PP #3: A dangerous arranged marriage...will it go well?

Project: Pioneer #3, October 6, 2023 (Friday)

“I will cut adrift—I will sit on pavements and drink coffee—I will dream; I will take my mind out of its iron cage and let it swim—this fine October.” ― Virginia Woolf

Project: Pioneer is the live reality journal of a couple and their small dog as they leave their ‘normal’ life in a luxury apartment for a new semi-off grid life in a small recreational vehicle, just at the start of winter. We cover prepping, politics, spirituality, afterlife, RV life, and personal finance. (Audio at this link, Apple, and Spotify)

Note: This post was written before the recent world events, which seem to only validate our rationale for this decision. We’ll discuss more in the next post!

We woke before dawn on Saturday, bleary-eyed and both wanting to stay in our warm cocoon of covers. Pia snored contentedly at the foot of the bed, on her own pillow. Outside, the rain persisted. Giavana had gone to physical therapy, and they had made things worse, sooo…that’s not good.

This is the day.

When we left off in episode 2, we had accomplished some major items in our pioneer plan. Sold a hybrid, bought a new-to-us pickup truck (named Henrik, since it’s a Ranger, and we used to go to Madison Square Garden in NYC to see a team and player by those names). We selected a location to live. Selected an RV six hours away, but didn’t pick it up yet. This is the day.

I lifted my head to look past the open bedroom door, out into the living room of our now half-empty third floor luxury apartment. I love this place—the pool, the gym, the clubhouse, the cleanliness, the people, the security. What are we doing?

“Should we get up?” Giavana asked, face still half buried in her pile of pillows.

“I guess so.” We slid off our opposite sides. Pia stirred, and gave us that “What now?” (aka WTF) look. Checklists and details of the complex trailer hookup process were swimming in my head, swirling and confused. Mistakes mean disaster. We had a trailer brake controller installed on Henrik, resulting in one tiny little knob on the dash. No docs, no instruction. I keep meaning to google it.

This will be a one-day trip, there and back, six hours each way. Maybe more on the way back, since we’re speed-limited with the RV behind. Giavana says that’s a good thing, given my past driving tendencies. We went through our morning routine, dog walk, coffee, checking the news for new chaos, and began assembling our supplies by the door. Hopefully, back before darkness, which only adds more challenges (lights all working?).

When Pia would bark in our apartment, usually when other people or dogs were outside, we’d admonish her. Now, we don’t. We want to encourage that behavior, since we’ll be ground-level and not sure of the threat level in this new environment. Now she gets treats.

To my surprise, Giavana took the wheel, honoring her promise to drive on the way up. I can’t stand driving, such an unproductive waste of time! Too many interactions with aggressive, selfish humans erratically piloting multi-ton death machines. Although, as I described in my spiritual epiphany, I don’t get worked up much anymore. Anyway, I can’t afford to.

A few years ago, when my heart issues became evident while I was in the hospital for a mini-stroke, the cardiac surgeon came to my room. After some discussion and my consent, he injected some painkiller in my upper chest, whipped out a razor knife, cut an incision into me, stuffed in what looked like a USB thumb drive, and sewed it up.

That monitor sits in there, reporting my frequent heart stoppages (4 secs to up to 9+ secs, 127 of them in the past few months), bradycardia, and tachycardia events. And the lunatics out there are worried about being “tracked” by vaccinations. Ha! It’s been three years. The battery will die soon. Hopefully that’s all that dies! I’m hoping our new, serene, paradise-like lake location will bring peace, and we can finally settle after all this is done.

At some point, though, a pacemaker will replace the monitor. That device will wrap its spindly probes around and into my ticker, and jump-start me when needed. It will sit on my heart like a parasitic alien, feeding. My heart is slowing, an antique watch. There’s no stem to rewind. I’m not concerned about dying. It’s liberating. I forgive people for their actions and attitudes, like Jesus asked us to.

Often, people are the way they are due to unspeakable hardships in their past. Forgive them, for they know not what they do. Jesus’ final words. If someone rides my tail, rather than slam my brakes, hoping their scalding coffee lands in their crotch, or their damn phone goes on the floor and they drive off a cliff trying to get it, I just pull over or move to the right, as everyone should. Peace out. I buy stuff for the people behind me in the drive-through. I feel good about myself, something rare in my life. Maybe I’ll punch my ticket after all.

So, off we went, tiny Giavana the truck drivin’ mama behind the wheel, her electronic seat jacked way up. I settled in with all the prep documentation I need to read, about hooking up and unhooking, about how to stay warm and survive this pioneer RV winter to come.

I got to take small breaks and take in the scenery, something I love to do when traveling. After a while we ran alongside a train, it’s mournful whistle blowing in spurts, drunkenly swaggering thru trackside hardscrabble towns. Only the poor live by the tracks, ramshackle row homes shaken and black-coated through generations of dreamers, kids longing to escape someday on that long roller coaster. Moan for man, Kerouac said. Go moan for man.

I realized their homes are probably no bigger than our new-to-us covered wagon. They get by, they are close, as families, in those small spaces. They will always cherish and remember. Which families remain closer—these or the ones in McMansions the size of small countries, where they all go off on their own islands, rarely encountering one another?

The rain stopped, and we stopped at a service area, filtering through waves of people on their way to somewhere, all hurried except the truckers, relaxing, knowing the road will be there when they’re good and ready for it. Back on the highway, miles of random vegetation roll by, hinting at turning fall’s shades of gold, red, and brown. Our tumbleweed sagebrush. I can picture bison and smoke signals over the hills. In reality, there are junkyards full of used up and discarded dreams. Someday, Henrik will join them. What things will pass in our lives until then? There are ponds and lakes green with algae. This world of beauty. I try to ignore the trash along the highway, lazily discarded by the worst of us.

You get this feeling of trepidation when doing something outside the norm. Some feed on it and crash and burn, some achieve greatness. You only hear about the latter. Like the lottery, you only hear about the winners, not the legion upon legion of losers. Is this vagabond life in our blood? Two of my three kids haven’t been rooted as adults. The other one went to kindergarten in three different states—incredibly she’s been the most stable location-wise. Maybe it’s me. It’s always me, at least where I place blame. Farawayer. I would like to go back, and give them a better life. We all do.

We’re almost there, so I’m going through the hookup process again, reviewing my notes, Imagining the different horrors that will happen at each step, if it’s missed. I imagine the trailer busting loose, pushing us through a guardrail and off a cliff, both screaming. Tailgater’s revenge.

We arrive safely though, switching so I can back the pickup down the seller’s driveway, hopefully in line with the RV’s waiting hitch. It’s time to introduce and mate this odd couple in their forced marriage, Henrik and Red House. I hope they get along as well as Giavana and I do.

The sellers are a simply wonderful couple. They greet us in the driveway, well-prepared, thankfully. The husband is a cheerful engineer-type man of precision, his wife carrying thorough hand-crafted documentation on each and every step, with pictures. This is not normal. We have struck gold in this department, a big first pioneer win.

Over hours, they guide us through the hookup process, explaining each step in gory detail. They go over the RV accessories they’ve included, too numerous to recount. I’m conflicted, thankful for all this trouble-saving education, worried about being on the road in the dark, exhausted. I make a mental note to send them something wonderful. Their travels will soon take them to Europe and Africa. RVs don’t work for that.

And then it’s time to go. Henrik and Red House are successfully mated in the bondage of chains and wires. Giavana got us here safely, and it’s my time to shine. Images of us going down the road with the trailer swaying wildly across three lanes behind us run through my mind. The tiny new trailer brake control knob is glowing purple. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but we’ll find out soon.

We pull out of their driveway with a lurch of thousands of pounds of truck and RV. There’s a tight turn to get back on the road, the first big challenge. Miscalculate and Red House will mow down their fence, or Henrik will clip these wonderful people’s car. There’s a loud metallic clang. I hit the brakes and look out my open window. The seller waves me on. “Things are just settling in, all good, looking good,” he encourages.

The array of right and left turns on the way out of town are good practice. We take them slowly, to the chagrin and horns of impatient drivers behind us. That was me back there, once upon a time. Karma. We enter the highway, which is easy street compared to navigating a small town in weekend traffic.

Right away it’s different, but in a good way. It’s hard to know the trailer is even back there. Henrik is strong, and pulls well. If this were the Rockies, it would be a different story. We have no plans to go there. As they pass, little kids press up against their family sedan windows pointing and hollering at their parents. They look in wonder at Red House, and I wave. You’ll get there someday, kid. I can hardly believe, after all the RV discussions with Giavana, here we are.

At some point the hooting train returns beside us. Ironic though, the train slowly replaced the covered wagon as the primary means of migration and transport in the old west. And here we are, side by side.

The ride goes well, eventless actually. Nothing for me to even dramatize here to pull in new readers. That’s a good thing, we’ll take the win. We pull in at home well after dark, and hog up a big piece of unused parking lot at our complex. Screw ‘em.

We had intended to drive it straight to the RV repair place near our new home and unhook, but were too exhausted. We’ll take it the next morning, when rested. It may require backing the trailer into a spot, which is one of the most challenging things to learn to do, requiring your brain to kind of work in reverse. I’ll tackle that tomorrow, in daylight. They need to track down and fix a small propane leak (probably in the regulator or a loose fitting) for us, and fill out a state form that will allow us to title it.

Most experienced over-the-road RVers travel just around six hours a day at most, enjoying a leisurely stress-free pace. We had just done that twice in one day, plus a little more. We proved we can hack that part, even though for now we’ll be stationary.

After locking up and ensuring everything is turned off, including the power switch to the trailer I had been warned about, we gathered Pia and the bare minimum things we needed to get back upstairs and collapse into bed.

Next up: It’s already a week into October!! We can move into our new site on the 15th. This will involve far more challenges than the (now seemingly) simple hookup. We have to connect and properly engage all our life support systems—gas, electric, sewer, water, and so much more. I’ve got a lot more to learn before then. Back to YouTube university! There are expensive things we need—generator, skirting/insulation, heated hoses, aux heat for the underbelly, solar, on and on.

See you soon for episode 4. Until then, please share our adventures on your socials and remember we’re in audio/podcast format as well on Substack, Apple, and Spotify, and other platforms. There are books for sale at wildlakepress.com, our publisher, and we’d love to hear your comments and questions on these posts in the chat/threads area! If you’d like to help support our efforts, or enjoy the posts, please buy some books and/or subscribe.