I’ve spent the past 10 days prepping the inside of my RV for the trip, buying necessities and setting up the inside environment based on the principles of feng shui. Yep, I’m feng shui-ing my RV!!! After my last home environment experience, I want to ensure my space is filled with great energy for me and my trip. I kind of look at it as driving a giant manifestation machine, helping me create my optimal life.

If you’re skeptical or interested in learning more about feng shui, read up on it, talk to a feng shui expert, speak with someone who utilizes the principles feng shui in their life. As a neophyte, I won’t attempt an explanation of it here. Save to say that I have my RV segmented off into the nine components of modern bagua and have elements, objects, photos within each to help balance and maximize the flow and intention of energy within Miss Daisy.

Now some of you may consider this a bit backwards. When my brother asked me last weekend what the 3 exhaust pipes on my vehicle were for or what each of the batteries did, I didn’t have a clue. But I could tell him where my wealth and prosperity corner was…….I guess my feeling is that I’ve tried living life from the outside in, letting practicalities and my mind rule, starting with things outside of my true self; now it’s time to try living from the inside out, starting with what matters in my heart, which in this case, is the energy of my world. Which I wish to feel really positive. The “mechanics” of things come second. I think my emerging philosophy in life is that when my inner workings are 100% tuned in, the outer workings and systems will flow beautifully from that.

With my feng shui in place and feeling settled on the inside, I was ready to tackle getting to know the operations side of my RV. I didn’t really know how all of the systems worked and didn’t want to go too many days without knowing how to use the shower, for instance. I know that if I hope to meet friendly people on the road that I need to shower. I also wanted the answer to one of my burning questions – could I bake and drive at the same time?? Every woman loves to multi-task plus I’m figuring that fresh-baked goods are a great way to meet people out on the road.

So I took up the generous offer of a friend and her husband to give me a tutorial on my RV. I headed down to Prince Edward County for a test camping trip in Miss Daisy this past weekend. I spent Saturday afternoon with John and Rose-Anne who kindly went over all the systems in my rig. John introduced me to the power outlets, water system,  generator, awning and we had the essential conversation as to the best way to manage my poop. John gave me a great tip when clearing out my sewage – to be sure to hold the hose down firmly otherwise the pressure can send it moving around like a snake, sending poop flying everywhere like a smelly spray of fireworks. “This is good information”, I said as I thanked John. That tip alone was worth the 3 hour drive.

I spent about 3 hours with Rose-Anne and John. Before leaving I requested a photo of them with the wild daisies on their property. Clearly, this was a destined stop for me and fits in beautifully with my mission to find wild daisies or daisy-related items en route.

John and Rose-Anne with their 2 dogs and some wild daisies

I left their home and headed to the campsite I’d booked for the night. I wanted some practice in RVing. I arrived, parked at my site and headed to the hook-ups. I plugged in my electrical cord and water hose, and after a few minutes figured out how to get the water flowing into my home. I was thankful that I did for I don’t think that my pride would have allowed me to ask my neighbour who is clearly a “seasoned RVer” (you can tell by the amount of stuff they have out front of their RV – from bbqs to garden gnomes…..) and likely to laugh at such a newbie question. “Ummm, how do you get water into this thing?”

Excited to be hooked up to power and water, I headed inside to test out a few more of the systems. I began with the central vac. I’m not sure that everyone arrives at their campsite and starts to vacuum but I was thrilled to give it a spin. So I vacuumed the RV, was able to figure out how to get hot water, cook some dinner on the stovetop and power up my laptop. Life is good.

Sunday morning I woke early to go for a bike ride. I purchased a new hybrid for the trip and was eager to try it out.  I had an awesome early morning ride in the breaking dawn before heading back to my site to shower and pack up.

I decided that it’d be wise to empty the sewage before showering. Just in case…….I successfully hooked up the hose and drained the black and grey water tanks without a hitch. *whew*

It was actually the water hookup and hose that created havoc.  It took me a while to figure out that the line for the hookup from the tap at the site doesn’t fill your water tank. Once I figured out which hole to put the hose into to fill the tank, I inserted the hose which kickbacked  once the tank was full, spraying water everywhere and dousing me nicely. Undaunted, I thought it’d be a good idea to rinse out the sewage hose so inserted the water hose, turned the water on a the tap, only to have the hose start snaking all over the place under the pressure, dousing me again.

At that point, I didn’t really need a shower anymore. And I provided fun amusement for the people a few campsites away who were watching the whole thing.

Just before heading out, I stepped outside my RV to double check that I’d dis-connected all my hook-ups. At that moment, my trailer neighbour, a woman, greeted me good morning and said, “Do you drive that big thing all by yourself?”. The silent voice in my head was thinking, “Yes, I do. Why? Are they supposed to come with a chauffeur? “

I went on to tell her that yes, in fact, I drive Miss Daisy by myself and would be heading out west for the summer. To which she said, “well, you’re a brave woman…..to do that all by yourself…”

She wished me well and I drove off, realizing in that moment that I would be an oddity wherever I go. A single woman, driving an RV all by herself. But who says you need a man, or anyone else, to take you where you wish to go? I’ve had my days as a passenger in my own life; I am happy to be the one sitting in the drivers’ seat on this next phase of the journey.

And if I’m an oddity now, yikes, wait until people see the decal job on Miss Daisy….

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