Top Ten

Cameo's top ten reasons we are Vagabonds (a kinder term than White Trash):
1. Our address changes daily depending on what whim blew our way, what state we've decided to explore.
2. Our children have dropped the "motor" part of motorhome and just say, well, you've got it, home...
3. I can only be seen wearing headwraps to hide the napiness that has become my head. (Not that it's dirty, only that after the absence of straighteners, blowdryers and products, it's the only reasonable way I can be seen in public.) This was tricky at church on Sunday...
4. We have an list of "acceptable" Walmarts to stay in, west of the Mississippi, including most level ground, dimmest lighting and the least patroled. And we know to get out of there at the crack of dawn.
5. We pull into a motel advertising free Wi-fi (currently we're across the street from a Motel 8 in Gardner, Montana), or a free Wi-fi pizza place or even a Chick-fil-A (We stayed there for five hours because of the playplace) and are beginning to lose any shame of doing so.
6. When other fellow travelers ask our children where we're from, they point to the parking lot.
7. When people ask us where we're from we pretend to speak a foreign language. Not too hard since I've been told I look European with the headwrap and all...
8. My definition of dirty clothes has dramatically changed. If you truly are causing nasal pain to those around you, it can be washed, otherwise a little discomfort to a stranger's nose (we have become accustomed to our own odor) is healthy for him. Sarah, aren't you excited for us to come visit you next week? Travis, we haven't tried your gasoline trick but are thinking seriously about it.
9. Even though we know we need to fix the squealing brakes on our vehicle, we are unsure how to accomplish this task considering our vehicle is also our home. "Um, do you mind if we do some dishes while you put the car on mounts?"
10. We have visions of how to be the most economical. I have to explain this one. We found a natural spring on the side of the mountain near Moab, Utah. In order to avoid paying for a place that had potable water to refill our motorhome, Lynn emptied, bucket-by-bucket, the water into our motorhome. Oh, we tried to be incognito but our motorhome is not as easily camoflouged as hoped for so we went at night. Our mission was successful but laborous and the following night Lynn had a dream about using a cardboard box, bent down the middle as a sort of funnel for the water. After that, any and every free spicket of clean water we've found has used this method and to Lynn's delight his "epiphony" has been a success! [This is Lynn: I read the book, Grapes of Wrath when I was a kid. Great novel. Good movie. I really feel like the characters in the book, moving after having lost their farm, penniless, across the west in hopes of a better life in California. Never more did I feel like the characters in the book than when I was filling up our motorhome from the spring on the side of the road. I hope it turns out better for us than it did for them.]