A Mobile Office and a Sidecar of Humility
Late last summer we moved into a new house planning to do construction to create more rooms. Until then, my home office was in the garage surrounded by gym equipment, storage, and my kids’ Lego table. Needless to say it was not a quiet or ideal place to have video meetings.
I researched all manner of solutions. Because there’s a stream on our property, we cannot build permanent structures—even sheds—over most of it. I looked at:
Plastic sheds: freezing cold, dark.
Cabin tents: also cold and no barrier from my kids wrecking it
Deliverable office portables (metal cargo containers): too heavy—would take up too much of the driveway
Mobile office portables (see above except on wheels) — also would take up too much of the driveway.
Camper vans? Expensive and also could not get Chris Farley out of my head (staying in a van down by the river—or stream in this case).
Finally I accepted the reality that my only option was to do something I was terrified to do: buy an RV travel trailer and tow it myself onto the property. I’m never towed anything in my life. It’s the main reason I don’t have a boat and instead bought an electric surfboard that costs more than a boat.
I then spent a stupid amount of time deliberating over the right size of RV—mainly meaning it had basic stuff and didn’t immediately make me envision flailing violently all over the highway. A downside of being a trial lawyer is you see a lot of that.
I went down to buy the “just right” RV in Kent, so green I didn’t even have a trailer hitch. The “walk through” was literally the first time I learned anything about how RVs work. It took me five tries to line the hitch up right and they hitched it up for me. They taught me braking..
Mortified, I drove out of the lot only to find I barely noticed a trailer on my back. Still I drove like an old lady all the way home. Everything was peachy until I had to figure out how to back it into my driveway. I knew this was going to be tricky, but not quite so humiliating. First, I almost backed into a ravine and twice crushed our bushes.
I then drove past my house and tried to turn around at the neighbors, only to almost bend the entire hitch off with the trailer at a stupid angle. I pulled forward and backward at least three dozen times trying to turn around without hitting anything—rock retaining walls, neighbors’ recycling bins, flower pots. It was literally like this in front of the entire neighborhood.
This lasted for at least 15 minutes until I finally turned around and drove forward into my driveway. I thought at that point I’d be able to back into the spot in the yard to put this thing. But to do that I had to pull into the carport under the deck. I heard a weird squeaking noise. I had hit the deck. Courtney comes out hollering at me to stop.
My kids are watching from the garage. I’m picturing myself like this.
I then succumb to the reality that I now have to back out of my driveway, circle around and then attempt to back in again. But I can’t back out of my driveway without hitting every stupid shrub, kids toy, and rock retaining wall along the way. I narrowly escape losing the trailer in the ravine. This takes another 15 minutes. At some point I bent the tire on the back of the RV—on what I have no idea.
I drove down the street and find a place to turn around without having to reverse at all. At that point I realized that despite having all windows down in the car and it being sub-freezing temperatures, I’m like:
With Courtney’s help it still took me 30 minutes to back in the general vicinity of the target location and another 15 to actually get the RV straight.
But now, finally, I have my quiet, warm mobile office. Maybe someday after the my trauma subsides I will actually make it mobile again.