On The Road

We were on the road in our little trailer from sometime in May to September 19th of 2017 while we shopped for a place to live.

We spent most of the time in the Snoqualmie National Forest on the west side of the Cascade mountain range. You’re only supposed to spend a total of two weeks at a time camping there but we bounced around for a couple of months. We didn’t have a place to live, after all.

A lot of other people didn’t either. We met quite a few who made the forest their temporary home. Ours was by choice – I don’t think many of them had one.

The areas are well patrolled by sheriffs and we had to play a kind of a game of hide-and-seek to keep them at bay. In the middle of summer, we had to stay at an inn at Snoqualmie Pass for a couple of weeks to burn up our “not allowed” time before we returned to camp.

We stayed in designated and undesignated sites (which is allowed) and moved from the north side of I-90 to the south side to keep a low profile.

Camping was the cheapest and most viable option for us. The hotel cost us an arm and a leg. Until we found some land to buy – the road was our home.

When we finally found a place, some paperwork got lost in the mail and things dragged out for weeks longer than we anticipated. Our agent got pissed at us because things were taking so long.

I reminded her that someone else lost the paperwork, and although I was pissed at her we had to smooth things over as it’s one of those relationships that you have to maintain in your own best interests and everyone knows it.

We stayed at a couple of pay-by-the-night campgrounds. The first featured an ogre and his wife; the kind who watches every move you make from his RV. He would literally look at his watch when we would come to pay for the day, as if he was counting on us to be late. He was just a rude asshole. I felt sorry for his wife.

The hosts at the second campground we stayed at were very friendly and we actually worked out a deal with them to do the final cleaning of the fire pits in trade for a few days of accommodations. My husband and I scooped and cleaned out about thirty to forty fire pits for the close of the season.

In general, we kept the lowest profile as possible until we could get out of the forest and to a place we owned where no one could tell us how long we could stay or what we could do.

And I could dig as many holes as I wanted at any time of the day I wanted. 🙂