Camper Fever: Three Days of Rain!
August 1, 2013 in New Zealand, Oceania, Travelogue
It is raining.
Again.
Still.
Forever.
Okay, maybe not forever, but it’s beginning to feel like it. Living in a tiny camper, rainy days are days where we tend to batten down the hatches, snuggle into our corners and make the best of it.
- We trip over each other.
- We have to take turns standing up and moving around.
- An extra measure of patience and a sense of humor is required.
- The first day is kind of fun.
- The second day is an adventure.
- The third day, as the pitter patter on our tin roof wakes us I want to pull the covers over my head, thinking, “Not again!!”
So what does a family of six do on rainy days in an 18 ft long camper for three days?
- Drive: It seems the time passes more quickly when the scenery is changing.
What do we do when we’ve arrived and we still have rainy days to spend?
- Read: Incessantly, voraciously
- Play: Games, together, separately, in the real world on the table top, or board games on the iPad (god bless the guy who made the Life and Monopoly and Scrabble Apps for traveling families like ours!)
- Write: Thankfully, all of the children love to write, they have stories in their heads that they’re pouring out and filling pages with.
- Work: Rainy days are good days to tuck into hours of work that need doing.
- Music: Listen to it or make it, depending.
- Movies: Rainy days are often movie days and the kids look forward to that (the first day!)
- Eat: We munch on rainy days. Cheese plates and wine to potato chips and soda water.
- Draw
- Escape!!
Yesterday’s escape: Laundry.
Today’s escape: the lovely library in Kaitaia, complete with huge tree in the center and tree house reading room where the children can pile up with books and snuggle in with space and comfort to spare. There is internet, so some of us can work. There’s even a coffee shop and a little museum.
Here’s hoping that tomorrow the weather clears off and we can make the final trek north to Cape Reinga where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean.
What do you do on rainy days when you have cabin fever?
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We hardly ever get rain where we are and we’ve had two days of wonderfully cloudy weather. We painted and created art in the garage, and today we went fishing then jumped in our PJs and have had movie night…it’s been months since we had a movie night 🙂 I love me some rainy days!
Hello:
Rain? Do you mean “liquid sunshine,” as we jokingly call it here in the Pacific Northwest? Most people in other places say “partly cloudy;” we say “sun breaks.” We are an avid camping family, tent and trailer. Both our boys are scouts. I guess we are just used to being damp! That probably does not make you feel better, but at least we can empathize. Last year, summer was on a Tuesday. We are hoping it falls on a weekend this year!
We do the same as you guys! Movies and board games and catching up on work.
My husband works offshore and when we first started full timing in our rv, it didn’t rain the first few hitches while he was home. The first time it did, he woke up in a panic saying “what are we gonna DO all day?!” Haha. I explained that after school and practicing tae kwon do (in the park’s rec center) and a game of monopoly, the day would pretty much be over.
Where we mostly live, it’s either really hot and humid or raining and really hot and humid. We like the library, or chik fil a, with its great wifi and play equipment for the littles. I also will use those days to do some extra curricular type school. Like extra art or music or even some “cognative behavioral therapy” (to teach them how to deal a bit better when their hormones have gotten the best of them). And if its a Sunday, when we have nothing else going on that day, I’m known to say “how about a LOTR marathon?”.
Rainy days are hard in a rig. Even harder when it’s days on end. But it IS do-able. Good time to scrub the “boy” out of the bathroom. Haha. Good news, rain always comes to an end. And then the kids can go run around outside again.
Movies, games, lego, writing, reading and mindlessly surfing the net! We get a lot of rain up here so we have to had inside sports and activities as the boys go a little crazy! 🙂
LOTS AND LOTS of Rummy, War, and Egyptian Rat! (Be sure to remove all sharp articles of jewelry while playing Rat- Can get dangerous quickly). Definitely reading; you’re lucky to have found such a cool library. Many rainy days spent in a tent, gets cramped, but adaptation is one of our best assets! Hope the rain lifts soon!
We’re not living on the road, so I can’t add much to this conversation, but I did want to commend you on the great amount of green food on your children’s plates in this photo! Makes me jealous, because my kids are such picky eaters!
My kids are all green eaters… well, except Gabe… he’d be a meat-a-tarian if I let him… but I don’t! 🙂
I would be pretty sure that your group can find plenty of things to do to keep yourself busy.