Greetings from the campground

I aimed to get off at 10am this morning. Believe it or not, I got off 2 minutes early! The day started with a 4-hour drive to pick up the van. For the sake of privacy and security, I’m going to be a little generic about locations until I’m far away from them. 🙂

The owner was very nice and gave me a quick rundown on how to do everything from turn on the hot water to emptying waste.

For those of you who (like me) are new to RV / camper van living, a rig typically contains 3 types of water:

• Fresh water (comes from a water hose, drinkable, what comes out of the sink and fills the potty)
• Grey water (this is what would come down the kitchen sink or the shower)
• Black water (this is what comes out the toilet)

I left my 4Runner on his property and started out. So long, sweet 4Runner, you weren’t invited on this trip!

On the road

After picking up the van, I did what any good road tripper does and immediately made a trip to Walmart. I picked up a few staples and then hit the road.

This van is ~20ft long and actually handles very easily. I was nervous about driving something this big, but the turn radius is decent and it really doesn’t feel like a behemoth.

That said, I didn’t get quite between the lines of the parking spot on my first try. I parked kinda far out in the lot so it didn’t matter.

I only had an hour on the road before I made it to the campground. I listened to a few episodes of Cocaine and Rhinestones podcast which was recommended to me after I tweeted this:

I'm looking for a new bingeable podcast. I love non-fiction + investigative journalism + mystery/true crime. For reference, I loved Missing in Alaska. Have any recs?

— carrie dils (@cdils) August 4, 2021

Settling in

It’s a good thing I’m in a big van because I brought a ton of stuff. I’m fully equipped with camping gear. I’ve also got linens, all my clothes, my travel-sized guitar, and my work satchel.

Once I got parked in my camping spot (backed in!), I shoved all of my belongings in various nooks and crannies. From day 1 I can say that there’s an art to organizing such a small space. I’ll probably re-organize multiple times over before I’ve found what’s optimal.

There’s always something

In my unpacking, I realized that I’d forgotten to bring one important item — my toiletries bag. I had a checklist for this trip and didn’t miss a single thing (except adding “toiletry bag” to the checklist).

Tomorrow’s agenda most definitely includes a trip to the store to stock up on tiny bottles of personal items.

Final notes

I upgraded my AT&T plan to include a mobile hotspot with unlimited data that supposedly won’t be throttled. Not sure I believe that.

Anyhow, I’m curious to see how working off a hotspot goes when I’m not around good wifi.

I’ve got my fire started, am about to fire up some hotdogs (what’s a first night of camping if not with a cased meat?), and get off my computer.

Thanks for stopping by for the update and talk soon.