I was talking to a colleague of mine yesterday and explaining how Lex and I manage when we don’t feel like doing the same things at the same time here inside the fifth wheel. Well, we’ve come up with some inventive solutions to that problem, I think. There are distinct spaces in the RV, the bedroom and the living area. We also have the bathroom as a buffer in between the two, but that’s not a space we spend a whole lot of time in (depending on what was for dinner). In the living area there’s the kitchen, our desks and computers, the larger TV, and the Xbox (which we use more for the DVD player and the Netflix instant streaming video than we do for playing games). There is a surround sound system hooked into the TV and the Xbox, and that system can just play in the living room or it can also play in the bedroom, too.
So, that said, sometimes Lex wants to play Warcraft in the evenings, so she’ll put her uber-expensive headset on and go pew pew for hours. That way she can blast away at bad guys at top volume if she wants to and not annoy the crap out of me with that stuff. If she doesn’t particularly want to listen to/watch what I’m watching or if I want to watch TV late into the night and not bother her, I have a set of headphones with a really long cord that I can plug into the surround sound system in the living room or into the little TV into the bedroom. That way, we can still be in the same tiny space while each doing something individually. Sometimes one of us will escape to the bedroom to read while the other watches TV or piddles around on the computer.
Most of the time, though, we’re doing things together, snuggling on the sofa watching a movie or snuggling in bed each reading our own books (or, in Lex’s case, reading her favorite blog feeds). Sometimes, we’re both farting around on our respective computers here in the living area while we also watch something on TV and talking about it. Last night, I was on the sofa, composing this post on Lex’s laptop while she was moving between the kitchen where she was making us ciabatta bread and her desk where she was playing Warcraft, and all the while we were talking to one another about the crazy acts on America’s Got Talent. Earlier in the evening, I had been at my computer responding to student postings on WebCT while the TV was going and Lex was cooking. I even spent a little while spinning last night.
When one of us needs quiet (like when I have a migraine or when Lex wants to sleep), then the door between the bathroom and living area pulls shut and does a fairly decent job of blocking sound or, of course, there are the magic headphones.
Aside from sound, the other issue that can be a challenge in the RV is motion. The RV sits on its four tires in its center and its four jacks (two in back and two in front). We’ve also got leveling blocks underneath the jacks and tires to help keep the whole thing from listing to one side. Having the RV truly level does help minimize motion, but some still exists. It’s especially noticeable at night when one of us is in bed while the other is walking around in the RV. Personally, I’m starting to find the slight pitch and roll comforting. It’s rather like what I imagine living in a houseboat must be like. Lex, I think, is still disconcerted by the movement. I bought a king pin stabilizer (looks like a giant tripod) to put under the front end. It was supposed to take care of some of the wiggle, but neither of us noticed a significant difference. Now the thing is sitting in the back of Lex’s truck. I think the movement is something we’ll eventually learn to ignore entirely, but there will never be any sneaking around in here, that’s for sure. Dammit. How will I ever hide birthday and Christmas presents?
In the past two days, the weather has grown a little cooler, and that has gotten me thinking about what winter will be like. Monday night we left a couple of windows open, and we were both quite cold by morning. I even got up at some point and closed windows, I think. Hard to say. I may have dreamt that part. The tile floor in the kitchen (the living area has no “basement” area under it like the bathroom and part of the bedroom does) was freezing. Slippers will be a necessity when it gets truly cold out. I can also imagine we’ll have to leave the shades down to insulate when things get really icy. That could be a problem. Short dark days made even shorter and darker by shades. Can we say seasonal affective disorder? But hey, it’s either the shades or freeze our tits off. I wonder about our steps, too. They’re metal covered in outdoor carpet. I wonder how those metal steps will do if we have to deal with days or weeks of sub-freezing temps. Will the metal get brittle and break? I guess we’ll see.
Tags: rving, small spaces, weather
