Clay shares his thoughts on life on the road and living in a 184 square-foot portable home.
Aside from what it symbolizes and signifies, I’ll tell you what I love most about my Airstream. First, what does it signify? For me, as I think for others, an earlier time in American life — the moment (some 60 years ago) when we passed from the roadster era into modern aluminum life — the romance of the open road.
But what I love most about my Airstream is what I would love about any portable home of 184 square feet: life in the miniature, a spare life, or as Thoreau put it: “To live so sturdily and Spartan like as to put to rout all that was not life … to cut a broad swath and shave close and drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms. …” (I can hear my daughter, now 30, saying, “pretty bougie invoking Thoreau from a luxury trailer, papa!”)
But listen.
1. You cannot leave anything lying around in a travel trailer because everything not battened down will get tossed around as you travel. Our highways are usually more roller coaster than glide path. Therefore, I have to do dishes right after cooking and eating. I have to put everything back in its cupboard space. Everything has to be stored as close to the floor as possible. The refrigerator latch has to be double-checked because the last thing you want is to enter the unit at the end of the day and see raw eggs and mayonnaise splattered all over. Been there, swabbed that up.
2. The refrigerator is larger than a college dorm fridge but about a quarter of the size of a modern home refrigerator, so instead of ten types of jam, just one; instead of three types of mustard, only one. Because it stores less, I buy less, and (more importantly) I waste less food. At home, no matter how big my refrigerator (plus the obligatory North Dakota man fridge), I fill it to the gills. I’ve read that Americans routinely throw away 30% of the food they purchase.
3. Now, when I shower, brush my teeth, or wash dishes, I conserve water in a way I never bother to do at home, where I pretend that water is free and infinite.
4. I’ve severely limited the number of books I carry. Steinbeck said he packed 150 pounds of books, including those classics he had promised himself he’d read and, of course, never did. I have perhaps 30 books in my pickup and camper and of course, my “dodge:” my iPad with 100 books effortlessly stored and several dozen audiobooks ready for me to push “play.”
5. There is a television monitor in my rig and a rooftop antenna of some sort, but I have never turned the monitor on. I’ve never even been tempted. On the two occasions when I have watched a film, it has been on my laptop screen, and I haven’t wished for a home theater (though most expensive RVs now have multiple screens and also a “home entertainment center” in one of the three, four, or five slideouts). Because I don’t watch television, I don’t stay up past my biological clock’s warning signs. I’m usually in bed by nine or nine-thirty unless I am looking at the stars in my camp chair. I read in bed as long as I like, or rather as long as I can keep my eyes open, usually about 8.3 minutes. So, I am getting better sleep and adjusting my lifestyle (temporarily?) to match the circadian rhythm of day and night. I’m up shortly after dawn and in bed, usually shortly after dark. Because there is no Siren (see Homer’s Odyssey) of television, I am reading even more than usual.
6. My Airstream has an environmentally wise and efficient tankless water heater. Almost my happiest time IN the rig is my daily shower. Even after 107 days on the road this summer (April 27-August 12), I have not lost my delight in having my own private bathroom with a shower that is in no way related to the toilet. In some small RVs, as you know, you sit on the toilet seat to take a modified limited shower. A true shower is the one thing I insisted on when I began this adventure. I took a shower an hour ago, using the RV site’s water (always preferred to conserve the onboard supply) and felt a delight in showering that I seldom feel at home and never in a motel.
7. My own sheets! My own sheets! You’ve seen the cop shows where they shine that blacklight on the bedspread, sheets, and carpet. Yeeeww! Every night, I slip into my own sheets. Many RV sites have laundry facilities, so I change my sheets more often than I do at home, partly because there is more grit and grime on the road than at home. I confess that I lean towards the Howard Hughes end of the hygiene spectrum. Having my own shower, sink, bed, and sheets is pure luxury. My hygiene neurosis is one reason I don’t have a dog with me, though at a motel I stayed at in western Kansas once, the owner said, “Dogs, on the whole, are much cleaner than their owners.”
8. I won’t talk about the toilet except to say this. I’m against fouling my own 184 square-foot nest. So, I take advantage of fuel stops and RV bathrooms. If you’ve seen Robin Williams’ 2006 film RV, you will appreciate my iron determination to rid myself of bodily wastes elsewhere.
9. I cook most of my meals at night, but usually on a small portable gas canister grill on the picnic table. The Airstream has a lovely oven-stove combination, but I use it only to boil water, heat a can of soup, or bake the occasional cake or batch of brownies. I don’t want the smell and film of bacon grease in the rig. There is a microwave oven, but I use it only to reheat tea or make a bit of popcorn occasionally.
10. I have a great and perfectly positioned reading light above my bed. If I ever upgraded, I would want a full-on reading chair, like my home reading chair, for which I spent thousands!!! But hey, any port in a storm.
11. I wash the linoleum floor every three or four days and shake out the runners given to me by a good friend back in Dakota.
It’s all droll, life in miniature. And it works. It reminds me of how little we need. In fact, I carry a framed print of one of my favorite Jefferson quotations from his time alone and incognito in southern France in 1787. (Enjoy his creative spelling habits!) He wrote, “A traveller, sais I, retired at night to his chamber in an Inn, all his effects contained in a single trunk, all his cares circumscribed by the walls of his apartment, unknown to all, unheeded, and undisturbed, writes, reads, thinks, sleeps, just in the moments when nature and the movements of his body and mind require. Charmed with the tranquillity of his little cell, he finds how few are our real wants, how cheap a thing is happiness, how expensive a one pride.”
Amen to that. I could not agree more.
Downsides?
So, is there any downside to this lifestyle? Yes. When hauling an expensive trailer behind a pickup, you cannot stop on a dime, do a quick U-turn to get a photo of something, or drive up just any gravel road that looks promising. And you have to find a place to park for the night. This turns out to be a bigger challenge than you might think because, apparently, half of America is out RVing this year! Also, once parked for the night after some fairly tiring trailer pulling, there is little desire to unhitch and seek further road adventures, even in that zip code. In other words, what otherwise would be some additional exploring is disincentivized by the capacity of the well-stocked RV to meet your Maslovian needs.
I believe I could live on the road, and I have contemplated it repeatedly on this journey. When I think of home now, I don’t pine. My only regret is that my big library — assembled at an appalling cost of time and money — is back there, and I am out here. I wonder what it would be like to park it at the Salton Sea, south of Tucson, or near Durango for the winter and read and write. There are some important people in my life that I would miss, but they all have credit cards and travel agents!
For next year, I will get a few more solar panels installed on top of my Airstream, a quieter air conditioner, if such things exist, and some additional shelving within the existing cupboards. I probably need a new pickup, a Ford F250 or so, but this one, though it has taken a beating, especially the brakes, has served me well, and I feel more like the Joads of The Grapes of Wrath every day. As I climbed up some high California passes yesterday, I wondered if the radiator hoses would burst and leave me stranded, Joad-like, by the side of the road. I stopped several times to let my rig cool.
Without Starlink (by which I will send this dispatch in 10 minutes to my handler), I could not make this journey. Time to get on the road to Tehachapi Pass, where the Joads looked down into the promised land.
Editor’s Note: Over the next few months, Clay is shadowing Steinbeck’s 10,000-mile trek around the USA (and making a few detours of his own). Clay’s expedition is a central part of LTA’s big initiative to explore the country and take the pulse of America as it approaches its 250th birthday. Be sure to follow Clay’s adventures here and on Facebook — and subscribe to our newsletter.