I Need A Minute To Rant About Camper Life
Make That Two Or Three Minutes
By Grace K. Bianco
I will enjoy every phase of life with him as much as I can.
Okay, living in a camper isn’t THAT bad, but lately, the tiny inconveniences have been really getting under my skin. A lot of you seem to like to hear about the not-so-pretty moments of my life, and so, I decided… Why not just vent to all of my online friends?
To catch some of my new friends up, my husband is a Radiation Protection Technician. It’s a job that requires travel and long hours. My husband works in the fall and spring, but this year, he will be working through the winter as well.
We have a nice little home in South Carolina, but my husband has been doing a lot of his work in TN. I prefer to travel with him, and visit our home and family here and there. I am just a housewife and a writer. So, it’s easy for me to move around.
If you haven’t already, please read, “Just A Girl Currently Living With Four Men : Next week, there could be more or less,” to really get a feel for our living arrangements. That blog + “I’m Married, But I Live Alone” were our last straws with our random living situations. So, that’s when we got the brilliant idea to buy a camper. For more on that story, you can read,“The Girl Who Doesn’t Have To Live With Four Men Anymore: Onto A Camper’s Life.”
Here are my top three most annoying inconveniences. Warning : I am slightly dramatic, and I promise to positively wrap it all up at the end.
My “struggles” will be listed from most annoying to a little annoying.
1. NO WiFi
As a passionate writer who just gained around two hundred followers in two weeks, the lack of WiFi has been a real struggle. I write three blogs a week (NO EXCEPTIONS), and I respond to EVERY single comment. I am not complaining about what I do (that’s the part that keeps me sane)… I am complaining about my lack of a means to be able to do it.
“A writer without WiFi is like a doctor without patients.” — Taken from my blog: “Just A Girl Currently Living with Four Men: Next week, there could be more or less.”
How do I work around this?
I truly believe that God makes sure I am always able to write even if it’s not the most convenient. I know this, because our campground is only a few minutes away from a library with free access to WiFi inside and outside in the parking lot. (I am currently typing this in my car.) We live AT LEAST twenty minutes from everywhere else I like to go (Walmart, shopping centers, and coffee shops), BUT the library is less than ten minutes away from us.
If I have a sudden amount of comments that I don’t want to put off or if I promised someone to look at their blogs, I will get my husband to turn his hotspot on. Unfortunately, my hotspot doesn’t work.
With this slight inconvenience, I have to be better with time management, and get over the fact that WiFi isn’t always accessible. On the bright side, it’s a good excuse to get out of the camper.
2. Water Heater Problems
When I first stayed with my husband in our camper, I took a lukewarm/mostly cold shower. The second shower had hardly any water pressure. Then, it got a little better; however, it kept turning itself off every time it got too hot. So, you had to turn on the water heater and wait over an hour to let it heat up every single time.
That was a little annoying, but then, it started messing up again. Instead of taking a shower in the morning, I would have to wait for my husband to get off work to randomly mess with things to see if he could get it to work again. My husband finally figured out that if you released a little bit of water from the pump it would be able to heat up.
That worked for a few days, and then, it became a hit or miss. Sometimes, letting out water worked, and sometimes, it just didn’t.
My husband spent most of his day off this past weekend trying to fix it, and we believe he did. We can leave the water heater on without it turning itself off. It actually heats up the water like it is supposed. I am knocking frantically on wood while saying all of this. I REALLY hope it keeps working.
I just love my hot showers, and I hate dirty dishes piling up in the sink. It makes me appreciate our shower back home with its never ending supply of hot water. I used to think our sink that took over five minutes to heat up was annoying… Trust me, I will never take hot water for granted again.
3. Cooking in a TINY Kitchen
This one really isn’t that bad. It just took some getting used to. Back home, we have a nice big kitchen. It has a big oven and tons of counter space. We have a big fridge and a nice microwave.
On the other hand, our camper’s kitchen and appliances aren’t so big. You can barely fit anything into the oven. There’s hardly any room to cook on. The sink is tiny, and dirty or clean dishes are like a puzzle to put in. Our fridge/freezer isn’t a mini fridge, but it’s like half the size of the one we have at home. If we cook something in the microwave for too long, our breaker trips.
I am not the neatest cook. I like my ingredients all spread out. I cook fast, and make messes. I have really had to change my ways to adapt to our small camper.
It’s a kitchen that gets the job done, and for that, I am thankful. I am just not 100% used to it.
My Positive Ending
As promised, I am going to end this on a positive note. We have it really good compared to so many other people. We thank God all of the time for our camper. We have had to deal with so many annoying landlords and roommates in our past. It was also such a pain to find housing. Our camper really was the best solution ever.
We do laundry in our friend’s camper. My husband is handy, and can fix everything. There’s always a solution to every problem. They aren’t always easy to find, but we always figure it out.
I really am so thankful and love being able to have a little home away from home. This blog was just a quick rant, because the problems do pile up and become overwhelming at times. HOWEVER, I don’t want anyone to think that I take this blessing for granted.
This is our adventure right now. It won’t be like this forever. One day, my husband will get hired at a nuclear plant, and we will have just one home. I will enjoy every phase of life with him as much as I can. No matter what that may look like.
*Taken from Canva
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