Out of the dry western Colorado mountains, over the dark, rainy peaks of New Mexico painted with broad strokes of yellow aspens, days and days along the expansive fields of northern Texas, a quick stop in a hot, sticky, swampy state park in Mississippi where we camped under towering oaks that vibrated with cicadas and dripped with Spanish moss, then into an even hotter, stickier, swampier state park in Georgia with posted alligator warnings around an otherwise welcoming lake.
All the while, the van strained to tow us in record high October temps. Like a rag tag crew of space cowboys in our rundown ship, we puttered over 2000 miles fiddling with the controls to keep Big Red in flight. Turn the key, give it some gas to start, turn Over Drive off, engage the headlight knob, watch the temperature gauge, then the road, then the temperature as it creeps higher and higher, slam the heat lever to hot, roll down the windows, sweat it out, watch the temperature gauge, then the road, then the temperature as it settles down, slam the lever to cool. Drive, watch, wait, repeat.
All the while, the van strained to tow us in record high October temps. Like a rag tag crew of space cowboys in our rundown ship, we puttered over 2000 miles fiddling with the controls to keep Big Red in flight. Turn the key, give it some gas to start, turn Over Drive off, engage the headlight knob, watch the temperature gauge, then the road, then the temperature as it creeps higher and higher, slam the heat lever to hot, roll down the windows, sweat it out, watch the temperature gauge, then the road, then the temperature as it settles down, slam the lever to cool. Drive, watch, wait, repeat.
After 10 days, we crossed the Florida state line, and decided to spend the night at Manatee Springs State Park to go for a swim in the clear blue spring before heading to our job site for the winter. We unhitched at our campsite and stuck Annie in the air conditioned trailer before Kenny and I got back in the van to take a trip to the grocery store. Turn the key, give it some gas, and Big Red went thump, then jump, then rattle. We acknowledged our impending doom, me, stuck in a full-bodied wince afraid to breath and Kenny with saucer eyes, coughing off the hot stress-induced acid bubbling up into his throat. Through a silent agreement, and for lack of other options, we drank a beer, or two, that night, crossed our fingers and hoped we would make it the last 100 miles the following day.
And we did! Backing up a little bit, we decided to return to the RV park in central Florida that we worked at in winter 2015. The park has a some year-round residents, most of which live in “park models”, or more permanent trailer homes. Starting in mid-November, the rest of the RV sites are filled by the great migration of snowbirds; a flock of retirees in RVs who take off from the East Coast, Midwest, and Canada when winter starts to chill their bird bones. We were hired back as cooks, which can be really fun when people are happy, and really stressful when there’s an angry mob of 250 hungry beaks.
We did a good deal of thinking before accepting the position. The cons: 1) We were already signed up to work the sugar beet harvest and Amazon this winter. 2) We had this strange recollection that we had sworn off ever driving to Florida again because it’s really far away from everything, like the north end of the state is 500 miles from the south end. 3) We weren’t too excited about returning to a location we’d already stayed at for a season. 4) It’s Florida.
But then there were pros. 1) If we worked the beets and Amazon, we would only be employed from October through December and we didn’t know how to spend the remaining three months until our summer job. This way we would have a job and a place to live for the entire season. 2) We can do the drive to Florida one last time and then get tattoos reminding us to never drive here again. 3) We were brand new workamping and RVing babies when we were here the first time. In the last two years, we learned to make the most out of our living arrangement by living in our trailer during the workweek and exploring and living out of the van on the weekend. 4) Florida is not our ideal place, but there are plenty of places we didn’t see the last time we were here (the Dali Museum, Bok Tower, the Everglades) and things we want to see again (migrating manatees, the Bonnet House, riding the boat taxi on the intracoastal).
So we make it to Central Florida, pull into the RV resort, find a nice site, get settled, and see a leak, a puddle, an all-consuming deep vortex of transmission fluid under Big Red. Almost a year to the day since Big Red was stolen, we realize we might actually be saying goodbye to our bud. We’ve been here for a few weeks now. Because there aren’t many residents in the park yet, we don’t have enough events to have us working in the kitchen full time. So we offered to help on maintenance and housekeeping to keep us busy - if we can’t go anywhere, we might as well make money!
Our neighbors, who are year-round residents and know the area better than us, recommended a mechanic in town. Kenny dropped it off last week and now we know we need a new transmission sooner than later.
The park shares a fence with the Lake County Fairgrounds, which is pretty cool because every Thursday we can walk over to the flea/farmers market. I bought a $3 hat this week and Kenny and I shared a mango smoothie. But every other day of the week, from 7:30 am to 7:30 pm, dump trucks from across the county drive in to unload tree debris left behind from the hurricane - 150 yards away, but otherwise directly behind our trailer. The day begins with the warm Florida sun kissing our cheeks through an open sliver in the curtains, then a bulldozer squealing, slowly, back and forth, crushing a two-story pile of debris that runs the length of a football field. A seemingly futile and endless hell dance over branches, palm fronds, and tree trunks.
The three of us have been spending our off time going for walks down the highway sidewalk to town, which makes us look like aliens to the locals speeding by in their sports cars and SUVs. And when we stop by the grocery store on the way home, and Kenny runs in and I wait outside wearing my backpack and standing with my dog, people don’t make eye contact, because I’m a bum. But, I guess they may be right. When you make a habit of dropping into places you aren’t from and you don’t have a location you call home, you are a dictionary definition of an alien bum. It’s been a bit of an adjustment from hiking 30 miles a week in the Colorado mountains to walking in circles around the RV park and along a highway. We’re getting a little stir crazy, but hopeful we’ll get our van figured out and hit the beach soon.
And we did! Backing up a little bit, we decided to return to the RV park in central Florida that we worked at in winter 2015. The park has a some year-round residents, most of which live in “park models”, or more permanent trailer homes. Starting in mid-November, the rest of the RV sites are filled by the great migration of snowbirds; a flock of retirees in RVs who take off from the East Coast, Midwest, and Canada when winter starts to chill their bird bones. We were hired back as cooks, which can be really fun when people are happy, and really stressful when there’s an angry mob of 250 hungry beaks.
We did a good deal of thinking before accepting the position. The cons: 1) We were already signed up to work the sugar beet harvest and Amazon this winter. 2) We had this strange recollection that we had sworn off ever driving to Florida again because it’s really far away from everything, like the north end of the state is 500 miles from the south end. 3) We weren’t too excited about returning to a location we’d already stayed at for a season. 4) It’s Florida.
But then there were pros. 1) If we worked the beets and Amazon, we would only be employed from October through December and we didn’t know how to spend the remaining three months until our summer job. This way we would have a job and a place to live for the entire season. 2) We can do the drive to Florida one last time and then get tattoos reminding us to never drive here again. 3) We were brand new workamping and RVing babies when we were here the first time. In the last two years, we learned to make the most out of our living arrangement by living in our trailer during the workweek and exploring and living out of the van on the weekend. 4) Florida is not our ideal place, but there are plenty of places we didn’t see the last time we were here (the Dali Museum, Bok Tower, the Everglades) and things we want to see again (migrating manatees, the Bonnet House, riding the boat taxi on the intracoastal).
So we make it to Central Florida, pull into the RV resort, find a nice site, get settled, and see a leak, a puddle, an all-consuming deep vortex of transmission fluid under Big Red. Almost a year to the day since Big Red was stolen, we realize we might actually be saying goodbye to our bud. We’ve been here for a few weeks now. Because there aren’t many residents in the park yet, we don’t have enough events to have us working in the kitchen full time. So we offered to help on maintenance and housekeeping to keep us busy - if we can’t go anywhere, we might as well make money!
Our neighbors, who are year-round residents and know the area better than us, recommended a mechanic in town. Kenny dropped it off last week and now we know we need a new transmission sooner than later.
The park shares a fence with the Lake County Fairgrounds, which is pretty cool because every Thursday we can walk over to the flea/farmers market. I bought a $3 hat this week and Kenny and I shared a mango smoothie. But every other day of the week, from 7:30 am to 7:30 pm, dump trucks from across the county drive in to unload tree debris left behind from the hurricane - 150 yards away, but otherwise directly behind our trailer. The day begins with the warm Florida sun kissing our cheeks through an open sliver in the curtains, then a bulldozer squealing, slowly, back and forth, crushing a two-story pile of debris that runs the length of a football field. A seemingly futile and endless hell dance over branches, palm fronds, and tree trunks.
The three of us have been spending our off time going for walks down the highway sidewalk to town, which makes us look like aliens to the locals speeding by in their sports cars and SUVs. And when we stop by the grocery store on the way home, and Kenny runs in and I wait outside wearing my backpack and standing with my dog, people don’t make eye contact, because I’m a bum. But, I guess they may be right. When you make a habit of dropping into places you aren’t from and you don’t have a location you call home, you are a dictionary definition of an alien bum. It’s been a bit of an adjustment from hiking 30 miles a week in the Colorado mountains to walking in circles around the RV park and along a highway. We’re getting a little stir crazy, but hopeful we’ll get our van figured out and hit the beach soon.
We also ran out of phone data at the start of the month, which we usually do when we’ve been traveling and researching for places to stay for the night. We decided not to increase our plan and just wait for it to reset. So we’ve been reading BOOKS and it’s been pretty nice. We also threw down for a nice TV antennae for our 6” flatscreen, which is twice the size of the TV, but picks up a bunch of network channels so we don’t have to read all the time, and that’s nice too.
Things aren’t that dire. We have a good spot, a job, and a lot of places to explore once we get a vehicle. We have great neighbors who have been incredibly helpful in dealing with our van troubles. Annie is having a wonderful time with our neighbor Max, a 10-year-old Jack Russell terrier who thinks Annie is really big and annoying. Now to decide if we get a new transmission or a new tow vehicle.
Things aren’t that dire. We have a good spot, a job, and a lot of places to explore once we get a vehicle. We have great neighbors who have been incredibly helpful in dealing with our van troubles. Annie is having a wonderful time with our neighbor Max, a 10-year-old Jack Russell terrier who thinks Annie is really big and annoying. Now to decide if we get a new transmission or a new tow vehicle.