My family and I lived five years in an RV. My husband and I both felt this tug to downsize and focus on our family. So we gave away a majority of our stuff, bought an RV and some land, and sold our house.
The first three years were amazing. We traveled to 23 states and visited national parks that I'd only read about. My favorites were Glacier, the Badlands, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Redwoods, and Yellowstone. We went on factory tours, visited the Corn Palace, rode a train to the Grand Canyon, went on a jeep ride on the sand dunes in Oregon, and took a whale tour in Washington. We stood on the muddy banks of the Wishkah and saw Kurt Cobain's childhood home. We went through Roswell, New Mexico and watched the bats fly out at Carlsbad Caverns. We met unforgettable people, like Boyd from Michigan, who carried sausages in the front pocket of his overalls, and Bob in Sedona, Arizona, who was playing the flute from a rock formation and might have previously murdered his wife. We saw the Alamo and visited awesome children's museums in Seattle and Portland. We would spend entire months of our summer parked on the lake. We stopped at every kitschy roadside attraction I found on the internet, and we had picnic lunches in some of America's most beautiful spots.
We might have been living in tight quarters, but it really didn't matter. We spent most of our time outdoors anyway. And I felt like I really knew my kids. That will happen when four people are sharing 42 feet. It was almost like a dance. We were constantly flowing in and out and around each other.
The fourth year of RV life we only moved once. My husband's grandmother was really sick and he would fly back and forth to Orlando every weekend. The kids and I got used to the monotony of a small space without the novelty of travel. I guess that was almost like a trial run for when the plague hit.
The last year that we lived in the RV was by far the hardest. Coronavirus happened and we didn't go anywhere. My husband was working insane hours, my oldest son had hormones raging, and the RV started falling apart bit by bit. In April a tree limb fell and destroyed our A/C system. In June we accidentally flooded the RV due to a freak accident. We ended up with black mold and we felt the respiratory effects. In September a family of rats made our walls their home and we could hear them scratch and squeak at all hours. These were mutant rats and nothing seemed to deter them. In November we learned that our central heating had crapped out, so we relied on electric blankets and space heaters to stay warm. We had to have them on the right combination or else we would constantly be tripping the breakers. And then our shower floor began to crack. Every morning I was praying that we would get into the house before the shower floor fell through. The last year in the RV taught me a lot about endurance.
We've been in the house for a month now, and honestly, RV life seems like it was a lifetime ago. Having a dishwasher and laundry room inside is such a luxury. Having real heat is a blessing. But I don't want to easily forget everything five years in an RV taught me. I hope I continue to carry with me the knowledge that you don't need material things to define you or make you happy. There is so much you can live without. I want to continue to know my children and appreciate everything that is outside. I am not often nostalgic for the past, but I do want to carry the past five years in a special place in my mind. I'd do it over, even if it meant I had to do last two years again.
Comments
Post a Comment