Reel in Reality

~Tuesday, July 14, 2020~

Day 30

Gray and black tanks are getting a little too full. And with leaving tomorrow, we really didn’t want to drain the tanks twice. So we opted for using the campground facilities which are very nice. Had a nice morning walk too with my sweet Sadie. When I got back, Jeff and I were outside talking when I noticed something moving slightly in front of a bush, close to where he was sitting. Luckily Sadie did not see it. Sadly, it was a very sick bunny rabbit. This place is full of them, with the temptation everywhere for Sadie to chase them. But this poor rabbit looked like it was dying in front of us. I found a camp staffer to help us. He thought it may have possibly been bitten by a rattlesnake, and I’m sure there are also hundreds of those around. Hopefully he will be o.k. though highly unlikely.

Seeing a sick bunny made me think about how we never know what’s around the corner for us. We are fortunate to have our health, to have had the time we had with our family in Southern California (will be the highlight for sure), and the opportunity to be able to do this trip. So much has been done to get here...selling my car, selling our home, closing my thriving piano studio (gosh I miss my students!), Jeff gladly ending his career of nearly 30 years, selling STUFF, moving STUFF to storage, living the past 8 months without the STUFF that’s being stored at $250/month, and realizing that we don’t really miss the STUFF at all (ugh!!), spending hours of researching and buying more STUFF to supply our new trailer and coming up with a budget that we think will work for this fun little year-long outing of ours. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. If anyone asked me how the first month of our trip has been, I’d be completely honest and tell them it’s alot of WORK! If you think about it, when we take vacations, it’s usually 3 to 4 weeks/year. Though I’d like to think everyday is a vacation day while we don’t own a home in the conventional sense, that is not the reality. We still have responsibilities and things to take care of, which all take time. Researching the next place to go (many places are already booked), keeping up with bills, laundry, cleaning, setting up and taking down, figuring out still how all of our gadgets work, etc. I think most people think, wow how great you get to be on vacation everyday, but what it is, is just a different way of living, If you treated everyday as a vacation for a year, your budget and emotional state would be blown in a matter of weeks. So you have to be disciplined and reel in the temptations of going out to dinner, doing expensive excursions, what have you. We’ve read from other RVer’s that it can take up to 3 months to get in the groove of this lifestyle.

Jeff spent most of the day reading about how to operate the generator, and found he was missing a few things, so left to go pick those up. I spent the day sorting through photos/videos, editing, etc. Another to do item has been coordinating a visit with Richardson’s RV (where we purchased the Lance), to get a few repairs done. Jeff has been talking to the head of service for Lance to have a special part shipped to Richardson’s so they can begin the repairs. We’re trying to coordinate the rest of our time in SoCal with how long they’re going to need the trailer to complete the service. As it turns out, we’ll need one more day here at Jenning’s Lake, since the part won’t arrive until the 15th. When I called to ask for an extension on our stay, camp host Mike sounded a little iffy about them even being open since they had just heard they might close the park due to COVID. Since it was already 5:00, and he hadn’t heard any instructions about that, he decided to help us out and book an extra night stay. Our plan is to stay at Hannah and Devin’s through Saturday, pick up the RV Saturday, then head to Ken and Bertie’s home in Manteca. Then we start heading up to Oregon.

We had a nice campfire this evening (the first of our trip), and couldn’t resist making a few s’mores. We didn’t hear many fellow campers in the park tonight (about ⅓ full), but we did hear quite a bit of animal chatter (coyotes that sounded pretty close, a tropical sounding bird, and an owl). Totally digging it.