Taking Your Camera on the Road

Earlier this week I unburied the last letter written by Brent’s Grandmother Matthews. I put it in a special place to show him once all the nightmare move is over. Unfortunately, in cleaning out some of his own stuff in the trailer bedroom, he found a previous letter written in July. Dealing with his sadness and joy of finding such a treasure, I pulled out the last one and showed it to him.

It began with her sadness over our loss of Toshi, our precious furry child. That was the breaking point for both of us. We cuddled up on the bare mattress and sobbed in each other’s arms. Brent cried that he’d been so selfish, running here and there for the last few years and not spending enough time with them. I told him that he wasn’t selfish. They raised him smothered in love to be independent and they were all proud of him. He admitted he just wanted to stop by and say hi, but they weren’t there any more.

Losing someone is hard. Losing someone and having a life that keeps you away from the old familiar stomping grounds shared by that someone makes it a little easier. The pain is there but the reminders aren’t. Coming back here, the reminders are everywhere and now, even five years after the loss of both grandmothers within a couple of months, Brent is now dealing with the familiar reminders he didn’t have before.

We picked ourselves up and kept on going. The next left over uncovered by Brent was a checkbook. He laughed and read the name and address as “Brent VanFossen and Lorelle VanFossen…Everett, Washington”. It was the first checking account we shared after getting married. I had fought combining accounts for a very long time, finally giving in out of convenience for life on the road. And here it was. A great reminder.

I asked Brent how many lives ago was that checkbook from. He smiled and said, “Many, many.”

It’s true. We left the safe worlds of corporate America behind in 1996 to hit the road full time in our trailer, changing locations every week or so, more or less. To see the world. Well, at least North America. Then we had to make a life for ourselves not moving in North Carolina, returning to corporate ways, but returning as different people. Then moving to Israel where we not only became different people, we expanded horizons beyond belief, changing mentally and physically. Now, we start a new life back in the US, a place more foreign to us than natural now, and heading off for another life in Alabama. Incredible.

The last of the stuff in the trailer was been emptied out. What remains is minor keepers that I want to make sure stay in the trailer with us. We’ve done a lot of dumping and junking of the stuff in our life, physically and mentally. It’s a good thing to do. Fitting your life into a small space like a trailer is a good lesson that everyone should go through. Really teaches you what is important in your life and to your life.

We now need serious carpet cleaners to come in and we’ll be scrubbing walls for the next day or two while waiting for the new fridge to come in. My arms ache already, but it is good exercise.

I was bragging to the family about getting a new fridge, going from about 5 1/2 cubic feet to now a glorious 7 1/2 cubic feet…I felt glorious until we visited Home Depot last night. I saw a fridge there with 26 cubic feet of storage. I’m humbled by my 2 foot increase.

Visiting Lowes and Home Depot last night, Brent and I found our heads in two places. We were seeking stuff for the trailer, but we were also evaluating stuff for our future home. So few of the wonderful European models of sinks, faucets, storage hardware, and beautiful cabinetry and appliance are available here, though there are some neat things. Big and bulky is the American style, all excessive and we want smaller and cleaner lines. By the time we build, hopefully we’ll be able to easily get the European styles here. But it was strange to have our heads in the two places thinking, “I need this for the trailer…but this here might be good for the house.”

In addition to our bodies getting a workout during this change, our minds are also being tested and stretched. Exhausting.

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma

I thought I would keep a list of the ways that technology is helping RVers and people living and traveling on the road compared to even five years ago. As we clean out and repack our trailer, I’m beginning to appreciate the benefits of technology more and more.

The biggest change has been in weight reduction. Weight in a trailer is critical as it stresses the trailer out, but also puts a lot of pressure on the truck to haul that weight behind it up and down the road. We tell everyone that our truck is so great, it can do 60 mph to 15 mph in 10 seconds – going up hill. Downhill, we take our foot off the gas and the weight behind us barrels us down the hill. Gas savings, in a way. Hey, at 4-6 miles per gallon, we take every cent of savings we can.

Here are a few of the things we’ve found:

• Information and Research: The technological benefits of the Internet for RVers and travelers in general is invaluable. But for the “full-timer” on the road, it is a double edged sword. First, I can find anything I need to know about a place, maps, weather, access, shops, movies, theatre, whatever, all via the Internet. I can get information on how to get there, what to see and do, and specific information on what is a must do and see and what should be avoided. The problem is that the Internet is still not available full-time for the full-timer. Wireless through WIFI is a booming business, but it costs a lot of money for the traveler to pay $8 an hour when the actual cost to set up a wireless router for 50 computer users is super cheap. The range is still limited by feet instead of miles, though this is changing. So having access to the Internet saves on the weight of books and research materials, but only for those who have access. Access is still the key. The campground we are heading to in Alabama has modem hookups. The idea of going from high speed broadband cable Internet back to 56K 8K if you were really lucky) doesn’t fill me with glee. Web pages are too graphics heavy nowadays, and too few are meeting web standards for accessibility, so a typical page today takes three to ten times longer to load than the pages of five years ago when we were extremely lucky to get more than 24K baud rates. Living a “non-dedicated Internet” lifestyle again is going to be tough. But when we do have it, steam will be coming off the computer to get everything we can before we sign off.
• Music: Since the purchase of the Creative Labs Zen MP3 player, which Brent bought customized at 60 gigabytes, we have burned all of our CDs to the computer and transferred them (with backups on a hard drive) to the player. We have hundreds and hundreds of our CDs (okay, a few borrowed from friends and family) sitting on something the size of two decks of playing cards and weighing about the same. Instead of 40 -60 pounds of CDs with their plastic cases and book inserts taking up weight and space, we have the equivalent of 8 CDs in weight packed full of our entire music collection. It will connect directly to our stereo in the trailer, through cassette or FM wireless to the radio in the trailer or the truck, to the computer, or just to the ear phones. We don’t have to dig through boxes or books of CDs to find the one we want. We just search through the computer program on the MP3 player using KEYWORDS or titles. Awesome.
• Paperwork and Scanning and OCR: By scanning a lot of our essential but non-essential (originals) paperwork, we are saving a ton of weight. We burn these onto CDs or DVDs for storage and we can print them out as we need them, which is not very often. In the three years since I started this in Israel in preparation for war (Bush’s war on Iraq), I’ve only had about four times I needed to print something out, so this is a serious time and weight saver.
• Books: While Brent is still reading bound books, I’ve switched almost totally to reading books on my handheld computer. There are thousands of books to be found online for free, and thousands more to be found for a small fee online. I’ll put a list of resource here later. Books are the biggest weight problem we’ve had to deal with. A lot of people play the game of one book in, one out, but we kept growing and growing in our book collection. Having them available in digital form, for at least the ones without pictures, is wonderful. We’ve saved probably 100 to 300 pounds in books with this technology. Oh, book publishers, don’t worry. We are still buying books. Gorgeous, serious books. We love books in paper. Our book buying habits changing, representing the serious minority of people living on the road, won’t dent your income. Please don’t turn into another recording industry fiasco and start penalizing readers like they do music listeners.
• Clothing Weight: We’ve also saved a lot of weight getting rid of a lot of excess fabric in our lives. Not only have I lost a whole person in weight, though Brent’s starting to put on a few pounds, Brent is doing his best to help us lose more fabric weight. Instead of wearing those horrible child-like fruit of the looms heavy cotton briefs, I got him to switch to little bikinis while living in Israel. That alone is saving us about 20 pounds in underwear fabric weight. It’s the little things that add up! It has spiced up our love life, too!!
• Clothing: Clothing technology has also changed, for real. Thinner and lighter weight fabrics are warm and weather-resisitant, replacing big bulky coats and sweaters. I invested in silk long johns for us and they are not only extremely lightweight, they dry very quickly when hand washed. Clothing is also more versatile with long pants which “unzip” into shorts, and clothing that hand washes and dries even in damp conditions very quickly. These changes make for fewer clothes and lighter weights.
• Entertainment: Not only can you carry your entire music library in a small container, DVDs and flat screen televisions are also shrinking entertainment technology. No longer do you have to suffer the huge televisions with the deep tubes taking up a whole corner, balanced on a shelf and strapped to the wall. A flat screen TV can be bolted to the wall and take up only a few inches depth. DVD players are replacing video and they are thin and streamlined, hardly much thicker than the media they use. All are made of light weight plastics and computerized components, further lightening the load.

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma

– – – This was sent out a week after arrival in the US to our friends via email, catching them up. Since it includes some more info, I posted it here, to catch everyone else up, too. – – –

Well, we are in the states. I know this is late going out to everyone, but I’ve been really sick. After finally dragging me to an emergency clinic for antibiotics and viral tests, I had strep and related sore throat, runny nose, high fever, and just plain misery for the first week of our life back in the states. Not a good way to start this new chapter.

The antibiotics finally kicked in and the fever broke and I’m slowly starting to move around and catch up. There is a lot to catch up with.

I’ve started updating my online weblog (journal) with one thing a day, when I’m near to an Internet connection. When I’m not, I’m trying to keep a journal entry going so I can post them when I do get an Internet connection, so there may be 3 days of postings all at once. After 5 years of constant Internet connection, reverting to hit and miss Internet is going to be a big shift.

Here is a brief summary of life back in the states so far:

Some of it sucks, but the free access to mass capitalisticly produced crap from Twain, Mexico, and China makes some of the suck worthwhile. That’s right, we are in WalMart mecca. As soon as I was able to stand up without fainting (my ears plugged on the flight and took 20 hours to break free of the stuffed up pain!!!) or having the world swirl around me, I was in a WalMart. Yeah.

One of the first sites to greet us at a WalMart in Tulsa were giant inflatable Christmas characters. And I mean giant. And tacky. But wonderfully tacky. After all, who wouldn’t want a 16 foot Frosty the Snowman in your front yard or on your roof. Especially one that lights up from within. Brent and I were practically hysterical when we saw this line up of whose who of Christmas characters inflated to dozens of times their “natural” size lined up outside of Walmart, next to the bicycles eagerly awaiting young children’s bottoms. It will take a while to get used to the tacky and glitz that is an American Christmas.

We’ve started emptying out the trailer, finding mice remains and current evidence, as well as tons of dead moths, flies, spiders, wasps, and other nasties. It’s not as bad as it could have been, but the bugs did find their way in and now we are cleaning out their remains. Dust is layered on everything, as expected. I’ve done 8 loads of laundry of clothes, blankets, and sheets and towels, with more bags of laundry to do. I didn’t know there was so much requiring washing inside of that trailer.

Brent found the trailer’s generator (provides electricity when we don’t have a connection) carburetor was varnished, an effect that happens when something sits in gasoline for a long time. Clogged it up completely. After a lot of debate, we found it would cost $60 USD to rebuild and $80 to buy a new one, so we bought a new one (saving three days or more of effort) and he had it installed in a few minutes with a roaring start. The trailer is sitting in a huge parking lot of other trailers, motor homes, cars and whatever in storage and there is no electricity. We bought new batteries for the trailer but we have to have the generator to charge the batteries if they run down, so this was critical. With an electrical source now, Brent and his dad are out there right now opening up the trailer’s slide out (a room that expands our living room/kitchen/dining/office room) to see what is really going on in there.

We had a leak in the back corner and the rug there is black and ugly with rot and mildew. Until the slideout is out, we can’t tell how bad the leak was and if you just have to replace the carpet or actually cut out the floor and replace it as well. There is damage on the surface of the cabinets from the leak and stains on the roof, but these are all things we can clean and live with until it really annoys us. The damage is just minimal.

What is not minimal is the refrigerator. Brent started it up to test it, letting it run for an hour, opened up the door and was kicked on his butt by the overwhelming chemical smell of ammonia. He and his dad jumped out of the trailer and shut the fridge off, letting the whole thing air out for an hour. It was really toxic. This means that the coolant is leaking, probably with damaged seals or something. This is bad. Brent wanted to just replace the cooling unit, thinking it would be cheaper, but research again showed that a replacement unit would take a couple of weeks and cost $600 to $800 and a new fridge is $800 to $1200 and installable as soon as it arrives after a week shipping. We went to a couple of places and found that we can get an awesome fridge with four interior shelves plus the veggie drawers instead of the louse fridge we had with three shelves and still have it fit easily within the space. We’re trying to order it via ebay (you can get anything on ebay – more yeah!) so it will be here either by the end of this week or start of next. It puts us a little behind schedule as we really can’t “live” in the trailer without a fridge, but there is so much cleaning to do, sleeping at Brent’s parent’s house is still okay.

So I get my dream wish of a new fridge. This is the one thing I dreaded as I hated that leaking old thing.

If Brent succeeds with opening the slideout so we have room to move, I can get in there tomorrow and start cleaning. Every surface has to be totally cleaned with bleach and cleaners. Windows, walls, ceiling, curtains, counters, everything. Yuk. Any volunteers out there to come help?

I want to make some structural changes and improvements to the trailer, but those will have to wait until we have a few months income under our belts and are settled in Alabama.

While Brent is working on the trailer this afternoon, I’ve been in the upstairs office scanning most of our critical trailer documents. In five years time, technology has improved enough for us to take advantage of it and scanning critical documents and putting originals in storage lightens the load and will make life so much easier in the trailer. The overwhelming stacks of paper are getting smaller. We’re researching buying a small scanner to have in the trailer to keep up the minimal paper load down to something manageable in the future. I’ve gotten about five boxes of papers pitched, tossed, and scanned to a condensed 1/2 box. Ain’t that wonderful!!!

But I’m tired, still, from the illness. In a few days I’ll be back to racing around, but right now, every effort wears me out completely. I’ve not resorted to napping now that I’m back moving, but the urge hangs over me. I had no jet lag because I slept for four days almost without stop from the illness. But this isn’t a way to deal with jet lag.

Brent is working hard and long to get the heavy stuff done. He’s worn out and going to bed early now, too, so we can take advantage of the shorter winter hours. We’re usually up by 5:30, though Brent doesn’t move until 6:30 or so. We talk over what needs to be done that day and make decisions and then up and moving.

The leaves have turned colors late this year to our benefit, so we have wonderful red and gold trees around Brent’s family home. Seeing all the colors picks up our spirits and makes us thrilled to be in a land of actual seasons again.

We miss everyone and really miss our support network there. If we were closer, I’m sure we’d have 20 people lined up to help us scrub the trailer and get it ready. Brent’s family is working overtime to help, but they have incredibly busy lives. Brent’s father has a prayer breakfast with six other men every morning at 7AM and is very involved with church activities and their motorhome club. Brent’s mom works long hours on social activities for the church. This weekend is a huge Saturday “tea” for a huge homeless population community center in town, feeding several hundred people. It is a church activity and she will be cooking food in advance for two days in the huge church kitchens before transporting it to the community center. They do this about 8 times a year and it takes weeks of planning and coordination, tons of volunteers and lots of effort. Brent’s dad and other family members pitch in to clean up after the lunch. We’ll probably help with that unless the trailer is at a critical point in the process. That should be interesting.

My mother’s back surgery was great and she is back getting into trouble again. Nothing holds her down for very long, not even back surgery. My dad is also recovered from his neck and shoulder surgery and spent a week camping in the mountains, so he is slowly getting back to active again.

Brent just walked in the door from the trailer and has good news. The slideout worked, the floor doesn’t appear to be as damaged as we thought, and things look good inside except for the dirt. He remembered that there is a guy at his family’s church who specializes in rug and upholstery cleaning. We’re going to call him tonight and have him come professionally clean the carpet and couch, saving a ton of energy and trying to get some kind of chemical cleaner to get the mildew and yuk off. Brent says the carpet is still damp, but leaving the slideout open will help. It won’t hurt the cleaning. This is great news.

So things are going. He also says that he bought the fridge (they called him with the final order instructions) and it will arrive in three to five days. He and his dad and uncle will install it. The old one should be out by the weekend to make sure the space is cleaned out for the new one. YEAH.

The plan is to move the trailer in the next few days (dependent upon fridge and so on) to a nearby campground so we will have electricity and water. With these two things, the serious cleaning can commence. Until then, everything is poking and prodding. So we expect by Monday we will be in a campground.

On Wednesday, VanFossen family start showing up from all over the planet. We’re still arrivals from the farthest distance, but a lot more people are facing more trouble to bring their children and grandchildren to this family event for thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is on Thursday, but people will still be flying in, so we may be on the round of airport pickups. So the VanFossen Thanksgiving Reunion (with now 29 people and growing) is on Friday. First time in 15 or more years all these people have been in one place. Amazing.

By the following Monday we should be on the road to Alabama with arrival expected by December 1 or 2. Brent meets with the company and on December 6 starts work. I was going to fly to Seattle then, but with the fridge and a lot of other costs, and being sick, I think that I’m going to wait until January. I’ll miss my mom’s big holiday party, but flying during Christmas in the states is costly and dreadful. I’ve had my fill of planes for a bit. So I’ll be there in January.

That will also give me time to get the rest of the trailer stuff done. And there is lots to do. The curtains really need replacing, and our whole filing system needs to be set up again since it’s been scattered around the world. I have a ton of business things to do, as well, so this might be the smartest thing of all to just concentrate and get it all done in December so I can get to Seattle, deal with the things I need to do there, and then back to Alabama and my writing. This is the goal. Back to writing. I’ve made too many excuses, my friends, so be sure and bug me with a lot of “you’d better be writing and not playing computer games or spending time writing back to me!!!”

So that’s the news. Oh, Kohav has totally and completely adapted to living in this huge house. She adores racing up and down the stairs and sitting on the banister threatening us with the fear she is going to fall off. She has been much better physically, though we spotted some signs of her tummy problems this morning. There is stronger medication here in the states that we have to get to put this problem down for good. She is healthy, strong, and having the time of her life racing around and playing with the grandchildren. Amazing for a kitty whose never been around kids or a lot of people. Really adaptable.

And Brent is happy to be with family and gaining weight from all the good food. I’m being very restrictive now so I don’t put on what I’ve lost (I’m down a LOT I realized – trying on clothes from the trailer. I can fit two people instead of just me into some of them!!!!). Anyway, that’s the news.

Miss you all and hope you are doing fine. Thanks again to everyone in Israel for being so supportive and wonderful during this rough transition. We miss you so much! How will we ever survive? You have to come visit!

Be sure and keep up with our travails!

Lorelle VanFossen
Note: We are moving back to the US!
On the Road: Amsterdam to Tel Aviv to Tulsa to Mobile, Alabama

Brent’s dad is signed up with SBC’s Yahoo (SBC Global) for their high speed internet. I had set up our wireless router to the DSL a year and a half ago, but now nothing would make this work. Frustrated from reading tons of helpless help files, I turned to the online support chat at SBC Yahoo. The first tech was helpless, not understanding my request and quickly passing the buck over to Linksys. I kept telling him that I’d been through all the tech support documents related to this at Linksys, and they all say contact SBC for updated firmware. How do I update?

He gave me a link, after 30 minutes of waiting, which turned out to be fine, but none of the links to the firmware from that page worked. I went back 0 seconds passed) and he’d already disconnected me without a “thank you for using” or “bye bye”. So I reloaded the chat page and started over.

This time I got Jina. Man or woman, I can only guess since most of these tech people are not found in the US any more. But Jina was special. I’ll call her a “her” because of the care and determination to help me. She spent over an hour and a half (I’d already spent 4 hours on this) asking questions, denying she could help (admittedly saying the company speech) and then telling me that she would do EVERYTHING to help me figure this out and maybe get past the cog in the machine that is stopping us from figuring out what is going on.

The DSL is a SuperStream 5360 which now seems to have been outdated when they got it. Unfortunately, that is typical of much modem/internet providers. If you are doing this yourself, make sure you ask before they send out the package or the tech if you are getting the hottest, bestest, latest unit. Research it yourself to make sure you have the latest, and insist on the latest firmware or get it yourself.

Eventually, Jina got me the how to from DSLReports, a fantastic site that I should have remembered to search through first myself. At http://www.dslreports.com/faq/6560, she found the step by step process to connect to this “ancient” DSL unit and within seconds I was connected and rocking. Amazing.

So in the future, if you are having trouble with your 5360 or any other DSL, T1, high speed, broadband unit or line, take a moment to stop by DSLReports and see if they might have the answer.

And Jina, you’re a star. A total star. SBC Yahoo will probably lose you because you are too smart for them and will probably go a long way beyond them. Few tech support folks recently seem to go that extra step to make a customer happy. I’d spent two hours trying to get my Tracfone fixed yesterday listening to an Indian trying to “sound” American reading from a screen in a way that made me want to reach through the phone and throttle him. No independent thinking or ability to do anything that wasn’t in the script. When you are working with me, who often knows more than the customer tech (this isn’t an exageration because by the time I get to you, I’ve done tons of research and work to avoid getting to you), I don’t do it by the script. So Jina, you are brilliant and wonderful and bless you!!!!

So if you have the SpeedStream 5360, I hope this helps.

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Brent and I are out of control hunting the Internet, listening to the radio and watching TV to see the first pictures from Titan. They are finally in at ESA – Cassini-Huygens.

WOW! We are amazed that the thing was able to crash land and still return great pictures. Too exciting.

I want to go visit!

My mother sent me an email offering to fly down to Tulsa after Thanksgiving to help us get ready. While I really appreciated the thought, the hardest work is between now and thanksgiving weekend. By Nov 28 or 29 we are on the road to Alabama. Estimating 3 days travel, though it could be more or less.

We’ve checked out what needs to done that we can “estimate” (not taking into account the crap that pops up) and our bank account and we’re making drastic compromises. We need new tires on everything (totalling 10) but we’ve decided to go with two to three new tires on the truck (the ones most exposed to the sun and worn) and may try to go with the tires on the trailer. They’ve been covered up from the sun, and at least three of the four were replaced during the trip from NC to OK and storage. But they have been sitting on one spot for five years, a dangerous thing for tires. So we’re not sure whether or not to trust them or just replace them for the three day drive to Alabama and then to sit again for six months to a year or so. That’s a lot of money. If we decide to replace them for safety consideration (they are over $150 each on the trailer), that might take up the money for me going to Seattle until after new years.

I pulled myself up and sick or not (fever is still hovering as of yesterday) and have emptied most of the trailer except for dishes and what is in the bedroom that can’t get through with the slide out in. We’re probably going to try to open the slideout by Monday. The place is a mess. Where peeks of sun came through, the carpet and fabrics are totally bleached like bleach spilled in spots. Fungusy soapy stuff has grown out of the shower, which just needs a serious cleaning, but we don’t have access to water and hoses and such yet. Dust and dead bugs are everywhere. There was leaking in the back corner of the slideout from the funky angle it was left in and it dripped water down the ceiling making stains and down the top kitchen cabinets staining the wood. We might have a little water damage in the corner cabinet bottom but right now it looks solid enough. There is mass water damage and back ugh growing in the corner of the kitchen on the carpet behind the slideout that might require removing the carpet and possibly replacing the flooring under that area. We can’t see untiil the slideout comes out. We’re not sure how far it stretches under the slideout itself.

Walls, cabinets, fridge, appliances, furniture, all have to be scrubbed to within an inch of their life. I’m hoping that Lynda Kay and Lisa might come out and help me scrub and scrape, but it might just be Brent and I. We’ll see. I’m hoping to have the thing moved by Wednesday or Friday at the latest next week to a nearby campground as there is little more I can do without opening the slideout and having access to water and electricity.

Having my mother come to help after Thanksgiving would only mean riding in the truck for the haul to Alabama, not a good idea for my mother’s recently operated-on back. We have a long history with Highways 10 and 20 and hate them both for being notorious back killers once you leave Texas. In Alabama, Brent will meet with the office there and make a plan and contract (which I will oversee) and then I will haul around and check out the campgrounds nearby to see which looks better for a longer stay. The one we arrive in might be okay, but we want to find one “good enough” and close. There are a bunch of options all within less than 10 miles including one less than 2 miles from work. If that is good, Brent can walk or take the bike to work, saving tons of money in gas. But it also has to be close to the amenitites I need (laundry, store, etc.) if he takes the truck and I have to schlep things around.

Being sick this week has really hammered me. I didn’t realize I was as sick as I was. There is so much little shit to do like researching the campgrounds, ordering parts and pieces for the trailer (we need all new window gaskets (seals) as they sufferred in the sun), and preparing to build a new computer for the trailer to host all the harddrives and such we have. There is so much, I’m getting whelmed.

Brent and his dad and his uncle, Gary, took apart the generator yesterday to get out the carburator. What a mess. I laughed at them and said how amazing that it took an engineer, architect and roofing specialist to not figure out how the damn thing worked. Gary said, “Aren’t you glad you aren’t paying for us by the hour!” Argh, I couldn’t afford them. Anyway, they pulled out the carburator and found, as predicted, it was varnished and clogged by the gas left inside. I knew we should have drained it, but that is just how it goes sometimes when time is tight, as it was. So either it will be cheaper to replace the carburator or get it cleaned out (devarnished?) which requires more research into costs and calling places to find out who can do it or replace it. Yeah.

Without the generator, we’re running on battery power, which means we are limited as to what can run in the trailer. We don’t have a way of recharging the batteries without the truck attached and running or the generator. Taking them out and charging with a charger is painful and means hauling them back to the house each time. These are heavy deep cycle marine batteries and you don’t want to mess with them once they are installed.

So that is our life. We are heading to church (against my better judgement – time waster) as we are celebrating Lisa’s birthday and Terry is singing something special during the service, and then having a small get together party for her at noon. I’d rather be getting the rest of the stuff done but I’m trying to be a family member, too. Tough for me to do both right now after wasting so much time being sick.

So while we appreciated the offer, unless my mom arrives in the next couple of days, we will be racing after thanksgiving to Alabamamamamama.

I want to, in a couple of months, take some classes on eco-home design/building and canning, planting, and such to prepare for building The House. Lots to want to do but I might end up having to take a job to help pay for everything. We’ll see. I want to write for the first six months with little interruption, before taking a job. We’ll see. Right now, I put one foot in front of the other and hope I don’t fall down in the inbetween.

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma

I’ve been horribly sick with the start of strep throat and laryngitis which moved into fever and chills. Horrible way to start this new chapter in our life. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, literally, and headed out yesterday with Brent to the trailer to begin the cleaning out process.

It was easier than I thought and painful in other ways.

I plunged in with energy I didn’t have, organizing Brent and focusing on the priorities. Clear out the heaviest items in the trailer that obstruct movement (boxes and bikes) then Brent clears out the back of the truck while I begin the pitching, tossing, and sorting inside the trailer.

It is amazing, five years later, how my attitude about STUFF has changed. Maybe not changed but shifted. The panic to save every reciept to track every dime being spent (since we were living on savings, every penny counted), the ridiculous money-wasters spent on things we really didn’t need, and the determination to fill up our life “space”….those things have changed, I hope.

Yet, I found that the trailer wasn’t as full as I had imagined. It had felt like it was overflowing at the time, though I know a lot of stuff was moved into Brent’s parents for safer keeping like precious books and papers. Still, it wasn’t the cluttered junk pile of my memory.

Unburying the desk was a delight. Brent worked for almost a year creating this masterpiece of a desk. Every detail of the design is amazing. There are two filing drawers, but they have only a six or eight inch “side” around it with no bottoms. The square comes out, attached by sliders, all the way so you don’t have to break your wrist to get to the last two inches. There is no bottom to the drawers so the pendaflex folders just hang there freely. Attention was paid to every millimeter of the desk to save weight, since this is a major killer of trailer. Inside, the main wall cabinets have been routered out from about eight inches in from the edge through the center, since the thickest support needs to be along the edges not in the middle, again, saving weight. From the outside, it looks totally solid, but in the middle of the panel, it is about a half inch deep instead of two or three inches.

I love the wood. Brent used mahogany and red oak. Mahogany is lighter, so that went into the largest pieces, but red oak is very strong yet easy to work with, so the inside pieces are made of oak. The top has a dark peachy granite like laminant, which I adore. Brent had never used laminant and he did an amazing job. It is so smooth with a soft matte finish. The edges of the desk are all rounded with a router, not a harsh corner for me to bump into.

The angles are great, too. While the desk appears to be square, it is actually angled with a cut-out in the middle for me to sit and the computer monitor sits on a platform atop the desk at an angle in the corner. Closed up with the chair shoved in, it is a rectangle and traditional desk. Opened up with me sitting there, it is a work of wonder.

Anyway, it was marvelous to touch the smooth wood and reassuring to see that it hadn’t cracked or split anywhere. We still have to go through everything, but Brent applied layers and layers of sealent, so it should be still okay after surviving five years in the toxic heat of Oklahoma.

I found the last letter we received from Grandmother Matthews regarding her sadness over the death of Toshi, my precious fuzzy child, just before her own death by only about a week or two. I haven’t shown it to Brent, as the timing was not good, but I put it carefully in our little basket of family pictures and treasures. That was heartbreaking. I also found Toshi’s harness and a couple of rabies and ID tags that stopped my heart. I know that parents say you never really get over the death of a child, or parent, but I will never get completely over the death of my fuzzy baby after 17 years of unconditional love and adventure.

There were also reminders of my friends in Greensboro. I found cards and notes and gifts from them, as well as a small box with some of the toys and tools I used to teach water aerobics there. Those will go into storage now, as we have little room left for too much sentimentality. A curse of life on the road in a trailer.

I pulled out all the blankets, pillows, sheets, and clothes that are worth saving to be washed. Now that I’ve lost almost a person in weight, it is amazing how BIG my clothes were five years ago. I still wear XXL t-shirts, though I can fit into a Large, because I like the roominess when I move about and exercise, but still…size 24 shirts, huge pants, shorts that would fit an elephant. I wish I could say I relished every moment of the pitch and toss of these things, but I’ve passed much of that during the last five years of pitch and toss of fat clothes in Israel and now they are just a nusiance. I’m way past moving on to smaller and better things.

By the end of the day, Brent and I were pretty exhausted. He found that most of the plastic stuff left in the open in the back of the truck were totally sunburned and damaged. One plastic container shattered into pieces when he lifted it up, held together by position rather than structure. Metal things like our snow chains for the tires are completely rusted but salvagable. Plastic gas cans, hoses, water filters, all rotted and ruined. I thought we’d covered the back of the truck but we hadn’t, so the sun’s damage will cost us a bit to replace everything. It’s safer to replace it all anyway, as who knows what has happened to it over five years.

Tempermentally, we did okay, with only one flare up over some papers, but the stress creeped in anyway. By keeping Brent working on the outside of the trailer, he is spared a lot of the emotional shit found on the inside. He’ll have to deal with that soon, but for now, this is enough. He has plenty to think about.

Oh, one glorious moment came after Brent installed two new deep cycle marine batteries which power the trailer. He asked me to turn on the lights to check the electricity once they were installed. Instead, I turned on the car CD/stereo we had custom installed and Tchaikovsky came pouring out at a high cresendo. Brent was standing outside the trailer with his leather work gloves and me inside, looking at each other through the window, and we both began air conducting the orchestra as it smashed and whirled to the climax. We laughed. Great timing.

I started the washing “line” of stuff, bags and bags of it, last night. More to do this morning, then back to the trailer to keep plugging away at the cleaning, sorting, and purging.

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma