After a sound night's sleep, we had planned to check out from Rollin' Homes RV Park today, but with the weather forecast showing scattered showers, we felt that today would be ideal to catch up on work and errands, and clean and organize our RV. Plus, so far this has been the cleanest, best maintained RV park we've stayed at -- and we wouldn't say no to another hot shower!
We actually welcomed the chance to have a cleaning and errands day, just like we would when we were living at home . We sorted our closets, scrubbed the toilet, cleaned the fridge, wiped the countertops, vacuumed and mopped the floors, reorganized the cargo carrier and cab-over-bed, did a couple of loads of laundry.... ahhh! How nice to have things nice and neat, and free up some more space, even more than when we had reorganized things last time.
Today is also another opportunity to write about our RV observations. A few of our friends have asked us what we've liked most and least about life on the road (which someone nicely called "most fave" and "least fave"). Here's 7 for each, in no particular order:
Most Fave Things About Our Epic Road Trip
- Exploring the US and having each day be an incredible adventure!
- Checking out the National Parks, National Monuments and State Parks. We've loved being out in nature, and seeing such a variety of flora, fauna, landscapes, and even changing seasons already.
- Camping out in nature, where we're surrounded by amazing scenery with virtually no light pollution -- we've loved seeing the sunset and the twinkling stars, marveling at how small we really are in the universe.
- Appreciating life even more, and having a reminder each day that we don't need a ton of material things to be happy.
- (More) regularly messaging and talking to our folks more now because of point 4, because we're removed from the hustle and bustle of city life, and also because we want them to know where we are and not worry (too much)!
- Meeting cool and interesting people, like the family from London traveling North America for a year, the Swiss family that's doing a year around the world and just came from Australia, and the gay Minnesotan couple who told us to visit them when we swing by Minneapolis so we can hang out and do things like get our laundry done (because well-traveled road trekkers know how wonderful it feels to have fresh clothing).
- Having our doggy daughter Sheila experience our epic road trip with us. She had to warm up a bit to living in an RV after having the spaciousness of a house, but she's gotten used to it and we love that she has an adventure each day, and can sniff, see, and experience such varied places that she's clearly excited about!
Least Fave Things About Our Epic Road Trip
- Missing the day-to-day availability of things that we had as part of living in one place. For Lisette, that includes her weekly dance classes and yoga classes, while for Michael's its his spontaneous paragliding flights when wind conditions are ideal. For both of us, we miss our weekly grocery run to Trader Joes, especially to purchase the latest seasonal item (Pumpkin Ginger Hold the Cones, anyone?).
- Hearing loud vibrations that come from the water pump whenever we need to use water in the RV, and the squeakiness of the kitchen water faucet.
- Seeing and feeling the not-so-perfect RV design that has small gaps in the walls and windows that allow wind and dust to easily settle in, particularly on chilly days and nights.
- The couple of times that Lisette accidentally didn't connect the sewerage pipe when dumping grey/black water and in one particular instance, she splashed pee all over herself instead of it going down the drain. Lisette smelled as good as an outdoor portable toilet at a 5-day summer festival for a few hours (the stink doesn't easily go away with a simple soap & water scrub).
- Not being able to catch up with friends on a whim - like going out for brunch, or having friends hang out at our home. But having said that, WhatsApp, the good old phone call, and texts through various messaging apps have been great to stay in touch with friends and family.
- Scrimping for quarters and planning trip to the laundromat, lugging a heavy load of dirty clothes, detergent, fabric softener, etc -- and occasionally finding that we have to pay yet another $1.50 (and wait another 45 mins or so) because the volume of items in the dryer mean there's some that are still wet.
- Missing the ease of ordering goods online, including medical prescriptions, because there certain drugs can only be prescribed within our home state, by our primary care physician (for online items, we've thankfully asked friends that we're seeing along the way -- this includes an entire replacement eBike being sent to our friend Brian's house -- thanks so much, Brian!)