Answers to burning or not so burning questions

• What's it like to live without plumbing/water in an RV? Ummmm, it's like, ummmmmmm, it's mildly irritating. (LL interprets: it sucks). You have to find alternative ways to wash your hands and you have to stock up with the park ground water to pour down the RV toilet. (LL interprets: it's icky) And sometimes when I go to the park bathroom to take a shower, I forget to take something that's important to the showering process, such as my clean clothes to put on. It makes it hard to do the dishes which means we go through a lot of paper plates and forks that are made out of corn. (LL: That means that we've gone to the Whole Foods out here and we are trying not to use petroleum products so we're using their corn-based plates and forks). The "corn" plates give you a dry feeling in your mouth even when you're not eating and just sort of scraping your food off of them. (LL: They are sort of like eating off a large popsicle stick.) All that's fine for a meal here and there but it gets a bit old after a couple of weeks.

• Are you ever afraid of being entirely alone in a state or national park? No, it's the people who are scarier. Just kidding. It's so wonderful when we get to be by ourselves in nature. It's kind of my ideal. It's a good reason to travel off-season. I'm never afraid out in nature, alone, or out in the dark. (LL: I am afraid of all those things. I heard rustlings, saw beady eyes, and once, something actually got in our trash can and ate my leftover tuna can bits. I am sure there were things outside all the time. Catlin is very brave. Me, not so much.)

• How are cooking and meals different? What's you favorite meal so far? Well, for me as someone who avoids cooking whenever possible, so not much difference. I tend to open the RV fridge and grab whatever I see, but here's LL to actually answer the question -- oh, wait, my answer to the question is that LL made a rice, okra, and make-do jambalya. I also became kind of addicted to goat cheese and arugula sandwiches every day for a few weeks. (LL: Cooking in an RV makes our kitchen at home seem enormous. I have had a love affair with the microwave since being on the road since it doesn't make dishes dirty or use up propane. I wander the supermarkets in every state we've gone to, noticing the differences in food options, and wondering what to do with things like pigs feet and pure lard. I am cooking so much less, enjoying restaurants much more, and can't wait to get home to cook for real once again. See: lack of water in the RV.)

• What happens if wifi doesn't work in the camping site? Turn around, get a refund, go find another site!! It only happened once that our wifi booster couldn't pick up a signal and it wouldn't really matter that much, but we were int he mountains, heading into an area with predicted storms and we felt that had to have access to up-to-date weather reports, so we left after a two-hour walk.

• Are you sick of each other yet? Not at all. In the first week, we had a couple aggravated disagreements under duress about how to navigate, but we soon learned to lean on each other's different strengths and also relinquish control. And we spent so much time walking in forests, sitting around a campfire, that we have had a lot of great conversations but also, plenty of peaceful quiet together, which we both enjoy a great deal.

• What's a black water tank? What do you do with it? It's the toilet tank and emptying it pretty much sucks. This is a small RV so both the grey and black water tanks needs emptying every couple of days or so. You have to pull up to the dumping station, then pull out this long, accordion, 3" diameter pipe/hose, crouch down to reach tank connecting pipe and screw the hose on. Then you open the black water valve and it pours into the dumping station's hole (while you try very hard not to envision what all's down there, or listen to the matter chugging along the pipe) and when it's empty, you open the gray water which washes out most residue in the hose, and finally give the hose a wash with the water that's hopefully turned on at the dumping station. It isn't always on, something I've now learned to check for before starting the process since one time, after doing a dumping, I discovered the water wasn't on and had to drag the dirty hose over to the nearest empty campsite to use their water to rinse it out. (LL: Catlin has generously and uncomplainingly taken over this fun duty from day one, to save my back the effort of bending over. The first time I thought, hey it's great to have a bad back! Each time she does it, I enjoy thinking of the contrast between this woman who's dragging around our porta-potty hose and how she looks in a dress.)

• Items you wished you had brought? It's kind of sad that anything you forget and need, you can buy—this is America! We have stopped at Target a couple time for warmer shirts and a bathing suit which I forgot, but then never got to use as temps didn't get high enough. (Laurie: I wish I'd brought my own computer power chord since we're constantly having to do a computer-plug-in dance. I should have brought at least one sweater. What was I thinking? Oh, right, that it'd be warm. And I really wish I had a pair of slip-on shoes because to keep the RV clean, we always take our shoes off inside. Now, all my shoes, and slippers, have crushed heels because I'm too lazy to constantly lace up and down.)

• Things you brought but did not need? Flares. I hope I'm not speaking too soon! 

• What do you have to do to move from your current location? Poor Marley flinches whenever something rattles in the RV so to make it as easy as possible on her ears and nerves, we wrap practically everything we've used during our stay in bubble wrap, and pack them away as tightly as possible. Then the she has to be taken outside so we can pull in the two-foot slider because she doesn't like the noise it makes (yes, life revolves around our slightly neurotic dog's worries). Next, we unplug the electrical chord/hose from the campground's power box/spigot and tightly coil them into their cubbyholes, lock up all the storage spaces, and finally I play the role of the air-traffic controller helping Laurie back out the RV so we can hit the road. 

• If you could do this all over again, what would you change? Not do it during the Arctic Blasts! I'd love to do it in April when things are starting to bloom and there's the new green freshness everywhere, but before it becomes unbearably hot and humid and mosquito/fly filled. I would also prefer to take this trip with a travel trailer so we could unhook a car and take shorter, more spontaneous, unencumbered adventures. There have been times we wanted to go down a different track or check out an area but didn't want to have to pack up the  RV, use up all that gas, and deal with its ungainly size.  (LL: More than once we'd be going along happily through a city and suddenly come upon an unexpected bridge that had too low clearance requiring a fun U-turn. To park the RV --- well, you can imagine how that goes if there's not a lot of room.) The other thing I'd change in my fantasy world is to go for four months rather than two. There were many areas that we would've liked to have explored more deeply. Two months didn't feel enough. There's so much to see and do across this country and we were only in one little corner! Biggest bummer: Dollywood was closed for the season. 

• What have you learned about each other? Catlin: I learned that Laurie is very easy-going to travel with and generous, in that she's willing to spend time doing things that she's not particularly interested in (e.g. a particular museum or the bluegrass jam session). She's happy to just experience new things and is completely comfortable with randomness. I really appreciate that. I learned that she knows how to have a good time no matter what's going on or where she is. I learned that she's capable of eating practically anything with mustard. I also learned that if I ask nicely, she's willing to dunk her head in an icy lake so I can cut her hair. Laurie: I learned that Catlin's curiosity and enthusiasm for the unexpected and unknown never wavers. She takes joy in little things (like a great bowl of shrimp and grits, a patch of daffodils growing by the roadside, a campground bathroom that's warm and toasty on a cold night, a trivia tidbit that she learns en route (e.g. that adult alligators will eat baby alligators if they're hungry, that Spanish moss usually has chiggers in it, that you need to grease your hands if you want to play the spoons). I learned that she adores hearing live music of all types and makes the musicians smile at her for being so appreciative. I learned that I can be with Catlin almost 24/7 for two months and still be so excited to be with her, to talk with her, to share life with her. I also found out that she is just as happy as I am to completely not think about the mail that is piling up at home. Marley: What I learned about my mamas is that they have, for absolutely no good reason I can see, traded in our house with its big yard for this tin box that rattles and clanks. But they do know how to pick really good lakes and forests to romp in. And they do a pretty decent job of showing off my charms to locals in various towns. They never seem to like a place enough to stay more than a few days, though, which is a pity, since there's been so many great places. Oh, well, their loss. 

• What do you miss from home the most? My friends and my sister. I also miss going to yoga classes every couple of days. Oh, and I miss my bathroom. A lot. 

• Who's the most interesting person you have seen or talked to? Seen: It's a toss-up of participants in the New Orleans Mardi-Gras parade, and the middle-aged, alternative, French rockers who are trying to buy the leather Elvis suit at Graceland. Talked to: I sat for an hour next to an old lady in the tiny town of Floyd, VA, who told me somewhere between five and eight stories about the people and her life in Floyd. 

• What was the best unexpected event? Oh, there were lots! A few: Getting to drive over the beautiful Chesapeake Bay Bridge; the conversation I had with a little girl in Mississippi; being taken to Mardi-Gras Indian rehearsal by our friend, Elizabeth, and feeling so welcomed with a handshake and a smile from the Big Chief himself. LL: Getting to eat at Coquette in NOLA, one of the best restaurants I've ever been to, hanging all alone with Marley on the endless Edisto Beach, SC, during a storm, finally having a chance to put my tornado knowledge to good use.

• What was the worst? Having to stay in a motel because of a tornado in Memphis. And sitting in the dry bathtub with the dog, feeling that if I were a teenager, I'd be rolling my eyes. 

• If you had to make a choice, which visited place would you choose to settle in? That's so, so hard. South of Broad in Charleston, SC. Or in Savannah, GA. Or near a SC beach. I guess I like South Carolina. (LL: Not Mississippi.)

• Has it mattered or not mattered that you are a same sex couple? Surprisingly, it's been no problem, and even better than that, it seemed that people actually went out of their way to be talkative and friendly and inclusive. The other campers we've met have be so open and friendly, it's been both a relief and a joy. And we've encountered a handful of folks who tell us about their gay relatives. We haven't felt that strange, indescribable, but oh so real, coldness and reticence you can feel that is clearly nothing other than homophobia. (But we've also been traveling in the off-season and I wonder if it would be different if we were all packed in like sardines at the campgrounds.)

• Does the word "lost" mean anything new to you? Lost to me can be a matter of geography, or it can be a sort of dissolution of identity whereby I'm not tethered to the things and people that make up my usual routine and form my sense of self. In this trip, I was separated from those things for longer than I ever have been before. I enjoyed shedding the self my friends know me by, the way I usually know myself. So it feels that what I am tethered to here is less "myself," that temporarily lost relationship, and more just being, seeing, listening, open, fluid. And I feel quite at home in the unknown. 

• What does "the south" mean to you now? It's hard to sum up. Most of all, it's no longer an amorphous section of the country I called 'The South.' For me in the past, the south was a blank slate with a few assumptions thrown at it, plenty of political and social horror stories, plus an inkling of its beauty that I'd only read about. The landscape is so varied, from alligator swamps, to rolling hills of flowering shrubs, to dense pine forests, to tobacco and cotton fields. It's a place I now feel connected to because my feet have touched the ground here and there, I've talked to people and enjoyed (loved!) their regional accents, I've tasted the food -- so that it's not just abstract entity, but a "place" I want to go back to again and again, distinct and varied histories and cultures. Now it also means to me shrimp and grits. I adore the food in the Carolinas and Louisiana. (LL: Actually, I think she enjoyed the food everywhere.) 

A couple questions anonymously sent: 

• Would Marley do it again? Yes, she really had a lot of fun, but she'd much rather have the trailer hooked up to the back of a car.

• Were you ever scared? Driving on the NJ turnpike was actually really scary and intense, especially since it was our first day driving the RV. Otherwise, nope, never felt scared. 

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Laurie's new haircut

Typical day's use/mess that has to be stowed away every day we move.