THE LIBRARY, THE OVEN AND THE SHOWER

That blog post title is kinda like the movie

The Thief, The Cook, His Wife, & Her Lover

What EXACTLY do they have in common you wonder .....

Well,

They are the THREE things I will  miss most when we leave here in 13 days and get back on the road.

I LOVE being on the road and traveling

BUT

Detaching myself from THE LIBRARY,

THE OVEN and

THE SHOWER

is pretty painful to say the least.

I've written about my adoration for our local library - the ability to order in books and the shear number of books I have at home at anyone time. There is something so comforting to me to have a stack of books just waiting for me to spend some time with. I love to learn and therefore my book list covers a wide range of topics - I read every night before bed - mostly fiction but sometimes autobiographies.

On the road, acquiring books isn't quite so easy. I don't buy them because - well, first off I can't afford them and second we don't have the room, especially now that we have the camper van instead of the travel trailer. I do try to have a few at a time to keep me sane. The last few winters have worked out pretty well because we stopped at a few campgrounds. Most seem to have a book exchange which gets my heart racing like crazy. I'm a bit worried about this year though with our travels taking us to Mexico and Central America - will I be able to find English books? I don't know - I guess I'll find out!

Ahhhh my OVEN. I have been baking up a storm this summer which ultimately lead to my downfall. So happy was I to be in a real kitchen at the park here that since our arrival in April I have been working to put Julia Child to shame. I LOVE cooking but I LOVE baking even more. Today, I made our last batch of Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies and I could have wept.

A built in oven was at the top of our list to be in our new RV since we have been traveling without one for the last few years. Alas, our dream camper van came with a whole lotta stuff but NO oven.

We DO have a little toaster oven that we travel with. It's a real LUXURY when we plug in and can have something baked. How's that for living simple?

This year may be better in the oven department though - while in the USA we boondock most of the time and so plugging in occurs quite seldom. This year we will spend more of our time in campgrounds and so I predict a lot more oven use. I guess I'll see how much baking I can do on the road in the little oven. On the other hand - we LOVE mexican pastries - how can I compete with them!

And the SHOWER ......

I will definitely miss OUR shower which I wrote about in my post about alkaline water. Seriously, our shower is perfect - the spray is large and fine.

More importantly, when I WANT a shower I can pretty much HAVE a shower.

Not so on the road. When I say I want a shower I have to get down and do some research as to the next place we can find that HAS a shower - and then we have to pay for it.

Again - I'm thinking that with less boondocking and more campgrounds, the amount of showers I can have over the winter should increase. On the other hand, I'm a bit worried about all the 'cold showers' I see listed under the campgrounds I have been reading about.

Let's just hope that those cold showers are more of the 'gee this cold shower sure is refreshing in this heat' instead of the 'I'm freeeeezzzzzinnnnggg under this ice cold torture chamber of a shower'!


There are a few more things that I will miss when we get on the road - but still - even with all of these and the library, the oven and the shower - I still wouldn't trade our yearly travels and all the experiences we have, for them. Let's just say I'm looking forward to them again in the spring.

If you travel as we do or full time - what do YOU miss while on the road? And for those who don't - what do you think YOU would miss?

Teresa

TODAY'S INTERESTING LINK: I posted this link on facebook but I think I'll add it here too! I was SO happy to find TrailerChix - what a neat site. I'm pretty impressed with their links on facebook since I 'LIKED' them. Lots of great info on simple living - two of my favourite words! Pizza on a grill is DEFINITELY something I have to check out.