The Star Trek transporter beamed up my hobbit hole

Good afternoon all,

On this sweet, lazy, (Though the term lazy is a bit unfair seeing as the forecasted temp is 112F. It takes all my energy just to sweat.) Saturday, I thought I'd describe in lurid detail some of the pros, cons, challenges and delights of living as we do in our 1983 Viscount Aero Lite Caravan.

Firstly, this is mine and my husband's first caravan (or camper for those of you in the US.) We do not have years of experience which would make this stuff old-hat. We have been living solely in the caravan--ie, not just taking it for holiday trips--since the last week of January. Since then we've lived primarily in three different caravan parks on six separate sites. To get your mind around this, imagine that every week or so you had to decide where to live, how to cook your meals, and how to construct your front porch.  And those decisions are based on whether there are trees nearby, where the toilets and showers and laundry are, and whether the plot of ground is covered with grass or a cement pad (or in one special circumstance, a 4-inch-deep grass plot covering a cement pad. This made bugs and dirt prevalent while tent pegging impossible.  The purest of lose/lose situations.)

We live like non-panicked refugees. It's gypsy-like without the stealing of babies. There is intrigue, and romance of the open road, and the meeting of bizzarre and mostly-friendly characters. And if the characters are not friendly, you can move and take your house with you. There is, however, not much romance in killing ant colonies you find in your underwear cabinet (no lie; they were not in the food, just my clothes) or connecting the "waste water hose" under your house after dark. Nor is there much loveliness in the necessity of getting dressed every time you have to go to the toilet EVEN in the middle of the night.  And this toilet smells like the OLD basement of New Hope church of Christ....Beware--long digression...I'm talking about the prior-to-remodeling basement with green windows and the scary stairs that no one under 25 years of age would remember.  It had this particular smell. It smelled as if, taking on the values taught within its walls, the Pine-Sol and the mold became friends and lived in harmony with the glue sticks and decomposing felt boards. That's what these bathrooms smell like. On the up side, not having to ever clean this bathroom is a definite bonus.  If we had our own house, we'd have to clean the bathroom no matter what it smelled like.

Laundry is also difficult for two reasons. 1) It's in a separate building from our home, and 2) There are no downy balls here. They HAVE fabric softener, but mostly front-loader machines with softener trays which do not exist at this trailer park! And since it's face-melting hot, no one uses dryers, therefore, they do not use dryer sheets except in the two weeks of winter occurring in July.  Basically, it's good that I love to read because the pay-wahers and I catch up on nineteenth century literature while I wait for the rinse cycle. And I wish I could draw you a diagram of how we have to stack our pots and pans and plates in our play-skool-like cabinets. I will attempt to describe it, and this might let you in on why it could take up to three hours to cook dinner.

Our cabinets have a 6" tall by 10" wide opening, covered with a latching door. This is GREAT for when we're mobile as it stops the dishes from plummeting to the floor. This is not great for easy access.  And they're bigger on the inside--which is also great for storage, bad for removal. For instance, pots A-G will all fit inside the cabinet.  A,B, and C nest within one another, with pot D on top upside down to accomodate its long handle. (I know I'm a newly-wed, but don't think this is all innuendo :)  )  Pots E and F fit to the right of the first pots, but must go in before A-D because they take up more room. E and F, however, cannot go in until steamer basket G is inserted into pot E. So, say I want to use pots B and E. I must first remove pot D and place it right-side-up on the dining table. Then I carefully take out the whole set of A-C, extract B, place on stove. Then I place A and C on the table inside D. I take out pots E and F, remove G, extract E. Place F back in the cabinet with G inside, followed by A inside C, covered with D. I close the cabinet.  That's just two pans.

If we need to use more, more complex maneuvers are required. And heaven forbid we must use the same pot twice during preparation--as sometimes we do because we're travelling with very few duplicates. That means moving ALL preparation off of the side of the sink to on top of the stove, pulling down the dish drainer, and first pumping water then boiling it in the kettle which rests between the table and the window on top of the plastic container. Get the idea?

Believe me, it's an experience.  My husband and I have had major disagreements on the placement of aluminum foil because one jumbo roll can take up 1/8 of our available storage.  It would be like the arguments that some of the rest of you have about putting big-screen plasma TVs in efficiency apartments; or a singing Billy Bass in, well, anywhere within 80 miles of your home. But AS a newly-wed I can't complain too much about getting to be within three feet of my beloved at all times. If he's on the computer and I'm cooking dinner, we can still hold hands! And with him, I will get to see more of the world from this tiny portal than I ever imagined possible. It's like a hobbit hole meeting the Star Trek transporter beam.  I love it. You should probably be jealous. And mail me a downy ball.