wherearewegoing – Idon’t know.

August 27th, 2013 by Jan

Firt day – I like it. We rent a Envirovan for the week and set out. Our first stop after getting quite lost in Richmond is Trader Joes in Bellingham. It is easy to find food for the week. Easy and good, we stock up on ready made salads, lasagne, and thai noodles and head south to Bothel at our first night RVing.

We hit a park that holds a couple hundred RVs of all sorts and sizes and yet we are the smallest of them all. We get the last space open and pull in and hook up. Sewer, water, electricity, all the ease of home and in our self contained van begin our adventure of what could be a life on the road. We have a bigger than double bed and after the first night sleeping the wrong direction figure out how not to have the crease in our back and the next night sleep is much better.

We get bored in a short time at this park. There are hiking trails, we do them, there is a library of books, mostly Jesus and AA books. I grab Madame Bovery and start to read. We nap, eat and putz. In the afternoon we drove into the big city of Seattle to attend Melinda and Anne’s wedding. They have been together for 19 years and yet the law finally allows them to marry — so they do. It is a nice gathering. Very nice. They don’t make their vows in front of us as they made those years ago to each other, but they do exchange rings and sign the legal papers. It is lovely. Ken drives the van back in the traffic of I5 to our humble RV park and we settle in for a good sleep.

This park is funny. We are the youngest “old” people around. Most of the RVs are huge Dolly Parton mobiles. Some have big flat screen TVs on their outside porches, and they watch the game or fave show. Almost everyone also has a dog or two. Most are little dogs, we even seen a few with cat on leashes. Ducks quack throughout the night a long the lake that is in the middle of the campers. It is a village of sorts and folks are friendly all talking about either the weather, the dogs or their rig. The fee is $44. per night there and Ken says they have all the bells and whistles, but I disagree. There is no swimming pool of hot tub. They did advertise a Saturday night potluck, but we went to the wedding instead and ate cake.

It is nice to have a bathroom in the van. Ken and I talk of what would make it better or even more comfortable for us. Lawn chairs for sure. We move slowly and with care. What comes out must go back in, there is no “I’ll get to it later.” Everything in its place is the only way you can live in such small quarters, but we like it. It is small, but bigger than anything we’ve ever driven and I am glad Ken is happy driving. I don’t think I would want to. The seats are low and I can’t see over the hood. The head rest is meant for someone much taller than me.

Our third day, we hit the road north and east. We drive for a few hours and find a campground near Everett. This cost $20. and has no hook ups. We dry camp, which means we can’t use the microwave is all. We park in #11 camp sight and we are by the river. It is a nice view and I watch the crows attempt a murder, the blue seller jays are looking for easy prey to earn their names of camp robbers and after a short hike, we settle back in to read and nap.

We found a few more books and our days consist of reading, napping, walking and driving.

I ask Ken where we are and he says he doesn’t know. It is not a quiet campground, the road is 100 meters away and the noise from the traffic spreads. On one side of us is traffic passing by and on the other is the river and birds. We focus on the river. Today is over cast and feels good.

I brought two blankets and small ones at that. I thought we would only have a double bed and didn’t want too much blanket to fuss with, but the bed is bigger than I thought, especially now that we sleep from to back instead of sideways, a bigger quilt would have been nice.

There is a little different class of people at this camp site than last night at the RV park. We straddle the line between old hippies and new retired “have it alls.”

I think Ken and I could live this way for a while. Drive a little, stop a little, explore a little. We think of different hobbies to keep us entertained that would fit well into the van. Soap stone carving would be good, pencil drawing another. We should have brought Ken’s guitar and my uke. We take photos and say, “that’s pretty.”  a hobby would provide the challenge of what to do when you create something. Because then you have that something and have to do something with that something. Give it away, sell it, toss it. It has become a thing and things need care or at least a place.

We pull up stakes Monday morning and have to check a calendar to find out that it is indeed Monday. We head north and east for a pretty drive and pull into our next nights spot just a few miles out of Winthrop, WA. It has full hook ups, but hardly anyone is here and we have a nice spot by the river, on the end by the tenters. Only one tent is set up by 5:30pm and I doubt others will arrive before dark. We have a bite of lunch and then drive on into Winthrop for ice cream. Winthrop is a western theme park type tourist town. Stores full of crap to buy for souvenirs or such, but there is nothing in that town that anyone has to have to live a good life. Except for homemade ice cream!

The weather has those, “It might rain clouds,” but by how dry it is here, you can tell they are only teaser clouds. It hasn’t rained in a long time anywhere close by. We pass apple and pear orchards on the road. Lots of them, we stop at a road side fruit stand and buy sweet corn for dinner and of course, apples. Yum!

Now, we are settled in for the night. We read, nap and play cards. Our talk revolves around if we had a van like this we would… do this or do that. We like this. Our only challenge on starting a life on the road lifestyle is dear Peet. Our cat is a healthy if not fat 17 year old and even though he moves a little stiff, he is no where close to calling it a life and I doubt very much he wants to live in a van. Plus we like to hike when we stop and some places would just be too hot to leave anything live in the van when we left. So, we continue to talk. Ken and I are slow movers so any change in lifestyle will not come over night and who knows, maybe Peet won’t be with us in 5 years… or he might. Once again, Ken and I have 1st world problems that is for sure.

After a nap and a bit of reading, I boil big pot of water and cook up corn on the cob for dinner. Best dinner yet was this corn — it was so fresh all we had to do was pour butter on it with a little salt and YUM!

Today (Tuesday the 27th) we drove through such beauty. Snow peaked mountains, icy green lakes and rushing rivers fed our eyes. Such beauty. We were reminded of how and where we lived in Colorado so many years ago. I’m pretty sure if Peet wasn’t waiting for us at home we’d just keep going. This life suits us.

Our fourth or is it our fifth night is at a simple RV park. Basically a farmer had a field and set up some plug ins and welcomes 10 – 15 RV’s into his pasture each night. It is nice. A view of the mountains, we are plugged in, have wifi and showers. I like having a separate shower. The van has one but it is with a hand held hose and you stand on around the small toilet with a small plastic shower curtain and well, okay, I can’t imagine even trying to wash my hair with the set up. If I can get away with using any other method I will, if I had to use this shower, I’d cut my mane short again..

Buying food from Trader Joes and having the fridge makes cooking and eating good food easy as pie. It is nice to sit at a picnic table, out side, with a view for meals. Tonight we had chicken enchiladas – 5 minutes in the microwave, add a nice green salad and voila!  We never had it so good. Except perhaps when Peter and Tamsin cook for us or we get to go to a Tai chi potluck. But for the two of us — we are quite content.

After tonight we will only have one more night in our Pleasure Way Envirovan and I’m guessing as soon as we get home we will start looking for used ones to buy. We could take long weekend trip! Have I said this life suits us?

I was going to just write and post to my bloggy thing when I got home, but as long as we have wi-fi I think I’ll put this up tonight. Forgive my blunders – I am not taking the time to write a shorter blog account of everything. Just typing as I think of it all.

I will post photos when we get home though. I’m not interested right now to download anything from the camera.
More soon… thanks for reading!

3 thoughts on “wherearewegoing – Idon’t know.

  1. Laur

    It seems that life on the road to nowhere is pretty darned nice. Thanks for writing about it, you’re helping to make retired life look very tempting.

    Reply

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