HMS Beangle

A few people have asked the following questions, so I’ll answer them while I’m thinking about it.

First, how will we get mail. Anything that can’t be delivered online will go to our friends’ house and they will sort the junk from the essential, because they’re lovely and kind and generous. We get almost no physical mail, so hopefully they won’t have much to deal with. Anything that needs to get forwarded will get shipped in a big yellow envelope via general delivery to the post office nearest our location.

Second, how do we cook and store food? We are fortunate to have a small refrigerator in the trailer’s galley. There’s no freezer compartment, but we haven’t found that to be too much of a loss. We can fit a decent amount of food in the fridge, but it’s not going to be condiment-central like our apartment’s fridge is. Smaller package sizes and using up what we buy through judicious meal planning is key. Canned goods and room temperature things go in cloth storage boxes for easy access and quick use. When we’re stationary, those sit on the back counter. Our plates, cups, cooking utensils, etc and a few basics like salt, pepper, and oil stay in the shelves’ plastic bins, behind the wood-grain sliders.

We cook over a fire whenever we make one and over a two burner propane camp stove when we don’t. We hook the camp stove up to one of the two 10# propane tanks that sit at the front of the trailer, using a picnic table or our collapsible camp table, whichever is easiest.

All of our water is stored in 6 (grey) and 7 (blue) gallon plastic jugs, since we chose not to get a water bladder installed under the trailer. While it might have been more convenient, it also would have set the trailer up for more maintenance and potential problems if (when) things broke. Having already spent several nights at below freezing temps, I’m glad we didn’t have to worry about our water lines bursting.

Since we were on the road for two week-long jaunts and six weekends in a row, and because we had several days of extreme temps, we decided to stay home this weekend. We worked on getting some things posted for sale and just relaxing.

I also did some slightly more adventurous Hashimoto’s friendly cooking (no gluten, no dairy, no nightshades, no sugar), as that’s still a bit new to me. Tonight’s coconut sweet potato curry was a hit and easy to put together, too. I can definitely see myself making it on the road. I made Jeff a batch of chocolate chip cookies to use up the last of the flour and brown sugar. I think he’s enjoying having them alllll to himself.

There’s a decent level of stress that goes with trying to work, run a household, sell everything, and figure out what we truly need and don’t need that makes being gone every weekend hard, even if it’s also a pleasure to be out in the trailer. In order to finally catch back up with some lovely friends, we’re also going to stay in town next weekend. I see us listing a lot more items for sale over the next two weeks. Fingers crossed that whatever we list gets picked up quickly and at full price!

The temperature here finally broke about an hour ago. For the first time in days, it’s cooler outside than inside. What a relief!