Farewell Moby

Hello blog!  It has been awhile since I sat down to write, but today deserved a new post.  Today we said goodbye to Moby, our snug home of the past year.

We never planned to keep Moby.  Traveling by RV was never a part of our family travel playbook.  We have always driven or flown to a destination, staying in a hotel or with family and friends.  Buying an RV was a means to an end, the way to make our trip work. But boy did we fall more than a little bit in love with our traveling house.  

Moby made me feel like a turtle when it rained. Rain is an abstraction in a normal house – unless it is pouring it’s often hard to hear the rain. In an RV, the intimacy of the space means you can sometimes feel the pounding of the rain.  Feeling the rain just inches away but knowing my shell would keep me nice and dry was a cozy feeling. Hazel and Ava loved their bunk beds.  They would pull their bunk curtains closed, claiming their own private space.  Ava in another world, lost in a pile of books. Hazel, staring up at the stars from the window that ran the length of her berth. Dan loved the simplicity of Moby.  I think he remembers the mobility of his military days with fondness.  He claims that, for most of his 20’s, he could pack the entirety of his belongings in a small U-Haul trailer hitched to his Jeep and be on the road to the next base in a day or so.  Moby just made life simple.  Everything got reduced to the basics.  All the possessions, projects and obligations of our normal life were pretty irrelevant in Moby.

We knew it made sense to sell Moby.  We wouldn’t use him enough to warrant keeping him.  He would stay locked in a storage facility, wondering where his family went.  Even the wonderful memories that caught in my chest every time I climbed Moby’s steps didn’t merit keeping him. 

All that being said, there wasn’t a dry eye as we waved Moby off and watched him drive down Sharon Hills Road without the Muir-N-Slager family.

But the good news.  The good news is that selling Moby was not difficult.  We had dozens of inquiries – and about a half dozen offers.  My sentimental self says that families looking at Moby could sense he was loved and is ready for a new adventure.  My practical self says that Covid has created a sellers’ market and we probably priced Moby a little low 😊.  It doesn’t matter, Moby is going to a good home.  Dean, Christie and Lexi are ready to take Moby out on new adventures.  Guided by mom/grandma Vicki, a former RV full-timer, they made the long trip from Dallas, TX to come get Moby.  I get the sense they are poised to have some awesome adventures of their own.

Hazel and I, probably the two most sentimental of our family lot, were reminiscing about the trip and for some reason Hazel started thinking about Christmas morning in Moby.  She said how much she loved waking up in Moby, being on the beach in LA and spending time later that day with dear family friends.  She started to get a little weepy but then she brightened up and said “hey mom, if we can’t stand it we could always make a Moby 2 and have new adventures.”  That’s my girl!  She is so right. We didn’t really “buy” Moby, we “made” him through adventure and laughter and silliness and some tears. 

Farewell our steadfast friend, be kind to your new family and show them the wonders of this fine country that we were blessed to see out on the great American road.