Escapees January-February 2024

camping chair chat

What Color is Your Margarita? My spouse, Will, and I have been full-time RVing for almost fi ve years. When you are packing up, giving away, or selling all your lifelong belongings in order to fi t inanRV, there are all kinds of helpful videos and blogs on how to compensate for or handle those transitions. B ut I found there is one thing no one mentioned and, to me, it is a big oversight…food and drinks. You aren’t going to pop over to your favorite watering hole with drinks that make you sigh with the fi rst sip or have that favorite dish prepared just the way you like. As you travel across the US, the food and drinks change just like the weather and the elevations. I remember when we fi rst visited New Mexico. I thought they had given me a glass of water with a lime hanging on the rim. I held the drink up to the sunlight and could see the palm trees waving in the re fl ections. I was not optimistic, but I raised the margarita to my lips and sipped. It was a pleasant, refreshing moment. Prepared with agave and tequila and little else and not sickly sweet. Perfection. I won’t name names but in one state, my margarita arrived neon green. That wasn’t the only questionable thing about that drink. As our time in the RV grew and the number of states we visited expanded, we found access to certain beloved food and drink items to be limited or, if we found the item on a menu, it was prepared with different local ingredients. Before I retired from owning a travel agency, I got a call from a distraught client about her trip to the Caribbean. After highlighting all the things she could not believe happened, she summarized her getaway by saying, “…and there wasn’t even a Walmart available to pick up last-minute items!” She characterized what is wrong with some travel expectations. Do we want to travel to a new location to experience what we have at home? Why are you traveling? Didn’t you want to get out there and have new adventures, travel roads you have never traveled and try things you have never done? I’m a Texan at heart. Although I was born in Missis sippi, and spent my youth in Oklahoma, most of my growing, changing adult life was spent in the Lone Star State. Hence my life experiences are compared here to

sport, a hobby or shared passion. For us, we all share the common goal of travel. You can meet someone who rock climbs, someone who loves to hike or someone who loves to host water aerobics at the RV resort pool every Wednesday. There are so many unique souls who choose to live life differently. There is so much beauty in the variety of different people on the road. Two years ago, if I said I was going “home,” I meant back east where I am from. The longer I’m on the road the more this idea shifts to something more expansive. The idea of “home” changes, but the community is constant. Now when I say I’m going home, I mean I’m going to Quartzsite, Arizona, to be with my people for the holidays. It means I’m going back to one of my spots around the country where I feel most at peace. Home is everywhere. I think that’s what makes this community so special, there is always something new, there is always something or somewhere to pivot to, and there is no wrong way to do it. It’s about fi nding what makes you the most happy, then fl owing and being fl exible with that approach. What does being a nomad mean to you? Kelley Welch #173565

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ESCAPEES Magazine January/February 2024