Making Connections on the Road

Relationships and connections to others are super important to me. I worry a great deal about not only losing my relationships when we go full-time but also how I will make new ones. I love my husband and his company very much, but we both know we need more people in our lives. As we travel, we both love to talk to others about their travels and their careers or past careers. I often think that that’s why I became a career counselor; simply because I love hearing others career stories. This is something I won’t give up as I move into a nomadic life.

 

Luckily, I’ve come to realize from watching full-time RVers on YouTube as well as my own experience, that the nomadic lifestyle is not necessarily a lonely or empty one! We frequently visit wineries, breweries, and of course restaurants in our travels. We’ve learned to reach out to the person next to us because we know we have at least one thing in common – we are visiting the same place. During our New Mexico trip in the summer of 2018, our “bar” encounters included:

 

  • A man whose goal is to climb the highest peak in every state
  • A woman who is making the transition from mathematics professor to novelist
  • A retired, Native American marine who shared a crossword puzzle with me over a couple of beers
  • A young woman who recently moved across the state to direct the education program at a children’s museum
  • A couple who spends half their year in the mountains of New Mexico and the other on the road in their RV (Actually met them again for lunch!)
  • And many other interesting people, including bartenders, not listed here!

 

One of the coolest things that happened on our New Mexico trip was meeting one of the bloggers that we follow.

 

We took a day and traveled up the Rio Grande from our campground in Orilla Verde. We ended up at the Gorge Bridge and admired the multiple layers of the desert and the awesome power of water to carve such a crevice into the mesa. As we drove through Taos on the way to our campground, we decided to make a stop at Taos Mesa Brewing mothership. What a wonderful, funky space! Lots of fun colors and interesting people watching. Oh… there was good beer, too! We vowed to come back.

 

We made our second trip a few days later to the brewery. This afternoon was was hot and sunny and luckily there was a table on the covered patio. I was browsing Instagram while Roger got our beer and saw a post from More Than a Wheelin talking about their visit to Santa Fe. I posted a comment that we had just missed them and were in Taos. I then got a direct message from them (first time I ever did a direct message on Instagram!) saying they were actually in Taos, too! I invited them to join us for a beer and thanked Camille for her course on remote work that I had not quite finished yet. She recognized me from the course and said she and Bryce would come on out. I felt a little like I was meeting a “star.” Here was someone whose writing, courage, and work I admired. I also still feel like a bit of a novice when it comes to social media, but this was pretty amazing to be sitting on the Taos mesa and connect with someone who had already started living the life that we are moving towards.

 

It’s funny, that looking back on our conversation, I don’t remember all the specifics of what we talked about. I know that movies, travel, writing, brewing, vocational journeys, and making the decision to become a nomad came up. I just know that it was significant for me to realize that friends can be made in different ways. Also, even though many in the RV community are spread out all over the country, we are tied to together in a unique way.

During our travels, I will keep on “collecting stories.” Looks like new relationships will be out there as well. Maybe this won’t be so scary after all!

 

-Viki

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