June 11 - Ready to Go

Tomorrow we start our first excursion of Sabbatical II.  The truck/camper (TC) is packed (no small feat... let me assure you) and by this time tomorrow morning the bushouse will be officially "in mothballs" for the rest of the summer. It's by far the longest we've left the motorhome, and that in itself will be an adjustment for us. For gods sake it's been our home for 7 mostly uninterrupted years.

Compromises.  We all have to make compromises as we go through our lives, the result of limits and finite resources. Might want this over here but have to settle for that over there. But nomads, travelers, RVers, and campers make compromises that seem larger and more dramatic than most. Beings that normally live in abundant space, with tons of stuff (most of which they've come to believe they "need"), and a desire to insulate themselves from environmental extremes may have a hard time understanding why someone would make any other choice. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure I understand it myself. But having made the leap from 2500 sq. ft. to 300 sq. ft. 7 years ago, we're now poised to live out of a little camper (maybe 30 sq. ft.?) mounted on the back of a pickup truck for the next few weeks as we meander toward Wisconsin. I don't know... but it's got something to do with nimbleness, spontaneity, simplicity, the ability to go almost anywhere we want. Maybe it will become clearer to me in the next few weeks. And maybe we'll decide it was a terrible idea. But whatever the results, we won't be able to say we didn't give it a good go.