What We Learned During Our Fifth Month On The Road

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Today marks five months since we locked the door to our house in Florida and set off for a year-long adventure in an RV. Here’s what we learned during the past month:

Simon loves driving through mountain passes in Fati. Susan does not love that. Following behind in the car while he hoots and hollers and is pumped full of adrenalin works for both of us. Praying “Keep him safe,” over and over, out loud, in the car, is much better than having Susan constantly say, “Please be careful. Watch that edge. Slow down. Do you think you should downshift? There’s a big hill coming up. Are you good? I think there’s a downward slope around this bend…” and on and on and on…. Split up if you need to, to save everyone’s sanity.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, the coolest room in the rig is the bathroom. You might be tempted to keep the dog in there on super-hot days, since he or she is wearing a fur coat all the time, but this idea is both stupid and not at all practical. Think it if you must, but don’t do it. No one will end up happy.

Having seen about a billion mountains and rocky outcroppings, you’re now able to immediately identify A) What kind of rock any given mountain is made of and B) How it was made. Aztec Sandstone? Easy. Area that was once an ancient sea? Childs play! Debris field from an exploding volcano back when dinosaurs were a thing? No problem at all, with bonus points for identifying the volcano itself, and any cinder cones it produced. You rock, you self-taught geologist, you!

Don’t choose a white or cream-colored throw rug for use in your rig. I don’t care if it’s the old one you had in your house and would have thrown away if you didn’t put it in your RV. You’ll spend all of your time looking at a filthy rug, starting 20 minutes after you freshly launder it. Get a black one or a brown one, because that’s what color it’s going to be anyway.

The American Southwest may be best known as cowboy country, but it’s the dust that leaves a lasting impression on you. Any allergies you had back at home will subside, but those burning eyes and scratchy throat, with a heaping helping of sneezing, remain your constant companions. Get tissue. We’ll wait.

They may say, “Yeah, but it’s a dry heat” when the temperatures top out at 105, but 105 is 105, dry or not. Coming from Florida, we understand the sopping-wet of summertime. In Arizona, we’re bewildered by what’s happening to our bodies when sweat evaporates so fast you don’t even know it was there, or it pools under your hair and rains down like a salty waterfall.

Comments from other RVers like, “Our site was next to some bushes, but we were told it’s illegal to kill the Black Widow spiders that live in them,” never leave you. Shaking out all your towels and flipping your bedsheets up so you can see under them before you get in are your new habits.

If you live in the Southwest, it’s apparently a law that you have to have an RV in your yard. Doesn’t matter if it’s a million-dollar Prevost or an abandoned hulk that’s been rusting through to its substructure ever since Hector was a pup. Ideally, it’s the latter, and even better, there should be at least two.

Wow. We’d heard about the friendships that form between RVers, we’ve had nothing but kindness from the people we’ve met, and we’ve added new friends on FB to keep up with each other’s travels. Even after all of that, we had no idea how much you care about these new friends when they’re facing a sudden challenge. There is something very special about this community. How wonderful it is to have your heart expand this way.