After only ten days at home, we had to hit the road in order to get to Indianapolis and the FMCA summer convention. It was so much fun to be packing the little boy camper. We could park it right in front of the townhouse and carry items back and forth.
Is there a space for this? Yeah, it fits perfect. But not this ... can I do without it?
Do I really need a second pair of shoes? For the whole month in Europe, I only wore the Teva sandals, I think I can manage the same here - we plan to be gone 6-7 weeks. Jim rigged up a special place to store shoes - canvas pockets attached to a tiny wall space. It only holds two pairs of shoes, one for him and one for me.
Is there a space for this? Yeah, it fits perfect. But not this ... can I do without it?
Do I really need a second pair of shoes? For the whole month in Europe, I only wore the Teva sandals, I think I can manage the same here - we plan to be gone 6-7 weeks. Jim rigged up a special place to store shoes - canvas pockets attached to a tiny wall space. It only holds two pairs of shoes, one for him and one for me.
We had to stake out our claims for storage space in the bedroom area. There's only one closet, but neither Jim or I have any clothes we care to hang, so Jim got out some tools and removed the hanging apparatus. I put dibs on the closet itself and said I needed shelves. Our only clothes are shorts, jeans, and shirts. Shelves are good. Once again, the month in Europe was instructive. All the clothes I had packed into little net packing cubes. Might I want to continue with that system? I think I'll try it. Clean clothes get packed in the cubes. As I pull items out to wear, they go on the bottom shelf until laundry day. There is no place for a laundry hamper.
We were very happy to find that everything in our house refrigerator fit in the camper fridge. It's just a little smaller than what we had in the big RV. And all the pots, pans, dishes, and silverware were already in place having been simply transferred from Big Boy to Little Boy. All these basics of living, we have a set for the RV and a set for the house, no re-packing necessary.
We could take our time and let everything settle into place. So much nicer than when we had to store the big rig on a lot several miles away, pack the car with everything we needed, and go.
This is really different from full timing though. You're never sure that you have everything. Chris- do you have everything you need from home? Computer, tablet, 2 types of phones, our propeller hats, show and tell items? Jim, did you get the projector? Our projection screen is one thing we have to do without. Any place we present will need to have a screen. When we were fulltime, we knew we had everything with us, because there was no other "home." The RV was it. We had everything we owned with us.
Once we had made our list and checked it twice, we were off! The weirdest part was leaving the car at home. We could tow a car with this van, but that kind of defeats the purpose of having such a small, mobile unit. We loved the idea of being able to park anywhere, turn around, back up, all those things you can't do with a big rig towing a car. I insisted on driving the first day just because I can! It is so much quieter, so much lighter, so much easier on the nervous system than the big rig. In 6 years with Big Boy, I doubt that I drove more than 10 times, and then not more than 2 hours till I was tired. I drove Little Boy about 3 hours on the first day and felt no worse for wear.
We had no reservations for a place to stay the first night, but we had no worries that we could find someplace. We made it further up the coast than we expected, so we checked our favorite on-the-beach campground, Gamble Rodgers State Park and were told they had one oceanfront site available but it could not be reserved, it's first-come / first-served. By the time we got there, it had been taken. Oh well. We kept going and pulled in to the parking lot for our favorite Florida winery Flagler Beachfront. We had been here last July and fell in love with both the wine, and the bread and cheese platter. It didn't disappoint this time around either.
We considered the possibility of staying parked right there - with a view of the ocean. I'm sure that would have been fine. It would just be a van parked on the street. For all anyone knew, we could be visiting friends who live on the block ... "Stealth camping" We could even move over and park right on the beach - there were no signs saying "no overnight parking.'
But, it was still light out and we had over 2 hours of daylight left ... let's keep going. We were generally headed to Green Cove Springs because that's where our "domicile" is and our mail. We had something that needed to be picked up at St. Brendan's Isle. We ended up staying the night at the Elk's Lodge in Green Cove Springs. It's right on the St. John's river. What a picturesque place! And what a perfect first night in our tiny self-contained home.
Once we had made our list and checked it twice, we were off! The weirdest part was leaving the car at home. We could tow a car with this van, but that kind of defeats the purpose of having such a small, mobile unit. We loved the idea of being able to park anywhere, turn around, back up, all those things you can't do with a big rig towing a car. I insisted on driving the first day just because I can! It is so much quieter, so much lighter, so much easier on the nervous system than the big rig. In 6 years with Big Boy, I doubt that I drove more than 10 times, and then not more than 2 hours till I was tired. I drove Little Boy about 3 hours on the first day and felt no worse for wear.
We had no reservations for a place to stay the first night, but we had no worries that we could find someplace. We made it further up the coast than we expected, so we checked our favorite on-the-beach campground, Gamble Rodgers State Park and were told they had one oceanfront site available but it could not be reserved, it's first-come / first-served. By the time we got there, it had been taken. Oh well. We kept going and pulled in to the parking lot for our favorite Florida winery Flagler Beachfront. We had been here last July and fell in love with both the wine, and the bread and cheese platter. It didn't disappoint this time around either.
We considered the possibility of staying parked right there - with a view of the ocean. I'm sure that would have been fine. It would just be a van parked on the street. For all anyone knew, we could be visiting friends who live on the block ... "Stealth camping" We could even move over and park right on the beach - there were no signs saying "no overnight parking.'
But, it was still light out and we had over 2 hours of daylight left ... let's keep going. We were generally headed to Green Cove Springs because that's where our "domicile" is and our mail. We had something that needed to be picked up at St. Brendan's Isle. We ended up staying the night at the Elk's Lodge in Green Cove Springs. It's right on the St. John's river. What a picturesque place! And what a perfect first night in our tiny self-contained home.
--
Blessed be the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.
Chris Guld
GeeksOnTour.com
Chris Guld
GeeksOnTour.com
1 comment:
Most excellent ending quote.
Blessed be the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.
Chris Guld
GeeksOnTour.com
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