Have I become “trailer trash”?
I’m writing this from the dining table in my 21-foot pull trailer. I pulled it to Quincy, WA on the back of my 1994 Ford pickup truck from Wickenburg, AZ last week. You can read about each day of that journey here, here, and here. Now I’m camped out in the parking lot of a golf course built on a flat farm field. I have a full hookup — electricity, water, and sewer — and a tiny but lush green lawn between my camper and the big fifth wheel camper parked in the next spot.
The golf course’s “RV Park” is on the corner of two main farm roads. White Trail Road comes south from Route 28 and curves to the east past the golf course. Route 281 runs north-south between Quincy and George, where I-90 cuts through central Washington. These roads get a good amount of traffic that includes everything from farm tractors to 18-wheelers. Because White Trail Road has a stop sign at the corner, the big trucks often rely on engine braking as they coast past the RV park. Fortunately, there aren’t a lot of those. Unfortunately, there is traffic on both roads from about 3:30 AM to 12:30 AM — in other words, most of the day and night. Oddly enough, the sound of the traffic doesn’t seem to keep me awake. (More on that in a moment.)
The golf course is surrounded by farmland. Huge fields with irrigation “circles” grow wheat, potatoes, and other crops. Across the road is a residential area with a row of houses and tall shade trees. There’s a small pasture filled with milking cows and I can often hear the sound of a horse’s whinny and a rooster’s crowing. There are also a lot of rabbits and unfamiliar birds.
The RV Park has five full hookup spots including mine. Four are filled. There are also a few electricity and water (but no sewer) sites, two of which are occupied. There’s room for at least 20 more campers here. But since the golf course doesn’t advertise the availability of the sites, they’re not likely to fill up.
My neighbors keep to themselves. The big fifth wheel’s occupant is normally gone for the day by 5 AM. The other two full-hookup trailers, which look as if they’re about as old as I am, don’t seem to be occupied at all. In the five days I’ve been here, I saw two trucks stop at one of them for the night. Otherwise, they’ve been empty.
I also had an overnight neighbor in the spot on the other side of my camper; they backed in with a big fifth wheel but never bothered to unhook it from their truck. Instead, the man and woman pulled out their golf clubs and hurried over to the pro shop to get in a game of golf. It was afternoon when they arrived, but since the sun doesn’t set here until 8:30 PM, they had plenty of time for their game. They stayed the night, but when I returned from my errands the next day, they were gone.
My trailer is comfortable. It’s 21 feet long, but none of that floor space is taken up with beds. Instead, the beds drop down in their own little tent-like structures on the front and back of the camper. Each bed is slightly smaller than queen sized. Their mattresses are 6-inch foam. Because I only need one bed, I stacked two mattresses on the back bed and put linens on that. The other bed is open, but I’m using it for storage and for Alex’s cage.
The camper is definitely not designed for cold weather. Cold air comes right through its poorly insulated shell and the tents on each end. It has a forced hot air gas furnace that can does a pretty good job keeping up with the cold, but it’s very loud. It gets down into the 40s (F) here at night. I have a small electric heater that’s quiet and I set that up in the camper’s main area each night, mostly to keep Alex warm.
My bed has flannel sheets and three blankets on it. Since I added the third blanket, I’ve been sleeping remarkably well. In fact, when I wake at sunrise (around 5 AM) with Alex’s first words, I feel cosy and refreshed. I don’t want to get out of bed. This is extremely unusual for me — at home, I jump out of bed as soon as I wake.
The camper has a three burner stove, oven, microwave, small double sink, and decent sized refrigerator and freezer. There’s also a tiny bathroom with sink, shower, and standard RV toilet. It has a reasonable amount of cabinet space and storage under the dining area’s benches. Both the dining area and sofa can be converted into beds for short people. There’s a special shelf for a television and an antenna on the roof, but I don’t have a television installed. I haven’t missed it yet. There’s a stereo with a CD slot and an MP3 input, so I can listen to NPR and my iPod. There’s also an air conditioner on the roof. We tested it before I left Wickenburg and it worked extremely well in Arizona’s hot sun. I’ve been told I’ll be using it soon, but so far, the weather has been unseasonably cool here.
My morning routine here is similar to at home. I make coffee with my one-cup electric drip coffee maker and cook Alex’s scrambled eggs in the microwave. I’m trying to blog each morning, but I’ve been busy with other settling in tasks, so I’ve neglected my blogging. Lately, I’ve been getting exercise by walking orchards. I brought my bicycle along and expect to get exercise riding it back and forth to the airport (4 miles) and the town of Quincy (5 miles) on mostly flat farm roads. I did walk around the golf course one morning and I expect to do that more often — perhaps when it’s too hot to ride my bike.
I’ve been eating entirely too much, mostly in the afternoon, when I’m done with my errands for the day. I’m working on getting that under control. I was really hoping to lose weight here — not gain it.
Today, I’m going to Seattle to pick up my helicopter and bring it to Quincy Airport. I’ve rented a hangar for two months, so I’ll spend the morning reassembling my helicopter tow bar and swap out my big trailer tow hitch ball for the smaller one that works with the tow bar. At 10 AM, a golf course employee will be picking me up there and taking me to Wenatchee Airport, where I’ll catch a flight to Sea-Tac. Then a cab to Boeing Field. Later today, I’ll fly up the Columbia River, detouring to meet another pilot at Mattawa before continuing up to Quincy. With luck, I’ll have the helicopter put away in its temporary home by 6 PM.
There’s rain in the forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday. Looks like I might finally get to work.
The 30-acre orchard climbed up the side of a hill. There wasn’t much in the way of obstructions — just a set of power lines along the road on the bottom edge of the field. I noted that when I dried one side of the orchard, I’d be in the backyards of a few houses on the other side of a chain link fence.
The trees looked old, with thick trunks and branches cut by aggressive pruning. The cherries were mostly reddening, although some were still greenish yellow. They looked tasty, but I didn’t touch them. I climbed one side of the field and started across the top, which sloped down. I noticed an empty wire animal trap at the base of a tree. The next trap had a large raccoon in it. It looked healthy enough — at least then. Who knows what the grower would do with it? I don’t want to know.
I could immediately see that this block of trees would be a nightmare. The trees were planted beneath two sets of high tension power lines that crossed the block diagonally. The wires from one set hung low over the block. A tower for the other set stood in the middle of the trees on one end of the block. And just for good measure, there was a drying fan in the field, too.
The other 10.5 acre block in the same orchard was completely different — and a lot easier to find. It lay in almost flat terrain with just two fans and some low wires on one side to worry about. The aerial photo I had showed tall poplar trees on one side of the field; these had been taken down since the photo was taken. I took this photo from the road that wound down to the river. The outlined area is what I’ll be drying. I was lucky; a road wound all the way around the orchard so I drove it instead of walking it.