Author: Rae

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Luxury

Luxury is a relative term.

This concept is beautifully illustrated in one of my favourite books of all time, The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig. It is a memoir of the Siberian exile of a young Polish Jewish girl during WWII.

Ms. Hautzig wrote:

We were one of four lucky groups: Father found us living quarters in a corner of the room. In an utterly bare room, two walls to lean against, a corner to curl up into, were luxury.

I  was ten when I first read those words and they have followed me for twenty years, helping me appreciate what I have even while longing for more or better.

Tonight, I came home to find Tabitha in the study looking out the back window while Neelix was in the lounge looking out the window on the passenger side. Rather than disturb the cats by shutting the blinds, I was able to slide closed a solid wood door with a satisfying ‘thunk’, stretch out an accordion door, and change into jeans in a private room large enough to move about comfortably. I’ve discovered that in a less than 300 square foot RV, a dressing room is luxury.

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Walkabout

My whole life, I dreamt of living by the ocean, but it was the Atlantic I had in mind. The Pacific seemed too far away. So, I appreciate the fact that my first near-ocean home is by the Pacific! I love strolling on the beach near Peace Arch Park. This afternoon, I actually had the presence of mind to bring my camera:

The beautiful weather didn’t last. A storm rolled in very quickly and it got cold suddenly. I had a rather unpleasant walk home as it was spitting rain, but I was delighted to see that rain turn into big fluffy flakes of snow!

Back to rain now. 🙂

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Hookup Location

Over the course of the past six months, I’ve found that there isn’t really a standard for how hookups are located in an RV park beyond them being on the driver’s side of the RV. The best hookups I encountered were at the park in Oliver where I worked. There, it was exactly ten feet from my tank outlet to their intake, meaning that my sewer hose was stretched out completely and at a slight slope, making for easy dumping. The water intake and electrical plug (as well as phone and cable jacks) were in a pedestal next to the sewer outlet and just a couple of feet from the rig, meaning that I was able to cut my water hose down to six feet, necessitating less heat tape.

Here, the hookups are not working for me!

Water and electricity is provided at a pedestal at the back of the site. My 30A cord is almost stretched to the limit and my 25′ water hose was stretched so taut someone took it upon themselves to provide me with an extension! Yes! I came home one night to find that my hose was hooked into an additional 10′ length! I actually kind of resented that because the 25′ length had enough give that it did not risk pulling away from the tap and spewing water everywhere and it did not rest on the ground. Since I’ve had the extension, the hose has frozen a few times in temperatures where it didn’t freeze when it was hanging in the air. But if it makes the ‘extender’ feel better about some ill-perceived threat, well… *shrugs* 🙂

But the real issue here is the sewer placement. This isn’t a universal problem here; some of my neighbours are hooked up perfectly. But the way Miranda needed to be tucked into this site meant that her tank outlet and the sewer  intake are practically right on top of each other, meaning that my hose is way too long. Once a week, I have to go and shake it a bit to drain the grey water out (lesson learned when my shower flooded!) and let me say that draining the black tank is difficult. Thankfully, proper tank maintenance means that I won’t have any long term repercussions, but each time I go to drain and have to flush the tank with several buckets of water I kick myself for not buying a new hose and cutting down the old one!

So, hookups that work for me need to have the electrical plug and water tap near the electrical cord compartment and water intake so that I don’t have to worry about tripping over my cord and hose, but the sewer needs to be about ten feet from the tank outlet. Seems like someone is slowly figuring out how to spot a good site from a bad!

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The Half-Way Mark

At this time six months ago, I was in Ottawa on the eve of the big departure. Six months from tonight I will either be back in Ottawa in anticipation of returning to my government job the next morning or committed to long-term full-timing. I already know that chances are that I’ll be going with plan A… which is to not go back to my government job. But there are too many variables and what ifs in my plan at this time to discuss it any further. I’m such a tease. 🙂

I’m not where I thought I would be tonight in terms of my financial situation. A lot of things went wrong in the past six months, including the market crashing and longer periods of unemployment than anticipated,  so I’ll admit that I am scrambling a bit to come up with the funds to finance the next part of my journey, that is to get me to employment in Dawson City, Yukon. I would be happy to remain at my current position (and my employers would be glad to keep me) for an additional month, but the prohibitive cost of rent here does not make that a good option. I have been trying to find part-time evening and/or weekend work, but that has yet to pan out and time is running short. I know that the money will come, it always does, but it’s hard not to think about how quickly May 1st will be here!

When I look back on the past six months, I marvel that I am not bitter and disillusioned. September was amazing, yes. But October, November, and December were mostly hell. January was a mixed bag of feelings–taking so long to find work, bad weather keeping me cooped up, moving to such a wonderful park, joy at finding a great contract. February was good, even if it reeked of my old life–commute and desk work, but tolerable because it was a means, not an end. March and April will be much of the same I imagine. But I am impossibly happy, more content and at peace than I have ever been. Hard as this life has been at times, it has been joyous, freeing, good, and honest.

If there is one moment that I will cling to as the vivid memories of September 4th, 2008 to March 3rd, 2009 start to fade it is the minute I stepped out of Miranda at Lake Louise. The sharp scent of pine is etched in my memory and serves as a reminder that I can go forth into ‘their’ world, but still do it my way.

I will also never forget Croft’s and my adventure with the batteries that led to discovering what the big honkin’ yellow button is for. The whole misadventure taught me to have more confidence in myself, that my sense of humour is my biggest ally, and that I am not living in a vacuum; there are wonderful people out there willing to help if I just ask.

Thank you to my readers who have followed me thus far. I’d still keep a blog even if no one read it, but it’s nice to know that my experiences strike a note with people outside my bubble.

All that’s left to say is “Dang I should have bought some beer to celebrate and YUKON, HERE WE COME!!!!!”

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No Slide-Out For Me

I was speaking with a neighbour as we shared the hot tub tonight and she mentioned that I had no slide out, seeming very puzzled by the fact.

Miranda being a slide-out free RV was a deliberate choice on my part. One of the very first things I knew when I was searching for a motorhome was that it would not have slide-outs, which pretty much knocked class As out of the running. There were several reasons for this:

Weight

Slide-outs dramatically reduce an RV’s carrying capacity, and this is especially evident with class Cs. One of my readers, Croft, has a rig that is very comparable to Miranda–same engine, same chassis, same length. But he has a slide-out and fully half Miranda’s carrying capacity! I’m full-timing so having as much carrying capacity as possible is much more important than having more floor space.

Mechanics

Slide-outs are just one more thing to maintain, one more thing that can leak or break, and they weaken the overall chassis. Again, a few more feet of floor space isn’t worth the potential hassle.

Weather

Slide-outs are the least insulated part of an RV. Since I knew there was a chance I’d be using my RV in extremely inclement (read very wintery) weather, not having a slide-out meant that there was one less drafty place in the rig. I was also concerned that if I parked somewhere for the winter, the weather would damage the slide-out.

Convenience

I didn’t want for every stop to be cause for the interminable debate: “Slide-out in or out tonight?” I wanted to be able to park at a Walmart and have full access to my home. In a park, I didn’t want my slide-out window to be two inches from my neighbour’s slide-out window.

Having visited a lot of RVs with slide-outs, the only real advantage they seem to provide is floor space. That’s useful if you’re two or more people sharing a rig since it would be easier to contour each other, but as a sole RVer they just don’t seem to be worth the potential headache.