Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Camper Chronicles cont'd
today is day... 18 in the camper. I know how to connect & disconnect, start and blowout everything. I have a truck to pull it with and enjoy it just as much nearly 3 weeks later as I did the first nite. Actually, I enjoy it more so now that I know how everything works and I'm confident in what I'm doing. It's elating, freeing, lovely indeed. independence and learning definitely has it's strong points in my life.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Camper Chronicles day 4
In all fairness, I'll make the correction now. Those who are regularly in travel trailers don't call them campers, as that assumes you are only camping. And they don't call them trailers cause, well, that leads people to consider the term "trailer trash." It's called a rig. So there...
Day's 2 and 3 were fairly uneventful in my rig. Crickets sang all night again, others in my camping area came and went during the night keeping me awake, and I had chinese food for dinner both nights (leftovers on day 3).
On day 3, while eating my leftovers, I was reading a magazine that was 2 years old and one article spoke about making light over little accomplishments. If we only enjoy the big goals, we may wait a long time to celebrate and that would make it seem the little goals don't matter - but they do. And they matter a lot, so be proud of your little goals! I had 2 little goals to celebrate last night. I had never started a charcoal fire and I was able to do that without a starter or any fluid. It took a while, I thought I had failed at one point, but in the end dinner for 2 days was completed and I was proud. My dinner included a chicken breast on the bone, some grilled onions and cous cous from the microwave.
My other goal was to disconnect my propane tanks and take them in to swap them for refills. I was able to shut off the tanks, disconnect them and pull them off the rig only to find that they both still had propane in the bottom. I reconnected them both, turned one of them back on and went inside to cook some bacon for my morning breakfast. This may seem VERY minor to some, but it was major accomplishements for me. Little goals, big successes, big big happy!
Oh, and my biggest happy was about 3 or 4 this morning. Another night of tossing and turning, I had just fallen back to sleep when I heard it RIGHT outside my rig. Ow Ow Owwwwwwwww I grabbed my phone, set it to record sound, and got a full minute of that coyote on the ridge right behind me howling like crazy. S/he stayed and sang for only a few minutes and I got two 30 second recordings. Note to self: Get a good digital recorder for the wonderful sounds I hear at night as cell phone recordings don't do it justice.
Day's 2 and 3 were fairly uneventful in my rig. Crickets sang all night again, others in my camping area came and went during the night keeping me awake, and I had chinese food for dinner both nights (leftovers on day 3).
On day 3, while eating my leftovers, I was reading a magazine that was 2 years old and one article spoke about making light over little accomplishments. If we only enjoy the big goals, we may wait a long time to celebrate and that would make it seem the little goals don't matter - but they do. And they matter a lot, so be proud of your little goals! I had 2 little goals to celebrate last night. I had never started a charcoal fire and I was able to do that without a starter or any fluid. It took a while, I thought I had failed at one point, but in the end dinner for 2 days was completed and I was proud. My dinner included a chicken breast on the bone, some grilled onions and cous cous from the microwave.
My other goal was to disconnect my propane tanks and take them in to swap them for refills. I was able to shut off the tanks, disconnect them and pull them off the rig only to find that they both still had propane in the bottom. I reconnected them both, turned one of them back on and went inside to cook some bacon for my morning breakfast. This may seem VERY minor to some, but it was major accomplishements for me. Little goals, big successes, big big happy!
Oh, and my biggest happy was about 3 or 4 this morning. Another night of tossing and turning, I had just fallen back to sleep when I heard it RIGHT outside my rig. Ow Ow Owwwwwwwww I grabbed my phone, set it to record sound, and got a full minute of that coyote on the ridge right behind me howling like crazy. S/he stayed and sang for only a few minutes and I got two 30 second recordings. Note to self: Get a good digital recorder for the wonderful sounds I hear at night as cell phone recordings don't do it justice.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Camper Chronicles day 1
My camper and I arrived at the county park last night at 7:30. As I drove in first, I saw a coyote in the grass 200 feet from my campsite. We unhitched, without too many hitches, and I had PL my truck friend leave the park before they closed the gates at 8pm. I had little food in the camper; just a pack of corn tortillas, some strawberry lemonade and grape jelly. Oh yes, and I had my leftovers from my weekend trip to LA which consisted of a small (very small) bag of garlic pistachios, 3 bananas and 1/8 a bag of Maui onion potato chips. PL says "I'm leaving you here alone, by yourself? I can bring food back to the park gate if you like..." but I only needed clean water, so she left me 2 bottles of water and was on her way. Suddenly, it was quiet. Very quiet.
That's when I realized I needed a shopping list. Lubricant for squeaking parts on the camper (the levels, the jack, parts of the hitch) and toilet paper. I'd forgotten tp! I drove down to the main campground bathrooms and realized that the small ball field was FULL of deer. It was just after sunset and I could only see black shadows against the gray background of the campsite. I saw the buck and his big rack, excused myself to head for the bathrooms, and went inside to use their facilities. In the dark. There are no electric lites. Flashlight - I need to bring my flashlight home from work. It's a windup kind so needs no batteries. Back up to my campsite, I heard a new noise I don't ever recall hearing 'live and in person,' a hooting owl. He hooted and hooted for a good hour or so.
For dinner I had about 20 pistachios and some water. I wasn't very hungry, mostly thirsty as I was quite dehydrated from the weekend. While I sat at my dinette, I read some of my trailer manuals and found that the little vented brown thing under the stove that kept kicking off and on seemed to be an electric converter. I believe it's the cooling fan that I hear since it expresses a bit of slightly warm air at the same time. I'll look into it further this afternoon.
Once the tent campers shut off their radio at 10pm, I was able to fall asleep easily and stay asleep most of the night. That is until the sun started to come up and then I heard noises around my camper. I couldn't see anything out the windows - it was probably birds. A scrub jay kept flying back and forth making the worst noises. If it was my place, I would pick him off with a nice little .22.
That's when I realized I needed a shopping list. Lubricant for squeaking parts on the camper (the levels, the jack, parts of the hitch) and toilet paper. I'd forgotten tp! I drove down to the main campground bathrooms and realized that the small ball field was FULL of deer. It was just after sunset and I could only see black shadows against the gray background of the campsite. I saw the buck and his big rack, excused myself to head for the bathrooms, and went inside to use their facilities. In the dark. There are no electric lites. Flashlight - I need to bring my flashlight home from work. It's a windup kind so needs no batteries. Back up to my campsite, I heard a new noise I don't ever recall hearing 'live and in person,' a hooting owl. He hooted and hooted for a good hour or so.
For dinner I had about 20 pistachios and some water. I wasn't very hungry, mostly thirsty as I was quite dehydrated from the weekend. While I sat at my dinette, I read some of my trailer manuals and found that the little vented brown thing under the stove that kept kicking off and on seemed to be an electric converter. I believe it's the cooling fan that I hear since it expresses a bit of slightly warm air at the same time. I'll look into it further this afternoon.
Once the tent campers shut off their radio at 10pm, I was able to fall asleep easily and stay asleep most of the night. That is until the sun started to come up and then I heard noises around my camper. I couldn't see anything out the windows - it was probably birds. A scrub jay kept flying back and forth making the worst noises. If it was my place, I would pick him off with a nice little .22.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
sigh...
It was more than 15 years ago that I first succumbed to what I had been told most of my life - I am my mother's child. Her face, her arms and her big, big legs - they haunt me. But this morning I realized that it didn't end there.
Yesterday I left work and was long gone before I remembered that I had some corn in the fridge at the office that was beyond saving - I needed to throw it out, like yesterday. I dialed my office number and left a message for myself. This morning I came in and saw the message on my phone but had forgotten what it was. Imagine my surprise when I heard my mothers voice yell at me "throw that corn away now!" egads, it's frightening.
Yesterday I left work and was long gone before I remembered that I had some corn in the fridge at the office that was beyond saving - I needed to throw it out, like yesterday. I dialed my office number and left a message for myself. This morning I came in and saw the message on my phone but had forgotten what it was. Imagine my surprise when I heard my mothers voice yell at me "throw that corn away now!" egads, it's frightening.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)