Yep. You heard that right. We have been living full time in a truck camper for nine months…and we are not done yet.

Granted, we have had a recreational vehicle for years and have enjoyed many a trip in one. We have spent winter months living in a trailer for a number of seasons.

A few years ago, I noticed that The Bearded One was having increasing difficulty driving…pulling a trailer and backing it into campsites became somewhat of a nightmare. Wimpy as I might sound, I was not willing to learn to pull a trailer. I know my boundaries…backing up a single vehicle is enough of a challenge!

So, I suggested buying a truck camper. I would gladly drive the truck with the camper onboard. The footprint is very similar to the truck without the camper. It has worked well for us. We were able to continue to travel and winter down South.

This year, we have more than tested the limits of life in a truck camper (no slide outs mind you!). We went South for three months of the winter and happily lived with full hookups on Pat and The Tinker’s ranch for much of that time.

We had decided to downsize and move closer to our kids out East for the same reason we downsized to the camper so when we returned to Ohio the house needed to be prepped for sale.

We continued to live in the camper while sorting and cleaning and staging the house. The camper was parked in the driveway of the house so it was easy to move back and forth between job and life.

Luckily for us, the house sold quickly…in three weeks! So we moved to a lovely campground in Ohio to wait while the addition we are having built on our daughter’s home in NJ is built.

We have been here since the middle of June and had planned to move to NJ the beginning of September. Due to construction delays (when have there been no construction delays on a build?), we are now planning to move at the very end of September.

That will be a total of 10 months in the camper. Two adults and two cats in a space the size of a large walk-in closet. But we are happy with life. Sure, I would have preferred to move at the beginning of September but seeing nature move from summer to fall here in the trees is just fine.

It has added perspective. Our “downsizing”from house to apartment will be major “upsizing” after ten months in the camper.

I have learned a number of lessons from living so long in close quarters that were not designed for full time living…maybe a camping trip now and then. I hope to share my ideas for organizing and maintaining a camper and maybe a thought or two on marriage when you spend a lot of the day sidling to move past one another.

And. The countdown to upsizing is 15 days!… not that I am counting….