Waking up in RV Neverland

Once upon a time . . . We all know the story. One day we wake up in a world we don’t recognize and wonder how we got there. Usually it is a dream and when we get fully awake, we say, “Phew! It was only a dream.” In my case, I wake up every morning to realize it isn’t a dream—but that isn’t a bad thing.

Instead of a house, I have a fifth wheel. Instead of a neighborhood, I have an RV Park. Instead of teaching at a college (which I did for 33 years), I take care of pools and write/blog. Instead of my husband getting into the car and driving across town to work, he walks across the RV Park to the office. Yep, I woke up in RV Neverland.

How this happened is a long, long story which I don’t talk about much in this blog. It doesn’t really matter too much how we got to Neverland, it just matters that we enjoy where we found ourselves. That is my goal every single day. It isn’t very difficult to do.

In Peter Pan, the children arrive in Neverland to find a group of boys who never grew up and simply enjoyed living out their lives as children. In a sense an RV Park is much like that. It is where people go to escape their every-day world and enjoy life for a few days, weeks, months or years in some cases like ours. Living in a place where almost everyone is intent on enjoying life truly has its advantages.

There are those who appear to take on the role of Captain Hook—unhappy sorts whose lot in life seems to be to express discontent. I shake my head in wonder because they are stopping for a night or more in Neverland but seem to only find those things that aren’t exactly like they want them to be. It makes me wonder what happened in their life to make them lose the hand of happiness.

Then there are the rest. The dog lovers, the grandparents who are taking their grandchildren on adventures, the parents who often are reliving their own childhood adventures in camping, the retirees who dreamed of travelling in an RV all the long years they worked, the adventurers who pull in with toy haulers full of ways to enjoy the active life they love, and the ‘full-timers’ like us who choose to make this life at least semi-permanent.

Some full-timers came as Work Campers, others came to live. Some, like us, came to live but became Work Campers. We know each other and watch out for each other. (Like when a knight in shining golf cart rescued me from a rainstorm.) Sometimes we irritate each other, much like a family. We all work hard to make our visitors comfortable and we shake our head at the ones who no one can make happy. Thankfully, they are rare.

There is a sort of rhythm to the park. Overnighters are out by 11:00 and just like a hotel, the spaces must be ‘turned.’ Check-in is at 1:00 and sometimes there are over 100 check-ins. On those days, the escorts on the golf carts are kept very busy! There are cabins, bunkhouses, tent and RV sites, two pools, office/store, and a pavilion/arcade. Then our favorite new spot is The Mercury Diner!

It is my Neverland. I am still not certain how I got here, but it is exactly where I needed to be. The pools were both perfect today and life is good. Living where people come to enjoy life makes me happy and content.