My wife wants to camp in the driveway

trailer_newbe wrote:
Dutchman explained it, but I can’t understand why living in a camper in the winter is somehow better then a home right next to it.

I just had a conversation with my wife and I asked her this question, What is there about the camper that makes us want to spend time in it rather than the house? And the answers were many.

A bit of history.

We both came from camping families. I'm 63 years old and my wife is 55 years old. From the time we were little, we grew up with campers and camping in our blood. My wife had more variety than I did. My parents had only a travel trailer. My wife's parents had a truck camper, travel trailer, pop-up camper, and a Winnebago MH. But the common thread was, throughout our childhood, we grew up with RV's. In one way, our camper reminds us of a time in our lives when we had no responsibilities and could be carefree. Face it ... adulthood really sucks!

My wife was fortunate to have a playhouse in her parent's back yard. This was her space, her brothers were not allowed to play in. She tells me she loved that space, it was her place of escape and somewhere she could feel safe and at peace with things. (Her father was very abusive by the way). The camper is her adult version of a playhouse.

I grew up always wanting a tree house, but we never had trees big enough to build one, let alone even climb. I always wanted my own club-house, and the best I got was a chicken house that had living chickens in it. But I tried to make it my domain. But, I never truly got my tree house, club house, or my own playhouse. The camper is truly my club house now, with a very exclusive private membership roll.

Fast forward again.
I was employed for several years in my early 30's in a very public transparent occupation. I was a big fish in a small pond. I couldn't even sneeze without someone criticizing I was using the wrong Kleenex color. It was THAT bad.

Considering we both had camping experience in our genes, we decided to buy a pop-up camper, which we could afford and store anywhere, and we could take our kids out of our small fishbowl to a gigantic pond where no one knew who we were and we all could let our hair down and just be ourselves. Whenever we needed to get away from all the public exposed expectations, we'd take off with the camper, go to a campground a hundred miles from home and be able to relax and be ourselves, and didn't have to worry about someone constantly watching, criticizing every time we flushed the toilet. The camper became a refuge, an escape, a place of solitude, a place of peace, a place we could let it all hang out and let our hair down, sort-a-say.

It took several years, but I eventually moved away from that occupation (and decided computer software was much friendlier, and folks working in Information Technology, were basically hermits themselves). It was a great fit and a great change of occupations.

But the camper still remained our place of solitude, peace, memories, comfort, enjoyment, fun, recreation, and rest. It's our little haven. It's our place we use to escape mentally from the pressures of our current job, adult kids, and responsibilities.

My wife and I both work from home. She works from home full time in Information Technology and I work from home 2-3 days a week. Sometimes, our jobs demand we are on-line working out computer code problems at 11 pm at night or 2:30 in the morning. Our home (stick and brick) building is an extension of our jobs now.

So, even now, being able to get away from the "work" environment is a touch of heaven. One thing we stand firm on... we do no "work" in the camper, even though we have wifi at home and have internet access in the camper at home. We limit our computer use to fun and recreation only, or personal stuff, but never "work related."

Another thing that happened, 4 years ago our adult son moved back home with his 1 year old little boy. He got a divorce and was financially devastated. Of course we took him back in. Well, I tell you, watching your grandson grow from 1 year old to 5, with that much energy, is a bit daunting on grandma and grandpa. We've developed a good balance now, because of our ability to driveway camp, that my wife and I spend a great deal amount of time in the camper and the "kids" have the house. Sounds silly I know, but we enjoy the camper so much, we'd rather take the camper over the house any day.

We moved from town to our current house so we could continue parking our camper in our driveway and be able to use it without angering neighbors who had corn-cobs stuffed up their pipes! We purchased this specific house, in this specific location so we could park the camper. In other words, we bought the house so we would have somewhere to park the camper. I sleep where my camper sleeps, or I move.

So the house really is just a glorified camp site for us. It's in a fantastic location, all country, quiet, dark at night, a couple neighbors near by, and corn and bean fields for my front and back yard. It really is better in our own driveway than almost any campground we've ever been to. We have our own fire pit, and lost of space from the grandson to run butt naked when he want's to without some busy-body nosey good-ie-good-ie two shoes complaining because they have some kind of mental hang up.

So, that's why we hang out so much in the camper.

I agree, it's not for everyone. But for us, it's our escape, at least mentally, from the rat-race of life.