The Highs and Lows

Valley of Fire, Nevada

Valley of Fire, Nevada

We left the high desert mountains of Oregon just before the Arctic blast, and are now low desert dwellers in Nevada.  Mild winter days and cool nights are perfect conditions to prepare the RV for long-term travel and making a square box on wheels our home.  Moving what’s left of our belongings into less than 300 square feet of living space was a challenge. What I thought was going to be the most difficult, stocking the kitchen, actually wasn’t that bad. The first thing I did was take all the extra packaging (and there is so much!) and put it into storage containers. Let me give you an example. I can fit 3 boxes of cereal into one container the size of the cereal. Why? Because I’m mostly paying for air.  What proved more difficult was finding space for four seasons of clothing. We need fair weather and cold temperature wear, so each day on the road, I edit down, down, down. Life out here is VERY casual, no high heels or neck ties in this rig. A good trick I learned as a former flight attendant is to roll each article of clothing rather than fold and stack. After a good scrubbing and days of organizing creative ways to separate business and personal items into teeny tiny spaces, we hit the road in our new home/business on wheels.

Although this is just a practice run to get the kinks out and learn the nuances of living full time in a motorhome, we were excited to get out of the heavily polluted city in search of fresh air and dark skies. Our destination, the red sandstone landscapes of Nevada’s oldest State Park, Valley of Fire. Brad’s goal was to capture a conjunction of the Crescent Moon and Venus against the backdrop of pre-historic rock formations. Look closely at one of our first images. Barely visible to the right of the moon is a shaft of light penetrating the night sky from the Luxor Casino in Las Vegas. Dark skies are increasingly difficult to find, which is why our mission to educate the public about the damaging effects of light pollution is so important to us. Mother Nature decided to test our limits of an RV lifestyle by blasting us with an Arctic storm, and plummeting the temperatures to well below freezing at night. We learned that living mobile is a test of extremes and it is much more difficult to achieve homeostasis because when it’s cold…it’s really cold. And when it’s hot…well, you get it. Living out our dreams of achieving a balance of meaningful living and adventure has just begun, and we thank you for sharing it all with us! – Marci

Valley of Fire, Nevada

Valley of Fire, Nevada

You can see more images from Valley of Fire HERE.
Mr. KittyGood Kharma

Hi, my name is Kharma and nobody asked for my opinion about leaving my favorite sunny spots on the carpet to go live in a moving box on wheels. I knew something was up when many of my lounging spots and scratching posts started disappearing. One morning as I began my ritual of basking in my favorite spot of warm sunshine and looking really cute, it dawned on me…a change was a comin. And kitties HATE change. Adventure, quest for dark skies, teaching workshops, blah, blah, blah. This section is reserved for what it’s like to live in an RV from the perspective of a spoiled rotten kitty.
MEOW