By Perri
An Easterly Flow
After an exciting month in California and a lovely stretch in the desert southwest, we packed up and headed east to Florida. We have family here, and after a wonderful multi-family birthday/Christmas extravaganza, we’ve stuck around to help out my folks as they move into a new place and cope with a new stage of life. How are we adjusting to “house-life”? We’re glad you asked!
House-Life
Cheap van-camping on Florida’s coast is a headache or challenge, depending on how you look at it. Last year we spent three months semi-successfully stealth camping here. Was it easy? No. Was it fun? Yes. No. Sort of…..?
So THIS year, we decided to put our feet (wheels?) down and settle for a while. We tried the short term rental website FurnishedFinder, a useful resource designed mostly for traveling health care workers, but found that we’d started waaay too late in the game. (One of these days, we WILL get better at long term planning….) Luckily, a very kind friend of a friend was willing to take us in during this hectic time. So we’ve temporarily moved into a house! For the next few months, we’re house-sharing in Dunedin, Florida.
What is it like to hang up the wheels and partake in modern luxuries such as a “real” bathroom (with shower and tub!), a kitchen, a bed, even a laundry room? Well. To be honest, it’s taken some getting used to.
A Few New Routines
Do we want new routines? Not really. But house living sort of demands them. No longer do we curl up in bed when the sun goes down. No longer do we rise with the dawn. In fact, we have to plan to catch a sunset, and have only managed a couple of them so far.
Also, there are so many things to buy here: grouper sandwiches, amazing Greek food, ice cream, live music and fancy drinks, food trucks, a gazillion microbreweries and festivals. We all-of-a-sudden “need” much more, and are spending way too much money getting it! This is especially true as we are paying “rent” for the first time in a long while. In short, creating healthy new routines has been more challenging than you’d think.
Stevan’s Spiffy New Systems
We are taking advantage of “house life” givens such as “shore power”, mail delivery and big box stores to make a few changes to our vanbuild. Dan replaced our broken ceiling fan motor soon after we arrived (Maxxair sent us a new and improved motor after the constant humidity of the Pacific Northwest wrecked our old one).
Then he affixed new solar panels to our deck, threading the power through a hole in the roof. Yes this was scary(!) But now, we have much more access to solar power. No longer do we have to stop, take out the panels, and tilt them toward the sun. All we need do is drive, and there it is!
Then Dan built a new cabinet for the random things that end up on the counter and bed each day of travel. This ones still in process! It’s been great to have a place to work on these things, and definitely easier with a Lowe’s close by.
Also, we visited an EZ Pull Junkyard and replaced the hubcap we lost in the Alabama Hills in November. It was so much fun to wander the rows and rows of vehicles, checking out the many Econoline vans. I’d never been to a junkyard before (Check that one off my bucket list!)
Pastimes New and Old
In our van life, great hiking was literally just outside our door. But in the Florida suburbs, we have to plan our “hikes” and they are mostly in small county parks or on the sidewalks. Same goes for hobbies such as rockhounding. There are some great fossil hunting spots in Florida, but they aren’t outside just waiting there our van doors. In fact, they’re sort of far away.
So while we’re here, we’re developing some new interests: I (Perri) am taking a pottery class at the local Fine Art Center with my brother.
And I volunteered to pull invasive plants at Weeki Wachee Springs State Park. It was great exercise and reminded me of my many battles with multiflora rose, Oriental bittersweet, and raspberry brambles back in our New England days. Can’t say those were especially happy experiences (darn bittersweet vines always won!), but I did enjoy the memories. I hope to do more volunteering while here, and am looking into other ways I can actively support the lands and parks we love when we head off again.
After a failed attempt to take up yoga last Spring, we’re starting up again. Now that we have a little more privacy and a consistent exercise space, it’s been going well! … um… relatively well. Milo is best at it. His “Downward Dog” is superb. As for Dan and I… well, at least when we’re in a house we aren’t anybody’s comic relief.
Mini-Adventures in Pinellas County
While in Dunedin, we’re making time for many mini adventures: traveling to new county parks and to parts of the area we’ve never seen. Truly, there are amazing places everywhere, and Florida (though I have a long and tumultuous history with this state) is no exception.
We bought some cheap bikes on Facebook Marketplace and are checking out local trails. And maybe we’ll take in some Spring Training games. Both the Blue Jays and Phillies train here in Pinellas County.
Quality Time
Best of all, we’ve been able to spend time with family, helping out in whatever way we can. One of the (few) downsides to van living is that we are often far away from our kids, our friends back home, our parents and siblings. But an unexpected bonus of this lifestyle has been quality time: the freedom to spend more than a rushed few holidays together.
Hitting Pause
Do we miss van living? Absolutely! We miss the kernal of wildness in our days and moving on a whim. We miss the daily planning and endless maps. We even miss the rough roads, pit toilets and laundromats (well, maybe not the pit toilets).
But rather than dwell on that, we’re focusing on our reasons for being here. We can adapt to our temporary “house life” and find adventure just the same.
Sounds like you are making the best of it! One thing about traveling all the time is that it makes it hard to do volunteer work. We have managed to do a little along the way but it is hit and miss. Your neighborhood looks great.