Times A Wastein'

As our time here in the Saw Mill Resort and RV Camp comes to and end, I have some thoughts about our life in a tiny house versus the 3800 sq ft house we lived in before. In a word I'm loving our tiny house it and to my utter and shear joy Matt is loving it too. I thought if anything was going to bring this adventure to an untimely end it would be that Matt hated it and we would be forced to find a place more settled to live. It's not without some challenges.

The dogs are settled into their routines pretty well. We take them out on long walks every day and since we're all in the trailer together they get to be closer to us than when we had the house. There isn't a lot of free space with the two of us and two dogs so we're pretty much together anytime we're in the trailer together. The dogs don't mind at all and look forward to their walks. The problem I foresee is when we change locations. The routine will change and they might be a little anxious but I think, after a while, they'll learn the pack up and go routine and things will be fine.

Medications and doctors are another challenge. So far we've managed to use the Publix Pharmacy to get our refills. Our doctors have been really great at authorizing our refills even when we're out of state so that hasn't been a problem. I have some specialized meds I take so I have to be right on top of those and give the pharmacy extra time to get those filled. So far so good.

The mail situation is pretty easy. When we left Charleston we had our mail forwarded to a private mail processing center in Houston, TX. They scan the envelope and send the scan to us via e-mail. We can then ask them to send it to our location, open it and scan the contents and send that to us or just shred it. So far we've only had two things forwarded to us here in Florida and it worked out perfectly.

We bank with Bank of America since there are branches in all 50 states. Matt's paycheck is directly deposited but if we need a bank they're pretty easy to find. The best part is making deposits by taking pictures of checks and sending the pictures to the bank. We've used that service without any problems so banking is pretty much as simple as you can get.

One of the biggest changes that has come with our Tiny House adventure is that we don't have TV of any kind. No DirecTV and no over the air TV. I do selectively watch a couple of shows that I can get through iTunes or Netflixs but in general we don't have TV. Gone are the nights wasted sitting in front of the TV for the night. Now we read, write, go to the pool, take the dogs for a walk and at times spend some time reading the news online. That leads to one challenge that we haven't really addressed adequately -- Internet Access. We have 2 cellular modems that sort of work Sometimes the streaming is OK. Sometimes the surfing is OK. But a lot of the time its a challenge to even Google to load.

When we first got here I was having some serious TV withdrawals. I had my shows planned out all week, the DVR was programmed and I spent too much time watching things rather than doing things. Now I have two shows that I like to watch. I catch them on iTunes when I get a chance. Sometimes I'll treat myself to a documentary but streaming with the cellular modems is very expensive and until we find a park with free WiFi we'll be severely limiting our TV time. I can say now, after being without TV for over 3 weeks that I don't miss it. Too many other things to do.

I haven't spent a lot of time (any) cooking in the trailer. It seems like at the end of the day once we're both ready to stop working the last thing we want to do is cook in the trailer. We need a little break. We generally go out and explore the local eating establishments. Sometimes we really lucky and sometimes we really unlucky. I think as time goes by we'll cook more in the trailer but for now getting out and about town is more along the lines of what we're ready to do at the end of the day. We have a full stove with an oven and a microwave. We keep the refrigerator stocked with sandwich meats and cheeses and drinks so in a pinch we can always eat at home.

We did have one really strange lunch. We were at Matt's parent's house doing laundry and as the last load dried we decided to try a bbq restaurant just down the street. The menu looked pretty good when we sat down. Matt loves mushrooms so when he saw fried mushrooms he had to have them. We were the only ones in the place but it took forever to get the appetizers. When it finally arrived our waitress was laughing. She thought one of the mushrooms looked like a penis. She couldn't get over it and had to take a picture of our food. That was the highlight of the meal. The rest of the food was really bad. How they stay in business I don't know. I suspect they are a front for the local mob and launder money. There is not another reason in the world that restaurant should still be in business with food that bad. Most of the food we've had has been pretty good. We've purposely stayed away from the chain restaurants and tried local places. One place we tried, The Taco Bus, was out of this world good. The food is authentic and it's actually cooked in an old school bus. It's a bit of a drive down to Tampa from where we are but as we're running around town on errands we might just have to try it again.

Speaking of errands we've had a couple. Matt sold his car (the BMW and love of his life). We just couldn't justify having two vehicles. We had a hitch problem that took us to Camping World. Let me say that I've been impressed with them from the day we bought Mabel Rubain. The hitch was a little low so I went in and had them jack it up a little. The hitch itself weighs about 75 pounds so it was a job hiking back to the service department with it. But one of the employees saw me and drove a golf cart down to pick me and the hitch up and drive us down to the service entrance. From that point on it took about 15 minutes to get an adjustment and that was it. No charge, great help, very caring people. I'm really liking Camping World. I can see now why they are so successful in what they are doing.

Mabel Rubain has had some hiccups here lately the biggest being the galley grey water tank not being drained. This model has a grey water tank for the galley, and a separate one for the shower and bathroom sink. Good idea in theory. The problem is the drain for the galley tank is at the front of the trailer and the drain for all other tanks is in the rear of the trailer. Out drainage hose fits perfectly in the rear drains but not in the front drain. Not knowing we filled up the galley tank and didn't realize until after we had drained the other tanks that the galley didn't drain. It only contains soapy water but since it's over full it makes the galley smell bad. I think tonight I'm going to drain it on the grass. You're not supposed do to that but what's a little soapy water among friends? Other than that Mabel Rubain is working well. The temperatures have been around 95 each day and the air conditioner struggles to keep the trailer cool - especially on humid days. We've had some pretty intense thunderstorms with heavy rain and have had no leaks!

One final thing we've learned. Everyone at the park decorates their camp site, trailer or motor home with lights. When you walk around at night it looks like everyone is having a disco party. We came unprepared so when we took a trip to Ikea we found some really cool LED lights that we could hang from our awning. Now we fit into our neighborhood.

In two weeks we'll be headed north to Bull Run in Virginia where we'll stay for 3 months and then possibly up to New York for a couple of weeks in January if we think Mabel Rubain can handle the cold. We'll test out her cold weather features when we're in VA and make a decision then. Eventually we'll head south again but that timeframe is still up in the air. That's the nice thing about this life. We can basically decide where we want to be and when. No rush.