The Mundane of Travel Life
By Robin
Life on the road isn’t all glamour, tourism, adventure and relaxation. In fact, about 75% is just normal everyday routine…sometimes more complicated by the fact that you are on the road. Taking care of the little things (laundry, for example) can mean doing a bunch of research to find an open laundromat in your area.
Here’s an example from a day in the life at our last campsite, near Tucson.
6 AM - Up with the sunrise. This is most by choice - we love sunrises, but also because that’s when T’Chat demands to be fed. There’s a lot of meowing by 6AM.
enjoy our coffee, read, watch the sunrise
meditate together for about 20 minutes
scoop kitty litter box
8 AM - exercise, followed by showers! Exercise is a post for another day…but typically we go our own separate ways for our workouts. If it’s pouring rain we’ll go together to an Anytime Fitness location if one’s available. If it’s pouring rain, cold and no AF, then it’s a day off!
10 AM - breakfast - usually a healthy blended-drink. It’s the same breakfast for each of us most every day, except that Ross supplements his with either sardines or anchovies. What goes in the blender? Again, a post for another day. I DO keep urging Ross to throw those fish into his blended drink a la that great SNL skit, The Bassomatic.
11 AM - Errands. On this day the errands consisted of:
Savaya Coffee Shop - coffees for both of us and bags of coffee for the road.
Laundromat - Ross dropped me off with the laundry and I did 3 loads. Loved this laundromat, because there were plenty of washers and dryers and they were all efficient! Every laundromat is a character of its own and is full of characters. I’ve met some really interesting people doing laundry while we travel…and this one had a DOG! which was fun. Sometimes the laundries have wifi. This one did not, so I wrote a bunch of letters to mail.
While I took care of the laundry, Ross filled up the truck with fuel, refilled one of our trailer propane tanks, and hit Safeway for a few items (more kitty litter, for one).
Ross picked up me and the clean clothes…next stop Post Office.
Sprouts Grocery Store - we hit up grocery stores at least twice a week for basics. We try to plan for home cooked meals for at least twice a week, which usually also provide leftovers for another day. We eat out a couple of times a week.
Tucson Tamale Company - We search for great local food using TripAdvisore and RoadFood, two apps usually steer us right. On this day we had a tasty, healthy, relatively inexpensive meal of vegetarian tamales and sides.
3 PM - Back at the trailer. Fed the beast (T’Chat), who eats an early dinner, like we do. Walk T’Chat. She starts begging for a leash-walk after dinner. She gets a thorough daily brushing at that time, which she also enjoys.
4 PM - Kick back inside the trailer (if cold), outside (if warm) and read, watch movies, plan our next moves…
8 PM - in bed!
We always treasure the gift that is our life of early retirement, whether in our Bend condo or on the road. I guess it’s just a fact of all lives that we have have to do the basic, rather dull things that keep our lives motoring along.
