Living on the road, visiting new places and seeing new things all the time has been a wonderful experience. But with that comes a whole lot of “new”… new roads, new scenery, new grocery stores, new rules and routines… new opportunities and challenges. Every time we get to a new stop on our trip, there are a lot of things we have to figure out.
Psychologists say that there are a finite number of decisions a person can make each day before their decision-making abilities ebb and finding yourself in a state of analysis paralysis.
When you have a solid home base and you need to get your car fixed, you call the local shop – you know the one you have been going to for years – make an appointment and take your car in to get it fixed.
When we had to take the truck in to get it fixed this week, we had to:
- Find dealers that can service the part we needed to get fixed
- Research good versus bad and make a decision on which shop to go to
- Call and beg to get an appointment ASAP (since we are only going to be here for another week)
- Try to figure out where the shop is
- Get the appointment, get to the shop
- Worry that I got shafted, paid too much, or that the repair will last, since we are moving on and can’t “bring it back” if something goes wrong
In this case, we also had to contact the manufacturer and submit a warranty claim and have them send us new parts. So then we had to figure out where to send the parts (no mailing address), how long will they take to get here (before we leave??) and make sure the shop can install the replacement before we head out of town. If they can’t… its back to Step 1 in the next city.
Something as simple as trying to watch Monday Night Football turns into a major decision tree – campground doesn’t get cable? Can we get it on the internet? Is the WiFi good enough? If we have to use cell do we have enough data left (or else cha-ching $$)? Amazon Prime has Thursday night football but not Monday nights. YouTube Live has Monday but not Thursday. Sunday night doesn’t work at the campground either because we can’t get NBC with the trailer antenna. And the scenario changes every single time we move.
At home, you turn on the TV, sit on the couch and watch the game.
Every little decision just adds up… and just when you “expect” that things will go a certain way, they don’t and you have to start all over again.
I’m not a person who has ever really embraced uncertainty, so it can be draining and incredibly frustrating at times. I guess you have to take the good with the bad – the excitement of new places and new adventures versus having to figure it all out all over again at every new stop – just one of those unintended consequences that comes with the territory.
Welcome to Ride Camp Eat 