Reactions to our living in an RV

I went into school on Wednesday last week to start taking care of paperwork and meet with my advisor.  The administrative staff there are great – totally on top of things, helpful, and nice.  They asked if we’d found a place to live yet, knowing how difficult it is for students.  Rather self-consciously, I told them we were living in an RV that we’d moved up here.  To my complete surprise, their reaction was “Oh, what a great idea!” said with complete sincerity.   A great idea?  Even I don’t think it’s a GREAT idea…it’s certainly practical and economical…but probably not great or ideal.   That has been the universal reaction up here – from our neighbors (who obviously also live in RVs or trailers), my advisor, and others we’ve met.  I think the reaction says something about the mentality of people up here – they seem practical and open to ideas that are a bit out of the mainstream.  I like it.

Now, on the practical side of living in an RV in a place where it’s cool-to-cold and very rainy and humid...moisture is going to be a constant battle.  We’re trying to brainstorm ways to keep the windows from fogging up and then dripping down the walls (and into the bed, couch, etc).  We may try to insulate the cold metal of the window frames with some bubble wrap, then use the indoor clear window ‘shrink wrap’ kits with the hope that that creates a buffer to keep moisture from condensing on the cold windows.  Anyone have any other great ideas?

We turned the RV furnace on yesterday for the first time, and have it set at about 55, just to keep us above a threshold.  It doesn’t kick on much so far.  We’ve been in the 55-60 range for highs and lows around 50. 

I don’t know if I mentioned it yet or not, but we rented a heated storage locker last week and moved a ton of stuff into it.  Now Irv is much more spacious (well, relatively speaking) and we don’t need to constantly move things out of the way.  There’s a funky, nasty smell coming from under the sink, so investigating that is next on the ‘to do’ list.   Yay.