Pluggin’ Away

Nick Woodland – September 9, 2023

To begin, some stats: since my last post we have spent 17 nights in 6 different campgrounds in 4 different states. We’ve stayed in classic, well-maintained RV parks in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont to private farms in rural New York to concrete parking lots in Jersey City. Today is day 86.

Life is nothing if not exciting. Yes, living in these tight quarters can make tempers flare and fuses run hot. We see every side of each other now. There is no way to really get away and process. We are not just parents now, but teachers, guides, and friends. So if someone wants to talk about Taylor Swift, or Stranger Things, or Taylor Swift, or skin care, or vlogging, or Taylor Swift…than I better well listen closely because there is no one else for them to talk to about these things. 

Our toilet got clogged, so I spent the morning before my most highly anticipated – and nerve-wracking – drive (into NYC) taking the toilet off its flange and using my cooking tongs to scoop shit and toilet paper out of the plumbing. It didn’t help that we were off-grid so there was no A/C, so in addition to the fumes wafting out of the hole in front of me, I had sweat dripping down onto the tongs making them slippery. Anyway…that is probably enough complaining.

My parents were wonderful to come to Ausable to hang with us for Ava’s birthday and to then take her to The Sagamore for a birthday stay. Which for her was heaven in the form of a real bed with luxurious sheets and pillows and a real shower and lots of room to move around and someone other than us 4. Let’s just say that her first day back with us after we picked her up and said goodbye to Nonny and Papa was a little rough. Tough adjustment back to her reality (which is probably something like, ‘I can’t believe I am one of those kids that live in an RV with their parents and who are homeschooled…UGH’). She told me just yesterday how she can’t wait to have a house and a dog again.

Sometimes I feel really bad for my kids. Like I am doing them a disservice, like they should just be in school like normal kids and not living in such close quarters with their parents and not going everywhere their parents go and for not having any outlets to vent on their parents and their sisters…and that it is often too hot or too cold or too humid or too damp or too smelly or that there are no clean clothes or good food or enough food to be had or that the rain is too loud to watch a movie or that (god willing they actually admit it) they are just really, really tired.

Dinner was too spicy, so we ran through the rain to the campground office before they closed at 830 to get an ice cream cone. Mouths soothed, we went our separate ways. Me to clean the stove outside, Sienna to finish her math lesson standing on her step with her laptop up in her bed, Teagan on the floor organizing her hats in a used shoe box (they do fit just perfectly in there), and Ava kneeling near her bed folding her clean clothes and putting them into her bins which fit in her one-third of the closet. Wendy is doing the dishes and trying to help Sienna with a math problem. 

We arrived here in camp and ran through our whole process of parking, leveling, detaching, stabilizing, hooking up, and setting up – which we are getting pretty smooth at. This time it was nice because in NYC we didn’t set anything up outside nor spend any time at camp. So it felt good to set up the chairs and the table outside, put the tablecloth on the picnic table (gotta observe some gentility here), extend the awning. Wendy and I plopped into the chairs content with the arrangement and orientation of everything and enjoyed the easing of sore muscles. And then…wind and rain. Quick, pack it all up! Damnit!

Soon it will be time for bed and things will go…south. 

There is an unmistakable depression in the air from having just left NYC. They had been so excited to go there and we had been talking about it for months and we did more there than we could have imagined in 2.5 days of constant amazement and discovery and awe. What a place to run around with nothing more to do than see, see, see! And now that excitement is gone and we are all tired and all the little misgivings will come pouring out and the realization that we are still living in this little camper and that we are back in a rainy, wet campground in (as far as they are concerned) god only knows where, will add fuel to the fire. Bedtime will begin with little push-backs and procrastinations and probably end with a meltdown.

But then we will sleep and wake and feel better. And discover that we are in a new place with new things to see and do.

It really is exciting. 

But I have to go work on the toilet again…argh.