We are on our 18th campground in a row, five and a half months into the Pilgrimage. We have settled into a nice routine. I rarely have to use an alarm clock anymore, my body waking up naturally between 7 and 7:30 a.m. every day, when it’s rested and ready to wake up. Every morning, I wake up and get dressed, no hair or makeup yet, start the coffee, and take the dogs for their morning walk. Regardless of the weather — hot or cold, rain or shine — I’m walking the dogs every morning. Many days, I’ve walked almost a mile before my first cup of coffee. While I was still working, some of those walks had to be rushed because of an early-morning meeting. But most of the time, they are quiet, leisurely walks. We try to avoid other humans, especially those with dogs, just to keep things quiet. When we get done with our walk, I work or write or study in my office until Chris wakes up.
On a walk the other day with Chris, I remarked on how odd it felt not to be stressed about work or about an overgrown to-do list. That’s not to say that there is no stress in our new lifestyle — I’ll get to that in a minute — but not to be stressed because of some nonsense associated with my job, not to be stressed because I’m late on several deliverables at work while my homework piles up week after week. That kind of stress is falling away, shedding like a winter coat, revealing someone new, perhaps someone long forgotten, underneath. I am slowly but surely shedding the “corporate Jody” shell that I had acquired over four long years in a very stressful position, and it feels good to rediscover joy within myself, to recover energy and excitement, to fall back in love with life itself rather than seeing it as endless days of crap that I need to “get through.”
Chris and I have both started exercising more. My exercise consists mostly of walking the dogs, hikes with Chris, bike rides, and some small weight work. I did try jogging and a significant amount of lunges one day, which rendered me incapable of walking much faster than an 90 year old for the next five days. My legs hurt so bad, it would have hurt me less to simply fall out of the camper than trying to climb down the stairs to get outside. You know that pain — the kind that makes you hyper aware of how many muscles you actually need to simply sit down on the toilet. Dear God, who knew it took so much to do so little. After finally recovering from that agony, I have settled for walking and small weights. Slow and steady wins the race.
We’ve started paying more attention to our diet as well, striving for heart-healthy micro changes. More fruit, heart-healthy vitamins, more soluble fiber in our diet, etc. I put Benefiber and cinnamon in my coffee every day, for example. I haven’t kept a count, but I know that I’ve cooked dinner at home more over the last five months than I have over the last four years, including baked salmon and lots of veggies. I’m growing more accustomed to the idea of cooking or eating leftovers versus always going out to eat, which was always the easy answer.
But like I said, this lifestyle is not completely stress free. Particularly in this last month, we’ve had a few including:
- The septic line backing up at Hart Springs campground, requiring three county servicemen, a tractor, and an industrial-strength plumbing snake to clear the tank line.
- The almost total lack of phone signal near Hart Springs making us feel isolated and disconnected from the world
- The weather — rainy and cold more days than not, with one day getting so cold overnight that the water pipe at the spigot froze — who knew pipes could freeze in Florida!!
- Our wi-fi system failing again and the abominable “customer service” at Mobile Must Haves easily taking three days of my life to try and troubleshoot the issues, without success
- Dropping my cell phone in the fire pit and driving one hour (one way) to Best Buy in Gainesville only for them to ask us to come back tomorrow or stand in line for an untold amount of time that day
- The auto-leveling system on the camper misbehaving
- And now this morning, hearing a drop of water followed by a hiss coming from the back of the refrigerator
Your problems don’t just disappear because you’re out traveling and seeing the country. If anything, they’re magnified in that a severe-enough issue may require you to take your camper into the shop for repairs and find somewhere to stay while it’s being fixed without an equivalent sense of urgency to complete the repair on the part of the service technicians as what you feel when you leave it with them. Think about it this way, when’s the last time you had to leave your house because your refrigerator stopped working?
But we’re learning, more and more with each day that passes. Learning:
- That we can fix these issues that are going to come up, when we stay calm, do our research, and work together on the solution.
- The value of making friends on the road — friends who support you, who are there to help, and who generally make the trip more enjoyable
- That the act of remembering where you are and what it looks like outside of your rig is a challenge and requires deliberate thought on your part while laying in bed at night. The inside never changes, while the outside does routinely.
- That, for us, two to three weeks in one spot is our preferred duration. One week feels too short, and one month is entirely too long.
- That we value a plan, but we’re not afraid to be flexible — dropping Three Rivers State Park, for example, in order to stay in the warmth a little while longer
And most of all, learning that the Pilgrimage — this decision to simplify and go small in order to live big — might just be the best decision we’ve ever made.
Jody
