Our First Campground Conflict
Our travels have brought us to amazing places and have surrounded us with fantastic people. In our six months of travel, we had yet to be next to someone who was genuinely rude. It was bound to happen sooner or later and in this case, we had a front row seat.
“Where the Heck is the Chipotle Mayochup?”
One important I’ve learned this year is that there’s no universal standard for setting up grocery stores. Typically it’s not something I concern myself with as I’m the one sitting in the truck watching the dog as Donelle runs in to do the shopping. Every now and then, however, my big mouth gets me in trouble.
The Pickleball Community
Racquet sports aren’t my thing, never have been, yet there is something alluring about this sport and the people who play it. I was an open book and vowed I would try my best even though I was an apprehensive newbie. Holding my paddle in the ready position, I blinked and realized a 78-year-old woman just smoked me on a serve. Game on.
Love in a Box
It’s Valentine’s Day. A day of love and appreciation. A day to take a moment to celebrate those who are walking by your side on this journey of life. Closeness comes to mind. Closeness in sharing your thoughts and feelings, being true to who you are and vulnerable with those you choose. My thoughts go to the physical closeness that James, Kaia and I get to share every day on our adventure in full-time RV living.
Embrace the Hack
Laying on my back in the pass-through storage compartment of our camper, wearing a headlamp and testing the limits of my own contortionability, I was trying to track down the source of a slow drip on the back side of our water control panel. A months-long dribblet bent on maintaining a shallow puddle where I want only desert. Oh what I would have given for a golden nugget of knowledge to remedy the issue. I need a hack.
RV Living: Four-Paw Stamp of Approval
Kaia, our four-year-old husky-mix, has added an additional layer of fun to our nomadic lifestyle as well as a layer of complexity. Being new to this RV lifestyle, we weren’t fully aware of the details that make the trip enjoyable for all of us but she has spent the last four years training us and achieving an equilibrium that suits her. We are slowly learning about RV life with pets.
What’s in a Name?
We had a solid question come in on our Facebook page asking why we chose Team Hinty. While we may have labored long and hard over naming a vehicle or a family pet, we settled on the identity of our online presence and business fairly quickly.
Connections and Relationships
After a month on the road, despite being surrounded in campgrounds full of people, it surprised me how lonely I had become for friendship. James and I are best friends and I adore traveling with him. And yet, other individuals and personalities also fill an important void. After talking with a few other campers, I found that I was not alone in this feeling.
Creepy Crawlers
There was a shriek from the living room that made me bolt down the three stairs, grabbing a towel along the way for a certain clean-up of something. Thankfully, it was only my big, strong husband coming face to face with a spider. While we disagree on the size of the arachnid, as it grows an inch or two in each retelling, that spider reminded me of all the “nature” we have encountered along our journey so far.
Happy New Year!
It took us about 10 years of planning to reach the end of 2024. Oh sure, the inevitable march of time would have found us in the same place on the calendar but we’re looking at the rear-view mirror from a different angle this year. With three months under our belt, our adventures can already be broken into phases: Nomads and Squatters.