A Wee Home

ByMike Wendland
A Wee Home 1
Visiting, but not intruding.
Visiting, but get my own sheets!

Compared to my sticks and bricks home, as fellow Roadtreking blogger RT Campskunk likes to call them, my RS Adventurous is a tiny bit smaller.  There is no guest bedroom or bath.  No den, mudroom or attic.  No island in the kitchen.  No gables, widow’s walk or walkout basement.

I can’t send kids to their rooms for time outs. I don’t have a big front-loading washer/dryer set.  I can’t have a 300 gallon, glass tank for a pet boa constrictor. I can’t throw a ball around the living room for Her Majesty the Pooch. Although I shouldn’t in the big house either, I usually destroy something – bad hand/eye thing.  I can’t soak in a jetted tub until I look like a Shar Pei. There is no wine cellar, either.  Okay, so I don’t have a jetted tub or wine room in the big house, but you get the picture.

So what?

I don’t even take baths, I prefer showers with hot water and good pressure. Got one in the RT!  If, on the rare occasion I need a hot tub after a grueling day of picnicking in a mountain meadow, I can zip over to the hot springs in my spiffy spa-mobile.

Clean undies? There are laundry facilities everywhere, which bring back the good old college days.  Not only that, but when I’m done fondly reminiscing, most have lending libraries and people with whom to chat.  Added bonus- I can sometimes pick up an extra sock for the loner I always seem to have.  At a laundry, I can do more than one load at a time, thus not spend my whole day fussing with it, so I can go to the cow chip throwing contest that afternoon in town.

on your mark, get ready, NAP!
on your mark, get ready, NAP!

I can’t have a pet boa, but I can take Olga (my beloved RV) to Reptile World and see macho guys wrestling real live gators, which is way cooler than watching a boa lay there anyway. They never do anything except escape to die in the ventilation system.

I can throw a ball as far as I can (approximately 11. 6 feet) so my volunteer health trainer dog can run after it, pick it up in her drooling mouth and take off in the wrong direction, forcing me to chase her.  No breakage involved unless it’s me tripping over a log.  No need for a never used exercise room with an  expensive, dusty elliptical machine.

While Roadtreking, I can look out of my window in the morning and see 12 elk a-milling, or 11 dolphins leaping, or 10 boy scouts hiking, or 9 antique stores opening, or 8 giant redwoods growing (that one actually might take more time than I have).

I need to fix that, someday!
I need to fix that, someday!

I can’t drive the big house.  In it, as I sip my java in the morning, I have to stare at the huge dead tree that is going to cost 2  gold bars to cut down.  In my swift RV, I can change my view any time. No mowing or yard work (alas- no good looking lawn guy but there are usually one or 2 good looking rangers in the parks).  So there, big fat dead tree- I’m outta here!

Some days are meant just for puttering around the house. This happens in Olga, too. I can make a root beer float, read schleppy mysteries, stretch out, nap, nibble bon bons, talk on the phone and surf the web. I can play video games, watch stupid TV and be a zombie couch potato with the best of ‘em.

It only takes 52 seconds to sweep the floor, about 4 minutes to clean the bathroom and only a quick swipe for the kitchen counter.  I don’t even break a sweat!

On the road, I can’t spend a lot of money collecting decorator plates, cabbage patch dolls or stuffed deer heads. No room. Instead, I use that money for important stuff like gelato and small, but tasteful jewelry.

Added incentive- no chimney sweeping.  I wouldn’t dare make S’mores in my fireplace in the stix and brix home; who wants to scrape the burned, gooey marshmallows?  At the campfire -let ‘em drop! (As long as I’m not in bear country.)

I do have a large bed, which can probably fit 2 kings and a jester, were I into that sort of thing.  And the commode is so comfy, I can sit and read “Weird Roadside Attractions” as long as I want.

I can visit friends and not have to sleep in their teenaged boy’s room that smells like rotten sneakers.  I am confident that my drooling dog won’t eat their cat’s food (or the cat). I am assured that I will have more than 20 thread count sheets; and I can get up, as many times as I need throughout the night, and not trip over that frikking cat.

I do like my sticks and bricks. I love my friends and family at home, and Kansas City is a thriving metropolis.  But when I get that frequent itch for a change, I just hop in my wee home on wheels and vamoose, knowing I've got it all. Then, I don’t have to stare at that dead tree in the yard for a while.  Instead, I can watch 7 surfers surfing while not doing housework.

 

Mike Wendland

Mike Wendland is a multiple Emmy-award-winning Journalist, Podcaster, YouTuber, and Blogger, who has traveled with his wife, Jennifer, all over North America in an RV, sharing adventures and reviewing RV, Camping, Outdoor, Travel and Tech Gear for the past 12 years. They are leading industry experts in RV living and have written 18 travel books.

78 Comments

  7. This photo shows great character in its presentation, loved it, what history may have taken place here?

  16. I love it. Look at the tumble weed. I bet its nice inside. If it had a stream by to catch water and a outdoor toilet. That’s all you would need. Love the wide open spaces.

  41. I love that old house, it must have been back in the Prairie days it looks like! Thanks again for your great pics keep them coming o where did this pic come from!?

  49. Nice ….i love this…i was born in d wrong era!! Lol..

  51. Usually I don’t like foreground obstruction in a picture but in this case very effective! Great shot.

    3. I think that way with all these old places. what was the family like? were they happy?

  56. Little paint little fixin up and we have happy acres estate

  62. Exactly captures the allure of the road!

  63. Thanks for sharing..if you and your dog can do it I think my dog and I can. Smiles!

  64. Bill Sprague says:

    One word comes to mind: Sweet!

    Thanks,

    Bill

  65. I love that you have to be organized in our wee houses. I know exactly where everything is located. In my brick house whatever I’m looking for could be in about 100 places!

  66. You know, I think you have that about perfect.

  67. I haven’t showered in our Roadtrek because I worry that the steam would be hard on the interior. Do you often shower in your van? I’ve been careful to overnight at places with showers like state or RV parks, or just go without.

  68. You captured it perfectly, girlfriend!

  69. Funny, entertaining and true , we all love our wee houses. Nothing like getting the hell out of Dodge.

  70. Campskunk says:

    now Laura, you are pulling my leg. you don’t look like the cow-chip-tossing sort at all. but i do like the housework reduction act of 2010, when we started fulltiming. i stand in front of the sink, make a slow circle while wiping surfaces and putting things away, and i’m done. it takes maybe a minute. the laundromat thing is a problem for me, though – we have a steady net loss of socks, with no gains.

    1. Oh, yes, she does!! 🙂

  71. Love this! You are spot on in your comparisons and observations.

  72. I’m very envious Laura…you are living my dreams. The good thing….after a year of researching and being a member of this blog…I am about to start looking for my wee home (Lulu). I’ve even considered a soft ball (the kind that are stuffed into a bigger toy) to amuse my two pups if confined. Hope we meet on the road some time.

  73. Rusti Trubon says:

    Sounds like a big ole piece of heaven to me, just what I always dreamed of..I could do without the stix and brix house and just have the rv and travel all over this great country!

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