Around the corner from our house is a home with a large 5th wheel camper parked in the driveway. There are several homes in our neighborhood where recreational vehicles and boats sit outdoors. I notice such things in part because we have a camp trailer and several kayaks and canoes as well as a rowboat. This particular 5th wheel trailer, however, is one that i’ve been paying attention to since we moved into our house a year ago. Because of the way the camper sits and because of some items stored under the hitch of the camper, I know that it has not been moved in the past year. Campers are designed to be moved. They have wheels and tires and carefully designed hitches. But this one sits in the same place every day.

It isn’t the only static camper in our community. Within walking distance of our house are several RV resorts. Those places rent parking places for recreational vehicles by the month. People leave their campers parked their semi-permanently and use them as recreational homes, coming and going from their regular homes on weekends and during vacations to stay near the beach. Some of those campers have skirting and landscaping around them. Several have decks and permanent stairs that mean moving the camper would be a significant job. I’m fairly certain that there are campers that have been sold in place like other vacation homes.

The 5th wheel camper around the corner, however, is a bit different. I can’t see any evidence that it is being used at all. It is possible that it functions as a spare bedroom or a guest home for the house, but I’ve never seen the door of the camper open or anyone coming and going from it.

It has me thinking in part because yesterday, I put our camper to bed for the winter. The process isn’t very elaborate. We have the luxury of being able to park our camper in our son’s barn. Even though the weather around here isn’t severe, I go ahead and drain all of the water and pump antifreeze through the water lines to prevent anything from freezing. I make sure the batteries are fully charged and turn off the master power switch. I close the valves on the propane bottles. And I spread old tarps on the roof. The last precaution is because the camper sits next to the hay loft and 30’ behind it is an open door that allows the cows to come and go to get out of the rain and eat hay inside. The open door and the hay storage provide shelter for birds that nest in the barn. The tarps save me the job of scrubbing bird droppings off the roof of the camper in the spring when we pull it out.

Here is the thing. So far this year we have slept in our camper only two nights. Both nights were sleep overs with our grandchildren in the yard at the farm. I suppose I have towed the camper a total of less than 500 feet this year. Compare that with the summer of 2001, when we towed the camper to South Carolina and back, a distance of just over 6,000 miles. We slept in the camper every night for three weeks on that trip.

We bought the camper to travel and share experiences with our grandchildren and in the later years of our ministry, we had took our campers on 2,000 and 3,000 mile adventures every year. Before we had this camper, we had a pickup camper. We lived in that camper for a month once, traveling around Alberta and British Columbia.

I expected that we would take some grand trips in retirement, but the reality is that we have used our camper less now that we are retired than we did when we were working. The same is true of our various boats. Now that we supposedly have more time, we are using our recreational items less. I am starting to wonder whether or not we simply have too many things. Is it time to start looking for new homes for some of our possessions?

From time to time I speculate on the story of the 5th wheel camper in our neighborhood. Perhaps the person who drove the tow vehicle became sick and is no longer able to drive the big vehicle. Maybe the camper is needed as extra space and is used for storage or as a bedroom. It is possible that the camper was once used as a winter vehicle by snowbirds who lived part of the year in our neighborhood and went south to Arizona or some warmer place in the winter. Perhaps the Covid pandemic or some other event has disrupted their usual routine. Maybe last year was an anomaly. It is possible that they are getting it ready for a new adventure this winter.

I know that the time will come when we will sell our camper. I don’t expect to be driving a heavy-duty diesel truck pulling a 25-foot camp trailer around when I am in my mid-eighties. There are lots of things that we do for a period of our lives and then move on. We used to be part owners of an airplane. The time came to sell that partnership and go on to other activities. I missed flying for a while. Now it is just part of our story. I’m glad I got to fly our children and create memories for them. I’m glad that I don’t have the expense and work of annual inspections, required new avionics and panel upgrades, overhaul reserves, and other things that are part of owning an airplane.

Looking around our neighborhood I’ve come to the conclusion that some recreational vehicles and boats have ceased to be recreation and have become burdens for their owners. There is wisdom in learning to shed possessions and learning to live simply. It is a challenge of this phase of our lives.

But for now, the camper is safely stored in the barn. We’ve got a few more camping adventures ahead of us. We have a few more memories to make with our grandchildren. Who knows? We may tow it across the border into Canada next summer. Maybe the owners of the 5th wheel camper can look at it and dream, too.