FT Rving

Merry Camping Christmas

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ Leave a comment

This is my sixth Christmas on the road. The sixth annual celebration of the holiday with my toes in sand instead of snow. On December twelfth of 2016, I put the only place I’d ever called home in my rearview mirror. Driving off in the rental given me for the twelve days of Christmas, with the sole intention of making it to Nashville by nightfall. I was cursing my last Wisconsin blizzard and the six inches it had dumped, making strapping my bike to the rack on the back extra challenging. This weather was one of the reasons I was leaving and ironically, had also made me stay an extra day. The night of which I’d spent in bed with the grad student I was shagging for the past month and a half, waiting for my house to sell. I’d gotten up a few times in the night to pee, each time having a mini existential crisis. I was totally untethered. Adrift in the world and riding the wind–just like a snowflake.

What was I doing? Was everything I owned really reduced to what I could cram into my VW Bug, sitting in the parking lot downstairs? Was I honestly leaving? And with no real plan other than to find a camper and travel and blog about it for a year? Could I really find my movable home and something to pull it with, in twelve days? 

Then I’d crawl back into the warm bed, feel the hard body of Joey laying next to me and forget all about it. Until the next pee.

I’m no Scrooge, but if the Ghost of Christmas Past would probably take me back to the scene the next morning when Joey asks me where I’m moving to, steam from our coffee cups moistening our faces and me not knowing what to say. Does he pick it up in my pause, or maybe the evasive sideways glance out the frosty window? 

“Ohh…you’re leaving leaving,” his face reflecting surprise and something else. Confusion? A slight sadness?

I explained my plan of a year as a nomad, motioning to my car and describing how I’ve sorted and packed. He countered with a sweeping arm to all the stuff he’d like to get rid of. Saying Florida has a good graduate school for Veterinary Science. 

My stomach sinks a little, signifying I’d not read the room correctly. I’d thought after a nice kiss and a quick It’s-been-fun pat on the butt, I’d drive off and we’d shrug off these trysts. But now we’re in the parking lot, he’s in flannel PJ pants and we’re negotiating the bubbly and champagne flutes I’d brought to celebrate (we’d drunk the absinthe he’d made us instead). It’s decided he’ll keep the flutes as a souvenir and I’ll take the bottle. He’ll come visit me and we’ll drink it then. 

I’m guessing the ghost would want me to get the lesson that people, even if they’re only lovers, have feelings and expectations that may be different from yours. I’d dropped a bomb on someone and I could’ve handled it more delicately. I also tended to think back then, I could disappear from someone’s life without them caring too much. I’m grateful the view of myself and my impact has elevated. 

The Ghost of Christmas Present would show me in the woods–in my second camper, that one year of living on the road has stretched to six–in a state park in the middle of Florida where manatees come to winter. They counted 476 yesterday. I’m slowly editing the finished first draft of my first book: Gut Instincts. It’s about how I got off the medical merry-go-round and had a self-induced healing of Crohn’s Disease.

My vision for the book is that it parlays me into the realm of coaching where I help people access the same thing in themselves. Empower them to take back their bodies and direct their treatment by listening to the message their illness is sending. Heal your mind and the body follows–that was my experience and there are many like me. I’d like for there to be even more.

I’m a healer, it’s my life purpose. Doing my purpose is where my utmost joy is. So why can’t I build my website? Why do I expend a lot of mental energy pushing my purpose away? In the Hero’s Journey it’s the stage: Refusal of the Call. Having a website feels like putting a flag in and declaring my own corner in the world. I don’t know why it seems so scary, tons of people have done it. Every business I walk into is the result of someone doing that very thing. 

It’s nothing special, I tell myself. People do it everyday. I started a blog, I can build a website. I can work for myself. This is the natural next step in the progression of my career. So why do I hesitate taking it? Am I afraid I’ll suck? I can’t afford to suck. 

Would the Ghost of Christmas Present show me people in pain, suffering while they wait for me to get me shit together and launch a real solution? Would it show their family and loved ones berating them for what they eat, blaming them when a flare-up hits? I’ve seen and heard of some mean lack of support, I’ve experienced it myself. This sure was motivating when it came to writing the book. But it doesn’t do much for me now.

Wonder what the bony fingers of the Ghost of Christmas Future would point to… Me unhappy, no doubt. A manuscript gathering cobwebs and dust. A computer screen displaying the domain name I’ve purchased, still with a blank screen. Three out of five Americans have a chronic illness, would that number be even higher in the future? Especially without my healing intervention? 

I was diagnosed so long ago, nurses asked me how to spell Crohn’s Disease. It was rare. I didn’t know anyone else who had it and no one I told had heard of it. My stock answer to the question: what it’s like was: it’s like having a flu that won’t go away. Fast forward thirty-five years and there’s five different categories of it. It’s on the rise and I know I can help. I healed mine and I can help others heal theirs–would love to be doing such important and fulfilling work. Giving talks, having a podcast, being on others podcasts. Putting the modern medical system–which lacks the holistic approach necessary for true healing–on notice. Empowering patients to be their own primary care providers and form partnerships with their doctors.

Rerouting. . . . .

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ 3 Comments

I’ve come to think of the Holy Spirit as my life’s GPS. It’s got the map, it knows where we’re going. I, by contrast, am to wandering off and have a fondness for distractions and detours. The queen of wrong turns, I need never fear. Because just like Google Maps, if I get lost or turned around, the app will spin and say “Rerouting” until it displays a new blue marked path I can follow to get back on track.

I grew up learning about the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I’ve long since traded religious dogma for spiritual laws; gone is the God I used to worship as something superior–I’ve found him on the interior now, in a deeper connection to my true self. The meaning behind a lot of the things I heard taught has changed, but the names remain the same.

HS is kind of my favorite. An energy that communicates through hunches and serendipities, gut instincts and nudges. If I listen to them, I’m living my best life and I’m happy. I’m still reeling from the latest one…..

In April I was all set to do what I’ve been doing for the past two years: taking my camper and kitty to a state park and workamping (working in exchange for a free site). It was time for my next assignment. After giving my boss notice, it didn’t sit right. I’d gotten this job playing games in swimming pools at resorts around Key West. It was listed as a “gig” in the job posting, which was perfect because I was only going to be at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park for a few more moths (there’s limits on how long you can stay at one park). Super fun job, great money, I biked between pools in my bikini and was done in time for happy hour.

The way I found the job was kind of magical. I was recovering from COVID, unemployment was ending, and I was aware I couldn’t go back to bartending; I was too weak. I felt I’d outgrown my old way of being and working during the shutdown. I wanted something new. I went to Facebook and came across a page on my feed I’d never seen before and haven’t seen since. It was “Key West Gigs & Short-Term Jobs.” Perfect! My site at the park was short-term, too.

Funny how we get into things and then they change. Interesting how my plans morph and change without me even knowing it, until I try to assert them and they fall apart.

The next day I took my notice back. I’d slept on it and woke up uneasy within it. Took it as a sign and followed it. And then she offered me a promotion. So now I’m Regional Manager and have found a lot that I pay for, have a lease for, an electric and water bill. Things I haven’t had for six years and thought I might never have, or want to have, again.

I trust this new direction because of all the other new directions I’ve taken that ended up being better than what I thought I wanted.

Tales from the Side of the Road

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ Leave a comment

No, I’m not broken down, everything works fine, I could leave anytime. But I don’t want to—-I’m in Key West. And everyone pays a high price to be here. I pay in guts, not money. I take chances; chances most people would be uncomfortable taking. It’s sometimes uncomfortable for me too, but I’ll take it over being a slave to corporate America any day. The price of my lifestyle is risk but with that risk comes great rewards—-freedom being one of my favorites.

I have good Spidey-senses and let my intuition be my guide; most of the time. Tonight was not one of those times. I hear their walkie-talkies before I hear them knock.

“Are you alone in there?” Always the first question.

You mean besides the fool who told me to park here? Is what I think but don’t say. “Yep. Just me and my kitty.”

They answer with the looks of disbelief that I’ve come to know so well (and actually kind of get off on). That boost that comes from being what I’ve always been—unconventional—never gets old. It only encourages me; adds fuel to my fire.

They let me stay after stern warning and one even helps me lift the steps into my camper back up.

I learned my lesson: don’t let anyone have the final say on where I lay. If it feels wrong, then move. I was not surprised by my middle of the night visitors, I was surprised that I’d let myself park somewhere that I felt in my gut wasn’t right.

Solar powered

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ 3 Comments

I’ve always been solar powered–in need of high levels of sunshine to function and recharge–seems like my camper should roll the same way. I got into this full-time RV lifestyle to be as free as I can be, the option to be self-sustaining is the next step.

I’m in the Sears parking lot in Key West with a panel, some cables, a controller, two golf cart batteries wired in series and my phone giving me access to a group of people who have done this more than me–me, who hasn’t ever done this at all. But I love the idea of living off the sun, getting my power free and clean, without adding pollution or demand for fossil fuel. I’m reading comments on my many posted questions and looking at the pics of people’s systems, but it’s not really clicking together in my brain. It’s the math and the fear based on the fact that electricity can be shocking that intimidates me. I’m a writer, a wanderer, a word girl. I’m good with creative expression, but bad with formulas.

And I suppose I should’ve been working on this long before I really needed it, but that’s not really my style, either. I’m the poster child for the quote: Necessity is the mother of invention. I’m desperately trying to figure it out and failing in the process. I’m doing a lot of searching and swearing, watching videos and feeling out of my league. Thankfully, a person quick to comment on the Solar for Dummies Facebook page offers to talk me through it. He’s from my hometown—Madison, Wisconsin—on a too cold to work winter day, giving him some free time on a Monday afternoon.

It wasn’t just the contrast of my naïveté rubbing up against his knowledge or the fact that I was now sweating in January instead of shivering (I could almost feel the winter wind reaching through the phone to reclaim me), it seemed the biggest difference between us what his unwavering confidence in me and my ability to do what he was teaching me to do. I had serious doubts about both. I suppose being reminded of how my packed to the rim VW Bug and I drove off into the early morning light, crunching through ice encrusted snow with no particular plan other than finding a place where owning a snow shovel was not a necessity and socks were never needed. But somehow my successes get filed under flukes and my failures get catalogued as flaws. I wish I could embrace my learning curve with more compassion. I try to have the faith that he has, but it feels like a pair of shoes that don’t fit right: they’re my size, but someone else has broken them in to fit their feet.

Luckily he also had a lot of patience. I was in territory that I’d only marveled at from afar, stripping cable to expose wires that could then be screwed into the controller inside my outside storage compartment. I’d love to say that I came out of the process embracing Ohm’s Law and excited about electricity, but I didn’t. I did however get it the system installed before dark and kept my cussing relegated to an under my breath volume. Mostly.

The real joy came later, around midnight, when I came back home and pushed the circle on my camper’s control panel that said ‘batt’ and all four lights lit up which meant it was full. At midnight. I know because I pushed it like five times, giggling gleefully at the free energy I had harnessed and the process that I understood just enough to make it happen.

I’d done it after all. I can go anywhere now. I feel like a rock star.

Clarity in Key West

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ Leave a comment

So, I’ve been biking by this new housing development that the city is doing, making it affordable by basing the rent on the person’s income. As I’ve blogged before, I bike by their spreading of gravel, propping up of transplanted trees and pouring of sidewalk cement. I’ve been loosely entertaining the possibility, but landed on a ‘pass’ for the sole reason of it being permanent.

But then something happened. I had an epiphany. My previous preclusions parted and through their veil I saw something. My first camper I had for four years. It was an “I think I’ll travel the country for a year in a camper and blog about it” experiment that led to more years and less states and less blogging than I had anticipated. It seems the ‘there’s the trip you plan and there’s the trip you take’ streak continues.

So, now I’ve bought a bigger and better camper with the same kind of idea. I’m reenlisting for another four years–like a presidential term (and that’s a happy coincidence) and I’m almost one year into it. If I look down the road a little, say three years, what do I want that to look like? I ask myself.

Well, I’m not taking this thirty-footer out west or into the hills of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I’d already decided that my next set up would have me driving my home–a nice Class C with opposing slides to really widen it out–and towing a small, economical car. Firstly, it’s way easier to hook up a car than a camper and secondly, whenever I want to go exploring, I’m driving a big truck with a big engine that gets only slightly less awful gas mileage when I’m not towing. Give me a little Fiat!

This train of thought collided with another train of thought: that I’m going to be 53 soon and I’m starting to skirt around the edges of retirement–from the land of semi-retirement where I currently reside–and at 55 getting disability gets easier, which brings in the idea of getting coverage because of my Crohn’s disease. Then I hear another whistle blow: the substitute teacher train comes chugging along, out of the garage where I’ve been storing the thought for years.

These tracks start to weave a pattern as I simply watch and listen to the whistles blow. I could put my name on the list, it would probably be a few years before I came up anyway, and what if about the time it did, I was ready to sell this camper. And what if I became a substitute teacher–getting my working with kids fix and summers and holiday vacations off to jump in a camper van and go travel then. And then, when I do fully retire and pull my Social Security benefit and tap into my 401K and investments my rent is protected.

What if standing still still gave me the moving about the country option? What if permanent meant I’d have plenty of time that was flexible and temporary? Could this be both things for me?

I started to get pretty excited. Not just on the option of it all coming together to give me everything I desire, but in the way it is crystalizing. I trust that. I trust it because it’s the same way this entire lifestyle of mine first crystalized and every move I’ve made since. I trust what I let happen versus what I try to make happen.

PS in this week’s Throwback Thursday blog I write about how the idea of this lifestyle came to me and crystalized.

Sexy Key West–Steamy Summer #3

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ Leave a comment

It didn’t take long for him to end up back in my bed. Well, I did have to tow about 7,000 pounds (camper weight plus way too much clothes and way too many pairs of shoes) about seven hours, but now that his mouth is enveloping and exploring my pussy, these numbers all fade away. The only thing to count–and that counts–is how many orgasms I’m going to end up having. And if history has a way of repeating itself, and I assure you this being our fourth or fifth rodeo shows that it does, then there will be too many to count and I’ll be rendered incapable of performing math calculations after my third.

These parts of ours are like perfect puzzle pieces held together by velcro. Based on how they fit, they seem to have been made from molds designed for the ultimate carnal pleasure. And all we have to do is brush by each other and we’re connected, locked in once again to acting out our fantasies in my boudoir.

Ahhhh Key West, the place where the moped shuttle driver invited on my first visit here: “Let your freak flag fly!!” That was four years ago and I still remember it. I had a silent response to him: I’ve been looking for a place like that. I’m still doing my best to honor it, too.

We need a place to let loose our inner selves without judgement and this island offers it. For me, this time around, that’s alternating between a two-item wardrobe: my volunteer park uniform that as I fulfill the twenty hours a week at the admission gate in exchange for my free site and utilities and my bikini. It also includes writing the most and the best, in my opinion, that my creative mind has to spill.

It also means fucking my ex/now friends-with-a-generous-benefit-package as often and and as kinkily (that’s probably not a real word) as I want. Wherever I want. It means getting naked at the Garden of Eden, the clothing optional rooftop bar that towers over the heavily bar laden Duval street. It means groping while shopping. Kissing around corners. Exposing my ass in alleyways where you can catch a quick dick in the dark without anyone noticing or not caring if they do.

This boy is my playmate in every sense of the word and I’m oh so glad to be back for more fun and games. I’m here for a few months–including October for Fantasy Fest–let’s see what kind of trouble I can get into before going back to reality–I mean, the mainland.

Like a Cherry Tootsie Pop

Could I Stop Moving and Stay?

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I consider it as I bike by the building site where the city is erecting an affordable housing complex just outside the park. It’s prime real estate. A quick walk or bike ride to my favorite place in Key West: Fort Zachary Taylor State Park and across from the amphitheater where they do live shows–the stage entertains your front while the sun sets and paints the sky at your back.

Fort Zach is where I live now in an RV, as a workamper, a thirty second stroll to the Gulf of Mexico. I can be here even after it closes–in the park after dark is a rare treat made magical by the glow of a full moon. Waves crashing on the shore is my bedtime story. While others wait in line and pay admission, I walk out my front door and can lay claim to my favorite table before the gates even open. It’s paradise within paradise. The catch is I can only stay for three or four months.

Every day I watch the crew spread gravel, plant trees, and install sewer lines. It’s in the early stages which has me thinking. . . not only affordable (it costs about $2,000 to live on this island in a modest apartment where you don’t have to share a kitchen or wait your turn on the toilet) but, speaking of toilets, a seat that no ones butt has been on but mine. No holes in the walls filled in with toothpaste from a previous tenant. No moldy smell leeching from a building battered by rain, storms, and hurricanes. No odor emanating from the carpet of a male cat marking his territory that you just can’t get out no matter how hard you try.

Then my memory slaps my mind, waking it up out of its reverie. Adventure is my drug. Staying put kills it for me. The thing that is the catch is also the cat’s meow about my lifestyle. I get to go. I get to explore. I get to discover new places and in the process, discover new things about myself. And others. Something happens when you live on the road–many things actually–but one of the best is that connection becomes your currency. You become dependent on finding the mercy that this world affords.

“Fortune favors the bold” the Roman poet Virgil said and his words spur me on.

But for a place to make me seriously consider hanging up my hitch, that says how much I love Key West.

Do You Just Want Me to Do It?

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I’ve arrived at my new park: Fort Zach Taylor State Park in Key West. A one-minute stroll to the beach, where the Gulf of Mexico collides with the Atlantic Ocean. Navy base with an Epcot Center looking oversized golf ball to the left, stunning sunsets to the right. The station for the bike entrance used to be a tiki hut. This park is as small and cute as it is majestic and historic, boasting and preserving a Civil War-era fortress.

And the space for the four volunteer RVs is the most challenging of any I’ve had to get into. It wasn’t easy when I had a seventeen-footer and I was ready for it to be even harder with my new thirty-footer. I tried not to think about it as I drove over bridges spanning the fifty shades of aqua that is The Florida Keys. I let my excited emotions overshadow the logistical laps my mind was doing around the pool.

Once arrived, the usual introductions from the volunteer campers already thereI asked for guidance so I didn’t hit anything. Just “driver side” or “passenger side” or “straight” was all I needed. I knew which way to steer. I already knew that the camper moves the opposite way that you turn the steering and told the men as much. But the one didn’t hear me–or didn’t believe me–and it got real complicated real quick. I get underestimated a lot. Still. After almost five years of living on the road.

Do they think I can’t have boobs and brains? Do they think not having a man driving is some kind of disability? (I could argue the opposite). You don’t need a penis to pull a camper (there’s a joke that if you do, you’re doing it wrong). And testosterone has nothing to do with parking. I’m an excellent parallel parker; the instructor I took my test with to get my driver’s license told me I could “park his car anytime.”

Yet somehow, in all the fumbling and misdirections of “Okay, now turn the wheel to the right . . . I mean the left. . . nope, too close. Pull her back out and try again,” it gets said: “Do you just want me to do it?”

And I answer the same way I always have, for almost five years. “If that would be easier for you.”

Because I know what I’ve always known; the hard, cold fact that the only way to master anything is through practice. The only way to learn, is to do. And I know something else. What my father would tell me over and over again as I grew and matured:

“A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

He used to love to tell me that. And I loved to hear it. I wanted to believe it. Even though it went against every Cinderella storybook ending,

Officer and A Gentleman final scene,

co-dependent love song lyrics conditioning I’d been receiving since I was old enough to notice.

Maybe that’s why he repeated it so often. Maybe he knew what I was up against. Whatever the reason, it finally made it through a crack in the gender norms where it could smolder inside of me until it became a mantra of my subconscious.

I pushed it to the side when I hopped out of my truck and let this guy take over. I watched as he tried to back it in. It was a little like being outside of my body, watching this thing that had been attached to me for the past 723.5 miles move by someone else’s command. I started counting–a compulsive way to ground myself that I’d always used: two tries. . . five. . . nine. . . twelve. Twelve tries it took. Wow. Tight spot.

I’d barely gotten settled in and set up when, a week later, a storm started forming and heading our way. We wished and willed it away, but still it kept coming until we got the notice to evacuate. Getting out was easy. Even so, remnants of that past parking job lurked and lured me into the future, when I’d have to get her backed in there all over again. A storm within a storm.

This time, I’d decided as I wheeled back through the park gates the next day, I was going to do it. Even if it takes me twelve tries.

It took me one.

Island Life

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I love being on an island. The water, the tropical breezes. The warm nights. Salt water gives one buoyancy and I think the salt air does the same.

It’s a rainy day today, smoky and sultry wispy clouds above; thick cotton below forming shapes and landscapes. Beautiful but fleeting. The thunder rumbles, a reminder of the imminent threat that lurks–lest you forget and hang clothes on the line or go for a bike ride. Sounding like a hungry belly, will it feast where I am or pass me by for some other flavor. Palm fronds blow to and fro, brushing at my awning. “Take it in,” they warn, “before you lose it!” The waves roll and bare their white teeth before crashing under, only to be called to duty. Rising and rolling again and again.

The ones that make it to the beach lap at your feet. Asking to take all that doesn’t serve you, all that burdens you…and wash it out to sea. Never to be seen again. It’s a siren calling to the dark spots on your soul. It cleanses and lightens and brightens.

Storms form, pass and the sun shines again. Wild and crazy quick changes. Watching weather over water is like flying first class–everyone is on the same ride, but you have a better seat. Water enhances everything; rain rinses clean.

Those winds are the winds of change for me, pointing to tomorrow’s hitting of the proverbial road. I’m going to the mainland for two weeks. Off of this rock in the Caribbean. I haven’t booked anything. There’s plenty of spots and I think I keep hoping that something in the Keys opens up. But I’m also excited to go somewhere new. I get that giddy feeling in my chest when I think about moving. Sad to leave friends behind but looking forward to a change in scenery that always yields a change in perspective to go with it.

It’s exciting and it’s bittersweet. It’s weird and it’s wonderful. And I don’t know if I can really live any other way.