Dear Tiny Diary:
As I sit here warm and toasty inside The Tiny, with the morning sun streaming in on me and the dog, I can see through the side window today’s cold hurricane-like winds giving my Clam Pavilion (a large tent-like structure) quite a workout. In retrospect, the high desert of California is not a good place to be at this time of year, at least not with a set up like mine. If I was in a 40-ft. class A motorhome, I could just hunker down, stay inside, crank up some tunes, and enjoy myself. For me in my current situation, all things considered, I’d rather not, thank you very much. But sweet spring and glorious autumn are just the right times for this piece of paradise.
I’m relatively new to full-time travel (just six months on the road) and I’m learning the ropes. It seems l need to learn most of what I need to know from personal experience, and that’s what I’m doing now.
I came to this part of the country to be with family for the holidays. I’m lucky to have family. But now I’m thinking that this lifestyle is not compatible with the holiday calendar. Most likely the winter holidays were invented to create some cheer during cold and miserable weather. I don’t adhere to any religion, so there is no religious meaning for me in these holidays at this time of year.
My goal for next year is to be a snowbird and land in Florida for the wintertime. Looking at the weather reports in Orlando, for instance, I see there is nearly no wind and the days hover around 70 degrees. That’s what RV people call this lifestyle: Chasing 70. The idea is to use those wheels underneath my home to move where the conditions are favorable.
I’ve heard of snowbirds before. They are the retired folks who drive their big motorhomes from the northern states to the southern states to escape harsh, frigid winters. I’ve always considered that term with derision, like many of us do. Unlike societies in the past, we do not generally revere mature people for their experience and wisdom, nor do we thank them for their years of work and contribution to society. In a youth-obsessed society, we dismiss older folks and assign them very little value. So when I heard the term snowbird, it had a negative connotation.
However, now that I’m of an age, and living in a tiny trailer (though definitely not retired), I have seen the light. I see the wisdom of moving one’s home (if one is lucky enough to have a home on wheels) to a part of the country in each season where the weather is hospitable to the outdoor life. If one lives in a brick-and-mortar home (or “sticks and bricks” as the RVers refer to them), you can compensate for any weather with good insulation, storm windows, furnaces, thick curtains, roaring fire in the fireplace, or, alternately, with a whole-house air conditioner, awnings, big leafy trees, a swimming pool out back, and so on.
Living in The Tiny, I do have some of those amenities, especially good insulation, dual-pane windows, and an amazing heater and AC system. But I’m never more than a few feet from the weather outside. And I want to go outside. I want to be outside. That is part of this whole gig. To be with nature, not to be hunkered down inside. (Though I am making the best of it, eating my scrumptious lunch, drinking string Cafe Bustelo coffee with whole milk, listening to Enya’s latest album, Dark Sky Island, on my 42″ Vizio sound bar with woofer and satellite speaker. Ahhh.
As I wait for this latest wind event to ebb (it may have peaked at about 26 mph with gusts up to 40 mph, and it should be over in a few hours) and as I watch my amazing Clam Pavilion take on this onslaught of weather, I’m going to spend some time today planning how to position myself for the coming year. It seems it’s too late in the season for me to make the 2,500-mile drive to Florida. And the many Florida campgrounds in my Thousand Trails membership get reserved quickly for the winter months, so that would limit my choices. Snowbirding is a strategy best planned in advance.
And I won’t call a friend as I did early in this journey when I was less balanced and say: “I can’t do this!” To which he would answer: “What do you mean you can’t do it? You are doing it.” Oh, snap.
But next year I’m going to do it differently. It looks like the Clam and I and the dog and the T@B will all survive this wind event. We are learning how to do this thing. We couldn’t be expected to know everything from the beginning. And thank goodness for that, or there would be no beginning. The most important thing for me is that I got started on this journey. I hitched up and hit the road. When things got tough or overwhelming, I persisted. I wanted to see what I’m made of, and I’m finding out. I can refine my gear and behavior and timing and locations as I go along. But I did get going. I’m doing it. I’m putting my foot in it. That’s huge. And it will be even more huge when I’m in Florida for next winter, chasing 70.
See ya there?