A Hippie and Her Ghosts

An unlimited and undefined time to go.

We’ve officially been staying in the camper for a whole month now! Boreas and I are currently in Wichita Falls, TX. We’re visiting a friend of mine I’ve known since I was 12 years old! Man, how time flies. So far Boreas and I have traveled through Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

It has been an absolute whirlwind of a month to get here. In many ways I’m absolutely blessed to be in the position I am. It’s not a terrible situation by any means. But, it has not gone as planned. I often feel like its one thing after another… on and on and on.

One thing I’ve learned to adjust is how I plan my travel plans. Nothing is set in stone. There needs to be wiggle room for all the unforseen occurrences, both good and bad. Sticky notes are becoming one of my new best friends. I can use them on my calender and move them around instead of constantly crossing things out and rewriting over and over again.

This is how my planner looked well before I even made it to the month of September physically. Finally, a couple weeks before August was over, I started using sticky notes and moving them around as plans changed.

This picture is upsetting and kind of saddening to me. I had, what were to me, HUGE plans to see and investigate some potentially amazing haunted locations at the beginning of this trip. Not only was this tripped planned, and paid for months before I was denied being able to go, but written in the margins are notes for trips we were planning for even this time next year and later down the road. I thought this group of people were not only peers with similar interests, but my friends. Unfortunately, you gotta learn to move on from what is not meant for you. And it can hurt.

That time has come and gone now and I need to move on. There’s so much potential out there for other things I could do. (This is just as much a pep talk for myself, as for others to read.)

I’ve been dealing with a lot of electrical problems. A couple of days after I picked up the camper I started having a popping noise in my car, that was accompanied by everything electrical in my car restarting. The radio, screen, dashboard, cruise control. The first couple times it was hours in between the pops and took me awhile to figure out that it was more than an anomaly. I drive a lot for work, so in the next few hours as it picked up I started to really worry and went back to the camper to park. By the time I got there it was popping every 10-20sec. I disconnected the battery so that it wouldn’t drain over night… or blow up. And went to bed for the night. The next morning when I reconnected the battery it went right back to the same thing. The only thing that had been changed was the electronic brake control they installed when I picked up the camper. So I called the (not so helpful) dealership I got the camper from. After a short time on the phone I disconnected some of the wires they installed, got the battery reconnected and was able to drive my car to get it checked out. They had stripped the wires while installing and it was touching metal somewhere and sparking and whatever else! It was ridiculous, but has since worked fine.

Since then, my biggest problem has been getting the solar panel working. My sister Stephenie has especially been a huge help. I think we’ve narrowed it down the the charge controller. In the process of figuring it all out I have gotten a multi meter to test all the different wires and figure out what is going where. I didn’t realize until after I bought it that I can use it for ghost hunting too! Investments. I’m seriously convinced that this whole solar panel system was set up by the company I bought this from… and I’m pretty sure they didn’t know what they were doing. I also don’t know what I’m doing, but with the power of youtube and google I’m gonna figure it out! hahaha

We’ve stayed at campgrounds so far the whole trip. My grandparents gave me a book of Corps of Engineer RV Camps, which has come in super handy. When we left Cheyenne it was just starting to be “off season” which means lower rates for each night. But of course, as we go south where its warmer longer, its still “peak season.” Even so there have not been very many other campers around. At first I was trying to avoid other people and try to pick sites away from the crowds. But now I do find comfort in having at least one or two other campers around. I don’t think Boreas would be down to become an attack cat.

Boreas seems to really like the camper life. He took to it a lot better than Morgana. I think Morgana also really missed my sister and her kiddos. She’s home now. My sister Amanda came to pick her up and take her home. And she also helped with my solar panel dilemma. At that point we’d been in the camper almost three weeks. I would let both the cats out in the morning and evenings, and just let them wander around without leashes. They were both really good about coming back when food is put out. This particular night, when my sister decides she’s ready to leave, Morgana disappeared and would not come back. We spent and hour looking for her before we wrangled her into the car to go back home. My sister has since sent many pictures of her happy to be back with them. I think Boreas misses her, but is also to have me all to himself.

I’ve still been trying to let Boreas out of the camper as much as possible, but its actually been harder since we’ve been on the road. Our second night on the road he caught this baby bunny and brought it in the camper! At least I know I’ll never starve. Boreas will always help. I worry about letting him out around other campers though. Especially when most of them have dogs. I need to try to see if he’ll let me put the leash on him and keep it on. Eventually I’d like to get a dog crate or something mounted to one of the windows so that he can go in/out without being bothered, but we’ll just see what happens. Also, he loves rolling in the dirt everywhere we go.

We’re learning things as we go. Still lots to fix/adjust/adapt/etc. We’ll be in Texas a few more days and then we’ll slowly head to Colorado!

I hope to post a lot more often and keep you all updated on our adventures. Hopefully more ghost hunting and kool finds along the way.