Dreaming of a Little Patch of Heaven

In the summer of 2016, I began to dream.  It seemed like a pretty

huge dream at the time,  and one that would take a good deal of planning,

saving with intention, and some damn good fortune. 

You see, in 2015 I became overwhelmed and fed up with owning a camper. When I divorced in 2006 I came away with 5 kids, a dog, some personal effects, and our Jayco Kiwi camper.  The kids and I had some great camping adventures in that beauty!  So many great memories! Campfires, beaches, quaint towns to explore, raccoons to be lodged underneath…good times!  Alas, there had been a leak over the winter one year which required some floor repair, then other small issues that I always needed help fixing.  Fortunately for me, I have amazing friends from a coffee shop I worked in, and they stepped up to help me each time I asked.  They still do.  But back then I felt like it was all too much to deal with. Finding storage in the winter, hauling it out in the spring only to do weeks' worth of damage control.  The kids were getting older, some had moved away to college and had not moved back home. The others were in their teen years and held summer jobs that made it challenging to get large blocks of time off to camp with the family.  It seemed the camping season of life had come to an end. So I sold the Kiwi in 2015. 

And regretted it, when in the early months of 2016 I began to look for places to vacation near the beach. Wow!  There were some lovely places to stay.  Most of the goods ones were already snatched up by early February.  All of them were very pricey.  In the summer of 2016, we tried our luck at tent camping.  Fortunately, our friend had reserved 2 campsites in Pentwater, our favorite beach town.  It was also fortunate that she had a motorhome with all the bells and whistles.  We took a TON of supplies. Coolers, camp stove, camping table, the infamous Michelson Camp Box, or camp kitchen as the blueprints refer to it.  We borrowed a gazebo-style tent from a neighbor and a tent purchased from a friend, and our air mattresses and bedding.  I’m not going to say we didn’t have fun, because we did. It was a fabulous trip.  But camping in a tent is an enormous amount of work.  Fortunately for us, we had no rain, but if we had, our view of this experience might be very different.   Still, I missed the convenience and comfort of a camping trailer.  My dream began during this trip. My dream of a small, towable little camping trailer that I could haul and set up with very little effort.  That would keep me (and anyone with me) dry, warm, or cool, depending on the weather.  

For the next few summers, I booked small Airbnbs or quaint hotel stays. All of the kids and I didn’t go on every trip.  Elsa had moved to Portland, Savannah in the UP. Noah, Olivia, Fiona, and I were the travelers on most of these trips.  For at least part of the time.  Still, my dream of a little camper was being watered and nourished.  I spent hours online or walking around campgrounds looking at other rigs.  The Suitor and I went to a few camper shows.  My parent's health declined and the camper dream was put off for the future.  Still, I gathered ideas for how it would feel. One day.  What would be important to me in the little trailer. What memories and experiences I wanted to share with others and what I hoped for myself on the summers I would spend traveling and reviving in its company. 

During the initial pandemic lockdown, like many others, I took to social media for inspiration, dreaming, and connection.  It was there, on an Instagram account, @etst, a sister of a good friend, that I first saw The Mug.  A lovely pottery mug, created by  East Fork Pottery, that was produced in a variety of colors or glazes.  They have their standard glazes in stock always, but also limited-release glazes so that people can curate lovely collections.  I fell in love.  

Kelly Hampton had named all of her mugs after Little Women characters and artfully displayed them on a shelf in her kitchen.  When she made her annual pilgrimage to Northern Michigan that summer, she chose a mug that would make the journey with her.  The mug offered constancy and a summer vibe I could not stop thinking about.  It brought joy in some very dark times.  During this time frame, East Fork released several limited-edition glazes.  I began to think, perhaps I would invest in my own East Fork mug collection,  Invest is the right word too.  Like all handcrafted works, they came with a price tag that made me wince.  Because I knew, if I purchased one, and loved it, I too, would want a collection.  A collection that would one day, be my camping mugs.  In the little trailer, I was still dreaming of.   

In the autumn of 2021, the Harvest Moon glaze was re-released by East Fork.  I knew the instant I saw it, that this would be the first mug in my collection.   

Harvest Moon was followed by Rococo, released in November of 2021, a Christmas gift from Olivia, who understood my mug (and camper) dreams.  The following birthday, Utah, brought back in Feburary of 2022 was a gift from my sister, along with Eggshell and Panna Cotta, gifts from The Suitor on the same birthday.  Fiddlehead arrived on my porch that same spring, a gift from my BFF!  Bounty.  My collection was complete.  Ha!  No, it was not.  With the addition of Fiddlehead, I realized my collection lacked any sort of blues/browns/black colors.  

I began to watch for a new glaze release that spoke to my heart.  It arrived in the spring of 2023 in the hue of Secret Beach!  How perfect!  Had Secret Beach been released earlier, I might not have ever been able to afford a small traveling patch of heaven. I might have replaced all my dinnerware with that shade.  

Somewhere between Harvest Moon and Secret Beach, when some of the kids were visiting for a long weekend, maybe spring of  2022,  an elderly neighbor down the road had a For Sale sign on a little camper I had noticed often in their driveway.  Pointing it out on our way to the store, whoever was driving pulled in, went to the door, and asked if we could have a look.  

I knew immediately that this was the little camper layout in my dreams.  It was small, yet felt spacious.  It had a Murphy bed, which I had never considered.  It was priced right. It sold in 24 hours.  I thought about it for too long.  

Now I had in my mind what I was looking for, and for the following few months, I hunted the interweb for the same camper, maybe a newer or older model, perhaps with an oven. Maybe a little more storage. The Suitor was looking too. He found several to look at, but each time we went, the “This is Home,” feeling was missing.  While he didn’t give up looking online for me, he did say he was not going to look at any more campers with me until I found the right one.   Clearly, we approach something like this very differently.  I don’t think he fully gets the vibration that happens when you just know it’s the right thing. (I could comment further here and relate this to 3 previous committed situations, but I won’t, because that would not be kind!) 

While I was working one day, he sent a link to a little camper, the same model the neighbor had sold, but newer, priced right, and only 40 minutes away.  It looked,  perhaps, too good to be true.  I told him on the drive up, that I would not be committing to anything that night, that we would have to talk about it, I would need to think at least overnight.

 We pulled up to the seller's home, and when we opened the camper door, I KNEW.  I walked in and nearly felt it sigh and say, “I have been waiting for you!  Finally, you found me!” 

I tried to play it cool, looked at everything closely, and asked all the right questions.  Checked all the things.  When the seller went in the house to get a piece of information, I looked at The Suitor and started to say, “I know I said…,” but he knew too.  He could tell by the look on my face, the questions that I asked, that he was asking. He felt it too.  This camper could be our little patch of heaven when he could camp with me, but it was also easy enough to set up and haul for me to do alone.  We shook on it that night before leaving, I handled the banking the next day while simultaneously trying to teach America’s youth English concepts, while also fizzing at them with my camper purchase excitement.  We went to pick it up the next evening after work. 

I set about outfitting the little dream with organizational items that were also aesthetically pleasing.  I found plates and bowls that were reminiscent of the 60’s era of melamine camping plates from my childhood.  I ordered baskets to hold utensils on the wall, paper towel holders for over the sink, and purchased comforters, pillows, duvet covers, and towels that would be for camping alone.  I sifted through my parents' kitchen camp box for useful utensils, cookware, and marshmallow roasting forks.  I found the dogeared, tape-covered booklet of campfire songs that my dad had lovingly tended for years and popped it into a drawer.  When my mom passed in the fall of 2022, I plucked the basket of games out of her cupboard in assisted living and put it in the camper cupboard.  They will both always be traveling with me in spirit.  

When I sold the Kiwi in 2015 and simultaneously began dreaming of this future camper, I had no idea how life would shift and change over the next few years.  I didn’t imagine this experience without having both of my parents still here to support my efforts and cheer me on from the sidelines. I didn’t originally imagine the lovely mug collection that would fuel my dream and keep it burning through the difficult pandemic, or how that mug collection would sit in my cupboard at home, used daily of course, but knowing they were not truly “home” yet.  

Back then, I had no idea that this summer, I would set out on a camping adventure while also beginning grad school online, and that I would need to navigate Wifi and Hotspots in order to read and submit work.  I had no idea who, if anyone would join me. Back then, I had not even imagined grandchildren, and here I am with several!  

What I had imagined, was a day and evening just like this. With time to read, write, reflect, and take in all that is around me. The sounds, the scents, the dappled light through the trees.  I imagined it being just like this.  

Back then all I  had was a dream.  A big dream, but not an impossible one. With time and patience, some loss and heartache. It was a  dream fueled by my parents' love for camping, fostered by my own camping experiences in adulthood, and by this little mug collection that I knew needed a home in my little patch of camper heaven.