Living the Dream
You must be living your dream, huh?
Mostly.
Part of this journey is something I never dreamed of as a little boy. Or as a big boy. Being able to see with our own eyes the things we've only seen in movies, magazines, YouTube, paintings, and pictures has been everything I thought it would be. And more. Discovering amazing places we'd never heard of before... I'm looking at you, Chiricahua National Monument...makes us appreciate and wonder even more.
We've been travelling in this country for about 18 month now. That's 78 weeks. If I used every week of vacation to do this, it would take almost 20 years. TWENTY YEARS!
But being a gypsy comes with its own challenges and things to deal with. Things to think about. Things to plan for. And things to pay for.
We have to figure out and plan where we will stay. People in a stationary sticks and bricks location don't have to do that. Sure, there is a website for that. And it's a really good website. But it still takes hours to plan a route. We're not just any nomads in any rig. Because we use Starlink for the internet, we need a clear view of the sky. And not every park can accommodate a 41' camper behind a Ram 3500 crew cab with an 8' box. We're big.
There's the maintenance. It's often said in this lifestyle that every time we move, we're dragging our house through an earthquake. It's true. Wheel bearings need repacked. Slides need to be lubricated. Rubber seals need to be kept soft and supple. The roof needs to be scrubbed (lightly!) and treated. Tires need to be constantly monitored for proper inflation. Fresh, grey, and black tanks need to be flushed and cleaned. The water heater needs to be decalcified. And that's just for the fifth wheel.
And then there's moving. Before we pull away from one site, we take things off the walls, latch things down, insert tension bars, secure closet doors, close all windows and vents, and generally do our best to make things immovable. We have a running joke while we're driving about whether THAT bump in the road will be the one that causes the ceiling fan chain to wrap around the blade.
There's all this and a lot more.
But then we pull in, get the slides out, hook up water/sewer/electric/Starlink. We put things back on the wall, remove tension rods, undo the door straps, untangle the ceiling fan chain. And we go exploring and sightseeing. We become professional tourists.
That's about the time we forget all about the other stuff. As we were driving through southern Utah or dropping our jaws at the Grand Tetons or being awestruck by the beauty of Medicine Bow or seeing a momma bear and her 2 cubs, we gave zero thoughts about our broken kitchen slide. When we see 8-10 Bald Eagles hunting for fish in Arkansas or when we're standing in front of the largest living thing on Earth in California or enjoying one of the 23 national parks we've visited so far, the last thing I'm thinking about is flushing the black tanks.
Are we living a dream?
Yeah. Mostly.
