Lynne is a conscientious observer of the world around her. For every ounce of scenery she explores — and Lynne explores a lot — she seems to produce a pound of gratitude. Together, that, with a sense of kinship that she shares with the land, lays the groundwork for her life on the road.
When asked what her favorite destination was, she quickly responded, “Oh, I love everywhere!” Asking Lynne to pick a favorite place is akin to asking her to pick a favorite child. “Landscapes are absolutely stunning anywhere you go,” Lynne waxes reflexively. “The prairies are just gorgeous. Endless flowing fields of different crops. Even the wheat when it’s harvest time and it’s gold.”
Lynne’s slow and methodical description of the scenery peels back the outer layers and burrows into the feeling and life of a place. Wherever Lynne goes, she sees beauty. Her perspective is that every part of this world deserves to be cherished, cared for, and appreciated. All gratitude and a sense of community.
As part of Women’s History Month, we’re sharing perspectives like this — from female solo RV campers who witness the wonder of the natural world. These girl campers see beauty and bring beauty — even as they walk in and through the rugged surface of the earth.
This is Lynne’s story.
“It just doesn’t make sense to have a house to store all this stuff.”
Unlike the other girl campers we’ve profiled — Alexandra with her audacity, Cassie with her raw humor, Carolyn with her refreshing authenticity — Lynne never had have grandiose dreams of living in an RV. She wasn’t itching to sell it all and take off across the landscapes of North America. It happened by chance. She was running a little farm on her own, with an old house on it. The buildings needed constant work.
“Every time I would get one thing done, and something else would come up on it.”
So, she got a little R-POD 180 to get away.
”But what I ended up doing was camping on my property.”
Keep in mind, she had four dogs at the time. And she was simultaneously running a dog-training business. But even with the transition to an RV, Lynne and her dogs settled right in. Lynne states flatly, “I liked being there. It was like a personal challenge.” It was never meant to be forever, but soon, she says, “It just caught on to me.”
She began to ask herself some existential questions. Why would I be living on this farm in a bigger house than I actually need? What do I use my house for? The last question had a heavy answer, “I use it for storing stuff.”
After spending time in her tiny R-POD, she realized that she had everything she needed right there. The alternative just didn’t add up. Lynne says, “It just doesn’t make sense to have a house to store all this stuff.”
“A certain number of hours on this planet.”
According to Lynne, “The whole home-ownership-thing is overrated. Your stuff needs to have the house. Your stuff needs things. And then it’s so tempting to go and get more stuff. And there’s always somewhere to put stuff in a house. In the meantime,” Lynne points out, “you’ve only got a certain number of hours on this planet. You’re not going to live forever. And if you’re spending that time working to pay a mortgage to a bank, then you’re kind of giving your life to the bank for the sake of having a house.”
For Lynne, what really matters became apparent, “Your memories and your family and your connections to people, those are the things when it comes down to it, those are what really matters.”
Driving across the Canadian Prairie, that perspective unfolded like a vision.
“You see these houses that somebody worked really, really hard hand-cutting the timbers and the lumber. And building these houses by hand long before there was electricity or chainsaws and power tools. People worked so hard to build these houses.” But Lynne notes, “and now you drive past them, and they’re just empty. And the windows are broken and falling down. All houses are going to wind up like that one day.”
To Lynne, after watching the fires in LA and the floods in the Southeast, it feels like houses are becoming even more vulnerable to the elements. “All those beautiful houses, and beautiful properties, and the fires just cleaned it right out. And insurance companies backed out of their insurance policies.” Lynne sighs, “And we are only going to be seeing more of these natural disasters. If you’re in an RV, you’ve got the mobility to get away.”
“So now, I don’t trust google maps!”
As you can likely already tell, Lynne has a quiet and grounded demeanor. It’s hard to imagine her in an unsettled state. But ask her to share a little deeper into her RV experience, and she can tell about a few harrowing moments.
One was just last summer when Lynne was driving into northern Ontario. Google Maps led her astray. Lynne remembers thinking, “I don’t know why I’m turning left off the highway as she followed the directions down an old side road.
She recalls, “So, I’m driving down, and I’m towing my jeep with my 32-foot motorhome, totaling about 46 feet. There’s nowhere to turn around. No shoulders or anything like that. So, I’m driving and driving and driving. And I finally wound up turning down a driveway that says, ‘Private Property.’ ”
Driving down this long road, she saw a scattering of RVs and a sign for an RV park with a little lake. She thought it looked like a good place to turn around, but when she got down to the office, a woman came running out. And she was livid.
Lynne says she tried to explain, “I’m very sorry to bother you. I got lost on Google Maps.” But the woman screamed back, “That’s what they all say!”
The moment quickly became even more scary. There was a big gravel loop to turn around, but the woman wouldn’t let her. That forced Lynne to manuever in this tiny patch that was far too small for her rig. Lynne had to pull forward. Disconnect the Jeep. Pull forward again. Reconnect the Jeep again. In her haste to get away from the angry lady, she didn’t get the brake system connected or set the tow bars properly.
Lynne felt she had to because the lady was so mad.
So, Lynne took off back up the driveway as soon as the Jeep was reconnected. She stopped when she was about half a mile up the driveway to set up the brakes and get the tow bars locked.
But she wasn’t out of the woods yet. “There was another woman standing there with the biggest German Shepherd I’ve ever seen — lunging and barking at the end of the leash.”
Then the woman unhooked the leash and pointed to Lynne.
In a foot race against time and teeth, Lynne scrambled as fast as she could back to the side-door of her RV. “I managed to get in and just as the power stairs are coming up, I hear — BOOM — on the side of the door.” The dog had leapt onto the stairs as they were rolling up. Lynne, a dog person, was under no illusions about what was chasing her. That dog was a King Shepherd — a massive breed weighing around 120 pounds.
“So now, I don’t trust google maps! I always have a paper map. I have an atlas now, and I do the route on the road atlas.”
“I’d never driven a motorhome before.”
Currently, Lynne lives and travels in a Class A motorhome. When I asked if she ever found the idea of driving it daunting, she replied, “I had never driven a motorhome before, and I won’t say that I wasn’t intimidated by the idea of driving this. But when I thought about it, I thought, ‘Well, I’ve driven a fire truck.’ “
Lynne, was a firefighter for seven years in Oyster River. She started out as a volunteer, but ended up being paid per call. She always wanted to be a firefighter, but in her past attempts, she felt that being a woman was the unspoken barrier to entry.
With seven years of driving a fire truck under her belt, she had the confidence to drive a Class A Fleetwood Southwind 32VS. She talked the seller down to $75,000 with a set of brand-new tires. For her, it was ideal. It has lots of space, a separate bedroom at the back, and two air conditioners and heat pumps. Personally, Lynne feels like she has more than enough space to live in — especially with two dogs.
Even so, there are a few things that aren’t perfect. It has a recliner in it, but she would really prefer to have a desk or office space in place of the recliner. The Southwind also has some carpet in it, which isn’t ideal for living in an RV with two dogs. Even so, Lynne makes it work.
“A bridge of self-discovery”
When Lynne talks about scenery, it is almost if it has touched her. Her descriptions unfurl naturally, without any special effects. When she talks about the flora and fauna of a place, it sounds more like a homecoming — very unlike a commercial writer trying to present the perfect vacation spot.
Describing a time drove behind an open-air Amish Buggy in the Midwest, she mentions that she noticed that inside was a young couple. And a chaperone.
“I had to stay behind them, so I didn’t scare the horses. I was just out enjoying a beautiful sunset evening at the end of a hot day, enjoying the countryside. And it was neat to see young people just appreciating a day for being a day.”
Moments like these are the quiet highlights of Lynne’s life on the road.
Living in the RV is what Lynne describes as “a bridge of self-discovery. It’s a chance to enjoy nature on its own terms.”
Many of us forget to simply observe the landscape and scenery for what it is. And nature deserves be seen this way. Not for what we want it to be. Not what others have talked it up to be. Living in an RV as a woman, alone, immerses you in countless moments of isolation outside. Lynne says, “Without the influence of another person, you aren’t busy being distracted by someone else, or thinking what their perceptions of the place might be.”
Instead, you are forced to exist in the moment for what it is. That may sound refreshing to you. Or it may sound somewhat intimidating. But for Lynne, it is a combination of both — all part of a pure and unfiltered way to experience life.
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