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~ Home of author Sarah Wynde

Category Archives: Serenity

Yellowstone National Park

05 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by wyndes in Adventures, Campground, Serenity, Travel, Vanlife

≈ 4 Comments

You know how to find a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park? Just look for the traffic jam.

Sadly, that is not actually a joke. I didn’t take any pictures of the grizzly bear I saw, because I would have had to park along the road with dozens of other cars and my picture really would have been of lots of people taking pictures of a brown shape lumbering away off in the distance. Still, it was cool to see.

I also didn’t take any pictures of any of the elk I saw, not even the baby, or the mama bison with her baby for roughly the same reason. (The baby bison was so, so cute, though. Baby bison are adorable!) There are plenty of places to pull off the road and take pictures in Yellowstone, but on a Saturday and Sunday in June, they usually had plenty of cars in them. I admired the animals on my own slow drive-bys, but I didn’t stop.

a bison
The only animal I took a picture of was this bison, because it was wandering near the campground.

It was still incredibly beautiful. And immense! I knew in my head how big Yellowstone was (bigger than the smallest two states), but driving through it makes it a lot more obvious. It did feel like I was driving through a state, one with spectacular scenery, snow-capped mountains, gorgeous blue lakes, and plenty of trees. Also plenty of people, but that’s how it goes.

And that was not a disadvantage for me, mostly. Remember my foreshadowing? On Saturday, I managed to snag a camping spot for the night at Norris Campground. The spot was small and slightly sloped, and the campground was full, but it was still Yellowstone. I actually took that picture of a bison from within the campground, while Z and I were out taking a walk. ( I don’t have a better one because Z was highly disinclined to sit still while I played at photography. )

My plan was to leave the campground as early as possible Sunday morning and head to Old Faithful, hoping to beat the crowds there. I’m willing to guess that even if all had gone as planned, there would have been no way to beat the crowds. And all did not go as planned. As I drove away from my campsite, the van started making a funny noise.

My first thought was that I’d left something loose in the back. I paused and did a quick check — what could be rattling around? But the silverware drawer (always a likely suspect) was closed, and there was nothing visibly loose and rolling. So I drove a little farther. Nope, definitely a weird noise. Paused the van again and checked the fan — could something have gotten stuck in it? I turned the fan off, just in case it was a problem with the cover rattling, and thought grim thoughts about hail storms and broken roof attachments. I started driving again and it was clear that turning the fan off had done nothing. So I paused again, in the middle of the road, and got out to walk around the van.

The problem was obvious, as soon as I crouched down and looked underneath. A metal bracket was dragging on the ground. I think — and I admit, I’m mostly guessing — I think it is a bracket for the generator, to hold the generator in place. Whatever it is, it’s not the kind of thing that you want scraping along the ground, as opposed to doing its job.

I thought bad words. I thought about wire and duct tape and zip ties and bungee cords. I thought about finding RV service places in the middle of an enormous park, at least fifty miles away from anything, and how much it was likely to cost to have someone come fix it, but how very bad it might get if that piece entirely stopped doing its job. And then I thought that at the very least, I needed to get out of the middle of the only road around that campground loop, so I carefully, slowly, drove down to the parking lot.

And the advantages of being in a crowded place immediately showed up. I’m going to guess that I had my head under the van for under five minutes, still trying to figure out what exactly this piece was and what it needed to attach to when a nice guy wandered over and said, “You need help?”

Yep, I needed help. He took a look, told me there had to be a piece with a bolt in it somewhere along my path, but that he’d zip tie it up for me in the meantime. I went back to the campsite where I promptly found a long metal rod with a bend at one end and a bolt at the other, and by the time I made it back to the parking lot, he’d already zip-tied the piece back in place. I showed him the piece and he said he needed to get his trailer set up, but he’d try to come back and help me with it.

I spent the next while waiting, while also figuring out how the piece worked, where it was supposed to fit, how it needed to go back into place, and trying to get the bolt loose. Basically the bent end of the rod hooked over a hole in an attachment on the frame while the bolt end was attached to the dangling piece. I have no idea why it worked its way loose in Yellowstone — I didn’t hit anything and I didn’t hear anything on the drive there — but I suspect my bumpy drive in Gallatin had at least a little to do with the problem. I theorize that it had come loose from the frame (maybe during the crunch I had in eastern Oregon several weeks ago) but was caught on one of the wires or hoses, and the bumpy road plus the slope of the campsite was enough to finally shake it free.

Anyway, I was just starting to reach the point of thinking that Helpful Guy #1 must have gotten busy with kids or campsite set-up or his own responsibilities and forgotten about me, when Helpful Guy #2 showed up. I showed him the problem and he went off to his campsite and came back with a set of wrenches. He told me he’d been carrying it around for 15 years and this was the first time he’d ever used it. I laughed and told him that my collection of tools was always for the last problem I’d had, never for the one I was currently having. But he loosened the bolt from the rod, and then we put it back into place, he tightened it up for me, and I was good to go.

It was a very satisfying outcome to a morning that had started out with an unpleasant sinking feeling. I think that unpleasant sinking feeling comes with some associated energy costs, though: the adrenaline high of “Oh, no, scary problem that must be dealt with immediately,” turned into an energy crash soon thereafter. By the time I’d made my way to Old Faithful and watched it spout on schedule (along with a thousand or so other people), I was seriously tired, and so sick of crowds of people. I like people-watching normally. I love situations where I can watch families and speculate on what they’re like, what their stories are. But not Sunday. I just wanted to be in a quiet place away from strangers, even nice helpful friendly strangers. So I got on the road and started driving.

It was another completely beautiful drive, this time into Wyoming. I was headed to Cody, where I planned to turn north to Billings. But along the way, I kept passing campgrounds and thinking, “I could stop there.” And when I’d been stuck behind a person going 55 in a 70MPH for a half hour that felt more like two, I let the impulse take me into the driveway of the North Fork of Buffalo Bill State Park.

There is no possible photo that could do this park justice, because it is one of those places with spectacular scenery in all directions. Also huge campsites, absurdly easy to get into. They’re all pull-through spots, parallel to huge grassy fields. My current spot could easily fit an enormous bus. And although I paid $35 for a water/electric spot, I’m actually worried about the water pressure — it blasts out so fast and hard that even with a pressure adapter on my hose, I feel like it might break something. That said, the water is delicious, so I am going to try to fill up my water jugs without getting too wet in the process. I think it’s the first time that I’ve ever had campground water that was noticeably good. (I’m not really a water snob, but I do notice what water tastes like.)

A cliff, a brown rive, clouds in the sky, yellow grasses. Basically, a gorgeous landscape scene.
One angle on the view at Buffalo Bill State Park, Wyoming

The showers were pay showers — $1.75 in quarters got me five minutes worth of water — but private, clean, and with (unsurprisingly!) excellent water pressure.

In fact, I liked the campground enough that I seriously considered taking a rest day. I’m still not entirely sure what my plan for this trip is — I seem to be vacationing an awful lot, instead of trying to figure out how to write (fiction) while on the road. Somehow, though, I found myself clean, packed up, and ready to go by 10AM.

Sorry, Serenity (& Crystal Crane Hot Springs Campground)

10 Friday May 2019

Posted by wyndes in Adventures, Campground, Serenity, Travel

≈ 2 Comments

a dirt road in a valley between rugged hills
Succor Creek

Succor Creek was a beautiful place to wake up. I took a walk with Zelda on Saturday morning, down this road, and the scenery on all sides was incredibly beautiful. Even the herds of small children roaming the hills couldn’t make the campground feel crowded. But we had miles to go and prepaid reservations at our next campground, so we packed up and headed out.

Ironically — or, as my son might remind me, in just a not-very-funny coincidence — after all my worries about driving on the dirt roads, I managed to crunch poor Serenity after we got back on the road. At a gas station, alas. And I managed to break the kind of streak that everyone should wish for: thirty-five years of never having to call an insurance company because of something I’d done. Dang.

a badly scraped side of the van with a broken heater vent
Poor Serenity. I promised her I would get her fixed, though!

But it was what it was. The van was still drivable and no one was hurt so after spending some time chatting with my truly delightful Progressive customer service person (sympathetic! helpful! organized!), we got back on the road.

Fortunately, our destination was exactly the kind of place you want to end up at when you’re feeling stressed and frustrated with yourself: Crystal Crane Hot Springs Campground. The campground itself was not beautiful: dry grass, rocky gravel sites, no trees or separation between sites, port-a-potty type toilets right across from our own site…

Our campsite at Crystal Crane Hot Springs
three dogs on three dog beds
Even the dogs said, “This ground is too hard.” All of them wanted outside beds. It was cute to see them all piled up together, though. The bed that Z is on is her bed, but there was much mild doggie competition to be the one who got that bed over the course of the week.

But do you see that hint of water behind Serenity in the above picture? The hot springs was basically a pond, and the water was amazing. S and I swam once in the afternoon, then as soon as it started to get dark we went back again.

Drifting in the hot water in the cool night air while the stars came out was… spectacular. It was a moment where I was intensely glad to be where I was, to be alive, to be experiencing life. Bats swooped overhead, which doesn’t sound like it should be cool, but really was, and planes left contrails in the sky until it got so dark that you couldn’t see them. It was surreally beautiful.

A GIF of steam rising off the hot springs at sunrise
Steam rising off the spring.

Unlike Succor Creek, though, which felt like a place where it would have been nice to stay forever, I was definitely ready to move on Sunday morning. The springs were great, but the campground was hot and dry and sort of bleak and there’s only so much soaking in hot water one can do. Plus, we were headed back to Bend and both S and I were looking forward to all the fun we were going to have there. Well, the fun and the good things to eat!

Van Buren State Park

25 Monday Jun 2018

Posted by wyndes in Campground, Personal, Randomness, Serenity, Travel

≈ 6 Comments

moon over a campground

Yesterday, I was midway through an entirely reasonable drive — three hours or so — when I decided I was too tired to keep going. So I didn’t.

I stopped at a rest stop, took a quick nap, then looked for a different, closer campground. I told myself that stopping early meant that I would have plenty of time to do useful things: work on Grace, write a blog post, sort my photos from the past several (busy) days, clean the van, wash the dishes, plan my next week’s destinations, walk Z, talk to R…

On that list of things, I walked the dog. That, I assume, is because she’s the only one of those things capable of nudging me in the leg and saying, “seriously, get moving now.”

Apart from that, I… honestly, I don’t know. Used up my time, anyway. I think I finished a jigsaw puzzle that took me far longer than it should have, and I know I made guacamole and salad dressing for my dinner. Oh, and I defrosted my freezer, which was urgent, because it had frosted over so heavily that I couldn’t get my chicken out. I then didn’t wind up eating the chicken, because it was so very frozen, but hey, it’s good to remember that I did something useful, however minor it was.

I did want to sort my photos, so I could post some pictures of the weekend, but I’ve used up my data plan for the month, so it would have been tedious to try to post pictures anyway. That’s to make me feel better about the failure. 🙂

But Tuesday of last week, I left my brother’s house and headed to my aunt and uncle’s. We had a nice visit — good walks, delicious food, ice cream at the famous State College Creamery, lots of conversation — and then on Thursday, I started on my way to Ohio.

My plans for Thursday/Friday were pretty vague: I’d been planning to maybe try to meet up with a stepsister and her family for kayaking and outdoor adventures. But the rain was torrential, so instead I camped for a night at Barkcamp State Park, right over the West Virginia border into Ohio.

I have absolutely nothing to say about Barkcamp. I got there in the evening, at almost 7, and it was raining. I left there around noon the next day, and it was raining. In between, I didn’t check out the trails, the bathrooms, the views, the utilities — I sat in the van and watched the rain. It was nice rain and a cozy day, but my opinion of Barkcamp is that it was very wet. I’m sure I’d have a different opinion under different circumstances. I should have taken a picture of the two inch deep puddle around my electricity pole, because it would have been an appropriate representation of my experience there. But I didn’t, because it was raining and I was wet and not interested in getting my phone wet.

After I left Barkcamp, I goofed around. Target, CostCo, parking lot adventures. I was headed to my stepbrother’s house for my stepmother’s 80th birthday party, planning to spend the night in their driveway, but I didn’t want to get there until after my dad and stepmom arrived, because my stepbrother doesn’t know me from Adam. Well, didn’t — I’ve now spent most of a weekend at his house, and he and his wife were warm and welcoming, so I’d feel a lot better about showing up alone at their house if I was doing it today. But on Friday, I didn’t want to do that. Alas, best-laid plans, and all that: C and my dad were delayed in a cell phone dead zone, so I had a chance to get to know my (warm, welcoming) stepbrother and his wife on my own.

Saturday was C’s birthday party. I really would love to post some pictures, because it was gorgeous. Pinterest-worthy in a major way. J, my stepsister-in-law, obviously worked really hard and has an eye for beautiful details, plus a green thumb. Or at least an ability to keep a lovely garden thriving and blossoming — the number of different flowers all in bloom was very impressive to me.

Fifty-some people came, including C’s brothers and a cousin and maybe a couple of their kids, plus seven of her children & stepchildren and some spouses, approximately thirteen of her grandchildren plus some spouses, and maybe seven great-grandchildren. Lots of food, lots of kids playing in the yard, and a day that after threatening more rain turned out to be beautiful.

Trying to think of the moments I would like to remember: a cousin of sorts (technically, I suppose, some sort of nephew) brought a drone and the whole party gathering on the porch for aerial photos. Sitting around the dinner table in the evening laughing about gout/misheard phrases. Stumbling across one of the kids who’d retreated to the house and was playing quietly by herself, and admiring her self-care instincts. Showing off Serenity to various people and wishing I’d washed the dishes and swept the floor. Helping M with flowers and later getting a chance to tell her how much I love her mom and how grateful I am for her presence in my life.

One of my stepbrothers — step-step brother, maybe? one of my stepmom’s first set of step-kids, anyway — and his wife managed to convince me that I really shouldn’t miss my chance to drive along the north shore of Lake Huron so I might be changing my travel plans to spend more time in Canada. I need to figure that out soon, I suppose, but it doesn’t have to be today. Fortunately, because somehow I am still really tired, far more tired than I ought to be.

And today is not going to be the day I would like it to be, because I need to get back on the road. Z has a vet appointment this afternoon — just for shots, not because her health has taken a downturn — so I’ve got some driving to do. And no set destination for the next few days. On Friday I’ll be in Michigan and all the people that I thought I was visiting there are either busy or non-responsive, so it’s probably going to be a much less sociable month than I anticipated, but that’s feeling sort of okay. Despite not being able to write for a few days and having spent far more time in PA playing video games than I should have, I’m feeling good about my progress on Grace. And looking forward to a few quiet days with nothing to do but focus on Noah and Grace and Dillon and Rose and bringing them all to their happy endings.

Oh, but I meant to write about Van Buren. I like it. I suspect it makes people driving big rigs and hauling big trailers sad, because the sites are not the biggest, but tent campers probably adore it. My own site has a nook — there is no other word for it — a little path into the woods and a space under a big tree that feels like wilderness, even though it is so not. It would be a fantastic place to place a tent. Or even a chair for some quiet time spent breathing in the green. Although given my current state of allergies and Ohio’s current state of bugs (soooo many flies!), I probably wouldn’t really enjoy it. There also seem to be plenty of trails, but all that rain has made them very muddy trails. I’ve walked a few steps into them and looked down at my little white dog, considered how excited I am about having a muddy little white dog (not) and not taken advantage of them, but if I was here for a few days, I definitely would appreciate all the places to wander. I don’t think there are showers, though, and no water hook-ups, so it’s probably not a place I’d want to stay for more than a few days anyway, even if I didn’t have to get on the road to bring Z to the vet.

And the other thing I wanted to at least mention is that today is the 2nd anniversary of Serenity’s arrival in my life. Later, maybe I’ll write some profound things about what I think as Year 2 draws to a close, and maybe a month from now, when it’s actually my second anniversary of being on the road, I’ll write more of a summary of the year, but today… well, it’s been a ride, that’s for sure.

The wisdom of a feather

29 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by wyndes in Campground, Randomness, Serenity, Zelda

≈ 5 Comments

I started counting the number of birds I could see from my window — like, right outside the window, fifteen feet away — and then something startled them and they swooped away and I realized that all the things I thought were dark leaves on the ground were actually small birds. I’m going to say — 200? 300? Not a countable number, that’s for sure. Sadly, they’ve now all moved on, but that’s probably a good thing for my productivity, since I find watching a flock of birds to be surprisingly compelling.

The last time I was in Arkansas, I got the very last space at an absolutely packed campground, Lake Catherine State Park. It was lovely, but it was spring break and it was crowded. Since this is Easter weekend, I decided that this time I’d be a little more proactive and I made a reservation at Lake Chicot State Park for five nights, taking me safely through Easter.

Ha.

I’m going to say that last year, lots of Arkansians looked at the weather, decided it was a glorious time to go camping, and headed for the park. It was a glorious time to go camping. This year, those same Arkansians looked at the weather and decided it was a fine time to hunker down in their houses. It so is.

The campground is pretty close to deserted and also pretty close to drowned. The puddles are like lakes. The lake is not overflowing its banks, fortunately, but there are a lot of semi-underwater trees. Even Zelda, who doesn’t usually mind getting wet, stood at the open door of the van this morning and then decided against her walk.

Fortunately, my deserted rainy underwater campground is also very green and pretty. Loads of trees, all in early-spring mode instead of tail-end of winter mode. Light green leaves and life bursting out all over the place. So I’m not finding it spooky, I’m finding it charming. I’m helped just a little in this by the fact that I checked out the bathrooms this morning and they are terrific. I might have to take a shower every day just because the bathrooms are so clean and nice and new.

I’m slightly less enthusiastic about the fact that even though I paid for a full hook-up site — not a thing I do very often, so in the nature of a pleasant luxury for a holiday weekend — the separate pieces (water, electric, sewer) are positioned poorly for Serenity. Technically I have all three, but I have to choose which one I want to be connected to at any given moment. My hose isn’t long enough to reach from the water outlet to the van intake while the power is plugged into both the van and the power outlet, and ditto the sewer. So it goes, I guess. At least I have access to all three if I need them.

And I’m feeling pretty fortunate on at least one of those three. When I got here yesterday, I couldn’t get the electricity to work. I called the campground host, who sent someone down to take a look, but it was raining and he couldn’t figure it out. They moved me to a different site, and then a third site, so it started to look like the problem was Serenity, not the campground. I was not so happy. I can live without power for a while if I have propane, but because I expected to have power, I hadn’t refilled the propane tank. Frustration!

And then, for no reason I could see, the electricity started working. Based on the symptoms, the smart people in the Travato Owners FB group suspect that I might have a problem with my Automatic Transfer Switch — maybe a loose connection? — but it’s working now, so I’m just counting my blessings and hoping for the best.

blue jay and cardinal feathers

Speaking of blessings, did you know that it is illegal to own most bird feathers? It still feels magical to find them, though, especially when they are truly beautiful. It would never have occurred to me that picking up a feather could be a crime, but after I’d picked up the above, I was remembering the park ethos — take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints — and so I left them behind. Well, first I googled to find out whether something in nature would use leftover bird feathers — was I leaving them behind to simply decay and rot? — and that’s how I found out that feather possession is a crime. They probably will simply decay and rot, but I’m glad I got to appreciate them first.

Along the way, I stumbled across all the many spiritual meanings of blue jay feathers. I suspect the spiritual meaning of feathers is sort of a choose-your-own adventure spirituality, because wow, people sure have found a lot of deep significance in some poor bird having a misadventure. But I was pretty amused by one site that told me the meaning was to “Choose a couple of the many projects on your plate and complete them.” How perfect is that?

Time to listen to the wisdom of the feather!

Maintenance

02 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by wyndes in Personal, Serenity, Vanlife

≈ 6 Comments

me on top of the van

On top of Serenity, all covered with goo…

The day I brought Serenity home from the dealer, it rained. I drove her over to a friend’s house and was showing her off — my brand-new home! — and she was all wet. Inside, not outside. Not a pleasant discovery.

I promptly took her back to the dealer, of course, and asked that they please keep her under a roof until they could fix the leak. Whether rightfully or not, I attribute some of her later problems — the two times the awning died, the demented fan — to that first leak. Water’s not supposed to enter the roof.

The dealer said that they couldn’t replicate the leak, which seemed implausible, given how very much water had come in on that first day, but they decided it was the sealant around the fan and resealed it. A couple times since then, I have suspected water might be coming in, but the amount was small enough that I wasn’t sure. A wet spot on the cushion is always potentially attributable to B chewing on his feet or a careless splash from the sink.

But in West Virginia, there was really no doubt: water was coming in through the air-conditioner. The van’s no longer under warranty, so I wasn’t going to take it back to the dealer. Instead, I ordered some goo, my brother got out the ladder, and I climbed up and coated the area with sealant.

I have no idea whether my repair will actually be successful. The area that is most probable for a leak is hard to see and to get to, because there’s not a lot of room and the awning gets in the way. I didn’t want to put any weight on the awning or set the ladder up in the street which might have offered a better view, so I just squeezed a bunch of goo in there and hoped for the best. But I felt super accomplished when I was done. Woo-hoo, I climbed on the roof and did my own home repair!

Note to self: next time, braid your hair! It was blowing all over the place, which was not exactly convenient.

I also put air in the tires. Not for the first time, of course, but it was the first time it went smoothly. I’ve done it often enough now that I feel pretty competent. I actually remember what the icons mean on the air compressor which is so helpful!

This weekend, I’m hoping I can convince my brother to help me change the oil in the generator. Supposedly it’s an easy job. I’m not sure I will find it so. But if I do, I will feel very accomplished. Changing my own oil = major-league adulting, I think.

Seattle

12 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by wyndes in Food, R, Serenity

≈ 6 Comments

If I was going to post a picture of the past several days (which I am not), it would be of the little park on the corner of the street. Preferably with a lot of dogs in it. Over the past few days, I’ve spent enough time there that I’m starting to actually get to know some of the neighborhood dogs. Not quite by name yet, but maybe soon.

I’m also developing familiarity with the neighborhood Pokemon players. There’s a yellow team that I’m starting to feel a deep envy for — at least four players, who play together. Every morning or so, I take over the park’s gym, turning it blue, and before too long — sometimes within the hour — they’ve taken it back. It’s fun, but Team Blue could use a little more support. Also there are a ton of Pokemon raids available in Seattle and I’m not good enough, as a solo player, to win any except the easiest. But a team of four probably wins them all. I wish my brother and nephew were here or some of my friends from Florida — we’d be collecting legendary Pokemon right and left. But I don’t think I’m going to manage to convince my friend P or any of her housemates to start playing anytime soon. Maybe I should start working on the teenage boy who lives in the front apartment.

So, yeah, I’ve been parked in my friend P’s driveway for the past several days. They have been lovely days. R and I squeezed in a trip to Value Village, our favorite Seattle thrift shop, and a showing of Spiderman on his last day in the city, before I dropped him off at the train station and waved goodbye. I’m always sad to say good-bye to him. I love how independent and mature he is — it’s fantastic to have an almost entirely self-sufficient 21-year-old — but I do miss him. And saying good-bye with no idea of when I’ll see him again is always hard.

But I got over the pain pretty quick. The next day I did useful stuff, lots of it. Email and writing and laundry and cleaning and working on plans for a new screen door. Zelda walked through the old one, breaking the strings that created the tension that kept it up. I miss it already and I’m pretty sure that no substitute I come up with is going to work nearly as well, but it was pretty fragile for life with two dogs. B used to walk right under it. I’m not surprised that it broke, really, just hoping that I can create something that will let me get airflow through that door without being too inconvenient to live with.

Anyway, after my useful stuff, I went kayaking on Lake Washington with P and J. We saw a beaver! It was much smaller than I would have expected it to be, but the tail was unmistakeable. If my phone hadn’t been buried in a dry bag, I would have tried to take a picture, but we didn’t get close enough that it would have been more than a brown and black blur in the water on a phone photo, anyway. It was sort of thrilling, though, to see an animal that I’d never seen before in the midst of such an urban setting.

That evening, there were five of us for dinner. I’ve been cooking a fair amount, but nothing too exciting. We had summer quinoa bowls one night (greens, quinoa, corn, avocado, salmon, cilantro, with a dressing of sour cream, lime, and garlic) and autumn quinoa bowls another (greens, quinoa, roasted broccoli, baked sweet potato chunks with cinnamon and ginger, spicy roasted chick peas, chicken, with a dressing of thinned hummus with extra garlic). That night, though, we had tacos: I made spicy shredded chicken in the instant pot, which basically involved dumping a couple tablespoons of chili garlic sauce and some water on top of two chicken breasts, and pressure-cooking for 15 minutes on high. Yum. On my first couple bites, I thought it was too spicy, but it was great with avocado and mango salsa, and made for excellent leftovers. If there was any left, I’d be putting it in an omelette this morning.

My big accomplishment yesterday was putting curtains up in Serenity to separate the cab from the rest of the van. I’ve been thinking about doing it for months and my one regret — as it always seems to be with things like this! — is that I didn’t do it eons ago. I bought a Maytex Smart Curtains Ultimate Light Blocker Sheridan Window Panelin white at Fred Meyer and hung it sideways, so the 50″ side goes top to bottom. That way the dogs can still easily go under it to get to the seats and their bed under the seats. Also, I can push it to the front of the seats, so my back-of-the-seat storage doesn’t get impeded by the curtain when it’s closed. But wow, sleeping last night was so cozy. I’d sort of been vaguely aware of how much light coming in through the spaces around the front window covering kept me restless, but last night I slept like a rock. I think it’s going to be helpful with the heat, too, but the weather has changed today and it’s currently gray and chilly outside, so I’ll have to wait and see on that aspect of it.

Hmm, I think I meant to write about something else, too, but I am being summoned for breakfast, so maybe next time for whatever that was. May all your Saturdays be pleasing!

Year Two Begins With a Splash

27 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by wyndes in Serenity, Travel, Vanlife

≈ 5 Comments

Yesterday, July 25th, was the one-year anniversary of the day I said good-bye to my house and hello to life on the road. It started auspiciously enough in a Walmart parking lot in Minnesota.

Yep, my first Walmart parking lot. It was fine. Better than fine, really. The night before I’d spent in a Flying J parking lot in Indiana, and although I hadn’t slept as horribly as on my very first parking lot night, it wasn’t exactly relaxing, either. At the Walmart, I was out of the way, in a quiet corner, facing a field. I put the window covers up and slept as well as I ever do. Maybe it was Minnesota, too. While I’m sure Minnesota has its problems, the Walmart was the kind of place that had a trash can at every single cart rack and no trash visible outside the cans. Go, Minnesota.

Although I’d decided I was going to try to get to Mount Rushmore, when I looked at the map I realized that if I did, I’d miss the Badlands entirely. My plan had been to dry camp, aka boondock, in a primitive campground in the Badlands for a couple of days but I hadn’t realized how far west Mount Rushmore was. But, I figured, no problem — Mount Rushmore had been waiting for a year, it could wait a couple of days more.

I started off on a relaxed drive out of Minnesota and across South Dakota. I had plenty of time, so I took it slow, pausing at rest stops, reading, writing, checking email. Unfortunately, it just kept getting hotter and hotter and hotter. At one point, my outside temperature gauge read 103, and even with the air-conditioning running full blast, my temperature monitor was sending me alerts that it was over 80 in the van. Both dogs huddled under the AC vents.

When we got to the Badlands, I paid the $20 to enter — my first national park, yay! — and drove slowly through. I’d given up on the idea of boondocking at the cool primitive (i.e., no electricity) campground. Space was probably available, but we would have been miserable. And when I drove past the campground with electricity, I gave up on it, too. It was reasonably crowded so there might not have been space, but even if there was, it was in unrelenting sun.

But it wasn’t just the sun — it was windy, with that kind of dry wind that pounds at your ears and makes you immediately want to lick your lips again and again and again. If I had been a pioneer woman in South Dakota, I would have been one of the ones driven crazy by the isolation and the wind. I would have been hallucinating monsters and terrified to leave the house in no time.

So I kept driving. I’d been reading signs for Wall Drugs all the way across South Dakota — either billboards are cheap in SD or Wall Drugs has a lot of money to spend on them. Maybe both. Anyway, it sounded fun in a seriously kitschy kind of way so instead of the Badlands, I figured I’d find a place to stay in Wall and explore the town. Except when we got there, late afternoon, it was still so hot that I would never have been willing to leave the dogs alone in the van.

New plan: back to the old plan.

Mount Rushmore!

I checked online and Mount Rushmore is open until 11, so I headed that way. Between stops to feed and walk the dogs and dinner for me, it was after 8 when I got there. It was… interesting. Smaller than I thought it would be, but also more impressive in a way. From a distance, the faces are very high up on the mountain.

Mount Rushmore through a car window

Look close. The gray hills in the distance have the faces of the presidents on them.

I thought it would be good to see it in the evening, less populated, and that it would make me feel patriotic on some level. Instead it felt a lot like I had secretly drifted into a universe where Disney had taken over America. There’s a ton of stuff around Mount Rushmore, all aimed at tourists. I could see having fun there, if I had lots of money to spend on silly things, a kid to enjoy looking at random stuff with, and didn’t have to worry about dogs/heat. As it was, though, I decided against spending $10 to park, and did a literal drive-by.

I then went back the way I came, driving about another 45 minutes, until I reached the highway and a Flying J truck-stop that I’d passed earlier. My third night in a row in a parking lot! But it was by far the worst — busy, crowded, with a casino nearby and a ton of trucks. People wandered by the van until late at night, and I was awake until after midnight, then up at 5:30.

When I woke up, I just got behind the wheel and started driving, thinking that we’d do the morning routine — clean clothes, coffee, dog walks, food — at the first rest stop. Reasonable plan, except somehow — sleepiness, I assume — I missed the first rest stop and it wasn’t until after 8 that we finally reached one. Poor Z had been staring at me earnestly, the way she tells me that it’s time to go for a walk, for about forty minutes by then.

And the bathroom floor was sopping wet. I had a fleeting second of wondering if a dog had given up on me but it was clean water. Clean water, unfortunately, coming from behind the toilet. Yeah, a pipe broke. I then spent all day — the first day of Year Two — trying to deal with it.

If it wasn’t so damn hot and if I hadn’t been driving all day and into the night for the past couple of days and if I hadn’t slept in parking lots for three nights in a row, I think I’d be dealing with it a lot worse than I am. I think I’d have the energy to be really pissed off about how many things have gone wrong with this tiny house on wheels and how Winnebago’s approved repair place wants $150 just for agreeing to see it, plus $175/hour to work on it. I feel like fury and frustration are reasonable responses, but I’m just not feeling them. It’s tedious, but it is what it is.

On the other hand, if I weren’t so tired, maybe I’d be making better choices for how to deal with it, too. But it definitely feels like Year Two has started with a whimper, not a bang. Or maybe that should be a splash and a sinking feeling? At any rate, before I discovered the water, I drove out of South Dakota, through a tiny (beautiful!) corner of Wyoming, and into Montana, so I am now hanging out in yet another parking lot, this one in Billings, Montana, hoping to fix some broken plumbing before moving on, and wishing T-Mobile had coverage in Montana, which apparently it does not.

Updated: no internet, so couldn’t post, and it is now Thursday morning. I’m still feeling fine about the plumbing problem, maybe better than fine. It’s annoying, but it is what it is. I found a place in Billings able to take a look at it this afternoon, so it might be resolved soon, and if not, I’ll use bottled water. The lovely Facebook Travato Owners group has given me lots of advice and help about trying to fix it myself, but it feels ambitious to try to remove the toilet on my own. In 90+ degree heat. In a random parking lot. Yeah, not optimistic about that. But hey, at least the leak sprays water into a room with a drain in the floor. And a plastic floor, too. It could be worse!

Serenity’s First Year in Numbers

21 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by wyndes in Boring, Randomness, Serenity, Travel

≈ 5 Comments

In 18 states and two territories (one American and one British), I stayed in 73 different places:

    25 state parks
    13 driveways
    12 Thousand Trails campgrounds
    4 independent campgrounds
    4 Passport America campgrounds
    2 KOA campgrounds
    2 Army Corps of Engineers campgrounds
    2 parking lots
    2 hotels
    2 houses
    1 Lower Colorado River Authority Park
    1 USDA Forest Service campground
    1 county park
    1 Harvest Hosts site
    … and one sailboat

I definitely got my money’s worth from my Thousand Trails membership. I think my total spent is currently about $550 for about 80 days, so roughly $7/night. But I’m not going to be renewing it when it expires next year: those campgrounds seem like good places for families with small kids and people who are looking for stable bases for extended periods, but that’s not how I want to travel or live.

My KOA membership was not worth the money. Again, great for families with kids and I definitely enjoyed my really nice showers at the KOA in Bellefonte, PA, but I don’t need the amenities they offer and even with the reduced membership rate, they were some of the most expensive places I stayed.

My one night at a Harvest Host site was lovely and I remember it fondly. But I don’t tend to want to drop in to places for a single night. If that changes in the future, I might think about trying out Harvest Hosts again, but for the moment, I’ll let that membership lapse.

Passport America costs around $45/year and I bought a three-year membership, so I’ve got plenty of time for it to pay off. In fact, the park at which I’m currently staying is both a state park and a Passport America park, and I saved $14 on an upcoming night’s stay because of my PA membership, so yay. But I’ve got a pretty long way to go before that membership pays for itself and two of the parks on the PA list were among my least favorite of the places I’ve stayed so I don’t seek out the PA parks. I should check out more of them, though, because it’s a nice discount when the park is okay.

Generally speaking, the only worthwhile memberships for me were the state parks. I’ve got a Texas State Park pass and a Georgia State Park pass and they were very much worth the money, might even be more so, since I’ve got months left on both. Live and learn, right?

I can’t believe I haven’t stayed in a single national park — what kind of camper am I??? — but they’re typically more restrictive about dogs than state parks, and I’ve really quite enjoyed discovering the state parks. Still, that might be a goal for Year Two. 🙂

I budgeted $900/month for campground charges, figuring an average of $30/night. If I stayed at KOAs and independent campgrounds or even some of the more expensive state parks, I’d be breaking that budget on a regular basis. As it is, however, my blend of campgrounds and driveways kept me under budget every month. The closest I came was $826 in April, from paying for my two week stay at Cedar Key in May.

I budgeted $400/month for gas and fuel (propane, too) and I came in under budget on that, as well. My grocery budget, though… yeah, not so good. Eating the way I eat — heavy on vegetables and protein, almost non-existent on breads, pasta, grains — is not cheap. Now that I can’t buy in bulk and store leftovers in my freezer, I’m spending more on food than I want to.

The dogs were also way over budget. No surprise, there, but ouch. Having two aging dogs is not the kind of thing where you want to look at the dollars. Even hiding some of their food costs in my grocery budget, I spent over $300/month on the dogs. I’d budgeted $90. Yep, the dogs cost $10/day.

Health insurance and care, internet, auto and RV insurance, the storage unit, taxes… none of those were surprising numbers to me, although they do add up. Life in the van is definitely less expensive than it was in my house, but I really had hoped I’d have a book or two released by now, though, so that’s not so good.

But there, another goal for Year Two — publish books! And visit national parks. And continue spending ridiculous amounts of money on the dogs, because really, the only way that number goes down is bad, so the positive side of breaking my budget on pet care is definitely that I have two dogs that I adore still and that’s good news.

Speaking of which, I am out of dog food, so need to make a run to a grocery store, unfortunately half an hour away. Time to get going!

Happy Birthday, Serenity

29 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by wyndes 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.

My next adventure

17 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by wyndes in Personal, Randomness, Serenity, Travel

≈ 3 Comments

The dogs, patiently waiting with me.

I’m currently sitting at my RV dealer’s showroom, waiting for Serenity to get a few final fixes. Ah, old home week. By the time I make my next trip, Serenity will no longer be under warranty, which — given the number of times I’ve found myself sitting in this very spot — makes me nervous. But I’m hoping that so many issues in the past eleven months means she’ll be immune from more for at least a couple years.

It’s a nice thought, anyway. Don’t scoff.

On Monday, I drove from Sarasota up to Mount Dora for a couple days in my dad’s driveway. I did a presentation at his computer club on Monday on social media — not a subject on which I consider myself an expert, by any stretch of the imagination, but I knew more than I realized. At the end of the presentation, one of the guys asked how I ever managed to get outside, which made me laugh. I know more than I use, I suppose, although I really do like Instagram. I also like Goodreads, which I included in my list of social media apps mostly because it’s the one that I use most. Not for posting so much, but I like reading other people’s reviews. I also like giving presentations. I should figure out some sensible way of making that part of my life, with writer’s conferences or book groups or some such thing. But that is seriously not a thought for today, because I’m smack in the middle of my busy week.

Yesterday I took Zelda to the vet and discovered that I had my days wrong. ARGH! So I finished cleaning out the things that I’m not keeping from the storage unit, dropped them off at a thrift store and did a little thrift store shopping with my stepmom. We had much fun. She believes in getting all the pieces of an outfit together ahead of time — none of those belated “huh, none of my shoes are going to look good with this” issues in her wardrobe — and so I wound up with a dress, shoes, earrings and a necklace, for plans I have in three weeks or so that require dressing up. Well, not require. But warrant, anyway. All for under $20, which means that after said plans, I can drop it all off at a convenient thrift store. Serenity doesn’t have a lot of room for dress-up clothes. I like the dress a lot, though, so I might waver when the time comes.

Afterward, we went to a Beall’s outlet, where I more practically got myself a pair of black jeans to replace the pair that I have basically worn to death over the past six months; a pair of navy blue capris, to replace the khaki ones that I literally wore to death — they shredded the last time I tried to wear them and I had to throw them away; and a sundress. I love the sundress. I tried it on and thought, “If this is under $10, it’s a yes,” and it wasn’t, it was $11.99. Bah. But I didn’t agonize for long, under $15 was good enough.

Today is the RV dealer (obviously) and tonight, dinner with my writer’s group. Along the way I need to go to the grocery store so that I can make a double-batch of dog food, enough to feed the dogs all next week. Tomorrow is the real day for the dog’s vet appointment, so I’ll be doing that in the morning and then picking up my friend Suzanne at the airport in the evening.

And then Friday… oh, shivers of excitement. In the morning, I’m dragging Suzanne to the storage unit and loading up everything that’s left into Serenity, ready to drive north. And then Friday night, we’re getting on a plane together. First stop, Puerto Rico. Second stop, St. Thomas. Third stop, a ferry ride to Tortola and the British Virgin Islands.

Last summer, my brother asked me what my fantasy fiftieth birthday was. I thought for a little bit and then told him that it would be sailing in the Caribbean. Not a cruise, but on a sailboat. He didn’t say it had to be a realistic fantasy, so it wasn’t. But he made it real. As I’ve said before, Best Brother Ever.

So yeah, Suzanne and I are going sailing, with Festiva Sailing Vacations. I’ve been looking forward to it for months. Now that it’s almost here, I’m caught up in worrying about whether I’ve got my passport (yes, I do), whether the dogs are going to be okay (yes, they are), if I need more sunscreen (definitely, always), what I’m going to pack… all those good questions. But four days from now — or thereabouts — I will be wearing my new sundress over a bathing suit, looking out over an expanse of blue-green water and probably drinking some non-alcoholic, fruit-based beverage. I don’t know whether I’ll be blogging, but I will definitely try to post some pictures!

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Just catching the sunrise
A little patch of flowers in the wasteland.
Spring is on its way. Yay!
The second rainbow on the right is a little hard to see in the photo so look close.
Pre-Epcot breakfast, made by Frisbee. Total SuperHost. All the stars!

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