A Little Humility

The green plastic spatula disappeared yesterday. It dated back to camping days with small children so its loss wasn’t financial but convenience. How would we flip the salmon, the pancakes?

The good news about living in a space this tiny is that missing items inevitably turn up. We found the spatula resting in the dead zone behind its bottom drawer home. We figured that we’d do more damage removing the drawer than was worth the $3.99 for a new model.

And so we were reminded of another lesson learned on this rolling journey:

#Vanlife is humbling.

Food prep: Our home kitchen is compact, just big enough for major appliances, a handful of lower cabinets and even fewer upper cabinets. Dinner guests don’t linger long after grabbing a beer. in comparison to Abbey Road’s food station, however, it is enormous. In our tightly choreographed dance, one person, usually me, chops and pours and stir fries while the other, usually Bill, sits on the turned-around passenger seat.

Reverse for the dishwashing. And the dog? She’s outside attached to a long lead, but not so long that she’s not at our feet begging for scraps.

Hygiene: Despite the electronics, the metal shelter, the running water and heat if you need it, van living is more camping than inside dwelling. To preserve your water supply and reduce trips to dumping stations, you use campground toilets and sinks and showers. When those aren’t an option, you go without that daily water cleanse, the regular hair washing. Make-up? Who knows where it is packed. The local elk don’t care if eyebrows are sparse.

Laundry: One of the perks of employed adulthood is an in-house washer/dryer. When was the last time you stepped inside a laundromat for more than a sleeping bag soak? #vanlife requires public clothes washing, which, save the one machine in Moab that accepted credit cards, requires lots of quarters.

Humility, though, is a very good thing. At the other end is gratitude. Gratitude that we have a real kitchen, our own Maytag washer/dryer, and a return to daily showers and clean hair soon enough. Gratitude that these minor inconveniences are dwarfed by the inherent joy of rolling from one natural wonder to another, of camping in the Redwoods one night and watching seals frolic in the Pacific on the Oregon Coast the next. Of the ease in which we can visit one son at the trip’s beginning and the other two weeks later. Of visiting our godson and his new pup on Sunday and lifelong Seattle pals on Monday.

After we clean up the breakfast dishes, we’ll say good-bye to Gold Beach and wander north on the Oregon coast to Florence and a night in a national forest. Maybe tomorrow we’ll employ the new spatula purchased at McKay’s Market.