The map leading you home

VanLife is a little like the turtle carrying her home on her back. Wherever I park is home, in its own way. It can feel more or less safe, more or less comfortable (too hot? too cold? just right?), more or less connected (cell service? Wi-Fi? clear skies for Starlink?), more or less crowded (completely isolated on a beach or squished into a full campground?). But at the end of the day, I close up the van and I am home.

To feel the most at home though, it helps to have certain boxes checked:

a full freshwater tank and power for a hot shower and clean dishes;
relatedly, an empty wastewater tank;
an empty pee bottle.

That’s right, I said pee bottle. My composting toilet – aka, “urine-diverting toilet” – diverts urine into its own bottle. And an overflowing pee bottle is not fun. Let’s just say I’ve gotten creative with places to empty it and leave it at that.

Another consideration: the expense of the parkup. Campgrounds and RV sites are expensive. And free parkups can be very wonderful, but as mentioned, if you want that hot shower, clean dishes, and empty pee bottle on a fairly routine basis, you can’t always rely on free parkups, which generally don’t have the infrastructure. So I alternate free parkups with paid parkups.

I’m a planner, so I try to have my parkups planned a week in advance. So the fact that two well-planned parkups fell through this week was a blow.

The first was a Harvest Host parkup in Florence, OR. Harvest Hosts matches RV’ers/VanLifers with businesses that have parking space(s) they are happy to share. In exchange, you patronize the business but otherwise pay nothing. Often, they are wineries or small family farms, but sometimes they are breweries or, in this case, a small museum of local interest. I’ve been a member since 2022, and Harvest Host parkups have been some of the BEST places I’ve parked. But this weekend, my host messaged me a few hours before my arrival with the weirdest message: They feared a “disruption by certain individuals” at their location and advised I park elsewhere. What?!?

This was very unusual, and I wanted to find out what the heck the disruption was, but first I needed a new place to park. A same-day solution often requires a phone call rather than online reservation, and after a few phone transfers between some absolutely lovely employees of Lane County Parks, I got the last free space at a park only 10 minutes from the original plan. And the woman at the office where I checked in gave me the scoop on the museum scandal! (Apparently an employee or board member of the museum was involved in an underage sex scandal, and the community was up in arms, possibly quite literally, and was going to protest.)

I started thinking about how reliant I am on complete strangers to help me out of a jam when I travel. But I’m not going to quote THAT quote, not THAT one about kindness and strangers. How about this one: “The world is full of quiet angels disguised as strangers.”

The second scramble to rearrange plans involved a family member. We had been communicating for a couple weeks. “Come anytime,” “We have plenty of room to park your van,” he said. We had discussed different dates, and two nights before I was due to arrive, we spoke on the phone and made the final arrangements. I was quite excited! I hadn’t seen this person in a long time, and I was excited to meet a new dog and a new significant other. It was a couple long days of driving, but as I checked in at the last parkup before heading to his place the next day, I got a text message telling me not to come. “The timing is horrible,” he said. “It’s not a good time for visitors.” What?!?

I was fairly devastated. I had been really looking forward to the visit. Plus, I hadn’t resupplied during those long driving days. I was out of water and hadn’t showered in two days. I was due to start four days of teaching and needed a reliable parkup where I wouldn’t have to move during the day.

After a period of sobbing my eyes out, I got on the phone to try to find a place for the next 4 days. The woman at the RV park I called was so kind. They only had 3 sites left, but she took the time to describe them and confirm what I would need while there. And she said when I arrived the next day, I could even go look at them and see which I preferred. I was so grateful that I started sobbing again after I hung up.

How about this quote: “Sometimes the map leading you home isn’t drawn by the people you thought would navigate with you.”

A few photos of my recent parkups:

An expensive RV park in Coos Bay, OR, and an awesome Harvest Host parkup in Tillamook, OR.

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