 

More reading than writing

22 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by in Books, Pennsylvania, Randomness, RV, Writing

≈ 7 Comments

I told my brother this morning that today should be the day I start south. And then, thoughtfully, that yesterday probably should have been. It is cold in Pennsylvania right now and I am so underprepared for cold weather. The van is quite cozy — its heater works beautifully — but bundling up in a multitude of layers every time I step outside is a PITA.

This is why people own winter coats.

I, however, do not own a winter coat and while I could buy one, of course, I haven’t wanted a mostly useless object cluttering up the van. I’m probably going to have to reconsider that position in the next few months, though. I’m not sure yet what this winter is going to bring — possibly a lot more driving hours than I will actually appreciate — but a winter coat might become a necessity.

Anyway, despite the cold, I’m not heading south yet. My niece is in her school play, opening night this Thursday, and I’m going to stick around long enough to see her perform. I’d be tempted to stick around for Halloween, too — she’s going to be some sort of skeleton pirate, and the preliminary make-up experiments have been impressively horrifying while also cute as anything — but it’s too cold and I have too much to do in Florida.

Also, I’ve gone over three weeks without dumping the tanks, and that’s too long. I’ll be staying inside the house for the next couple of days, partially because of the cold but mostly because I’ve hit the point where I really, truly, positively can’t use the toilet again until I dump the black tank, so it is definitely time to find myself a campground. I told my dad yesterday that the details of my future home fantasies were narrowing down to “running water.” Sure, a room with a view, nearby yoga, affordable cost-of-living, those are all nice. But running water is glorious.

Also, yesterday, I ordered a 50-pod pack of black-tank sanitizer pods from Amazon. Given that I can and often do go about two weeks without dumping the tanks, and I still have four or five pods left from the pack I’ve been using, that means I’ve got about two years worth of black-tank sanitizing ahead of me. My shopping subconscious possibly knows more about my future home plans than my conscious mind is willing to admit to.

Writing has been going horribly badly of late. I hate every word I write. Some of that is author love. I read The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne a couple of weeks ago. Someone online said that it was their favorite book of all time, their comfort read, so I checked it out from the library. It sat on my Libby bookshelf for over two weeks, because I don’t read much historical romance and I was dubious at best. Finally, when I had only a couple of days left, I started to read. A few chapters in, I was hating it, almost on the verge of giving up, when suddenly, there was a twist. A really good, really fun, totally implausible but super cool twist. I gobbled down the rest of the book, reached the end, started over again while trying to read more slowly, reached the end, and started over again! Not often that I read a book three times in a row.

I actually still wasn’t sure how I felt about it. It definitely wouldn’t make it onto my favorite book ever list or even anywhere close, largely because the sex is… well, pre-#metoo, if that’s sufficient explanation. But the writing was still fantastic, even if the romance was a prime example of questionable consent issues. But I promptly put all the rest of her books on hold at the library. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, while I was waiting, Amazon sent me a gift card, and I didn’t hesitate. (Incidentally, The Spymaster’s Lady is $2.99 on Kindle at the moment, so if you do like historical romance, it’s a deal.) So over the course of the past ten days or so, I’ve read all of Joanna Bourne’s books.

For a little while, they sunk me into the depths of despair. She’s an incredible writer — her plots are completely fun, with levels of implausibility that you just don’t care about at all. Seriously, lost heiresses, spy schools, amnesia, they’ve got it all. But she sets them in worlds with so many vivid, concrete, sensory details that they feel real. Then she adds smart characters who actually behave like smart people (most of them anyway); language and metaphors that fit the point of view; and a sense of wry humor. They made me want to give up on being a writer entirely.

Then, fortunately, I think, I read her very first book, which was not available at my library but was available at Amazon. The most important thing to know about that book is that it was originally published in 1983. The second most important to know about it is that you really, really, really don’t want to read it as an example of her writing. Probably, you really don’t want to read it at all. I’m actually a little surprised that she let it be re-issued. But it comforted me. I will not give up on being a writer quite yet.

And that does mean I should get back to it. At about 5:30 this morning, I had an idea about where I’d gone wrong with Fen, and why I was so stuck. I knew, knew, knew that I should get up and open my computer and write it down, but it was so cozy in my nest of blankets. I promised myself I’d remember it. Ha. But maybe when I stare at the file for a while, it will come back to me.

Off I go to stare.

Another sunrise

06 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by in RV, Travel, Vanlife

≈ 2 Comments

Honestly, this place…

I leave this morning to go into “town”* to try to get my leaking toilet fixed. Tomorrow, I’m driving about an hour away from “town” in the other direction to get the oil changed and the brake fluid levels checked in the van. The need to get this stuff done was motivating me to get moving, with some idea that the right place to take care of such things is “home”. But I was chatting with one of my neighbors yesterday and realized that there should be places to take care of such things here and that once they were done, the nagging sense of obligation to get going would probably fade away. And once that nagging sense fades away… well, maybe I’ll be back at this campground on Saturday. Or maybe I’ll feel inspired to go explore some of Nova Scotia. I’m honestly not sure which.

But if this morning’s sunrise was my last sunrise here, I’m glad I got out on the beach while it was still rising and got to feel the wind and listen to the birds and see Zelda jumping off the rocks like her leg never bothered her at all.

*”Town” is Charlottetown. It’s over an hour away, but when people say “town”, that’s what they mean.

Happy Birthday, Serenity

29 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by in Personal, RV, Serenity, Travel, Vanlife

≈ 6 Comments

A Winnebago Travato

Serenity at the garden house

Technically, of course, the van’s birthday must be a couple months ago. She would have been built in Iowa, shipped to Florida, and she sat on the dealer’s lot for at least a couple of weeks before I signed the papers. But one year ago today was the day she came home with me.

Of course, pretty much the very next day, I brought her straight back to the dealer and said, “Um, I don’t think water is supposed to pour in through the roof when it rains,” but that’s neither here nor there.

It would still be close to another month before I closed on my house and started traveling, but here’s what I’ve learned in my first year of #vanlife.

1) Temperature control is a perpetual challenge. It easily gets about ten degrees hotter inside the van than it is outside, which is lovely when it’s 60 degrees outside and not fun at all when it’s 80 degrees outside. I’ve learned some tricks — always put the window covers up and the shades down, close the bathroom doors when the AC is on — but long-term, I also need to invest in some curtains to close off the cab and some USB fans to improve air flow. And I need to plan my travels better so I can avoid places/times where the heat is dangerous for the dogs.

2) Campgrounds are dirty. The dogs don’t care. I do. I’m getting better at acceptance, but clean sheets have become a luxurious treat.

3) I don’t need much stuff, but the stuff I do own grows to fill the available room. It feels like a continual process of pruning. I did expect by this time that all the vintage china I was traveling with would have broken and I’d be needing new dishes, but not so much. I think I broke one plate and a bowl, and I definitely gave away a few dishes to empty out the cupboards, but the china has worked out otherwise. I like it very much.

4) I also expected that my eating habits would change, but I didn’t know how. It turns out that I eat a lot of cold, fairly simple food — roast beef rolled up with arugula, turkey topped with artichoke spread, that kind of thing. Also, a lot more eggs. But the longer I live in the van, the less limited I feel about what I can cook. I’m not sure I could do a Thanksgiving dinner — it would have to be a pretty small turkey, and the scheduling involved in serving all the food hot would be tough to pull off — but short of that, I could probably cook some serious meals. If I wasn’t worried about heating up the van, that is.

5) Time flies by when you’re living in a van. I really can’t believe it’s been a year. I thought back then that by now I might have figured out where I want to live and be ready to settle down somewhere — a year sounds like plenty of time to be living on the road, doesn’t it? — but I’m nowhere close. I’ve enjoyed my month of mostly sitting still, but I’m looking forward to many more of my cautious adventures.

I guess I don’t have any particularly profound insights. A few more: birds are cool and worth watching; I like sunrises better than sunsets; grocery stores are pretty much the same across the country; and I should stop waiting to do things (like put up curtains) with the idea that I’ll do them when I get “home” because I am home.

Okay, one insight (still not terribly profound, I expect): a year ago, I plunged into the unknown. I was excited and I was scared. I scurried around with lists and to-do items and schedules and structure to try to cope with the vast looming uncertainties. I avoided thinking too far ahead even as I contemplated destinations like the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore. I was sure that there would be good parts and bad parts, and I tried not to focus too much on the possibility of the bad parts. In fact, when I made the decision, I wrote, “But ten years from now, I want to look back and think, “Wow, you might have been crazy, but you sure were brave.”

I wasn’t crazy. This journey, this life, this year has been amazing. It’s not always comfortable and it’s not always easy and yes, stuff has gone wrong and there have been some bad days along the way, but the good has so outweighed the bad.

My aunt sent me a quote this week with a note that said, “This is you.” The quote was from Howard Thurman, who wrote: Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go out and do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Yes.

I didn’t know a year ago that that’s what I was doing, and that this journey would be as much about celebrating my breakfast every morning and walking three miles a day as it would be about visiting national parks — well, actually more about the former, since I have yet to set foot in a single national park, ha — but yes. Letting go of my house and my stuff and my routine has been like waking up to a life of wonder and appreciation.

It wasn’t the best decision of my life (which is an honor forever and always reserved to my response when faced with an unplanned, terribly-timed pregnancy), but it comes really, really close.

So, yeah, Happy Birthday, Serenity! May we celebrate many more together.

Merritt Island

20 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by in Personal, Randomness, RV, Serenity, Vanlife

≈ 3 Comments

sunrise on Merritt Island

I read an article about #vanlife in The New Yorker today and it made me resolve to take more pictures of flowers and sunsets. I’m much better at sunrises, though — at sunset, I somehow rarely have the patience to sit and watch the sky, the way I do at sunrise.

This morning’s sunrise was spectacular. I’m drivewaysurfing again, this time at my friend Lynda’s in Merritt Island. She’s a writer friend, so when I invited myself to stay for a couple of days, I told her we would do lots of writing. Hours of writing! Many sprints! Words, words, words!!

Instead we sat and chatted, then went to the grocery store and bought delicious food for dinner. She got to do all the cooking because the dogs were not happy about being left on the porch by themselves and it’s too hot to leave them in the van, but it was lovely to sit outside on the patio as the sky grew dark and talk about life, the universe, and everything. She’s one of those friends that I can talk to for hours without ever feeling like the topics of conversation are running dry. #Vanlife – at least an authentic representation of #vanlife, for a solo traveler – includes a lot of silence, so it’s not a surprise that given the chance to talk endlessly I’m taking it. But we’re still going to get some writing done today!

I’m still waiting to hear from the dealer about Serenity‘s two final fixes. When I called them on Monday, they said the parts should be coming in next week sometime, so I’ve given up on getting out of Florida for now. When the days are hot and we’re trapped in the van, I regret that enormously — listening to the generator rumble while the sun blasts down on the van is not my favorite activity. But sitting here on Lynda’s porch, two sleeping dogs next to me, a view of the canal before me, listening to the sounds of drifting water and trilling birds, feeling the light wisp of a breeze… well, Florida doesn’t seem so bad.

If you’d like to support my blog, start your Amazon shopping here!

Brazos Bend

04 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by in Bartleby, Campground, RV, Travel

≈ 7 Comments

I spent one night at Brazos Bend. I’m starting to believe that one night is not enough for any park, but it’s especially not enough for one as big as Brazos Bend. So many trails there! So many things to see! An observatory and a windmill and multiple lakes. I’m not even sure what I might have missed. Well, except for the alligators–based on the warnings, I should definitely have seen some alligator activity there, but our one morning there was cold so there was no sign of them. I don’t actually mind that, ha.

We did see vultures. Lots and lots of vultures. Zelda and I actually startled about a dozen of them while we were out walking. They’d been hidden in the brush and I hadn’t noticed them, but we were so close that the sound of their wings beating the air as they leaped into flight was incredibly loud, like a motor suddenly starting right next to you. I ducked, heart abruptly racing. Zelda was totally nonchalant, of course, but vultures are quite big when you’re only a few feet away from them.

The above plants were really loud, too. The wind blowing through them was a steady rustle, like… I don’t know what. Maybe I don’t have a comparison. They sort of sounded papery, but loud papery–like dozens of people all reading newspapers at once, making no other sounds, no clearing of breath or shifting weight, just shuffling their papers around. I’m not musical enough to be sure, but I bet there’s some musical instrument that could replicate the sound. It was so loud and steady that I’m fairly sure I’d never heard anything like it before, though.

Traveling like this is really making me feel incredibly ignorant. About so many things! Musical instruments at the moment, but birds, of course. Plant life. I have no idea what the above plants are, or the names of any of the wildflowers I’ve been admiring. The stars are an almost complete mystery, after I’ve found Orion’s Belt and hunted for the Little Dipper.

Then there’s geography. Having moved on from Brazos Bend (and back to Matagorda Bay), I’m currently sitting on the banks of the Colorado River. In Texas. This was completely mystifying to me until I finally googled and discovered that Texas’ Colorado River is not the same river as the Colorado River that runs through the Grand Canyon. (And, random new fact, Colorado means “red” in Spanish. I had no idea.)

And the proper way to murder mice. At this point, I’ve captured and released one, killed another, and spent about $45 in anti-mice devices. I have ultrasonic repellers plugged into three different outlets, traps baited with “mouse attractor” in two locations, peppermint oil sprayed along the floor, dryer sheets in the drawers, and the whole van smells like Christmas from the FreshCab mouse repellent in the kitchen. Seriously, I feel like I should be putting up lights and baking cookies. Meanwhile, there were still little mouse droppings on the kitchen counter this morning, so my unwelcome guests have not been sufficiently repelled yet. I haven’t braced myself to do the glue traps yet. They seem so unkind. But that’s next, I guess.

I’m a carnivore, so I really shouldn’t feel guilty about killing mice. I eat cows and pigs and chickens and fish, the death of a mouse should be trivial. But I really hate this. It makes me simultaneously sad and jumpy, paranoid that every sound is a mouse getting near my bed and that every sniffle is the first symptom of a mouse-born virus.

And Bartleby is so allergic to springtime that he is chewing himself raw, which is frustrating both of us. Me, as I try to stop him from chewing, and him, as he tries to soothe his own itching. That reminds me, though, that I have anti-itch shampoo for him–new goal for today, give the dog a bath!

 

My bed of roses

29 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in Randomness, RV, Serenity, Travel

≈ 2 Comments

I have no data — I’m even out of data on my phone! — so I can’t look up the origin of that phrase I’m using as a title. But I’m coming back to it in a minute.

Night before last, my fan went crazy. I bet that’s the kind of description that drives mechanics crazy, too, but believe me, it is an apt description. When the craziness settled out, it was beeping. Beep. Five second pause. Beep. Five second pause. Beep.

The five seconds is a weird number. It is just long enough that there was no way to turn the beep into background noise. No possible way to ignore the noise, convince myself that it was cicadas or a crazy bird, no way to fall asleep between beeps and not wake up for the next one. Five seconds is maddening.

By 6AM, I was at my RV dealers (getting sent away by the security guard) and by 7:45AM, I was back at my RV dealers, plaintively begging for help. I didn’t have an appointment, of course, and they don’t generally take walk-ins, but they said they’d try to take a look and at least figure out how to cut power to the fan and shut it up.

While I sat on a couch in their show floor, dogs beside me, desperately wishing for sleep, I catalogued Serenity’s problems. There was the leaky air-conditioner that let so much water in the first night that the beds got soaked. The window that once opened wouldn’t close. The screens that weren’t properly placed in their tracks. The propane tank that wouldn’t fill. The thermostat that didn’t measure the temperature correctly. The sticky drawer latch that led to the facing of the drawer pulling off, exposing bare nails. The sink latch that jammed, had to be replaced, promptly broke again, and while I waited for my service appointment to get it fixed a second time, let the sink bounce around enough that the hinges broke, leaving the sink dangling half off the wall. The dead awning which fortunately died while closed. And then, of course, the fan going crazy.

All that in the first six months of ownership.

I was filled with gloom and doom. After the air-conditioning and until the fan, none of the problems had been major livability issues, but what next?

And then I took a deep breath and began re-cataloging. The air-conditioner was fixed. I don’t open the window that’s hard to close. I got the screens into their tracks and yes, it was a pain, but they work fine now. The propane tank’s sensor reset once the tank was empty and now I know to tell the guy filling it to go very slowly. The thermostat was user error, albeit based on unclear instructions, but still, no longer a problem. The drawer had been repaired. The sink was scheduled for repair. The awning was scheduled for repair. The only real problem was the fan.

And I went to Vermont. I watched the sunrise over farm fields and mountains, and waded in a mountain stream with the dogs. I sat next to the ocean and wrote. I wandered around the cutest little Massachusetts town at dawn. I’ve seen owls and coyotes and manatees. I’ve visited relatives and friends, gotten to have real time with people that I hadn’t seen in years. Sat around the table with my dad and stepmom on Christmas Eve eating chocolate cake.

The service guy came back. He told me they’d pulled the fan out and ordered a new part for it, but wouldn’t be able to get it fixed until the part came in, some time in the next couple of weeks, but that they’d stopped the noise. Oh, and that they’d fixed the sink and the awning. I hugged him.

Beds of roses do have thorns. I’m not excited about how many things have gone wrong with Serenity and I’m definitely not looking forward to whatever goes wrong next. But the last thing I have to do in Florida now (depending on when the part for the fan comes in) is a vet appointment on the 10th of January, which means that in less than two weeks, I can be heading west. And just thinking about that makes me want to bounce with excitement. Or you know, roll around on my bed of roses, hoping none of the thorns draw blood.

One step away from the wild…

22 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in Florida, Randomness, RV, Travel

≈ 4 Comments

Yesterday I was walking Z in the very early morning. Pre-dawn, but not so pre-dawn that it was still dark. I’d taken her up a white sandy road that led past the dumpsters out of the campground. The road had a “No Vehicles” sign posted but no other signs, so I wasn’t sure where it led, but since we were just walking for the sake of walking, it didn’t matter to me.

It felt incredibly lovely. The still of the early morning, nothing manmade in sight except for the road itself, just me and Z, alone in the world. And then I saw a flash of dog, tall dog, just a glimpse of leg and tail, crossing the path a long way in front of us.

Dang it.

You never know with off-leash dogs—are they off-leash because their owners have trained them well or are they off-leash because their owners are terrible owners? Zelda is a Jack Russell terrier, which means she is genetically incapable of backing down from a fight. If she decides a dog is a threat, she’ll get aggressive and size won’t deter her. Although she’s never gotten into a fight with a dog smaller than her, only dogs bigger than her, so I guess size does deter her, just not in a fearful way. But I’m wary about bringing her near strange off-leash dogs that she might decide need to be taught a lesson.

I paused and the dog disappeared. It looked like it disappeared into the brush, but that seemed unlikely, so I decided the road must have a path I couldn’t see leading off it. And since the dog and its owner were moving on, they were not a problem.

I kept walking. It was grey and chilly, at least by Florida standards, but I was enjoying the cool air and the brush of moisture in the fog… and then I saw dogs again.

Three of them. Tall, skinny, and a matched set, all a sort of grey brown with flags of white on their tails. Someone had a pack of dogs.

A pack of dogs that they were letting run off leash.

In a state park.

In fact, in a wilderness area.

Yeah, I don’t think so.

I stopped walking.

Two of the dogs disappeared into the brush, but the third stood where it was and stared at me. I stared back.

It wasn’t really close, not so close that I felt immediately threatened. And I did, in fact, have a little mental debate of whether I wanted to keep going on the path that I had been so enjoying and trust that I would scare it/them off. Coyotes are not known for attacking people.

But — my mental thought process went — coyotes are known for taking small animals and I am walking with a small animal that I love very much and that would never back down from a fight, even if it was with a pack of coyotes. And I am not the biggest of human beings myself. I’m not short, but I don’t think anyone would ever suggest that I could be threatening. Even to dogs. And these weren’t small dogs, they were definitely long-legged and tall. And like I said, skinny, so maybe they were hungry. Also out in daylight, even if maybe they were headed home after a night of hunting, but still… daylight plus night-time predators has at least the potential of meaning hungry predators.

So I took some careful steps backwards, not letting my eyes off the watchful coyote and then turned around and walked back to the campground. Zelda and I took the rest of our walk around the paved loop of the campground, admiring our neighbor’s various vehicles and tents and appreciating the day from a carefully sanitized distance.

Fighting to be flexible

18 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by in Personal, RV, Serenity

≈ 2 Comments

On Tuesday, my writing group friends reminded me that our monthly dinner would be happening Wednesday night. Unfortunately, I was at a campground about ninety minutes away. Lynda offered me her driveway — a nice long driveway, with plenty of room — but my instinctive response was “No, I can’t, I’m at this campground for another two days.”

It took me a while to question myself. Why was I staying at that campground when I could be going out to dinner with friends? Why did I feel locked in to a commitment that I had made to absolutely no one? The campground didn’t care if I left early, and it was a Thousand Trails campground so it wasn’t costing me much money. And even if it had been, even if it had been a $50/night campground (which I have stayed at only once), the money was spent, one way or another, and it wouldn’t cost me anything to go spend the night in Lynda’s driveway instead.

So Wednesday morning, I packed up and headed north. What a great decision. I had a lovely day of writing with L, a really fun dinner with a terrific group of people and good conversations about writing, and although I didn’t sleep well, at 4AM, my characters got chatty again. Yay!

Today turned out to be another totally unexpected day: my plan was to find a quiet place to sit and work, but a friend needed some help and so I wound up venturing forth to unexpected places. I didn’t get much writing done — witness the blog post that I am finally getting to at almost 10PM — but if life were a game, I would have racked up some excellent karma points.

Last night at dinner my friend Angela (hi, Angela!) asked me what had surprised me about life in the camper. I don’t think I said this then, although I might have, but one of the things that has surprised me is how uncomfortable I am with uncertainty. I like knowing where I’m going to be spending the night. I like having my calendar mapped out. And while I want adventures and new places, I am much more prone to deciding where I’ll be camping two weeks out and then sticking to that decision than I am just going where the wind takes me.

But I think I want to work on that. I think I need more days of going where the wind takes me. Some of the nights that really stick out in my memory are the ones that were unexpected: the Harvest Hosts stay at a farm in campground, the parking lot in West Virginia. I’m pretty sure today will be a day I remember for a long time, too, even though I’m parked in a familiar driveway this evening. But being flexible, being willing to be spontaneous, being able to live with uncertainty… it’s all part of living in the now, being present for my life as it is and as it can be. I want to be able to embrace the uncertainty, because the surprises that come with uncertainty are worth the effort.

 

Paying attention to what’s there…

28 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by in Meditation, Personal, Randomness, RV, Serenity, Travel

≈ 7 Comments

I’ve bought a bunch of graphics apps recently — one for my laptop, a couple for my phone — in the hopes of producing better images. But I still forget to take pictures, making the graphics apps a little pointless. Alas.

But this week could have had some good photos. I’ve been doing useful things — doctor’s appointment, service on Serenity, visiting friends — but in between those useful things, I’ve had times when I had no place to go, no place to be. It’s sort of a weird feeling. I can’t decide to go home or back to the campground because I am at home and my home is not situated in a campground. I just have to figure out where home should be, in between movements, if that makes any sense.

The easiest option is always to just find a big parking lot. There are seriously a lot of big parking lots in the world. Walmart, grocery stores, shopping malls… sadly, Trader Joe’s never has big enough parking lots, but I can usually find a parking lot somewhere in which to sit. However, parking lots are mostly boring. (I say mostly because the one I sat in on Saturday for hours and hours had a rescue group looking for homes for puppies. I was too stressed about my dogs to appreciate them, but cute puppies everywhere definitely improves a parking lot.)

This week, however, post-my lovely scenic ocean parking lot, I’ve used my GPS to find the nearest parks. It’s been weird because I’m very close to… well, to what was home. On Monday, I was three minutes away from my old house, because I was visiting my storage unit. I hung out in a park that I spent seven years living not five minutes away from and had never visited. The next day, I went to one that was about five miles away. It was lovely. A beautiful county park, next to a big lake, with boardwalks through old Florida cypress forests. And the whole time I lived here, it was right around the corner and I never knew, never looked…

It’s a good lesson, but I have to admit, I’d still much rather be off exploring parks in new places. I’m doing my best to appreciate where I am — and I do, definitely, appreciate my time with friends and family — but I’m also yearning to be off again. I’ve got things to do in Florida, but I’m pretty sure Texas is calling my name. Soon. First, though, a few more weeks in Florida and a few thousand more words in Tassamara.