Finally Feeling Fulltime

We’ve been living in the trailer six months this month. I am currently looking out the window of our trailer before sunrise over Rancho Jurupa Regional Park Campground from the exact view we had when I went into labor with Kailyn—we’re staying in the same site but are enjoying about 60 degrees cooler temperatures than we saw here in July. As long as we’ve spent in the trailer to this point, this is the first week that I’d say it really feels like we live in the trailer.

When we returned home for the holidays (belated post coming soon on our first Christmas as a fulltime family), the plan was to stay about a month and then to venture back out into the Big Beyond by mid-January. Our mindset was still very much set on continuing our adventures. Besides, it’s a special kind of emotional struggle staying this close to home territory without actually having a home base. We have fallen into the same routine of running errands at the same places and I’ve even enrolled Evelyn back in her familiar gymnastics class, but it’s an oddly depressing feeling being here without being “home”.

The extent of our plans for being back home involved camping for New Year with Evelyn’s cousins and then camping the week after New Year at Glamis with Brent’s dad and Evelyn’s cousins again. From that point, we figured we’d do a few things it’s not easy to do on the road like see a dentist and get new eye glasses, but we’d be on our way thereafter.

That plan was adjusted when Brent’s dad had a heart attack right before New Year’s Eve. He was placed in the hospital and a stint was placed with no serious complications. After a few days in the hospital, he was sent home again. Despite the health adjustment, he insisted on camping at Glamis as planned, so Brent proceeded with helping load the sand vehicles and firewood. We spent a relaxing few days in the quiet of a weekend preceding a holiday weekend at Glamis. Jerry (Brent’s dad) looked better than he had in some time that weekend. I imagine having better blood flow because of the stint could be thanked for that—his skin was radiant and a happy glow dawned about his person throughout the weekend. He tired easily, but he was clearly happy. Evelyn hugged on him and played with him in the sand.

A few days after we returned from Glamis, though, a blood clot stopped at the stint and a delayed trip to the hospital resulted in some much more serious damage. Jerry is still fighting to return to health, and we can’t leave again without knowing he is on the road to recovery and that we have done what we can to help get Brent's parents’ home and living situation settled.

So, our one month visit home has turned into two. It’s been nice to visit with friends and family, but as I mentioned, it comes with its challenges, both physical and emotional. Living in the trailer and bouncing from campground to campground isn’t a fun way to live when there is simply the normal of life enveloping us.

I started work again after a blessedly long maternity leave. I can honestly say that I was ready to return, and I love my job! I can work from my kitchen table and nurse Kailyn when she needs me. I can work while snuggling a kiddo when the desire surfaces. I get to work with students and great colleagues all from the comfort of home and it’s been nice to get back into it, I have to admit. On the other hand, this plan was laid with the condition of Brent being home. Since Evelyn isn’t away at school for part of the day and we now have another kiddo to entertain, it is now Brent’s job to occupy the little ones while I work uninterrupted. This is a bit of a challenge what with Brent being needed at his parents’ house. He can’t be two places at once and I can’t work while entertaining a 4 year old and an infant on my own. We’ve spent a few days at my mom’s house for a double whammy perk: the kids get to hang out with Memaw and I get to work without worrying what they’re up to. We’ve developed a schedule to make this work, but what we planned for our little family was a plan for the road, not for juggling in other factors and other people-- a monkey wrench to add complications to the whole not-having-a-real-home thing.

There is also the physical challenge that comes with fulltime living near home base: needing a place to park. There are two regional park campgrounds near “home” and family: Prado in Chino and Jurupa in Riverside. Each park allows a maximum stay of fourteen nights. Prado is better located, proximity-wise, to family and shopping, but it doesn’t have the greatest laundry facility and smells THICK of cow this time of year. Jurupa is farther out from “home” and family and there is no easy shopping close-by, but it feels more like a neighborhood with its green grass and nicely paved roads. There are also five washers and dryers here and a nice laundry room.

When we made the plan to return to California, we booked two weeks at Jurupa and a week at Prado which would lead us to Glamis, then another ten days at Jurupa in January followed by another ten at Prado. It’s really something just trying to live life while having to consider booking solid dates for where home will be! Thinking all was well, things changed when California started getting rain. We love rain! Even rainy weather while living in the trailer doesn’t shake us. What does rattle our plans, however, is when a park evacuates us because of the rain.

We moved camp in pounding rain (a lot of wet fun, let me tell you) to Prado after our ten days at Jurupa this month. I drove ahead of Brent in my Suburban with the girls and the dogs. Evelyn and I marveled on the way there at the 15 foot wide roaring muddy rapids that traveled down Euclid with us on the east side of the street. When we entered the park, the rain had broken just a touch. We drove the mile and a half into the park, passing an overflowing lake and rivers of rainwater from higher surrounding areas cutting through the green valleys of the park toward the lake. Brent arrived with the trailer as the rain was picking up again and he got it set up just enough that we could head out for groceries and a late lunch.

On the way out of the park, the overflowing area we had passed earlier had worsened. Water rushed from the north side of the road right over top of the pavement and into the lake. The road wasn’t even visible for a good 50 feet of driving distance. We got out to take pictures, not believing our eyes. A vulture landed 20 feet behind us in the road and squawked at us in an ominous touch to the experience and a half-drowned gopher desperately dug for safety a foot off the road next to us. We marveled at a “Visitor Parking” sign in the area to our right that left little invitation to its presence. The post was completely underwater and only the yellow sign itself held its chin above water, gasping for air.

We considered the situation when another truck pulled up behind us. We moved over and watched him tiptoe through the flooded area, part of us wondering if he would be make it or be swept into the lake. Another truck pulled up next to us, this time a park maintenance worker who warned us that if we were leaving, we might not be able to get back in to the campground. He said he’d seen the water get as high as the wood posts at the lake side of the road, a good three feet high above the pavement! We decided to turn around and return to the trailer. The campground is on high ground; there was no concern of floating away from our perch up on the hill in the trailer. We figured we’d put on a movie and endure the pounding rain on the rooftop as a family.

Around 8:00 that night, though, a ranger pounded on the door. They would be evacuating the park the next day in anticipation of the next leg of the storm coming Sunday. The flooding would be worse than we had witnessed that day and there would be no getting out of the campground if anyone needed to for the next several days as a result. 

We had just checked in and we had to leave. We needed to find somewhere to go in a storm, for a Saturday night. Weekends in California are hard to book at any campground and we needed to find somewhere to go the next day. Because moving camp is such a bear of its own, the idea of parking somewhere else for a night or two and then returning didn’t sound appealing, but finding another ten day reservation somewhere to replace this one was going to be complicated, as well.

To make a long story short, we called Jurupa the next morning. Luckily, though their park was completely booked for a fishing derby that weekend, they had saved a few sites for emergencies. We were able to return to Jurupa for the weekend, and though we had to move to another site in the park after the weekend and will have to move to yet another site this weekend, at least we’re here and we have a place to park our home.

It still didn’t solve our problem of needing to stay local long enough to help Brent’s parents and each day we have to move eats up a day we had planned on him spending at their house instead of having to help me and the girls. To complicate matters, we still needed to book where to stay for the first two weeks of February to be close to home. I sat down to compare reservation availability at Jurupa and Prado one morning and my waters finally reached a breaking point. I had gotten up early that morning to figure out where we would park and the kids woke up with me (it doesn’t matter how early I try to get my head start, I swear). I juggled the two reservation systems while getting the girls fed and dressed and checking in with work. I still hadn’t eaten, let alone showered or dressed, and the day was pressing on without reaching any all-important goal at hand. Kailyn cried every time I put her down in favor of using two hands to be more effective and my concentration crumbled. The thunder roared and the rain slamming overhead halted all coherent thinking; the raging rivers dumped into the already bulging boundaries and the winds of Storm Overwhelm shook every ounce of my being. I broke down.

I considered ending this dream—selling it and just getting a house in California again—never seeing the rest of the country the way we had wanted but settling for the norm, throwing in the soggy towel. Entertaining this idea was momentarily comforting but then ultimately overwhelmingly oppressive. What was the solution? We couldn’t keep living this way!

Brent put it into perspective. This way of life is not simple. Whoever said that (and many do) are LYING. Not only are we forever cleaning, but our house constantly need our attention. It needs to be filled with water and drained of sewage. We have to go get the gas that gives us our heat and cooked meals. We have to take laundry somewhere to wash it and dry it and we always have to consider first going to get the coins or tokens we need in order to do that laundry. We have three dogs underfoot all the time and the baby things overrun our small home. We don’t get long showers and we don’t get time alone as adults and we don’t get time to ourselves as individuals, for that matter. And here I am trying to work at my career and be a mom and figure out where our home will be parked all at the same time without leaving the kitchen table. It’s a wonder our lake waters aren’t always over-runneth.

Brent secured us a February reservation, I got my shower eventually, and our storm began to settle.

I looked out the windows of our trailer with the last bursts of showers pounding over top of the trailer and I felt a soft glow well up inside. There were a handful of other campers in the park, though I’d hardly paid them mind through the punishing wind and deluge of rain throughout the week. I even recognized several now who had moved from Jurupa to Prado back to Jurupa as we had. Who else would endure all of this in a campground but other full timers? I welled up visualizing these other full-timers cozied up in their RVs, probably watching TV or reading or maybe writing in a blog or working like I was. How many have dogs? At least one other had a daughter and was doing exactly what we are (we had already had the pleasure of meeting that family). How many were still home for the holidays in an extended stay situation? So many possibilities but one common denominator—home is where we park it.

The Great California Storm passed and with it passed our own storm. The clouds parted, the silver lining glowed, and the sun peeked through. We ventured outside that day. Though it was cold, we were rejuvenated by the open air and the possibility that comes with this lifestyle. We started a fire—just because—and we sipped coffee and played ball with the dogs in the grass area of our campsite. Other full-timers emerged, as well—walking dogs, riding bikes, strolling with spouses. Everyone was smiles and pleasantries. We said hello, we made small-talk, we compared home towns and reasons for traveling. We didn’t talk about the storm. It hardly mattered. The tranquility that comes with the sunshine and the new start that comes with the washing clean of the old united us all that morning.

Though this comes with its challenges (don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!), the experience is the reward.

I have often embraced the phrase that complements this lifestyle: Not all who wander are lost. I love this phrase, but it’s a bit of a lie. We’re lost sometimes, without a doubt. But we’re also finding our way in a fashion like no other. When we do finally feel we belong somewhere again, it will all be worth it.

Despite our trials existing as a non-stationary stationary family for now, we are exactly where we need to be. I wouldn’t trade it.

A little new home decor