The Sandcastle

I spend a lot of my time alone. Part of that is because I have social anxiety. Joining people in any event can quite literally make me sick. Yes, I have medicine I can take for that but it is addictive so I don’t like to take it too often. But, I do need to be around people sometimes.

Like Thanksgiving day. I took a couple pills and joined the van dwellers group for Thanksgiving dinner:

I hugged some old friends and enjoyed meeting some new ones.

Then I moved off into the desert on my own for two days to recharge for the next event.

 

These people are part of my Escapee’s family. As many of us who can make it gather in the desert every January to catch up with one another. Sometimes our paths cross other times of the year and we meet along the way. This group all happened to be in the same place on December 1st so I drove a couple hours to join them for a meal.

Then I retreated to the desert once again.

My next planned gathering is in a couple of weeks when my daughter is hoping to come help me do some chores. She wants to learn more about RVing in the desert and I am thrilled to have her cook for me. Hopefully, I will have a freezer full of food when she leaves which should help with my energy crises.

Then there will be the January gatherings. I have several groups I can join during a couple of weeks then if my body will let me do so. If you are among those groups and you see me staying inside instead of coming out to party, please, understand: It is me; not you.

TTYL,

Linda

 

I am having a personal energy crises. Let me give you an example.

I am parked in the desert with no hookups. I want to take a shower. I need to strip my bed so I can convert it to a couch so I can see under it to my fresh water tank to be sure it has enough water in it that my water heater will not run out before I finish my shower. Then I need to turn on my inverter to power my water heater for ten minutes which is enough warmth for me to take a shower. Then I need to set my timer for ten minutes to remind me to turn off the water heater so it doesn’t run down my batteries. During that ten minutes, I need to remove everything from my bathroom that I don’t want to get wet because my shower is the entire bathroom. Then I need to remember to close the waterproof curtain over my window so I don’t soak the day/night shade in it. Then I need to get out my clean clothes to have ready to put on because I will be too tired to do that once I wash myself. Now I can actually take my shower, while mostly sitting on the toilet because there is not a lot of room in there which, at least, gives me some recovery time from all that prep. Then I have 2 1/2 gallons of warm enough water to wash in. So I wet my hair and body, turn off the water, wash my hair and body, turn on the water and rinse as well as I can before running out of warm enough water. Then I have to dry the entire bathroom because I sprayed water everywhere. I must also clean the toilet because if I forget to dry it I will get wet the next time I sit down on it. And I need to wrap a towel around the shower head because it will continue to drain for some unknown amount of time which means it will drip on me the next time I enter the bathroom.  Once dressed and combed I need to check my shower drain to be sure all the water went down because if it didn’t I need to drive to the dump to empty my gray water tank. But first, I need to put back everything I took out of the bathroom–like the extra toilet paper.

And that’s not even taking into consideration how many times I have to unload then reload the Scoot to buy groceries because the odds of me getting to park in the only spot within walking distance of the grocery store for me in which my over-sized vehicle will fit is not good. And my Scoot doesn’t hold a lot of groceries so I have to make more trips if I can’t park close enough to use a store cart.

And doing laundry? By the time I park as close as I can, haul everything, in, do the actual wash, haul everything back, and put away only those clothes that will wrinkle right away if I don’t I am exhausted.

Part of that is because I am neither eating nor sleeping well. And I’m paying for both of those by being tired.

You tired yet? Me, too. And those are just a few examples of taking care of myself out here. I miss being able to stand under warm running water in the shower at the apartment. I miss not having to think about if the shower will back up while I’m still in it. I miss being able to have groceries delivered. I miss having a washer and dryer right in our apartment.

And I miss so many things about sharing my life with Dave.

If I was healthy enough to be able to walk long distances I could go use campground showers. And buying groceries and doing laundry wouldn’t be so tiring. But I’m not healthy and I appear to be getting weaker. I even had to ask for help getting the cover off a dump the other day.

It is still November and I’m ready to go home.

Anyone want to make a good offer on a fabulous RV?

TTYL,

Linda

It’s been raining in the desert southwest for several days now. Lots of my RVing friends are somewhere around here and many of us are not happy with this weather. I didn’t realize how much I was thinking about this until I suddenly found myself singing the 1963 Allen Sherman song:

Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh.
Here I am at Camp Granada.
Camp is very entertaining.
And they say we’ll have some fun if it stops raining.

I was surprised to discover how many of the words to that song I actually remember.

I think it may be done raining for a bit now. I certainly hope so because I have errands to run.

TTYL,

Linda

Nothing to report. Sitting in the desert bundled up in my sweats watching it rain.

Made me think about a story my Mom tells about one of my brothers. She’d be dong something when she’d hear, “Mom?”

“What?” she’d reply.

“Nothing,” he’d say.

She said she figured he was just checking to be sure she was still there.

So, in case you were wondering, I’m still here. Doing nothing.

TTYL,

Linda

I grew up with a brother who sometimes wanted to tell me things I didn’t want to hear. In a sing-songy voice I would declare, “I’m not listening.” I could hear that tone of voice today.

I was driving west on I-10 towards Quartzsite when I saw the sign reminding me there is a shortcut route to Parker–my ultimate destination. Thinking quickly I realized it had not been long enough since breakfast to be hungry for lunch so my primary reason for going through Quartzsite had ceased to exist. If I was ever going to check out this shortcut, today could be the day.

So I took the off ramp at Wickenburg where the sign said, “to AZ 72.” And discovered there was a large pull off area right beside the ramp. The perfect place to tell my GPS I had changed my mind about my next destination. I now wanted to go directly to Parker.

And Jack, the voice in my GPS, apparently thought, “Fine. I’ll take her to Parker. By way of Quartzsite!”

Because his next command was to turn left then right which would have put me right back on I-10.

So I thought, “I’m not listening,” and turned right.

Then I came to a roundabout. Jack said go 3/4 the way around and take Hwy 60 back to I-10.

So I ignored him again and went only half way around to continue on my way towards AZ 72.

When I got to 72 Jack wanted me to turn right since that was now the shortest way back to I-10. But Parker was to the left so again thinking to myself, “I’m not listening,” I turned left.

Eventually, I came to the intersection of AZ 72 and AZ 95. AZ 95 is the route I usually take between Quartzsite and Parker. I almost expected Jack to tell me to turn left back towards I-10. But, he didn’t. He finally acknowledged me as boss and let me continue on to Parker.

BTW, the shortcut is probably not the best route to take so maybe Jack was right after all. Don’t tell my brother, OK?

TTYL,

Linda