This Life: What Could Go Wrong? Pt. 2

 

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” 

~ Helen Keller ~

As promised, here is the short list of things that have broken down or otherwise “gone wrong” in our nearly 9 months on the road so far. I am certain I’ve left at least a couple things out, but I’m also sure neither of us will lose any sleep over it. Just in the couple weeks since I posted Part 1, we’ve had a couple straps cut and stolen from our bike rack, one of our landing gear snap pads cracked and popped off on a high curb, we incurred a fuel leak in the engine bay of our truck, the plastic awning motor cover snapped off due to a low tree branch, and Justin had to figure out how to adjust a slide on our RV that wasn’t opening all the way out. Although fixing the issue is often fairly simple, RV ownership does take a certain amount of patience and resourcefulness. That said, don’t let the following list scare you away…

Much of what goes wrong can be categorized as simple wear and tear. I’ve lost count of the number of screws we’ve found rolling around on the floor after a travel day, but I’m convinced that the builders left a few extra in random places just to mess with us, because seriously half of the time we can’t find where they came from. Speaking of screws, we’ve had two separate occasions of flats due to screws in our trailer tires. 

There have been various broken wood pieces, such as the wimpy support rod in my closet, and the metal-spring support arms that hold up our under-bed storage lid broke away from the cheap staples holding them in place. Our door latch broke and locked us out, the awning motor died, we’ve had busted shades, and our shower had a leak. We’ve had loose/hanging gutter wall siding near the roof, and a number of bumper cushions on the slides have come loose. The right rear landing gear got stuck down when the bolts holding the motor rattled free, and the break-away switch attached to the fifth wheel hitch got fried. A decorative lamp cover broke loose and crashed to the floor during one particularly bumpy ride, our solar stopped charging once out of the blue, and our bike rack has been scraped, bent, broken and busted every which way you can imagine. (I feel like I could write a pretty good country song about all this…) 

That still doesn’t even include issues with the truck, like the seized brake caliper, busted bed cover or fried seat heater/cooler wires. Or issues with our bikes like flat tires, bent/worn frames, a short in the e-bike display, or lost accessories like the e-bike storage compartment cover. 

Other problems can come as a result of what you might call “user error.” When we forget to check for clearance before letting slides out, for example, we could perhaps bend a drawer or detach a panel of framing. Well, someone could. Not us, but, it could probably happen. Or say one might forget that even with a cover, half of the rear of the truck bed is still exposed when attached to a fifth wheel, so something light like a small bag of kid shoes might decide to fly out on a lonely highway in Kansas. Hopefully the local children could use a new pair of size 2 Nikes, if that ever were to happen. Rowdy kids with big heads might also cause pieces and parts of your pretty RV to snap, crack and pop, like the thin wood on the underside of a bunkbed, or the covered strip around the front door. Window and door screens will also rip, tear, and constantly come apart with little hands to poke and prod, and inevitably, no matter how careful you are to buy the SUPER WASHABLE crayons and markers, your kids will find a way to manufacture a super UN-washable concoction of colored wax and something like acetone to permanently stain and destroy your only dining table. I’m sure of it. 

Finally, we come to the category of straight up Mother Nature and/or just plain bad luck. Like having to turn 60 feet of rig around on a narrow-lane road to nowhere. Or bushes and trees getting in the way of driving and parking. Or a gale-force windstorm slamming us on the broad side. We’ve experienced an ant takeover, a water/mosquito bug takeover, and numerous sand and dirt takeovers. (400sq ft is not hard to take over.) Our pipes also froze during an overnight freezing rain storm, and we’ve found mold on the plywood in our bed. Trees blocking solar panels and no internet/cell service are just the icing on the cake. 

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I’ve been asked before whether this lifestyle really is as dreamy as we make it sound, when we talk about the amazing places we’ve seen and things we’ve done along the way. This is my way of showing the grittier side of things, not to frighten anyone away, but to reveal that life still happens no matter who you are, where you go, or how you choose to live. And believe it or not, even after mentally re-living all of those lovely moments described above, the answer is yes- I would still describe full-time traveling as dreamy! Life is what you make it, and you can bet we’re making the most of each and every day we’re on the road. We've learned to just roll with it!!