I have a love-hate relationship with the mobile life. There are the freedoms that come from not being rooted to any one spot but there is also all the hassle of moving around – making reservations, which park can we get into, how to cover the one week out of system – there’s a lot. Then, you pile on that Marilyn has some serious issues that need to be dealt with, that hinder forward movement, at times, and you’ve entered moderately overwhelming.
I’ve been getting back into the groove of mobile life. Its gotten me back out into nature and the benefits of that are countless. I have been getting our future reservations set up for after we are done staying at Lance’s brother’s place. I had us booked through July 9th, with a week out of system from June 18-24 that I still needed to cover.
I had been thinking that maybe we could start covering our week out of system, every time it came up, with KOA reservations. Yes, that would mean we would have to pay for that week each time but, with the KOA Value Kard Rewards ($30 annually), we would earn discounts that would help alleviate some of that cost. Lance and I had discussed it and had plans to move forward with it. Then, Lance’s brother, Travis, changed all that last night.
I’ve talked about the relationship, or lack of one, that Travis and I have had fairly consistently over the past 12+ years. I have wanted to like Travis but, for whatever reason(s), we just never really seemed to mesh well. I’m not laying blame over it, though I know I have in the past. I’ve been trying to re-examine things over the past year. It’s not always been easy to remain open-minded and there have definitely been times when I have come to the decision to be done with Travis, despite his being Lance’s brother.
So, last night, Lance and I were eating dinner in Marilyn when Travis came over and ‘knocked’ on our door. The dogs haven’t exactly acclimated to Travis, yet, so they were a little on alert when he opened the door. Enzo was right there so I allowed him to greet Travis. Enzo is the least anxious of the dogs so all went well there.
Travis stepped into the RV and closed the door. I have to admit my first thought was that this was the “I know you two were going to be here for the 10 days we were supposed to be in California, but…” talk but it couldn’t have been further from that. It went more along the lines of “It looks like there are some things you need to take care of on the RV to make it more reliable and safe for you so I was thinking you two could just stay here for as long as you need to make that happen, like through the Summer.” O.O
I nearly cried. Such unexpected generosity. Such empathy. Compassion. To say I never saw it coming is an understatement. In all reality, Travis is the last person in the world I would have thought would have offered such a wonderful gift to us. I guess that’s what I get for thinking. Not only did Travis give us the unbelievable gift but he opened his home to us – laundry, showers, he’s even getting the downstairs main area set up so we can watch TV in there if we want. We all went out and played with the dogs (our dogs) so they can start getting used to Travis and acclimating to here.
Travis’ dog, Scout, and our dogs still have to get to know each other but its on the list of things to do asap. Another benefit of being here is that there are people coming and going fairly regularly here since Travis has his business set up here. This will help the dogs get used to people and becoming friends with Scout I think will help them not be so anxious around other dogs. They’ve never really gotten to make friends.
So, we are stable, again, for a while. No moving around. I’m so incredibly grateful there are no words to adequately express how I am feeling. Relief and grace from a completely unexpected source…beautiful.
Dragonfly Gypsy USA 