Nine in the morning, and rswfire had been awake for seven hours less than he should have been. He'd stayed up until two, playing on the laptop — he named it, noted it, set it aside. I have got to do something about it, but that's not what this is about. The night's work was already done and would explain itself later. First there was the map.
It had come clipped to the site the day before, the way campgrounds hand you your own coordinates: five long-term sites, split across two loops. He was on one of them, held for five weeks. He wanted ninety days. So the morning began on foot — out of the RV, into the loops, walking candidate sites to see whether they would take his camper, whether the geometry worked. The campground was empty midweek, but the wear showed where weekends filled it in. Behind his site a large field opened out, and Bailey could see all of it.
The dog, he noticed, seemed happy. rswfire read the trip as having done something for him — that they were together, that moving didn't mean losing each other, that this new place had a field in it. He said he was really happy about that, and said it twice.
The first two sites were, by his account, wonderful. Total tree coverage. And that was the disqualification: Starlink needed sky, and he had finally reached the point of being able to use the thing. He stated the tension plainly — I love being within the trees — and then chose against it. Three sites remained, all in the opposite loop, all under clear skies, all fine. He booked what he could and shaped the sequence so he would only have to move once: five weeks here, then around the corner, then out. Eighty-nine days total. He left it there. I'm just going to keep it that way. The exit date landed on August 20th, a Tuesday, and he noted that he prefers arriving midweek when it's quiet — and noted equally that the preference wouldn't survive the drive to Nevada, where they'd be moving quite a bit.
Bailey needed attention. The tent needed to go up so the dog could be outside in it. And the rig needed leveling. He got it level again and named the ease of it: that's getting pretty routine for me. Not difficult. He could judge the bubble and know what to do — the correction read off the instrument by feel, no calculation between seeing and acting.
Then he explained the late night. Three playlists, assembled until two in the morning, each one a stage of the journey made reviewable. Stage one, preparation, running from the very inception of the decision to move into the RV — a list he called interesting and good, one he intends to go back and watch to see the growth. Chapter two, whose name he'd forgotten and would have to look up, was the transition: moving into the RV, medication withdrawal, learning to live in it, getting organized. I went through so much during that time.
And chapter three started here. Eighty-nine days of pause, deliberately bounded — acclimate to the lifestyle, focus on the content and other projects, and plan chapter four, the pilgrimage. He was standing inside a stage he had named, on a site he had chosen against his own preference for trees, on a schedule he had booked to its final Tuesday, with the tent still to go up and the dog waiting in the field.