We just finished emptying out our 5th Wheel Camper, getting it ready to sell. What a chore!
Poor hubby Jack.
After bringing it home from our campsite up near Roscommon on Mother’s Day, where it has resided next door to Sister-in-Law Marlene’s trailer and porch for the past six years, the next step in the process was unloading it. Jack got stuck with that job all by himself, because I got pneumonia right after he brought the camper home. I managed to keep up with my writing, but anything more strenuous was out of the question. Even the computer work wore me out.
If you haven’t guessed, 2023 hasn’t been my favorite year so far.
So, for the past few weeks – nearly a month actually – he has been unloading our 32-foot Fifth Wheel by himself and putting it all in bins to be sorted into things to keep, things to donate and things to throw away.
The whole process reminded me of our recent “Downsizing” when we sold our 2,200 square foot home on the Tobacco River and moved into our 1,080 square foot “Big Camper” here on Whiteville Road. After that experience, I swore we would never move again…
Well guess what? We might as well be doing it all over again because we (actually he) had to move what seemed like almost as much out of that little camper as we did while moving out of that house, and only on a “slightly” smaller scale and in a bit less time of course. And all without much (any) help from me. Then it all had to be cleaned of course. I did help a bit with that.
He kept taking bin after bin out of the camper which he had parked in the front yard.
Some went into the garage, but most of the “stuff” came into the house – the living room actually.
The “sortee,” – me – hasn’t been up to sorting much of anything unfortunately, so our already small living space got a lot smaller, and smaller, and smaller. The overflow came into the office, but most landed on the counter, a folding table, all vacant chairs, the floor and a loveseat, leaving us just our two chairs next to a small space for a cup of coffee or glass of water.
You would think we were hoarders, because we actually had “paths” to our preferred living room seats. Everything else was piled high with “stuff.”
I couldn’t believe there were so many things in that little 32-foot camper. We had everything we could probably use on a trip away from home – and I mean EVERYTHING! When we went north all we needed to take with us was food and clothes…and if we forgot anything, we usually could find a spare when we got there. I believe we could have survived an apocalypse in that camper.
My recovery from my bout with pneumonia – the cough ‘til it hurts kind – has taken a couple of weeks, but I was feeling much better by this week when daughter-in-law Micky came down for a visit and dinner. We moved things off the table to eat and then we had to move more things before she could actually sit down in our living room. That did it for both Jack and I. We both got busy and finally, all of the living room and even the overflow in the office was sorted and cleared out.
Three large bins and three small bins will go back north for our use at Sister-in-Law Marlene’s camper, since we will be sharing her permanent place up there from now on. She no longer gets to Michigan from her Florida home very often and we will keep her 30-foot camper in shape for her to use when she can come north and use it for our own now occasional summer get-away weekends when she isn’t here. It works out well for all of us.
Six huge boxes containing almost everything needed to set up a small household will be donated to Habitat for Humanity, and three huge garbage bags were loaded into Jack’s old truck for disposal. All that’s left in our former little “home away from home” is furniture, TVs, and DVD players, and one hand made quilt just to keep it cozy for the next owners.
I swear, we are never moving stuff again…