Oh, the drama!

Ever notice how, when you mind your own business, other people—and sometimes even strangers—can't stand the calm and feel compelled to start drama? I'll never understand it. It's like some people cannot stand to have a calm atmosphere, so they take great pleasure in stirring up shit just to get a reaction or to annoy others.

Example: late last night, Paul and I left Britt's apartment and headed over to where we are currently parking our RV while we are in town. It was late, and I was tired. All I wanted to do was go to bed. We crawled into bed, talked for a bit, and settled in (with our dogs) to go to sleep. Next thing we know, there's a woman outside our RV yelling. I couldn't make out what she was saying. Turns out, she was griping and intentionally antagonizing our dogs—AT 5 IN THE MORNING! She returned to her RV, which was parked to the left of ours and across the way, but then a little while later, she came back over to where we were and began yelling again. This time, she started yelling, "RUFF, RUFF, RUFF!" to get the dogs stirred up.

My first reaction: WTF?! Was she drunk? High? What the hell was her problem at FIVE in the morning that she would intentionally try to antagonize our dogs?!

Paul and I prefer to dodge conflict if we can, so we didn't engage her and got the dogs back into the back of the RV, into our bedroom. They'd gone up front to react to the stupid shit she was yelling and the RUFF RUFF sounds she was making. Finally, we fell asleep. I still felt uncomfortable because I had a feeling she wasn't done with us yet. I was right.

In the morning, around 11:45 a.m., Paul and I are sleeping—as were the dogs—and guess what happened? Yep, you probably figured out that she walked over by our RV and started raising hell again, talking loudly and intentionally trying to stir things up again. *sigh* What in the hell did this woman want, and what was her motivation for disturbing us and antagonizing our dogs?! I must admit, I was trying to figure out what her motive was, but then I became annoyed...and later on, angry.

Basically, Paul and I want to be left alone to do our thing, which is primarily our jobs, studying, gaming, reading, or watching movies/shows. We are pretty simple people and we like our peace. Now here we had a complete stranger who decided that, for whatever reason, we were going to be her target. Just great.

You know, I don't understand most people. I haven't for most of my life, though I've tried my level best to figure them out. But often, I feel like I'm an alien from another planet and that most of society is speaking another language or something. Might be why I'm so interested in psychology and why I've thrown myself into my Social and Forensic Psychology studies. Human beings are like exotic animals to me at times, even though I KNOW that I am a human being myself.

Long story short, I told Britt what was going on and she said, "I'll be right over." My first thought was, "Oh, shit." Mainly because Britt is a lot like me when she gets riled up. Once she's there, she doesn't take anybody's shit.

A few minutes later, Britt and her fiance, Tack, arrived. They went over and talked to the woman's boyfriend (who was embarrassed about the whole ordeal) and to the woman herself. Turns out the woman and her boyfriend were having serious issues, and he'd already thrown her stuff out of the RV and was going to break up with her and leave her after 6 1/2 years.

The woman, whose name is Lisa, shook my hand and told me she owed us an apology, that she'd projected her anger over her personal situation onto us. I felt compassion for her and told her that Paul and I didn't like to have conflict with people unless we had no other choice. We chatted for a few more minutes and left to walk back over to our RV. On the way back, her boyfriend indicated that he was sorry for the drama she had caused us. And I'm glad it was resolved—permanently, I hope—but as I sit here, I wonder how things will turn out for them. I saw the expression on her face and on his face. My heart dropped to my stomach because I knew it was a trying time for both of them, exacerbated by her acting out toward us and the dogs due to misplaced anger.

I've mentioned this before, but one unexpected side effect of living full-time in an RV is that you are THIS MUCH CLOSER to humanity and you're face-to-face with the real nature of human beings and society in general. It's unpleasant, it's often shocking, and it's a wake-up call. When you're in a house or apartment, you might get exposed to these things for a short time as you run errands and the like. But when you live in an RV and your home is wherever you park it, you SEE the pain, the trials of life, the layers of hurt, the disappointment. You also hear the tales of hard times and heartbreak. And you can attempt to steel yourself against all of this as much as you want, but in the end, you can't help but be affected in some way.

I would've never had some of these experiences otherwise, and it's added a dimension to my compassion, my mercy, my tolerance. I'm realizing that we're all just trying to make it on a daily basis, and for some people, it's damned hard to wake up and face another day. I've been there before, and I understand how they feel. And no matter how good my fortune gets in the future, I will never forget the things I've seen and heard so far, or the lessons I've learned. With everything in me, I truly hope Lisa and her boyfriend reconcile and they have a better life together than they could've ever imagined. No more pain, no more suffering.

Drama is so uncomfortable to me and is becoming more so as I become older. There are times when you cannot avoid conflict and you DO have to speak your mind, stand up for your rights, and set or reinforce boundaries. But I guess it's all about choosing your battles, and some are so trivial and basic that communication can usually resolve the problem. My first reaction was to leave and not even address the issue with Lisa because confronting or talking with strangers can lead to hair-trigger reactions in this day and age. You never know when someone will pull a weapon or do something off the charts in a fit of overreaction. But to my daughter's credit, as well as Tack's, they took the bull by the horns and addressed the issue in a direct, non-threatening manner.

Today I was the student and my 24-year-old daughter was my teacher. How cool is that?

Ten things we've learned while living, working, and traveling in an RV full time

 

Nine years ago I wanted to get a recreational vehicle and travel more often. On December 19, 2015, two days after my 51st birthday and facing a move-out date in January once the house sold to a buyer, Paul and I decided we didn't want to go back to living in a house or apartment that required a huge chunk of money to pay for, plus all the hassles that came with it. So Paul and I took the step of getting rid of about 90% of our possessions, storing the other 10% in a storage unit, purchasing an RV on January 22, 2016, and embarking on a full-time mobile lifestyle. 

All either of us needs to do work is an Internet connection, so we could live and work from anywhere we chose. And when we wanted to travel, either near or far, we'd have that ability as well. We would live this lifestyle for as long as we wanted, and one thing was for certain: it would be an adventure that most people thought about, but never got around to actually doing. We wanted to actually DO it. 

We had all of 30 feet in our 1987 Ford Mallard Class-C motorhome, so paring down to the essentials was necessary. We also brought along our four dogs (Cosmo, Loki, Panda, and Freya) and our elderly cat who has an attitude, Isis. Our pets are like children to us—except they have fur, which my two adult children do not. Throw in our must-have items, like clothes, cooking supplies, dishes, food, bedding, our computers, books, and personal essentials, and there's not much else you can take with you. 

Here are ten things I've learned since February 2016 when we began living, working, and traveling in our RV, Lamia, full-time: 

1. No matter how much you think you've pared down for living in an RV, you'll find out there will be two or more passes you'll have to go through AGAIN in order to truly pare down your possessions to a manageable level. 

2. One of the worst smells in the world is a full black tank! 

3. The second-most worst smell in the world is a full gray tank. 

4. So far, Verizon Wireless has the best signal reach for Internet usage—even when you're at the top of a mountain out in the middle of nowhere. 

5. You're so used to city noise that, once you're out and away from people in the woods, the silence will almost deafen you. But you'll get used to it. 

6. The John Steinbeck method of washing clothes while traveling actually DOES work. Try it! 

7. Your stress levels go down to nearly zero when you're dry camping (boondocking) and away from society and noisy humans. 

8. All food tastes better when it's cooked over a campfire. Especially s'mores! 

9. You can do most cooking with a microwave, crock-pot, grill, and rice cooker/steamer. I have yet to use our gas oven or stove. 

10. If you're weird about your privacy, don't go on the road with people you don't like or aren't comfortable around. You will have 30 feet of space—if you're lucky—or maybe more if you can afford to own a Class A). Thankfully, I like and am comfortable around my husband! 

There are more than ten items overall, and I'm sure the list will expand in the coming months, but for now these are the ones foremost on my mind ;-).

[RV experiences] A cry for help in the middle of the night

Oh my gosh, I need to post about this before I forget! This morning, close to 4 a.m., I was finally ready to drift off to sleep. All of a sudden, a man starts yelling, "HELP!" in a frantic, desperate voice. You could tell he was running toward where we were parked in the RV. Paul looked out the window and grabbed his phone to call 911 if it came to that.

Surprisingly, five people appeared out of nowhere to help—at 4 a.m.!—and Paul saw another guy laid out on the concrete on a traffic island near Fountain Blvd. Since five people were already attempting to help, we stayed in the RV.

A little while later, the guy was sitting up. We saw flashing lights, so an emergency vehicle had arrived. We don't know what happened, but I know that I have never heard a man yell that loudly or frantically. Took me quite a while to get back to sleep. I hope everyone involved is okay and all is well.

One thing about living in an RV is that you are closer and more involved with humanity and its wounds and ills when you're in the city than you would be living in your house or apartment. It's both startling and humbling. Definitely food for thought.

Half a year of full-time RVing!

This Friday it'll be SIX months since Paul & I purchased our RV, Lamia, and prepared to launch the full-time RV lifestyle. A little more than a month later, the end of February, we began living in our RV. I cannot believe it's been half a year already! Where does the time go? ;-)

Are we glad we made the decision? So far, it's a resounding, "YES!"

New vlog for April Fool's Day—No Foolin'!

Bev & the newborn baby goats — 3.24.2016

Vlog update for 3.22.16—What the hell have Paul and I been up to lately?

Improved outlook...

Finally starting to feel a little normal again—not by a great amount, but at least my body isn't stiff with stress and worry as much as it was over the past several years. So today, for the first time since things got really hectic and down to the wire, I pulled out my crocheting! I have TONS to complete, both for friends and ourselves, so it's a good sign when I feel steady enough mentally and psychically to grab my yarn and hooks again.

It will likely take years for Paul and me to recover from the hell we've been through and the physical, mental, emotional, and psychic beating we've taken since 2011, but day by day, we shall recover.

Thank you again, friends and family, for being so kind, supportive, and encouraging through this long, arduous life journey. We can never say thank you enough. Please know that without all of you who supported and encouraged us, we likely couldn't have made it and we may not have lived to see this day. That is truth, not an exaggeration.

We want to give a special shout out to Brittany Elizabeth, Trevor 'Tack' Falana, and Rasputin Meraki Toska. These are three amazing young people who busted their asses and helped us in so many ways that we couldn't list everything. We love you guys, and Key West is in our future—plus anywhere else you wanna go! smile emoticon

Onward, one step at a time...

[RV lifestyle] Loving my new Boffice

Typing this from my RV boffice (bedroom+office=boffice). I love my new boffice, by the way. It's quite cozy. Not much room, but that's fine by me. Easier to keep things in order!

[Ghouls on the Go] Colorado will always be our home base

We love Colorado and it'll always be our home base! It's beautiful here and we've considered it home since Paul and I both moved here 1979 (we didn't know each other then, but...). So we are NOT abandoning Colorado AT ALL. Our plans are to keep our home base HERE and then travel extensively to see parts of the US and Canada that we maybe couldn't afford to visit otherwise if we took into account airplane, hotel, and other fees. [ 279 more words—click link below to read more at Ghouls on the Go Travel Blog. ]

https://ghoulsonthego.wordpress.com/2015/12/29/colorado-always-our-home-base/

[Paul's blog post] The RV calculation

So, my wife Bev and I want to do something that may sound crazy to a bunch of you, but it may actually be the best way for us to live.

As many of you are aware, because of financial difficulties thanks in large part to some health issues of mine, and extenuating circumstances that I won't go into right now, we are about to lose our home. This is a dire situation to be sure since we currently have no place to go, and because no matter what, we have to keep our dogs (they are all registered Emotional Support Animals [ESA], for the record). We will, however, not be sad to leave this house because part of the reason for our financial situation, and no doubt my health issues, is due to this property. It needs too much upkeep and repair which I cannot do thanks to my back and knees, and it costs too much money because it is old and was not built well.

This was my mother’s house and she left it to me when she died. The mortgage was never in our names, Bev just kept paying it because the house had been quitclaim deeded to me. Then the mortgage company accelerated the loan, which means that unless we come up with the entire loan balance by the end of December 2015, we have to move. Bev has worked herself into a crater trying to keep up with the mortgage payments, along with the endless repairs and code upgrades that cropped up due to the age of this property. We have dumped a lot of money into this property that we will never see again.

The utilities have also been a factor in making things rougher. Those utilities were the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, because there is a cottage on the property, and due to that we were charged commercial rates whether there was a renter in there or not. Most people do not have to pay three separate utility bills – plus a gargantuan commercial deposit – as part of their bills, but that’s another thing we’ve been saddled with over the years.

In addition, once both of the kids moved out of the house, Bev and I discovered that we barely ever saw most of the place. There are whole sections of this house that we just don't need. All those places do is collect junk. We use a small bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, a small office and a tiny corner of the front room. Occasionally we use the laundry area, obviously, but even most of that space is superfluous to our needs. Still, we have to pay to heat the whole thing, and this place is, as I have mentioned, very drafty. All of the windows are old and warped, which doesn’t help. Overall, the place isn't put together well.

I guess the question becomes, “Why move from one place with a lot of space that we are never going to use, just to move into another place with space that we are never going to use?” Even renting a house or apartment for an extended period of time (over a year or more) would lead to us paying money into something that we wouldn't use most of. Add to that the fact that most rental properties, whether house or apartment, are not going to look kindly on us having four dogs, or would charge a pet deposit for each one and then possibly higher rent on top of that. For us, it has become clear that we need to find another, more cost-efficient way.

So, why not an RV?

We've been doing some digging, and there is a lot of information out there on how to live and travel in an RV for reasonable amounts monthly, even if we had an RV payment each month. Our cars are all paid for, so we have no car payments and no monthly credit card payments to make. This would actually be the best time for us to hit the road in an RV and switch our lifestyle, in fact. Our monthly costs would be much less than they would be otherwise, even with a monthly RV payment.

Now, I'm not dumb enough to think that it will be all sunshine and roses by choosing this path. There are still a lot of considerations to take into account. We would need to have a state of residence and a place to get our mail. We would need to make sure that we could get our medicine. We would need insurance on the RV. What belongings we are going to keep, but not take on the road with us, will need to be kept in storage. We will need to make sure we have a method of staying online so that Bev can work and we can communicate with everyone. We need to afford fuel, food, propane, and maintenance on the RV. There will be times when we may need to pay for a camping spot (although there are a lot of workkamp opportunities out there, and we can boondock some times). We will need food for the dogs. Even then, if we watch our money, it would be cheaper than living in a house or apartment, and we could keep our dogs with us without paying a huge amount of deposits or extra monthly fees added to our rent.

On the upside, if we don't like someplace that we end up, we can just leave. Also, we can travel, which is something that Bev and I both love to do but could never afford to do much of over the past ten years. We could see some of the places Bev has never been and that I haven't been to since I was a child. We could visit friends who live in other states. We could see the ocean again. We could see the badlands of Utah, Yellowstone, Upstate New York, and Maine. So many places that we've always wanted to see and just weren't able to. Or, we could end up stuck some place until we could get enough money together to move on, but that could be exciting too. We are more flexible than most of our friends, so I think that’s a definite plus. We would have to come back to Colorado Springs fairly regularly to get our mail and the like, but that would give us a chance to hang out with friends here. No need to worry about never seeing us again.

As far as how we would make a living, right now Bev is the only one who brings in any income (although I'm in the process of lining up possible work for the next few weeks), But if she gets enough article writing and editing jobs she can cover the cost fairly easily. I could do a nicely edited video blog about interesting and spooky, out of the way places that I could put up on YouTube and monetize (that's not a guaranty for making money, but it might,) plus I'm currently learning to code in PHP and Java Script, so I might be able to score some freelance work doing that. In addition, Bev has been after me to put up an Etsy shop that would sell prints of some of my artwork. Yes, Bev is the big breadwinner around here, but I have ways of bringing in money to help out.

Bev can work from anywhere that she can get a Wi-Fi signal, and a lot of the stuff that I do could be done in the same way, so that would work in our favor. Plus, as I said, there are workkamps where you do some sort of work at the campsite in return for your pad, electricity, water, and sewer. A lot of the more physical jobs I couldn't do, but I bet there would be something, even if it's walking around all night making sure that no one is up to no good.

The point is that an RV lifestyle for us is doable. It could end up being cheaper to live than a stick and brick house or apartment, plus, you know, the dogs. I guess what I'm saying is that we are committed to doing this. It's only a mater of time before we do. The truth? If I could buy an RV today and drive it off the lot, I would. It would really put my mind at ease knowing that Bev, the dogs, and I would have a roof over our heads after the first of the year. We also wouldn't have all this wasted, expensive space. It’s not just a dream of ours. It’s become our goal.

Manifesting the full-time RV lifestyle

NEWS (Yes, it's long): Paul and I are planning to hit the road, full-time, in an RV and live/work from the road in the near future, meaning within a year or two. Depends on the research and planning. And, of course, purchasing an RV. We have NO car payments because we've paid off three cars, two within the last five years. That is one good thing in our favor.

These are our goals and we firm about making them happen. I don't want to hear about why we CANNOT do this in a year or two; instead, I will only hear HOW we can make it happen -- concrete plans founded on research and info on HOW to do it. We have already begun the research and planning stage, with a year to three years as the window for making it a reality. It can be done. There is a way and we will find it -- period.

I was raised a military brat and I am familiar with traveling and moving from place to place. I've pulled up stakes and moved halfway across the US several times. Each time I planned, researched, and made it happen.

Colorado will always be our home base. That will NEVER change. However, I'm 51 and Paul T. Sninchak is 46. We have places we want to see. With my job, I'm able to work from anywhere with an Internet connection. We want to travel and see Maine, Upstate New York, Washington State, Oregon, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, New Orleans, and many others.

The best part is I'm newly approved to write travel articles for a German website (and they pay for them), so I'm building my article portfolio so I can earn income from our travels. I'll continue my existing writing and editing gigs, of course, but I can now add travel articles to my arsenal.

SO...all that said. The big thing NOW is that we need to find a place to move to for the beginning of 2016, first and foremost. Once we settle into a new place, Paul and I will spend the next year researching and planning for our upcoming RV adventures.

If you know of someone who has an RV they would like to sell, if you have resources we should check out (we are already aware of many), or if you have tips we should know about as we plan our FUTURE RV travels, comment here or e-mail me at scribequill@gmail.com.

And yes, the dogs will go with us on our travels. They are Emotional Support Animals (ESA) and with my PTSD and GAD, plus Paul's, wherever we go, they must go. wink emoticon

Tips, resource sharing (thanks for the Workkamp group suggestions, Chandra!), and anything you think might be helpful is appreciated. We already have several RV monthly budgeting websites/blogs we're checking out.

Bottom line: In order to make certain things a reality, you put it out there...and that's what we are doing NOW so we can manifest it within a year or two.