Basecamp 103 – Part 1

Ramelle’s News­letter
Ba­se­camp 103 – Post One

Stock­bridge – Ojai Cross Coun­try Drive – No­vember 29,  2023

We pull out of our Stock­bridge dri­ve­way by 11 Wednes­day morn­ing. The 4-hour
drive to the first camp­ground I re­served takes 6 pulling the 20-foot Airstream Basecamp in tow be­hind our BMWX5. We choose a “full look up” to have wa­ter at our site,
even though it will be be­low 32 freez­ing tonight.

Dark­ness is upon us at 4:15 just as we pull into Her­shey, Penn­syl­va­nia RV campground. The staff close up by 5 but we are glad they are there to smile, wel­come us,
of­fer us a cup of cof­fee and show us ex­act­ly where to go. Thanks, we say. All set. The
bath­rooms are warm and in­su­lat­ed. We have stopped here be­fore. The poo­dle knows
where the dog park pen is!

Next morn­ing, from un­der my warm cov­ers on a firm pad of the Base­camp mattress, the light changes with the sun­rise. We are pret­ty well slept in our trav­el­ing home,
it is warm. The wa­ter works, the lights turn on, the stove heats up wa­ter for the drip
cof­fee. A lit­tle cold milk from the frig, Lux­u­ry in an alu­minum can! The hook-ups add to
life’s ameni­ties, but we could go “solo” as we have wa­ter and all the food we need. Ah,
the oth­er fac­tor: the blue sky is an im­por­tant and pos­i­tive note to be­gin our trip across
the States: Stock­bridge to Ojai.

“We” means two on two legs and one on four…. Bear, our blue stan­dard poo­dle is
mak­ing the trip for his fifth time, too. But he is on his own this time. The fe­male age 12,
Coala, is no longer with us. She flew up to rain­bow land where all good dogs go to
run and play again. We are all ad­just­ing. We look for her in emp­ty cor­ners, won­der­ing
how to fill the time we spent car­ing for her: walk­ing with her slow­ly, llift­ing her in and
out of the car (she loved to go places al­ways sit­ting up to watch out the win­dow), being her friend. Bear age 9 was the best at this. Nev­er­the­less, he is pret­ty. good on his
first trav­el day, just a cough from the rains last week and a cou­ple of mid­dle of the
night walks to see where we are. Thanks, Michael.

Yes­ter­day, I packed up the whole sec­ond car with suit­cas­es, art­work and a few
shoes and slighter things tucked in the cor­ners to be ready to roll for the auto-trans­fer
car­ri­er. It takes us a full week­end to col­lapse the kitchen, ri­fle through the ice box, secure the gar­den stuff, clean off the garage shelves. Of course there is the pack­ing up
and re­ar­rang­ing suit­cas­es, stor­ing woolens for the rest of the win­ter, sort­ing through
the clos­et of cloth­ing and coats, giv­ing away a huge shop­ping bag to my friend and
house clean­er to pour through. Her in­struc­tions: en­joy or do­nate to The Cat Walk. The
trash is off to the dump, the com­post to the gar­den, tv sys­tem down­sized to va­ca­tion
mode, mail for­ward­ed, my desk sor­ta neater, my com­put­er be­hind the dri­ver’s seat for
the trip. This re­arrangement of life to live be­tween places may be like many with “second homes”. But we have a third home. And also pack that to we move into it, tak­ing
just enough for the next two weeks. Hel­lo Ba­se­camp. Here we go again!

It is hon­est­ly nerve wrack­ing to head out. All car and camper sys­tems need a double check; the “blue tooth” app on Michael’s phone con­trols the brakes in the camper;
the propane heaters need to be on overnight and OFF when we drive! It is be­low
freez­ing. We don’t need frozen, let alone bro­ken pipes. It makes us snip­py … na na na
…. We re­mind each oth­er. We can do this. Yes, we can. From Her­shey, it is on to Virginia via I-81 to Nat­ur­al Bridge, a state park I’ve al­ways want­ed to see.