Unpacking Boxes, Untangling Lines

 

Chapter 33: The Day Our Belongings Arrived in Wooden Sarcophagi

Tuesday morning, our New York life came back to us in the form of four giant wooden vaults, the kind usually reserved for priceless artifacts or vampire storage. Each crate was stamped with Nelson’s name like we were donating him to a museum.


The movers — Lloyd, who chain-smoked like he was trying to set a world record, and Lamar, the quiet MVP — unloaded box after box into our 10x20 storage unit. At first, we worried it wouldn’t all fit, but turns out half the vaults were mostly air, like Amazon packages but on a life-sized scale.

I staged the whole thing like a Tetris competition, making sure the clothes and shoes were accessible while the heavy, mysterious “we’ll deal with this later” boxes went to the back. The white loveseat squeezed in dead center like a misplaced throne.


The highlight: rediscovering my long-lost RO black top, which I immediately earmarked for Joe’s dinner party, because there are only so many weeks of living in t-shirts before a person needs to feel human again. Nelson scored a few upgraded shirts, too — though I still had to fix the button on his polka-dot one.

I wrapped the day with Hainan chicken rice and taro buns (three gone before I made it out of the parking lot), pasta cooked in yet another random park, and a sickly fox sighting near Gear Garden. Vanlife lesson of the day: sometimes your storage unit feels more like home than your actual van.


Chapter 34: Hooked (or Not) at Roaring River

By Friday, we traded boxes for fish. Martin, the owner of our campground, insisted we couldn’t leave Missouri without trying our hand at trout fishing at Roaring River. He even lent us rods, which turned out to be left-handed — a detail that didn’t help our already questionable fishing skills.


The river was stunning, clear as glass, with trout visible everywhere, practically waving hello. I thought, “This will be easy.” The trout thought otherwise. They sniffed our fake worms like suspicious sommeliers and then swam off, unimpressed. Meanwhile, people next to us — some on mobility scooters, mind you — were hauling them in every ten minutes. Rude.


Nelson managed a couple of rainbow trout, and I took pride in my newfound talent for tying knots and later, filleting fish with what can only be described as a fruit knife. The pros at the cleaning station gave me pitying looks, but one kind soul handed us a brand-new fillet knife as a “gift.” Southern hospitality: 1, my ego: 0.


We broke up the fishing frenzy with a whiskey tasting (because nothing says “outdoorsy” like trout in the morning and bourbon in the afternoon), then went straight back to the river for round two. This time Nelson really got the hang of “jigging” the lure, and more trout landed in our bucket.


Dinner was pan-fried trout in butter, crisp and perfect, the kind of meal that made us want to high-five ourselves. By Sunday, we were so attached to the campground we even set up a “barbershop” behind the van for Nelson’s haircut. The week ended with Taiwanese fried chicken from a food truck, proof that life’s simple joys are universal: good food, sharp knives, and fish that finally cooperate.



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