I’m Glad My Fate Includes Keeping My Eyeballs

Yes, we’re taking a break from the trailer, by accident in a trailer in an RV park! But this place is more like the ”tiny house” park model I was obsessed with back in Virginia and a lot less like a rickedy old mobile home than I feared.

What I’m Loving

Yeah, I can spin around in the living room with my arms out! That translates practically into being able to do a workout indoors without smacking into something or rocking my whole home, so this I’m loving.

Yeah, I can take a long hot shower, for the first time since May when we mooched at Mary Margaret’s house! I think I am fully clean, seriously clean, for the first time since … the last time I soaked in some large body of water, maybe, if that even counts? Loving this.

Yeah, when I get up in the middle of the night to pee, I don’t have to balance my way through a two-foot corridor, over a sleeping dog and around a dehumidifier, open the door so as not to smack the dog in the head, and not stumble into the shower because I can feel most keenly when the trailer isn’t level when I’m half asleep. So this I’m loving.

What’s Weird

• Flushing the toilet with my hand at the handle instead of my foot at a pedal. My foot hasn’t figured this out yet.
• Having hot and cold water: I can’t remember which side you turn the faucet for hot and have to waste a ton of water figuring that out (see below).
• Having as much running water as I want. As I’m washing dishes I’m feeling like I’m single-handedly ruining the world.
• Cable TV. Okay, the line-up on TV hasn’t changed in 30 years. We flipped through the guide channel then turned that thing off.

Bummer #1

I brought everything we own that’s washable, and the tiny stacked washer/dryer here in “the cottage” is not cutting the mustard. In fact, the washer is now broken (don’t look at me!). I’m calling again tomorrow to see if they’ll at least give me a laundromat pass for this place, but man was I looking forward to doing all our laundry at my own pace without wearing a mask. Maybe they can fix it.

Bummer #2

This is the exact location where Banjo can do her business in this entire RV park! Seriously. It’s the strip of land between our cottage/house thing and the next one.

There are like 150 sites here, and every one of them has a sign in the tiny strip of yard directing you to keep your dog off.

Some people live here year-round, and some come every winter; I see license plates from all states and Canada. They live in mobile homes like this one, and in campers that they’ve modified to be more permanent, with decks built off the side and little carports. Residents have a tiny bit of land, and they’re making the most of it and not appreciating dog pee.

You’re not allowed to let you dog pee near the swimming pool, the bocce courts, the tennis courts, or the rec center. No, no, no.

If you walk with her close to you in the middle of the street out to the entrance though, you can walk along the side of the road, but “stay 10 feet away from the canal and do not wrap your leash around your wrist” or the gator who grabs the dog will pull you under, too.

Banjo is learning.

And we’re finding places to hike so our girl can sniff around happily.

Frankly, considering all the pros and cons of being in a stationary house for the first time in eight months, I’m not as excited as I thought I would be. I miss having all my stuff so near me, and I miss my outside living room, and I miss my own bed. But this is a pleasant break! If only the washer would come around.