Friday, October 27, 2006
A day in the life...
Let me describe a typical day in the life of an RV-er...7:30 - Alarm. Decide who gets up first to endure the freezing cold and to turn the heating on. Back to bed until RV has defrosted and a temperature above zero is felt.
8:00 - A leisurely continental breakfast of fresh coffee, hot chocolate, toast with condiments, pancakes and a range of cereals. This may last anywhere between 20 minutes to an hour and 20 minutes. Reading may also occur at this point in the day.
Post-breakfast: Rhod begins his glamorous morning routine of draining the waste from our tanks and disconnecting the electricity and water pipes. This is alot easier if the pipes aren't frozen. Unfortunately they usually are! My job at this point is to prepare the inside for departure, ie. making sure nothing will spontaneously jump out of the cupboards whilst driving.
10:00: Taking it in turns to drive through the national parks stopping at various lookouts to take an obscene amount of photos.
11:00: Elevenses of course! More coffee and hot chocolate as it was all of 3 hours since our last one.
11:15: A hike may be necessary at this point to work off the excess of the morning. Usually this involves meeting wildlife at various unexpected places, needing the loo in the middle of nowhere, scrambling through mud, snow, water and of course, taking lots of photos.
2:00: Congratulations, you have earned yourselves a gourmet lunch. Generally we favour a buffet lunch of sandwiches with a variety of fine fillings with a soup starter.
2:45: Back on the road. More sightseeing, more hiking, more stalking of wildlife.
4:30: A spot of afternoon tea. Generally this takes the childish form of chocolate milk and oreo cookies. More reading.
4:45: The sudden realisation occurs that we don't have a campground booked for the evening. Queue research in campsite directory, more driving, following a poor map which only chooses to list certain roads and arriving in dying light.
7:00: Panic over, we arrive at a suitable campground, preferably one that is level so we don't lose the contents of our fridge when we open it. The evening may then contain any of the following: eating dinner, more reading, writing diaries, doing laundry, utilising the campground's hot tub (if we're lucky) and running to and from the shower block in the freezing cold. I'm usually a little concerned when Rhod comes back from the showers as he seems to make a new friend each time! It seems that american men are quite sociable whilst doing their ablutions. Anna is jealous because she hasn't made any bathroom based friends. It's currently 3-0 to me!
Bedtime: Bedtime preparations are a necessity, or should I say heat-sealing the RV. As we have been experiencing temperatures of anything between zero and minus 12 degrees C for the last week, this is an important if not life-saving job. Curtains are drawn, cracks are sealed, the thermals are donned and the sleeping bags and blankets are loaded up. If we make it through the night without getting ice on the inside of the windows, it's been a good night.
So there you go. I hope I've managed to give you an insight into the glamorous life that is Rv-ing!
# posted by Rhodri @ 1:46 am 
