Home is where you park it.....

For 3 months this summer while we built our house, our family of 8 lived in a 36 foot Forest River travel trailer. A camper. A glorified tin can.

Not our exact rig, but pretty cute, nonetheless..

We packed each kid a basket of clothes, a basket of treasured toys, and stuffed a few household essentials. our food, and some favorite possessions into the camper, and carefully boxed up all of the rest of our belongings. We wrapped our furniture and mattresses, and we moved our family out to the country in a convoy of trailers, trucks, and the camper, and into a pole shed where we parked our new "home" and stacked our belongings neatly behind it. Our dining table sat right outside the camper door, ready for wonderful, relaxing meals alfresco with the giant doors of the shed flung open. Our grill sat outside the shed door, LP tank ready and filled, ready for fun meals of hot dogs and burgers, and late night steak meals. I dreamed of dinners with friends and family, lemonade, beer, and listening to the rain drum on the roof.

It was August 7th.

The basement of the new house was dug, and we were underway. There was no turning back.
But we were prepared.
I had everything planned.

At first it was fun. Lazy summer days, kids playing in the woods, trying to avoid the poison ivy, swimming in the lake down the hill. Hanging the laundry up on the line in the sunshine overlooking that lake. It was beautiful and peaceful. I even had a washing machine hooked up to the hose inside the shed. I didn't have a dryer- no matter, sunshine was in good supply.  2 loads a day, standing in the sun. Sheets and towels smelling of warm sunny days.

We didn't have use of our septic system yet, so we were unable to use the camper toilet. So I rented a port-a-potty and parked its blazing blue plastic glory right outside the giant shed door.  We had water, and hooked it up to the camper for washing hands and cooking, and that water just drained into a rock trench outside the shed. We had a water shower doo dad that hooked up to the water hose from the well that was just dug, and on the other end, hooked up to a propane tank, and provided endless hot water, so I rigged it up real nice under a pop-up tent. I strapped the sprayer up with a bungee cord, and we had endless hot water....outside. The kids could get dirty, and I had the water ready to fill up the kiddie pool and give them endless hot baths! It was the perfect solution to 6 dirty kids. Us parents and the teenager showered at night. Under the stars. Nekked. With the mosquitoes and raccoons, Yeah, the teenager didn't want to do that, so she wore her swimsuit all summer.

We made it work. I mean, it had to, we had no other option. We couldn't rent anywhere for just 3 months, and besides, we have a ton of stuff. And a dog. So it was really the only choice. I tried to be optimistic. Really, I did. I thought it was going to be a glorified camping trip.
But then the rains came.

It rained over 9 inches in 3 days.

Our land is 20 acres of pure clay.

Add water to clay and you get the stickiest, most obnoxious mess possible. We couldn't leave, we couldn't even walk across the yard. Our truck got stuck in it, our kids lost shoes in it. We were literally stuck inside the camper.

To be continued.....