We left Indiana in a Super C almost a month ago and have been moving every one to two nights. Driving, exploring, or both, six or more hours a day, 27 of the last 28 days.

Yesterday was only the second day in that whole stretch that I didn’t have to go anywhere, so when Marissa took the kids out for JJ’s haircut and a grocery run, I did the only thing I wanted to do.

I laid down at 1 p.m to take a nap.

Normally I set a timer on my watch for 30 minutes. I didn’t even bother. I was asleep before I could think about it.

Fifteen minutes later.

Knock knock knock.

If you’ve ever had somebody knock on a camper door, you know it’s nothing like a knock on a house. It moves the whole rig. You come up out of sleep not knowing where you are or what’s wrong.

I laid there long enough to work out that my family was gone, nothing was on fire, and I did not care.

I went back to sleep.

Fifteen minutes after that.

Knock knock knock.

So I got up and answered it. My neighbor wanted me to know my bay door was cracked open.

It wasn’t raining. There was no wind. And that door won’t close, because my sewer hose runs out through it. I told him that. He suggested I tie it shut with some rope anyway so it wouldn’t rattle and keep me up at night.

We’ve slept 28 days in a row with the hose run the same way and I’ve never heard a peep out of the door.

So I spent the next ten minutes helping him hunt down some rope, cut it, and tie my bay door shut so it couldn’t move. Then I went back in and tried to go to sleep.

It never happened.

He wasn’t trying to ruin my afternoon

He saw a bay door cracked open on a rig sitting a few feet from where he was, and it bothered him.

And I’ve been that guy. Early on I walked straight through people’s campsites because I didn’t know any better. I’ve jumped in to help somebody back into a spot when nobody asked.

Nobody hands you a list when you pull in. You learn this by breaking it and watching somebody’s face.

So here’s what eleven years has taught me, and it’s the opposite of what I expected:

In a campground, being considerate matters more than being friendly.

I don’t mean keep to yourself. Some of our closest friends started out as the people parked next to us, so I’m not making a case for everybody hiding inside their rigs.

I mean that meaning well and doing well aren’t automatically the same thing out here.

Here’s the part nobody warns you about. A campsite has no driveway, no yard, no hallway, no porch. In a house you get four or five buffers before anybody reaches your bedroom. Out here you get a three inch wall. A camper door is basically a bedroom door.

Which is exactly what a parking spot looks like.

I think that’s most of what’s going on. In a parking lot you can cut between cars all day long and nobody thinks twice, because nobody owns the asphalt around their car. So people show up to a campground and run the same play, and I doubt it ever crosses their mind that they’re doing anything at all.

We’ve had well over a hundred people walk through our site over the years. On the mat, past the kids’ Legos, close enough that I’ve thought about warning them to watch out so they don’t hit their head on the slide. I’ve never said a word to any of them, and I never will, because I can’t tell you for certain I didn’t do the same thing our first year out.

That rectangle just isn’t a parking spot. It’s somebody’s yard, living room, and front porch stacked into one small space.

Which brings me back to yesterday at 1 p.m.

If it isn't an emergency, it can wait until you catch them outside.

Nobody talks to us until we’re hitched up

We’ll be parked somewhere a week, sometimes two. In and out, busy with the kids, rarely sitting out front. Nobody says a word to us the whole time.

Then on the morning we leave, when I’m hitched up and loading kids and staring down a long travel day, somebody walks over.

“So where are you from?”

Our friend Bill Trinkle has a name for this. He calls them Frommers.

I love that conversation. It’s most of why we do this. But I watched a guy hooking up an Airstream on a sloped site get pulled into that exact conversation, lose his focus, and that trailer came disconnected and nearly rolled down the hill.

They’ve been waiting two weeks for a moment that looked right, and the one time we’re standing still outside is the one time we can’t talk. Any other time, come say hi and I’ll talk your ear off.

Two people giving directions is worse than one

Marissa and I have our own system for backing in and parking, and it took us years to learn how to communicate well while doing it.

More than a few times somebody has walked over and taken over, and now there are two systems and I’m sorting out which set of hands to watch.

Extra eyes are always welcome. If I’m about to hit a tree, yell. I’ve offered plenty of times, and once I backed a guy’s fifth wheel in for him because he was done. The difference is asking first.

Same goes for gathering to watch. Whoever is behind that wheel does not need to know it’s become an event.

In a campground you can’t tell what someone’s in the middle of

In a neighborhood you get a closed garage, a porch light off, a driveway to stand at the end of.

Out here you get none of that.

That’s the whole skill. Not talking to people less. Noticing whether they’re settled in or in the thick of it, and going from there.

I’m still learning it, and I’ve been on the wrong side of it plenty of times myself.

And if you see us out there, please come say hi. Some of our favorite people started out as strangers in the site next door.

Just maybe not in the middle of me hooking up :)

Until next time, see you down the road!
- Nathan