USA: The cold reality of our present situation

A post I never thought I'd write

I don’t know if my husband Andy will be ok with me writing this post. Or rather, I don’t know if he will be ok with me hitting publish on this post I am writing. I may have to start over and write something else. We are in a vulnerable situation right now and his confidence is shaken. Out of love for him, I will defer to his preference.

If you are reading this, he must have agreed it is valuable to assign public words to our current private reality.

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Choosing to sell or give away nearly everything we owned was not easy. But we wanted to try our hand at an unencumbered life as nomads, so we justified the struggle. While we discarded our old life, we worked our tails off to build our new one, literally on the back of Walter, our big yellow truck. But let’s be honest, friends, most of the workload was on Andy. He was and is the brains behind this whole operation. From his earliest days, he has possessed an engineering mindset. Not me. I can turn a wrench, or crimp wire connectors, or mix a batch of epoxy if called upon to do so—but only with simplified and oft-repeated instructions. I am his trusty assistant, sometimes, but not even a very reliable one at that, with my weak hands and my frustrating tendency toward debilitating insecurity when faced with jobs like these.  

I was not excited about undertaking a huge build like this at the outset. For a person with my skillset, it seemed too big, too detailed, too complex. But Andy wanted to try. He loves a challenging project, and his building background gave him confidence that he could effectively learn the things he didn’t already know. He had plenty of transferable skills already.

I will admit, it is very possible that his confidence gave me unreasonable hope of an easy life in Walter. I should have remembered that a build process always includes unfinished projects and troubleshooting and things that do not work as designed.

I could spend time writing about our first six weeks living in the rig without a toilet, a working sink or water, or the fact that we still don’t have hot water, now 13 weeks in. But lots of people live in situations more desperate than this, and we are not in these circumstances against our will. This is why I have not mentioned these minor inconveniences in previous posts and why I won’t dwell on them now. We are not uniquely burdened by these difficulties. I will say this, though, as it has finally become an issue:

We still don’t have heat.

We have traveled through mountains and high desert regions all over the American West over the past couple of months, with frequent overnight temperatures in the 40s and even the 30s (less than 10 degrees Celsius) at times, but we were able to make it work with extra layers of clothes and blankets, as well as some cuddling. Now, however, we are back in Montana for a few weeks to finish some exterior fabrication projects like cargo boxes and side panels. Low temperatures here are already dipping quite dramatically. One morning recently we awoke to 22 degrees (-5 C).

The reason we don’t have heat yet is a long story, but basically, we have two separate heating systems to serve our rig. For a variety of reasons, neither is hooked up properly yet. We have an appointment scheduled with a shop in Missoula to assess the problem with one and hopefully fix it. The other will come eventually.

Unsure of the best plan of action, we made the unconventional decision this past week to camp in Walter in the storage unit we’d rented to work in while we’re here. It’s a little crazy, and I’m not entirely sure it’s legal or how long it can last, but we’ve been here for a week and, for now, it’s working for us. With no bricks-and-mortar home, no heat in the Snuggery, and no car to drive back and forth anywhere, the storage unit—climate-controlled to stay at a steady 50 degrees (10 C)—serves as a simple shelter from the cold. At the end of each day, we just tuck Walter’s side mirrors in, maneuver him into the narrow unit, and close the twelve-foot bay door behind us. Then we can climb into the Snuggery to have dinner, work on projects, and sleep for the night. The bay door’s seal is gappy and lets enough air flow in and out. It’s not that bad, actually.

We did pick up a small electric space heater at the local hardware store a few days ago, too. That has helped for when we are parked outside the fabricator’s shop, or the welder’s shop, or the powder coater’s shop for hours on end during the chilly daytime hours.

But this morning, we discovered a bigger problem.

Something is wrong with our electrical system. Something is terribly wrong, perhaps catastrophically wrong.

Now we don’t have electricity.

Andy has spent hours so far trying to assess the problem. He has watched videos and made phone calls to experts. No answers yet. The batteries appear to be damaged—perhaps beyond repair—so even though we have solar panels on the roof, we might be without power for a long time.

It doesn’t look good so far. The tech support guy who designed our system, intermittently working with Andy via speakerphone, is baffled. He’s never seen anything like this before. While Andy continues to work by headlamp, muttering to himself about things I don’t understand, I am sitting on the bed a few feet away, typing this post. I feel helpless. The technical aspects of this life—and they are many—are far outside my skillset or even my vocabulary. My strengths just don’t apply. Our “partnership” feels very one-sided at this point.

When we moved into Walter’s Snuggery in mid-July, all the little difficulties we encountered just felt like part of the adventure, par for the course, growing pains. But today’s situation is different. It’s discouraging, friends. We are not in danger of freezing, of course. We are in our former hometown and can find a place to stay if needed. But the future of Walter, our big yellow adventure truck, is as fuzzy as yesterday’s heavy fog.

My laptop just gave me a low-battery warning, but we have no power. I should set this aside for now and try to provide practical moral support somehow. I would make us a late lunch, but the kitchen is a disaster of tools and wires and parts strewn everywhere. Perhaps I should walk over to the nearby sandwich shop. I can’t think of any other ways to be helpful. Andy is the only one of us with any skills that could help fix this situation, and even he seems stumped, at least for now.

This isn’t what we’d envisioned for our amazing life on the road, full of learning and exploring, beautiful places and beautiful people. I suppose this might be part of the learning aspect eventually.

After lunch, I will need to plug in somewhere so I can finish writing. Or perhaps, instead of straining to find something wise and insightful in this post, I should just leave it as it stands now. Sorry to be so uninspiring or dramatically suspenseful, but that’s my life right now, and it is rather all-consuming at the moment.

Sometimes we don’t get answers right away. Sometimes we have to live in the discomfort of uncertainty for a while. Driving in yesterday’s fog, we just followed the dotted line to our left. From experience, we knew the road continued beyond what we could see. It was stressful, but we just slowed our pace and continued moving forward. I guess that’s what we will do now, too.  

Pardon me while I slip on my shoes, zip up my coat, and walk to the sandwich shop.

Until next week,

Sherry

P.S. It really does help me when you share my work with others. If you think someone you know would enjoy our adventures (or misadventures), please share this Substack blog with them. Thanks.