RVing

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The meaning of FRY

I awoke to sun and the promise of more of the same in Seattle in this afternoon. I know I won’t want to stop in the Seattle area with the rig, so I decided to jump on this opportunity to go see a bit more of this beautiful city!

To get there, I decided to take back roads to explore a bit more of the Washington coast. I set off from home around 8:30, went into Bellingham to run a few errands, and then asked the GPS to take me to Seattle the long way around.

The route took me through downtown Bellingham and down a beautiful stretch of highway that used to be connected to the Pacific Coast Highway that still exists near Los Angeles. We then entered a stretch of farmland and small towns where every other house was a gorgeous Queen Anne Victorian.

Entering Anacortes, there were a lot of signs for ferries, but I ignored them until I got this little niggly feeling. The following conversation with myself ensued:

-You set the GPS to avoid ferries, right?

-Probably. And I checked the route ahead of time.

-Check it again.

-Road, road, road, freeway, arrival. No, that’s FRY. Not freeway. FERRY!

I pulled over and reset the GPS to take me to Seattle by land only! I wasn’t really that far out of my way, thank goodness.

Approaching Everett, the GPS led me onto I-5 for a bit and that’s where I decided to stick to the interstate, not wanting to spend an hour navigating city traffic and also to make sure I knew what lanes to be in with Miranda when I drive through there on Tuesday morning.

downtown Bellingham

downtown Bellingham

This approach outside Fairhaven reminds of Montreal's Old Port and the Five Rose factory

This approach outside Fairhaven reminds of Montreal’s Old Port and the Five Rose factory

Fairhaven, WA

Fairhaven, WA

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information on Chuckanut drive, formerlly part of the Pacific Coast Highway

information on Chuckanut drive, formerlly part of the Pacific Coast Highway

information on Chuckanut drive, formerlly part of the Pacific Coast Highway

information on Chuckanut drive, formerlly part of the Pacific Coast Highway

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entering Seattle

entering Seattle

entering Seattle

entering Seattle

I got to Seattle at one, parked, and headed to buy tickets for the attraction I’d picked. Next post!

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Settling Down, Or Not

This morning’s post is a response to one written by Tioga George yesterday. The post explores the question that those in fixed residences ask of nomads: when are you going to settle down. George’s response was well structured, displaying the pros and cons of both lifestyles, especially in this paragraph:

Everybody on the TiogaRV Team agrees that stick home people are certainly living with less anxiety than us RVing vagabonds. Knowing all about the place where you are living is very calming. The routines that are established for stick home people can be wonderful. Tending a garden, for example.

For me, the hardest part of RVing is the uncertainty of what comes next. And the hardest part of living in a fixed home was the certainty of what comes next. I have discovered that I am a more fulfilled person when I don’t know what comes next because it forces me to be engaged in my life.

As my RVing days march on, I am finding a centred routine to my life that I can slip into the context of where I stop. Unlike George, I can pause somewhere for a few months and be content to discover the community, finding plenty of ‘excitement’ in that, but, like him, I need to move on at some point.

Why? The best answer I can give to that is that I am my best self when I am moving about and forced to go through life with my eyes wide open. I don’t full-time RV because it is an easy life choice, but rather because it makes me feel alive.

I think there are two categories of wanderers. There are those who are displeased with their life and take to wandering in search of that missing piece of themselves. These wanderers are further sub-divided into those who do find what they are missing and those that do not. I used to fit into the former sub-category.

But now I fit in to the category of wanderer that is displeased with her life and takes to wandering because wandering itself is that missing piece.

Can you wander forever?

George concludes his post with the scenario that wanderers fear: having to stop and stay put at some point:

Now comes the question that every RVing vagabond must face, sooner or late! When should vagabonding stop and staying put start? We do not know the answer to that question. However, we suspect that when the time to stop searching for adventure arrives for us, it will be abundantly apparent.

There will almost certainly come a time when I need to hang up my keys. I may not have to give up travel then. But if I have to, for whatever reason, I think I will be able to do so without bitterness. I will be looking back on a life richly lived and be satisfied to rest for a while, savouring the knowledge that I did what I wanted with my life and that I have no regrets.

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Response to an Email

The following email just landed in my inbox:

Hi – I subscribe to your blog. I wish you could please write more about travels and less about the personal woes. Thanks!

I’d like to remind my readers that full-time RVing pre-retirement is not a perpetual vacation. It’s real life. And this blog serves as a chronicle of my full-timing life. I wish it could all be about travel, but I can’t ‘travel’ all the time. Those who want me to write more about ‘travel’ are welcome to contribute to this part of my budget by buying my ebooks and hiring me for contracts.

In retrospect, I realise that the name of my blog doesn’t reflect the daily reality of my life, but, really, how much travel does one person need to do to qualify as having a ‘traveling’ lifestyle? In the last twelve months I’ve gone from Vancouver Island to the Arctic Circle, the Okanagan to Quebec, the Vancouver area to Washington state. All while addressing the same mundane issues of real life that I had while stuck in a fixed residence.

I practise a policy of honesty when writing the blog. I got up this morning and realised that I hadn’t updated in a while. Why? Nothing’s been going on. Why? I got screwed over by a client. But it’s not all bad; I have exciting plans coming up! I’m heading into Oregon! I have some major changes ahead! Yeah, I’m paused right now, but things are going to pick up. And my teasing tone showed, I thought, that I’m in really good spirits and enjoying my down time.

A few days ago I wrote about health issues I’m having. I guess this could be considered sharing ‘personal woes.’ It’s relevant to this blog because it’s going to affect the choices I’m going to be making over the next few months. It’s also relevant to my readers because it offered evidence of the problems with the Canadian health care system, an issue pertinent to Canadian full-time RVers.

Obviously my blog can’t be to everyone what they wish it could be. It certainly isn’t to me because I really do wish I was independently wealthy and could treat full-time RVing pre-retirement as a perpetual vacation.

But this email has made me decide to explicitly state something I decided on about a month ago: I’ve given up on using this blog as a way to generate some income to finance my life. So, I’m going to stop worrying about how often I post.

That said, there are thousands of resources for RVing around North America, but this is the only one about full-time RVing in Canada pre-retirement. My readers only get a glimpse into a very tiny part of my life, but I feel that what I share is relevant to the purpose of my blog. So, I’m not going to stop including contextual information when I do post.

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Electric Blanket

This week, I bought an inexpensive 12V electric blanket to see if it would make any difference in my overnight comfort level. I decided to start with a basic plug-in model before investing in a pricey warming pad with temperature controls and the like.

The blanket arrived the day before last. I spread it out under my comforter and plugged it in, then went for a shower. Did the same thing last night. I unplugged before going to bed and climbed up into a toasty nest. What luxury! And even though the blanket was off all night, I remained snug and cozy.

So, I’m definitely going to want to invest in a proper warming pad at some point! I’m going to use this blanket for curling up in on chilly mornings instead of running the furnace. I wish I’d thought of getting such a device earlier on in my travels; the 6A draw is about half of that of my furnace, plus it doesn’t use up propane!

To that end, I’m going to start adding 12V sockets at strategic points around the rig.

This post foreshadows Miranda’s impending electrical makeover. Da da da dum. 😀