Finding a Balance Between Work and Life on the Road

For most of us, trying to find balance in our daily lives is hard enough. Between kids and career, work and recreation, and all the rest we often struggle with burnout or days of feeding our dopamine thirsty lives. Finding a balance between work and life on the road is especially challenging. It’s not as though your life is one big camping trip, but it does have its advantages once you get the hang of setting goals and creating boundaries with yourself.

So Much Depends on the Weather

I’ll use today as an example. I have deadlines coming up this week, as well as looking forward to installing something in the bus that will make my life better.  Today was supposed to be a day where I put my butt in the chair and got some work done, but the weather has been complicating things lately.

Right now, California is going through another one of their “atmospheric river” events, where insane amounts of rain are dumping throughout the Golden State. I’m in Havasu City right now, which is right across Lake Havasu from California.  We have been getting the edge of a lot of their weather systems.  Not the crazy amounts of rain, but plenty of overcast skies and thunderstorms.

Normally I would welcome rainy days, but living in my boodocking bus, I rely on the sunlight to charge my batteries.  My batteries make sure I can pump water in my sink, run lights inside at night, and power my refridgeration.  Unfortunately so many cloudy days has meant that my batteries are not charging fully, and this fridge that is on its last leg is draining my power much faster than a day of cloudy weather can charge them.

When you live on the road, so many of your systems are based on redundancy.  If I don’t have power, then that means I have to rely on something else to keep my food from spoiling.  Today I decided to go back into town to get some ice and fill up my water tanks.  Maybe get some gasoline and check out some parts and equipment I need for my diesel heater.

A Bit About the Diesel Heater

A couple nights this winter have been miserable in the bus.  Sure I’m in the Arizona desert, but the temperatures inside my bus can drop as low as the high 30s on really cold nights.  Unless I want to run a Mr. Heater Little Buddy propane heater.  They are good in a pinch, but they are expensive, since they run off 1lb Coleman propane bottles (about $10 for two), and create a lot of humidity.  A bottle runs out in about four hours of constant use. 

For the price of around 10-15 bottles of propane, I was able to order a Chinese Diesel Heater.  I found out that my wiring should be able to handle it and I have the tools to do the installation myself when it arrives. A gallon of diesel will power the heater for around 30 hours, which means I can run it all day or all night if I need to.

Running Errands in Town, Just Like People Do

Every time I go into town, I have to weigh the necessity.  A trip there and back usually runs about $6 in gas.  Today I wanted to try out a new water place that has direct hookups for RVs.  Usually I load up a jerry can with water and then siphon it into my tank, but if this place was affordable, it would save a lot of work.  Vivid Water and Ice in Lake Havasu was an upgrade from the usual reverse osmosis place I have been going.  I filled up my tanks for about $3.  Which means I can stay at camp much longer. I also got a block of ice at another store for $3.50 so I could stuff everything from my fridge into my cooler if my batteries ran too low.

I also picked up some pastrami and made melted pastrami and swiss hoagies for lunch.  About $8 for all the ingredients, whereas one sandwhich at Subway would have run me $12.  Most of that being lettuce.

I checked out a couple hardware stores for things I’ll need to install the diesel heater, and I had a stack of work to do for a client that required a better internet signal than I have been getting out on BLM land. The sun was shining in town, so I decided to check another thing off the list.  A few weeks ago, I noticed my windshield washer fluid was shooting straight up into the air.  The lines had a split in them and closer inspection revealed the lines themselves had been degraded by the sunlight.  I picked up a length of fuel line from Lowes and repaired the windshield washer fluid lines with something that hopefully lasts longer than what was on there.

It was a productive and necessary trip into town. Sometimes trips like this are a necessary way to fight burnout.

Finding a Balance Between Work and Life on the Road

Most of today I’ve been running around fixing things, shopping for components on my upcoming project and so much else. Unfortunately these have been the things about life that get in the way.  I haven’t had as much time to dedicate to work, much less doing anything “fun”.  Penny is filing complaints with upper management about how I never play ball anymore (two days), and I haven’t even had time to read for the last few days.  My screen time on obnoxious apps like TikTok and Instagram have been pretty limited at least, but forget about kicking back to watch a movie.

Right now I’m mostly concerned about work, and the next few days is going to involve sitting down and working on some drafts.  I tend to hyperfixate when I have a project, and unfortunately the diesel heater project has been taking up a lot of my time.  It’s time to shift gears and put my effort into writing again.  At least until the heater arrives.  Luckily for me, there’s no real rush to install it.  The worst of winter in this part of Arizona is likely over, but the heater will allow me to go other places I have been avoiding because of the cold.

Places like New Mexico with cheaper fuel, for example. I’ve been more or less bound to Arizona because of the limitations of my vehicle, especially at upper altitudes.  That’s the sort of thing that gets me excited about being back on the road.  

Other Things to Contend With

The last few days have been interesting with making modifications on the bus.  I figured out a better curtain setup that gives me more floorspace.  This was necessary in anticipation of installing the diesel heater.  I also rigged up a better fastening system for my window shades, and some changes to how I organize things in the bus.  I’m looking to upgrade my fridge soon to something more durable and built to run on a 12v system. Hopefully that will prevent my batteries from draining as bad and save me some money with buying block ice for the cooler.

More free time, more power, and less hassle from my electrical means more time to sit down and work, less time replenishing supplies, and less waste by having to throw out food that has gone bad in the fridge. I can eat healthier too, since canned food is either really salty or full of sugar and preservatives.

Making the Bus Your Own

Just how short stories aren’t written, they are rewritten, living in a skoolie means you are never done with your build. Unlike a conversion van, a skoolie gives you a lot of freedom to make changes to your floorplan and configure things to how you need them to be.  Six months ago, my bus was a very different animal.  With just a few changes over the last few days, it feels much more like a home than ever before.

As the weather continues to change and winter slips into spring, I will need to push ahead into different territory.  Each new place I discover will require different ways of doing things and adapting to the situation.  Looking back, it’s hard to believe I did some things differently when I was just starting out.  Experience has tempered my methods of living on the road and the best way of living in my bus have changed so much over the last few months, if not just the last several weeks.

I wonder how things will look in another six months.  A year?

Thanks for Reading!

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