Walden

For some time now Southern Man has known that he'd have an empty nest between teen daughter moving out and youngest daughter (possibly) moving in so he has long considered relocating out to the peace and quiet of The Land for a couple of years. This is even more primitive than it sounds; electric service is in place but nothing else - in particular, no water or septic system or cable tv or internet. But especially no water. Nonetheless Southern Man has been RV shopping for a while now and stumbled across this one on Craigslist last week:

32 ft Gulfstream Camper For Sale - $4800

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Date: 2011-08-08, 12:54PM CDT

32 ft Camper for sale
Make: Gulfstream
Model: Cavalier
Yr Model: 2006

This is a nice camper, very simple but in good condition. It has a
bedroom with a full sized bed and it also has bunk beds on the opposite
end of the camper, nice sized shower, couch, kitchen table, stove,
microwave & full size refrigerator. Everything is spread out so it
is pretty spacious and roomy.


Please e-mail with any questions for more info.

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So Southern Man went out to take a look last Tuesday. It's a FEMA trailer from the Hurricane Katrina days that wasn't used at that time, bought by a dealer, sold to a fellow southeast of the city who intended to resell it to one of his workers who lived in for one week and then quit, and never titled - for less than half the price of used FEMA trailers at the local RV dealers. As claimed, the floor plan is unusually open for that size trailer and even has a decent-sized shower and full-sized toilet and a full-size fridge and a nice tile floor instead of cheap carpet. So Southern Man said he'd take it but could the seller wait until Monday?

So today Southern Man and the owner met at the credit union where money changed hands, then at the tag agency where paperwork was processed (kind of complicated but Southern Man ends up as the original owner, at least on paper), then out to the seller's place to slap on the tag and hook it up and tow it to The Land.

And there she is, in much higher resolution than the CL ad. Of course the camera died after this shot.

After getting her hitched up to the Titan Southern Man cautiously (having never pulled anything quite that large before) embarked on the fifty-mile journey, keeping to side roads and lesser-traveled state highways as much as possible, and arrived without incident at The Land...

The RV in her new perch behind The Barn, which suffered even more damage in a storm last week. The yellow stuff leaning against the wall is scaffolding retrieved from Southern Father's place last night; roof and siding repairs are high on Southern Man's to-do list.

So Southern Man spent the rest of the afternoon running trailer-related errands: removing the door lockset and taking it to town to have it re-keyed (the RV came without keys) and buying a few odds and ends at the home store (such as 50 feet of 10/2 and an RV-30 outlet and such) and charging the camera and then headed back out to The Land to re-install the lockset and run the aforementioned wire from the service box in the front of The Barn to the newly-installed outlet at the back and almost got it all done before dark.

And in the middle of all this Mike the Brush-Hog Guy appeared...

Hogging the Grassy Knoll

...and performed his monthly service, except that it's been over two months due to the drought and most of the lot didn't really need to be mowed even then but Southern Man doesn't mind staying on his good side. Good Brush-Hog Guys are hard to find.

So if all goes according to plan Southern Man will soon give notice to his apartment and Casa Southern Man will at last be at The Land. And for the first time in five years Southern Man will live in a place that is truly his own.