For each month a couple lives together, their RV grows one foot shorter.
- Anon

How hard can it be? he said again, flipped through RV catalogues, glossy pages with model-fake smiles dreaming of Cabo, alluring banners: Unschedule – Go Rving, Remember to Explore, RV Travel Does the ♥ Good and my fave, Oh Darling, Let's Be Adventurers.

Some days my ♥ ached, some days it was sun-bleached-bone hard, our "home is where you park it" lifestyle fisting lessons down our throats. If you live in a trailer, for instance, bad weather, especially wind and hail, follows. When an imminent tornado darkens the dashboard, you won't be safely parked but caught on the hook of a busy highway with nowhere to pull off. If there is one religious zealot or bow-hunting survivalist, he or she will park next to you and show you that Bible, that bow.

When you need a part, repair or tow, it's a Sunday or a day of local celebration. You're out of cell range, out of money, out of patience. Good times.

Privacy is as thin-skinned as your walls because Rvers follow an IT'S 4 PM SOMEWHERE! clock, arriving at your door with red cups brimming, ice cubes colliding, stories repeating.

Everyone is older than you expected, only the models in those RV magazines look fun and young, the type you assumed to meet on this journey. Actual Rvers prepare potlucks and play pickle ball while your toes tense to explore, meet up with those fictional fun travelers.

Unless you're a math whiz with amperage, prepare to blow your electrical panel and your cool as you warm your toes and run too many appliances. Forget Unschedule, the genuine RV credo is Unplug and that's what you'll be doing. A lot.

But then I look over while you drive us to our next port, this land yacht we call home, and watch you sip French Roast from your battered mug, your slender feet with flip flop tan lines, your cap with a confident slouch to shade your eyes, your bow-shaped mouth makes me want to press my lips into yours, my man-boy who shares this journey.

For you, I'll wear the "adventurer hat." Educated me, finally figured out the amps and angles of your moods, all things grey and black water, chocks and blocks, earned my Ph.D.
in RV. Good times indeed.