The Homeschool View
Life on the Road
By Hunter Fell

October 7, 2010

One of the funny things about living in an RV is that you can feel every movement made in it. So, in the middle of the night (or at the crack of dawn when someone in my family insists on rising) - whether one is getting up to work, relieve oneself, take the dog out, or even just roll over in bed - you know it. This can be annoying if you wake up because someone decides to dance around really fast at 3:00 in the morning; but close quarters can also be a good thing – for instance, you can quickly find anyone you’re looking for!

My solitary favorite thing about living in the RV for two years, is that after all the many times we had to set up and tear down, I became proficient at it and can do the whole thing all by myself. It is actually fairly easy to set up once you know how. First you park the RV, getting it as level as possible, and lower the landing gear so that you take the weight off of the truck. After that is finished (harder than it sounds), you chock the wheels – this does not mean coloring the wheels with pastel powders or doing a chalk outline of the wheels as if it were a crime scene – it means putting blocks (a.k.a. chocks) on either side of the wheels to brace the RV before detaching it from the truck. Once detaching, the back landing gear is lowered, stabilizing the RV, and you hook up the electric and water if at a campground, or turn on the generator if somewhere without electricity (like Wal-Mart which allows travelers to stay in their parking lot overnight while passing through an area). Once you have power, you open up the slide outs (kind of like a pop-up book, the sides of the RV go from 2D to 3D expanding the living area inside), and then simply shift from travel mode to living space.

Sometimes, while traveling into the night, we’d pull in somewhere, unable to see our surroundings; and it was always fun in the morning to wake up and check out our new backyard. Once, just outside of Death Valley, we pulled into a camp that had a sign saying, “Beware of the Plague”. Apparently, chipmunks and squirrels were infected, but being exhausted from traveling and planning on only staying to sleep and move on, we decided to risk it. We were very apprehensive of what a plague park might look like in the daylight, but we awoke to wild horses running and whinnying, hot air balloons preparing to take flight, and a beautiful lake and mountain at our doorstep. Surprises like that are fun!

In my opinion (let’s face it, that’s what you get in this article), living in an RV’s confined space isn’t too bad while traveling – everything has its space and needs to stay in place to avoid breakage while moving. However, when stationary for more than a couple of weeks, the limited space can become irksome due to the fact that more of your stuff gets taken out and stays out. Imagine the laundry before it is washed - baskets piled high full of clothes – than once they are washed and nicely folded, it is condensed and takes up much less room. This is the difference between travel and stationary living in an RV.
Fun Fact: Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he doesn’t wear pants (maybe his mom needed to do more laundry)

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