Simply Living...The Americana Kitsch and Culture Tour Blog

 - Originally posted 4 May 2011

Aloha MM’s, (this stands for Mystic Manifestor, which was my first book I wrote. The cover is on my webpage www.troikaromance.com. When it's re-edited, I'll be releasing it in e-book form. :-) ) I originally had this blog on Vistaprint and my webpage for The Mystic Manifestor book.  I am writing this to you from our camper van. This time in an RV park! Not that’s there’s anything intrinsically wrong with the Wal-Mart car park…and I know that this IS the Americana tour…but…camping in the Wal-Mart car park wasn’t my absolute ideal. It wasn’t the best start but also not the worst start for the trip. On the up side, every time we discovered something ELSE we needed for the camper—Aaron just had to walk across the car park to get it! The camper is pretty good. You know how things look initially good, then you see the scruffy bits, then you get used to them and it all looks reasonable again. Well…I’m at scruffy bits, but getting used to it stage. We have either a) gotten rid of the rattles or b) gotten used to them. We fixed the one from the extractor range hood by wedging a pot mitt in there. And I am so glad I kept the duct tape on me. VERY handy stuff! Note: Duct Tape is also very handy for duct tapping the sign above the sink in the camper. :-) It’s big—30 feet of motor home. We have a separate bedroom with a Queen size bed, a separate shower and toilet, wash basin space. The living area with kitchen, dining table and couch. Along with a fridge freezer, oodles of storage space, a microwave, 3 ring burner and oven, we have everything we need! Pretty comfortable in truth. Leo is doing amazingly well. But today he was exhausted and spent most of it asleep in the over the cab bed. This is an excellent space for him as he can glare out the window at people and periodically write ‘Help, help, I’m being kidnapped’ on the condensation that forms in the very cold conditions at the moment! Anyway, it’s not surprising he was so tired. He spent ALL night galloping around the camper—mostly tromping over us. “You awake mum? You awake Dad? Oh, you are? I thought you were asleep.”  Then…just as we managed to drift off again, tromp, tromp. We jerk awake.  “Okay, Mum and Dad, just checking you’re still breathing.”  He spent several hours doing this. Up, down, up, down—jumping onto the bed and around and around the camper. So, yes, no big surprises, that today he is absolutely exhausted! I know how he feels. I realized today, that as well as being sleep deprived, I am jet lagged. Which is hilarious! We’re only six hours out in time, but the Midwest makes me feel we are at least 24 hours away from where we were. I had forgotten how different it is. How different the energy is. The people. The places. At least I can truthfully say that the decision to leave Michigan all those years ago was not irrational or rash. And I’ve only had a few palpitations today, so all in all, doing well. We had one horrifying moment in the camper shakedown when we realized that Aarons wedding ring and gold bracelet was missing. He had left it on his bedside table and it hadn’t been put away, so they had bounced and rattled themselves off into outer space. When we went to find them, they were nowhere to be seen. OMG. We pulled the bed apart—not there. Finally Aaron has to go outside and scrabble round in the luggage hold which is under the bed, where there is a broken bit and they had bounced through there. Thank god, no rust or holes in this outside space and they were in there after a bit of a hunt. Phew. I had been feeling exhausted, but that little burst of adrenaline got me out and about for lunch, and a wee tiki tour around. We ate in an Amish country restaurant and served by local people. One of the women was wearing the lace cap and we wondered how she felt working somewhere that had electricity and things like dishwashers? Did they come and treat it like someone who works in a ‘Ye Olden Time’ recreation village, where they dress up, do their part and go home at the end of the day to ‘normal everyday’ things? The food was very ‘country.’ Aaron had battered cod, a plate of corn kernels soaked in butter, mashed potato mound and gravy. I had Swiss Steak, which actually defies description. Imagine corned beef (sort of) flaked and reformed into a pattie, fried and covered in gravy. Exactly! I also had the plate of corn and sweet potato fries (quite modern) but served with a wee pottle of cinnamon mayo. That’s the only way I could describe it. I guess they are ‘sweet’ and everyone knows that it’s un-American to not put cinnamon in or on sweet things. Oh, and a hot loaf of the softest white bread I have ever come across. Aaron loved it. I also got the seasonal pie, rhubarb. Yum.     We are in Ohio State, in the biggest Amish community in the country. People say Howdy out here and they’re not being facetious. Here people have lived for hundreds of years, staying in their own culture, thinking of people other than themselves as the ‘English.’ They use no electricity or modern conveniences, no cars, no computers. They live as they have always lived, off the land. Today Rachelle told us they are thought to be the most content people on the earth. We could see how that would be. We saw buggies today, but not the VW buggy we have. When ours needs fuel, we put gas in. When theirs needs fuel, they put in hay. We saw two young girls in black clothes and straw bonnets driving an open buggy today. It gave me the strangest sensation to see them, encapsulated in their culture, that looks like something from 'ye olde times,' while still being part of Mainland America. It was very peculiar. But absolutely fascinating. It’s a very different way of seeing the world.   And being on the road is a very different way of seeing the world too. When it’s just you and your fur child in a camper, it’s also an encapsulated world. It is simple living. Or simply living. What you have in a 30 foot space is all you have to be responsible for. It’s uniquely freeing. Sometimes it’s frustrating but once you get used to it, it’s freeing. We are hoping that Leo will sleep tonight…