One Year on the Road: What Our RV Taught Us About Slowing Down
Time is a funny thing. It's been a little over a year since we bought Figment and started traveling in our RV. Last year, we pulled into this very park, Edisto Beach State Park, for our first trip. Now I'm walking through it almost exactly one year later, and it hits me how much we've grown: exploring new places, learning new things, and meeting all sorts of people.
It's also funny how much of the year I remember, in sequence. That isn't normal when you've lived a somewhat routine life for a few years. One day runs into the next, you lose track of time, and before you know it, it's Christmas again. Soon after, it's time for New Year's resolutions, and you realize you've run slap out of resolutions, or maybe you just don't give much of a damn anymore. This year was different. It's almost Christmas again, but there's been so much - so many memories of places and people- that it feels like two years instead of one. I consider that a win and a huge blessing.
There's a group of us who would never have seen places like this: beautiful natural wonders, quiet little corners of the earth, and all the things you find when you take a minute to actually look. For most of our lives, an internal voice told us we must always be productive. Work hard and you'll get there one day. Buy or build the big, fancy house and everything to go with it. And then one day you realize you've become a slave to your own existence, not to mention the taxes, the insurance, the maintenance, and the upkeep.
So what else to do but buy a camper? Perfect! Work really hard at fixing up and maintaining another thing. Get all the "things" working, wash it up, pack it up, and by the time you're half-exhausted, hook up your mini house on wheels and drag it down the road to work again once you arrive. Position your tiny home just right on its temporary lot, level up, slide out the slides, and arrange everything you packed to create a comfortable, if not lovely, temporary home.
Okay! Now you've earned the right to pour a drink and put your feet up. It is now okay to goof off. If you're lucky enough to stay in one place long enough (which varies by individual, I believe: one week, ten days, three weeks), the decompression finally happens. All those years of that nagging "Work, work, work!" voice fade, the epiphany comes, and you realize it's time to squeeze as much out of this lemon as you can.
We went home, called our best real estate agent, and listed our house for sale. Then we packed up our tiny home on wheels and hit the road again.
Our year has held almost as many weeks of travel as weeks at home. In the beginning, although I enjoyed the adventure, I longed for my garden. Now I'm figuring out how to bring part of it along with hydroponics. Travel has expanded our minds in ways that never would have happened if we'd stayed put. There's so much to appreciate in diving into the unknown and sorting it out as you go.
We've practiced being calm and centered, from rerouting plans around storms to staying cool while "broke down" on the side of the interstate in a driving rainstorm. And don't forget the time we pulled off the road to let the line of cars behind us pass and realized, as our tires left the pavement, that the shoulder was more of a "slump." The loud thud we tried to ignore was the nearly complete removal of our leveling jacks. We just pulled right back on the road, headed for our next destination.
About ten miles later, a nice man in a pickup started honking his horn and waving his arms. "Your jacks!! You're dragging your jacks!!!!" Thank God for Strapino straps. We pulled over, Richard strapped the jacks up to the underbelly, and we lost hardly any time at all. Then, about ten more miles down the road, we got a DEF error, followed by the check engine light. With that light shining bright, we traveled on for three more hours and made it to our scheduled stop in Nashville.
Our thought patterns have shifted from "right now" to "for now." We see things differently. What we called a swamp last year, we've learned to appreciate as a marsh. What we once viewed as a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, we now see as an easily accessible, quiet respite that only feels remote but is actually a tiny mecca just beyond urban civilization.
There's quite a lot to noodle through before you ever hit the road: researching places and campgrounds, planning a route, snagging the perfect site, packing, and playing Camper Jenga. After that, the adventure begins, and it's about making every moment the best it can be through exploration and the little delights along the way. Sunrises and sunsets. Morning walks and afternoon hikes. Sitting somewhere lovely with a cup of coffee and Nordic jazz, paying attention to no particular thing at all. Just being in the moment.
Once a swamp. Now a marsh. ;-)
So here's to year two. I don't know where the road will take us, or which jack we'll drag next, but I know we'll be rerouting around storms, appreciating a few more marshes, and sipping coffee somewhere quiet. If this year taught us anything, it's that you don't have to earn the right to slow down. You can just do it. And if you're hearing that "work, work, work" voice too, maybe this is your sign to hit the road.
