It’s funny, but when I started this trip, in my first and second week, I started dreaming of a larger camper than my R-pod 179. Whenever I had to be indoors (for work and/or weather), I felt frustrated and slightly suffocated. Early on in the trip, I was also the guy wearing flip flops, shorts, and a t-shirt on the beach when it was 58 degrees and everyone else had on pants and a spring jacket. But I’ve adapted to both of these.
I wear pants and a sweatshirt when it’s 60 degrees now, having lost my Minnesota cold-weather advantage in the more temperate south. But more surprisingly, I no longer feel cramped in my camper. It feels cozy, almost like I’ve made a home of it. Tonight will be my 47th night in this small space. Humans can adapt to anything, they say, and as I happen to be reading Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, I know that’s true in the absolute extreme.
Still, as my pal the gold-prospector left a vacancy in the spot next door to my campsite yesterday, a motorhome pulled in to occupy the space. It’s a big one, perhaps 40 feet, and so likely has around 400 square feet of living space once the slide-outs are extended. I’m not entirely sure what I’m working with, but I think it’s around 115 square feet, or 85 after you subtract the bed space.
Through the windows of the motorhome I can see a lamp. It’s not the first lamp I’ve seen inside a motorhome, in which I’ve spied silhouettes of readers reclining in a no doubt comfortable chair, a reading lamp lighting their way through an adventure, or a mystery, or some new knowledge being gained. That lamp is probably even on an end table, with everything bolted down so it stays in place (Anything you don’t bolt down in a camper will be on the floor after even a short drive, I’ve learned).
And seeing those lamps, likely sitting on those end tables, and that chair that reclines, I think to myself, I had that once. I still have that. It’s at my home in Minnesota, waiting. Do I need a lamp and a recliner and an end table and another matching end table? Of course not. No one does. But I like lamps. And I have two very cool end tables that my grandma and grandpa left me, and I like those, too.
If I had to, I think I could live in this camper for a year, maybe two. I wouldn’t have said that a month ago, but it’s more true every day. But maybe that’s because I know those end tables are waiting for me, supporting that lamp that I like that my mom gave me, which holds the promise of lighting my way through so many more adventures from the comfort of my own reclining chair.
Tomorrow I work until noon and then I head 785 miles to San Antonio, to see Joel.
Issue: After 13 days in one spot, I was washing dishes tonight and the drain wouldn’t drain when I finished. I looked in the bathroom and the shower/toilet area had 6 inches of water backed up in it. Apparently, I had reached the capacity of my gray water tank. It turns out, gray water, though not black water (sewage), does not smell delightful after sitting around fermenting for two weeks. I had to drain some of it in place and tomorrow on the way out I’ll empty everything.
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