It's All Fun and Games Until the Meth Heads Show Up - Laundry Day

When I lived in my apartment, laundry was no big deal. I walked a few yards from my bedroom to the laundry closet and did load after load easily. I actually really like folding clothes too. Turn on the TV and fold, fold, fold. Very nice. Living in a trailer park however, I'm back to carrying my clothes in laundry bag over to the laundry facility (luckily this is on-site and I don't have to drive somewhere to do laundry) and washing all my clothes in one load to save time and quarters - just like the good old days back in the dorm.
At the trailer park, the laundry facility, workout room, rec room, and "library" are all connected. Yeah, library. More on that later. When you walk in, you're in the laundry room. It's got one wall of washers, one wall of dryers, and two 8ft plastic tables pushed together in the middle. Sometimes there are chairs to sit on! Passed that is the workout room, which in all honesty, is better than the one at my old apartment. Further back from there is the library and vending machines. Off to the left of that is the rec room that's only open whenever I'm not there to see it. Thursday is ladies card game night. I haven't yet attended.
The first time I did my laundry, I went on a Tuesday evening. I had finally run out of clothes. I had been putting off going to the laundry facility as long as possible. It seemed like a big 'ol boring time. Plus, clothes don't really get that dirty, right? You can wear things more than once, right?

It being a Tuesday, I figured it would be deserted since most people do their laundry on the weekends. I was looking forward to some peace and quiet as I watched TV shows on my laptop with ear buds in and waited on my clothes to wash. I don't know about you, but where (and when) I come from, ear buds in your ears mean you aren't open to having a conversation. However, in Shady Grove, that rule does not exist. When I get to the laundry room, I get my clothes going in the washer and sit down with my laptop. There are two other people doing their clothes, but one guy has his in the dryer already. He'll be gone soon. The other person was a cute little old lady (retirement village, told ya.) who was sitting and waiting on her clothes to wash too. So I sign in to Hulu after the precursory stay-away-and-don't-talk-to-me half smile to my neighbors and settle in for some Sleepy Hollow and Big Bang Theory catching up. It's easy to avoid eye contact when you have a 17 inch screen in your face, but the chairs are not comfortable, and the machines take forever to wash your clothes. I had to get up a few times to stretch my legs, and every time someone would say something to me. I'm not an unfriendly person, but I don't really feel in my comfort zone at zero dark thirty in a new place with strangers around me. Though the man now folding his tighty whities seemed safe enough, I just felt out of place talking to him about the weather. Finally, I put my clothes in the dryer. The lady was getting her clothes out of the dryer, and the man had left. While starting my clothes in the dryer, the lady strikes up a conversation with me about what I do for a living. At the time, I was working at a horse riding center for children and adults with special needs. Turns out her granddaughter has a disability, so she was very interested in learning more. It was a nice conversation. But she soon left. Finally, I was alone with the sound of a dryer in the background and that Ichabod Crane character in my ears.

You're welcome.

Since the dryers are old, it takes two cycles to actually dry your clothes in one. I was in the laundry facility really late. The cool thing about the laundry facility is that the door automatically locks, and you have to be a resident to get the code to open the door. What's not cool is that when I walk up to the laundry facility, I usually find the door like this:

I guess the old lady left the door open when she left, or the next guests were actually residents. In any case, I'm pretty sure they were high on meth. The girl had the greasy, two-toned hair of someone who stopped caring about life, was in Spongebob pajama pants and an oversized hoodie. Her companion was a guy in sweat pants, Carhart jacket, and house slippers. They came in and looked at the washers, went to the vending machines, came back and looked at the washers some more. Since I had my ear buds in, I couldn't hear much of their conversation, but then my dryer quit and I started folding clothes with my laptop off. Turns out, THEY HAD NO IDEA HOW TO WORK THE WASHING MACHINE. This couple was in their 20s, my guess is living alone there at the trailer park, and couldn't figure out that you put the quarters in here, the water comes out there, and you need some detergent in the mix at some point. How they made it through life to that point is astounding, though when I think back, it's pretty easy to guess that maybe they never washed their clothes. Ever.
They left after finally seeing how to work the machines, presumably to get some clothes to put in them, and I soon left with my very full laundry bag of clean clothes. My RV isn't too far away from the laundry/rec/work out room/library, so I didn't have too long to think about what might jump out at me in the darkness. Meth heads in pajamas are the things of nightmares in a trailer park. But I had survived to tell the tale!
The next time I did laundry there, I went in the day time.

May you always be able to avoid conversations with strangers or at least leave before the idiots arrive,
Ray

Shower Time

In an RV (or at least in mine), the hot water doesn't come on automatically. You have to flip a switch that tells the propane to heat up the water. It takes a little while for this to happen, and not a lot of water gets heated at once. When I was moving into my RV, my future in-laws warned me that my showers would need to be much shorter. Fran, my future mother-in-law recommended shaving at a separate time than when I actually showered. In my head, I was thinking, "Oh ok. So a 10 minute shower? I can do that...if I have to."
You see, I enjoy showers, and baths sometimes, very, very much. The hotter and longer, the better. I also like the air around the shower and in the bathroom to be warm so I don't freeze when I get out and dry off. Basically, I like to stay very warm in and out of the shower. In the RV, things get a little tricky.
The first time I try to shower in my new abode, I shaved in the sink first. I figured I'd be using less warm water for that than I would in the shower, so I'd be fine. Leg shaving goes well. The water was barely running, and it stayed warm the whole time. So then I turn the water on in the shower, let it get warm, and get in. It's nice at first. Perfect temperature, nice and steamy. I shampoo my hair, then put conditioner in and lather up my body. In the middle of using my little puff ball thing to dispense my body wash, I feel the water temperature start to lower. And lower. And lower. Suddenly, it goes ice cold. Literally. It's December, and the water comes from OUTSIDE.
I quickly turn it off, freezing to death with conditioner in my hair and soap all over my body. I can't very well stand there all soapy until it heats enough water for me to rinse off, so I turn the water on to the tub faucet. In my head, I just repeat over and over, "This is for Ross. This is for our wedding." I get down on my knees and put my hair under the cold cold cold cold water. That part wasn't too bad, except that my hands got cold. But I'm still covered in body wash. If you can understand how much I hate being cold, and how much I hate being cold inside my own home, you might appreciate the fact that I didn't actually cry out as I cupped my hands under the freezing water and splashed myself with it. It was reminiscent of the self-flagellation of the uber-pious monk in The Da Vinci Code. Not a good experience.

The second time I tried to shower, I thought I had learned a thing or two. I got some advice from the Wunders about how to really take a shower and not want to die at the end of it. Turns out, you can't keep the water running the entire time. So, I turn the water on, wet my body and hair, and turn the water off. I shampoo my hair, turn the water on and rinse, and then turn the water off. Then, I condition my hair and soap up my body, and turn the water back on to rinse. It's getting colder though and turns to the temperature of a penguin aquarium before I can get all the soap off of myself. Once again, I'm left feeling like I may weep from the cold and contemplating how long a person can go without bathing. I didn't even try to shave. "This is for Ross. This is for our wedding."

Finally, I have discovered how to properly clean oneself in an RV. It's actually called a bower and is a combination of a bath and shower. First, you must let the water heat for 30 minutes or more before you even try to use it. It also helps if you have a little space heater that you can use to heat the air in the bathroom. After the water heats, turn the faucet on and fill up the bath tub as much as you can with water that you (I) think is warm enough to bathe in. This usually ends up being about 2 inches of water before the water temperature starts to fall. Climb on in. The tub is small, the water is shallow, but hey, it's an adventure, right? Get a cup. Using the cup, wet your hair and body with bath tub water, and shampoo. Then, use the cup again to rinse out the shampoo. Put conditioner in your hair and stand up to bathe. It is best to do all of this as slowly as possible. After you bathe, turn on the faucet and let it get warm again, which it should, since you've been moving very slowly to give it time to heat up. Turn on the shower and rinse off completely. Then step out into the warm space-heater-heated air, clean and not wishing for death.

It is no longer a gauntlet to clean myself, though I do only shave when I visit Ross on the weekends. That may be gross in a few weeks when it warms up and I can wear shorts outside. I may go back to shaving in the sink. But I'll never shave before my bower. That's just asking for it.

May your water always be warm,

Ray

Move in Day (Night)

When it was time for me to bring my new home to its new home, my future in-laws, Ross, and I headed to their cabin property in east Texas to hook that bad boy up and roll it back north to Shady Grove. As I said before, I had never set foot in a RV. My family vacations typically revolved around hotel pools and cute antique shops, not rolling cross country in a house on wheels. I was pretty excited to check out my new "efficiency apartment." Anyone who has ever lived on or visited a farm knows that there is always work to be done, so before I could scope out my new digs, we had to do some work around the property. All day Saturday, the Wunders and I cleared fallen limbs, mowed the grass, mended fences, etc, so it wasn't until Sunday, the day we were leaving with the trailer that I actually got to go inside it.

First impression: small. Second impression: totally do-able. I do like adventure after all, and living in this small quasi-house, I was sure would make me an even stronger person... or at least give me some stories to tell. In the very least, I knew it would be an experience. While I started cleaning up my new place (it had been sitting, parked under an awning for months), the Wunders were still doing some maintenance around the cabin. With just me in the space, it seemed nicely sized. I got it all spick and span and free of mice nests in the oven (like I said, it was sitting in the country for months. All sanitized now though. We're good.), and I surveyed where I'd be living for the better part of a year.

When you first step into the RV, you're in the foyer. There is a closet to the left and the kitchen counter to your right. Take a step forward, and you're in the living room. There is a couch on the left that turns into a bed (for all the guests I can supposedly fit in it), and to the right is a "hallway" to the kitchen and dining area. Passed the kitchen is the bathroom, and passed the bathroom is the bedroom. I have a diner style booth, an oven, a microwave, a fridge and freezer combo, a shower and bath tub, and a full sized bed. All the things a girl needs. Even without the necessary closet space and dish washer, it's a pretty nice place. Interesting color scheme throughout, but hey, just because the leaf-patterned wallpaper and blue carpet doesn't particularly reflect my personality, it doesn't mean that I can't make it my own. I was feeling pretty good about my new home.

Because of all the work we still had to do around the cabin, it was very late when we left with the RV in-tow. Very late. Past midnight late. The cabin is about 2 hours from Shady Grove, so by the time we get there, it's obviously dark, in the middle of "mandatory quiet time," and we're all exhausted. When we find my RV parking spot, or my new address, Ross tries to direct his dad, Bob, into the space. The RV spaces are very close together, and the spaces aren't very big. Like I said, it's dark, it's late, we're tired. Bob and Ross try, and try, and try, to back the RV into the spot without going over into the surrounding grass, hitting the small trees that are planted there, and get the outlets on the trailer close enough to the lighthouse looking box that we need to hook it into to have electricity. Bob would start to back up, Ross would tell him to correct it somehow, Bob would over-correct or under-correct or not even see or hear Ross, and then pull forward and start all over again. And over and over again. It would've been comical had there not been a lot of cursing. Actually, it was still comical to my future mother-in-law, Fran, and I. It looked something like this:

Finally, we (meaning Bob and Ross, I was merely a bystander) got the RV in the space and hooked up to electricity. However, the furnace on the RV was broken. That means, that there was no heat in the RV. It was December. We also didn't have the right water hoses to have running water. Without the furnace, we also couldn't have hot water. None of that really worked for me, so it was decided that I would spend the night at the Wunder's and get everything fixed later. We prepare to leave the RV park and Bob tries to show me how to lock the doors to the RV. There are two doors. They are on the same side of the RV, but one goes directly to the bedroom, and it's closer to the front of the RV. The other goes into the foyer area and is at the back. I won't be using the door to the bedroom, so it will stay locked. Both doors have two locks. Each door has its own key that works both locks. One lock on the door actually locks the door and the other lock locks the handle from opening. Don't ask me why this is necessary, and don't ask Bob that either at 3 o'clock in the morning. It's not a good idea. Anyway, we're all so ready to leave. So Bob shows me how to lock the bedroom door's two locks with its key. Always lock the locking lock first, then try the handle to make sure the lock locked, then lock the handle lock. Super simple. My turn. We go to the main door, and Bob tries to show me how to lock it. The key breaks off in the door! I can't help it; I burst out laughing so hard that my neighbors (6 feet away) probably heard me. Bob gives a big sigh and rolls his head back and stomps off muttering a lot of four-letter words. Luckily, Ross gets the broken key out of the door, and we are able to lock the locking lock and the handle lock with the spare key. All locked up, exasperated, and still giggling (some of us, anyway), we pile into our cars and head home with Bob vowing that everything will be alright. He will fix the furnace, hook up my water, and get me new (stronger?) keys for my new home before I returned from my trip to visit my parents over Christmas.

After that night, I knew RV living was going to be very interesting indeed. I just didn't know how much could go wrong. I would find out soon enough though, and so will you!

May your keys never break, but if they do, may you be able to laugh about it,

Ray

Why, oh why?!

It's simple really. Money. Bills. Bucks. Benjamins. Cash. Change. Clams. Coin. Paper. Stacks. Things with which to make it rain...

Here's the back story: there I was living a happy life in a cute apartment in Dallas, Texas. My apartment complex was perfectly situated between all of my friends so that it became the gathering place. I had a nice pool. I had furniture, dishes, decor, all the good stuff. It didn't matter that I was basically living paycheck to paycheck; I had a great life.Then, what do you know, my boyfriend proposes on December 14th! Two weeks later, my lease ends. Well, instead of finding another apartment, or staying at the one I had (those jerks were raising my rent...again), my future in-laws offer me their RV to live in. Seeing as how I had never set foot in an RV, and all I knew about them were the stories of great family vacations Ross and his family went on, I thought, "well, why not?" I knew it would be small. I knew I wouldn't be able to take all of my shoes (that's the worst). I knew I wouldn't be the meeting place for all of my friends, and I knew they wouldn't come see me in a traveling trailer anyway. But I am an adventurous sort, and I saw this as an adventure! It's only until September when Ross and I move into some other wonderful place where I can have furniture and decorations. What's 9 months?

Since Ross is an expert online researcher (he once spent two days looking at and deciding on the perfect printer), he set to work to find me a cheap, clean RV park close to my work. And he found it. Shady Grove RV Park in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, North Texas. The pictures made it look incredibly cute. Quaint, but with a touch of homey-ness. Upon further inspection, I learned that it's basically a retirement village. Most of the residents are permanent. A lot people had built decks around their steps. How cute, right? They also have mandatory quiet time from 10pm to 6am. Being an old fogey at heart, this was incredibly appealing. I had found my temporary home. The rent was low. They have a laundry facility, full hook-ups (at the time, I had no idea what this meant. Now that I know, it. is. the. best. thing.), cable, a pool, and even a dog park. I would be saving so much money, I wouldn't know what to do with it (yeah, right. I'm trying to pay for a wedding. ALL my savings goes straight to vendors, but more on that later), and I'd save a ton on gas because it's closer to work than my apartment was. No more living paycheck to paycheck. No bills bearing down on me from 2 days before payday. I would have the money to pay all my bills (which were significantly less), and put a bunch in savings for our wedding. It was like a dream come true!

Was. It's not so much a dream anymore, but boy, is it an adventure! From day (more like middle of the night) one, RV living has been a bit rough. I've had some big learning experiences, and I've learned to appreciate the little things in life. Like water coming out of the faucet. Or heat. That being said, the adventure has been worth it. I'm having the wedding of my dreams, and I'm able to afford it. Plus, I'll have some amazing stories to tell my kids one day. But you'll get to hear them first! I hope you enjoy my stories of all I've learned in Adventures in Trailer Parking: Tales from the Broke Bride.

Here's to the beginning,
Ray