Living in a camper

Well, after exactly three weeks on the road, I feel experienced enough to talk about life in a camper. No doubt about it, it is a drastic change compared to our previous lives in big houses in Ghana with house help. Now, we live in about 6 square meters, driving seats included. And we have to do everything ourselves, cooking, washing, etc. Yes, it is definitely a bit cramped in there, but so far we have not torn our heads off, and with a little organising, it works perfectly well. First, the camper drives like a big car, and not like a truck, because it is (relatively) small, so it is very convenient to drive, we drive miles every day and do not feel tired at all (Ok, I admit, I like to drive…I could spend my life driving from one place to another…). It has automatic transmission, and today, we learnt something new… we were driving up a steep road on Orcas island, part of San Juan islands, north of Seattle, when all of a sudden a sign on a dashboard went off: “trans temp”, we stopped immediately, let the engine cool for a couple of hours and took it immediately to a mechanic. He told us that steep roads are tough on transmissions, and it is better to put it in first gear when going up… well, did not know about that… but felt very relieved that it was not something worse. The camper is very confortable and everything has been well thought off to optimise the limited space: it has a stove, a sink with faucet, a microwave, a fridge and a freezer, a bathroom and toilets, sleeps two in a convertible “living room”, some storage space for clothes, bedsheets, computers and so on. It has air conditioning (we have not it tried yet) and a propane heater (we used it a lot in previous weeks, less now). It also has an awning, so we can sit in the shade in the evenings when need be. We hook it up on electricity and water in camp sites, we have a cable and a water pipe, so we have running water (hot too) and electricity all night. And it has a sewer so we can dump used water. So far, we have not used the bathroom, because camp sites in the United States are very comfortable with all the amenities, hot showers, toilets, always extremely clean. It also has a generator for the days when there is no electricity hook up. All this in this small place, and we can still manage to actually stand in it. So, we really hope it will take us all the way to the southern tip of the Americas… so far so good!!!