So, Now What?

Was I being glib when I said that the COVID-19 quarantine wasn’t really affecting us? No, just optimistic…but I stand corrected; it has. Though about 40% of the nation’s campgrounds closed, we were staying within the Thousand Trails system, which we are members of. They extended our reservation at our spot in Whitney, TX so we wouldn’t have to move so soon, and our next reservation would have been honored, BUT…we had a planned to camp in TX to visit family and friends, then OKC for the same purpose, then Kansas (for my son’s graduation and Ken’s family reunion), then Missouri (to camp with family), then Iowa, then Wisconsin, then Michigan (for my family reunion), then Indiana, then finally Nashville (for my 30th high school reunion). As campgrounds began to shut down and our events got cancelled or rescheduled one by one, we decided we needed to reevaluate our plans and our purpose. I can honestly say we never asked ourselves what happens when it’s not safe to travel when we started full-time RV life.

One of the main reasons we decided to get rid of (almost) everything and live in an RV full-time was for the variety and flexibility it allows. There are some full-timers who are so spontaneous that they don’t even know where they’ll be in a month, but we’re not that type, especially since Ken needs to ensure there’s internet access at all times for work, and I for school. But we wanted to see the people and the sites, neither of which were going to happen during a stay-at-home order, so we’re off the road for now, sheltering-in-place in Tennessee.

Thankfully, Ken’s sister and her family have a cabin for us to stay in on the east side of their property, and Bling is parked next to the driveway. We don’t know how long we’ll be here; add it to the unknowns of the day. In the meantime, we’ve been enjoying the lovely lake views and the opulence of living in a little house with a big washer and dryer! It has been nice to eat dinner with family in the main house four times a week—they cook twice and we do the same.

We don’t go anywhere, except out to jog the neighborhood roads a few times a week. We’re enjoying watching spring spring, as we did in Texas, and life is good. We feel extremely blessed to be here, as many full-timers don’t have a place to park indefinitely. Our hearts go out to them and we hope they have found somewhere to stay safe. We are about 25 minutes from the nearest town, so we order groceries for pickup and get them on weekends. (How I wish grocery pickup had been a thing when my kids were little! It is a wonderful service that I’m sorry it took a pandemic for me to start using. I may never shop in a grocery store again.)

Yes, we fight disappointment at having our lifestyle altered, but as Ken reminds me, everything will still be there when we get to it, so there’s no need to stress…we’re just taking it one day at a time, happy to be healthy and together.