Being Goldilocks
I will soon get back to talking about where I've been and what I've seen, but this post is more about my inner journey.
What do I mean by "Being Goldilocks"? I mean two things. First, I mean searching for the things that feel "just right" to me. That's about trusting my gut and looking for situations that suit me. Second, I mean searching for the "just right" in the things that I find. That's about how I hold whatever happens -- looking for the gifts in situations that may not appear on the surface to be "just right."
Now on with the story...
I've gotten pretty comfortable with handling my van, but I have not yet mastered a big vehicle state of mind. This is much more noticeable now that I'm in California. The pace of traffic in Los Angeles was intense. I expected nothing less and after my initial resistance, I got in sync with the pace of it and didn't seem like such a big deal. But I expected that after I got out of L.A., especially on Super Bowl Sunday, the pace would ease up and I could relax again. I took a back road out of Santa Barbara heading toward Lake Cachuma and expected to enjoy it. I immediately had a string of cars tailgating me and each other, and saw a sign telling me that slow vehicles were required to use the turnout ahead. I started eyeing all the possible places to pull off, but they were short patches of dirt with a sizable bump down to them and bump back up to the road. After a few of those, I saw that there was a bonafide turnout coming up -- a paved extra lane that I could pull into and let cars go by. When I got to it I slowed down to make sure that the whole string of cars could pass, then I pulled back into my lane at the last moment. Within 5 seconds I had another whole string of cars behind me and I started looking for places to pull off. I found something paved that wasn't a turnout and stopped to let the next string of cars past. Shortly after that there was a really long extra lane for passing, but there were -- you guessed it -- no cars behind me at that point. Not until the very end of that stretch of road, and then -- yep -- several more cars on my tail. While all this was going on, the road was doing its winding hilly thing with an intermittent drop-off to the right and no guard rail. It was spectacular countryside, but I was not enjoying it. I was afraid to take any part of my full attention off the road for even a second to enjoy the scenery. Even when I got to a vista point with plenty of parking where I could get out and take in the scenery -- I was too wound up to want to stop and get out. I really wish I had been in the frame of mind to stop and take a photo, but I was not being Goldilocks in that moment.
Same thing at the campground that I was driving to. It was a lovely spot. But when I got there, there was no one at the admission gate. There was a self-service place to pay money, there were security cameras, there were dire warnings about fines for not following the instructions. Even though there were clearly people camping there, this was not a scenario I had experience with or felt comfortable with. I was rattled by the drive to get there. I wanted my comfort zone, and staying there to figure out how to do this the right way did not look like it would provide that. I drove on to Solvang, only about a half hour farther, on a less beautiful but also a much less scary stretch of road. I saw Old Mission Santa Ines on the left -- a California Mission -- now that's a comfort zone for me. They are great places to stop and rest and reflect. At the same moment I saw the mission, I also saw a sign that said "RV Parking" on the right. I turned into that lot. It services a veterans memorial, the library, a senior center, and the police station, and it's the only approved place for people driving RVs to park to visit downtown Solvang.
I looked around. I saw signs saying that during the day certain spaces were reserved for RVs only, certain spaces were reserved for the senior center, but nothing about not parking overnight. I got out of my van and tried to check in with the police department to ask whether I was welcome, but it was about an hour after the super bowl had started. If anyone was there, there was no sign of it. I drove across the street to the mission. I looked around for signs about parking and didn't see any. I went into the gift shop to ask about overnight parking. They didn't allow it, but she was confident that they did in the lot across the street where I had just been. As I drove out of the lot, I saw at least two signs at the mission that said "No Overnight Parking". They were positioned to catch the attention of people heading for the back corners of the lot -- not for people entering the lot. However, I am glad I went into the gift shop to ask -- talking to her gave me more confidence about parking in the lot across the street.
View from parking lot at Mission Santa Ines. It seems that my camera works a lot better from inside my comfort zone. 😆 (Apologies for my poor photo editing skills):
After driving around town a bit more and deciding I really wasn't interested in browsing in cute shops, I headed back to "the lot." I found a level parking space in a row also occupied by some rather large vehicles belonging to the city, and closed up for the night (hung my curtain behind the cab and put up the covers for my rear windows. I fully expected to wake up to more vehicles in the lot than when I hunkered down for the night, but nope -- I seem to have been the only one who stayed there last night.
From yesterday and last night, I learned a few things:
I don't really know what to do with myself yet when I'm camping. One of the reasons I was uncomfortable with the places I scoped out on the way to Solvang was that it was so early in the day and I didn't have a plan for what to do with myself. (A reminder may be in order at this point -- I'm still not as mobile as I want to be, so going for a walk to sort things out for myself is still not much of an option.)
If I keep doing what I'm doing, I won't figure out what to do with myself when I'm camping. If I'm going to figure that out, I will have to sit still for a few days and go through the discomfort of turning that into a comfort zone.
If I'm going to sit still for a few days, I want to make this as easy on myself as I can. I want to find a place that feels safe, that isn't too hot or too cold (40's or 50's at night and 70's during the day would be ideal), not too crowded, not too hard to get to, nice scenery, with some amenities.
My next project is to find Camp Goldilocks. 😎
What do I mean by "Being Goldilocks"? I mean two things. First, I mean searching for the things that feel "just right" to me. That's about trusting my gut and looking for situations that suit me. Second, I mean searching for the "just right" in the things that I find. That's about how I hold whatever happens -- looking for the gifts in situations that may not appear on the surface to be "just right."
Now on with the story...
I've gotten pretty comfortable with handling my van, but I have not yet mastered a big vehicle state of mind. This is much more noticeable now that I'm in California. The pace of traffic in Los Angeles was intense. I expected nothing less and after my initial resistance, I got in sync with the pace of it and didn't seem like such a big deal. But I expected that after I got out of L.A., especially on Super Bowl Sunday, the pace would ease up and I could relax again. I took a back road out of Santa Barbara heading toward Lake Cachuma and expected to enjoy it. I immediately had a string of cars tailgating me and each other, and saw a sign telling me that slow vehicles were required to use the turnout ahead. I started eyeing all the possible places to pull off, but they were short patches of dirt with a sizable bump down to them and bump back up to the road. After a few of those, I saw that there was a bonafide turnout coming up -- a paved extra lane that I could pull into and let cars go by. When I got to it I slowed down to make sure that the whole string of cars could pass, then I pulled back into my lane at the last moment. Within 5 seconds I had another whole string of cars behind me and I started looking for places to pull off. I found something paved that wasn't a turnout and stopped to let the next string of cars past. Shortly after that there was a really long extra lane for passing, but there were -- you guessed it -- no cars behind me at that point. Not until the very end of that stretch of road, and then -- yep -- several more cars on my tail. While all this was going on, the road was doing its winding hilly thing with an intermittent drop-off to the right and no guard rail. It was spectacular countryside, but I was not enjoying it. I was afraid to take any part of my full attention off the road for even a second to enjoy the scenery. Even when I got to a vista point with plenty of parking where I could get out and take in the scenery -- I was too wound up to want to stop and get out. I really wish I had been in the frame of mind to stop and take a photo, but I was not being Goldilocks in that moment.
Same thing at the campground that I was driving to. It was a lovely spot. But when I got there, there was no one at the admission gate. There was a self-service place to pay money, there were security cameras, there were dire warnings about fines for not following the instructions. Even though there were clearly people camping there, this was not a scenario I had experience with or felt comfortable with. I was rattled by the drive to get there. I wanted my comfort zone, and staying there to figure out how to do this the right way did not look like it would provide that. I drove on to Solvang, only about a half hour farther, on a less beautiful but also a much less scary stretch of road. I saw Old Mission Santa Ines on the left -- a California Mission -- now that's a comfort zone for me. They are great places to stop and rest and reflect. At the same moment I saw the mission, I also saw a sign that said "RV Parking" on the right. I turned into that lot. It services a veterans memorial, the library, a senior center, and the police station, and it's the only approved place for people driving RVs to park to visit downtown Solvang.
I looked around. I saw signs saying that during the day certain spaces were reserved for RVs only, certain spaces were reserved for the senior center, but nothing about not parking overnight. I got out of my van and tried to check in with the police department to ask whether I was welcome, but it was about an hour after the super bowl had started. If anyone was there, there was no sign of it. I drove across the street to the mission. I looked around for signs about parking and didn't see any. I went into the gift shop to ask about overnight parking. They didn't allow it, but she was confident that they did in the lot across the street where I had just been. As I drove out of the lot, I saw at least two signs at the mission that said "No Overnight Parking". They were positioned to catch the attention of people heading for the back corners of the lot -- not for people entering the lot. However, I am glad I went into the gift shop to ask -- talking to her gave me more confidence about parking in the lot across the street.
View from parking lot at Mission Santa Ines. It seems that my camera works a lot better from inside my comfort zone. 😆 (Apologies for my poor photo editing skills):
After driving around town a bit more and deciding I really wasn't interested in browsing in cute shops, I headed back to "the lot." I found a level parking space in a row also occupied by some rather large vehicles belonging to the city, and closed up for the night (hung my curtain behind the cab and put up the covers for my rear windows. I fully expected to wake up to more vehicles in the lot than when I hunkered down for the night, but nope -- I seem to have been the only one who stayed there last night.
From yesterday and last night, I learned a few things:
I don't really know what to do with myself yet when I'm camping. One of the reasons I was uncomfortable with the places I scoped out on the way to Solvang was that it was so early in the day and I didn't have a plan for what to do with myself. (A reminder may be in order at this point -- I'm still not as mobile as I want to be, so going for a walk to sort things out for myself is still not much of an option.)
If I keep doing what I'm doing, I won't figure out what to do with myself when I'm camping. If I'm going to figure that out, I will have to sit still for a few days and go through the discomfort of turning that into a comfort zone.
If I'm going to sit still for a few days, I want to make this as easy on myself as I can. I want to find a place that feels safe, that isn't too hot or too cold (40's or 50's at night and 70's during the day would be ideal), not too crowded, not too hard to get to, nice scenery, with some amenities.
My next project is to find Camp Goldilocks. 😎
I understand your problem with "just being" at a campground. When we go camping there is usually an activity like hiking or kayaking involved. In the cases that the weather is bad, I have a hard time just "being" around camp. In those situations, we usually spend our time cooking, reading, walking around to look at other people's camps if the weather permits. One thing that I think that makes it easier to just "be" at camp is a comfy atmosphere...comfortable camp chairs, a canopy shelter to sit under, small portable tables to have around our chairs, fun lights on that shelter, cute tablecloth on the picnic table, other small comforts that have made the campsite feel more like home. You know what I mean, you've seen our campsite pictures on Facebook. I often marvel at all the "stuff" other campers take with them to decorate but I understand why. We try to keep it at a minimum but those little extras do help make it easier to just "be" around and enjoy our surroundings. Of course, we have a little more space to carry those things than you do since we have a teardrop and a vehicle to put things in. Of course, our kids have helped us accumulate more "stuff" in their search to give us the perfect Christmas gifts. We received a Volcano grill from them this Christmas and an awning to attach to the camper last Christmas.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your surrounding and the chance to "just be."