Meteors, Eventually

 

Chapter 101: Repairs, Ribbons, and Accidental Confidence

I showed up early at the Winnebago dealership ready to be a Responsible Van Owner™, emotionally torn between “please don’t be broken” and “if you’re going to break, do it before the warranty expires.” Dustin, the service guy, was calm, competent, and immediately confused by the mysterious rubber strip on our back door. Turns out: it was never supposed to be there. The RAM dealership had lovingly super-glued a mistake onto our van, so the official fix involved… ripping it off with effort and dignity.

The window leak, meanwhile, was deemed a maintenance issue - aka my problem. Dustin taught me how to seal it myself with $22 silicone and optimism. I’ve been waiting for the mythical warm, stationary day ever since, during which the window has leaked twice more. Motivation remains low but guilt remains high.

Riding the high of “I am a woman who has her shit together,” I treated the van to a $20 truck wash. I stayed inside while it happened, feeling mildly tickled and spiritually cleansed. The dashboard got wiped down, the windshield de-greased, and I was briefly flirted with via Google Translate. When asked...digitally, if I was married, I proudly deployed my full Spanish vocabulary: “Sí. Sí sí sí.” I left smiling, holding a free towel, and feeling strangely victorious.



Later that week, I visited our lot to inspect ribbon-marked trees slated for removal. Pink, orange, blue... no idea what meant what, but it all felt like progress. I said goodbye to the trees anyway, just in case. 



That night, our van life leveled up with the arrival of a headrest-with-a-hole for at-home massages. It looks like a soft toilet seat. It works beautifully.

Bears giving the massage headrest a test run before the humans do.

Chapter 102: Santa, Feathers, and the Slow Descent into Winter Hobbies

Another Thursday, another Bass Pro pilgrimage, this time to graduate from worm-like fly tying into feathers. While browsing, I was ambushed by Santa himself, who waved me over for a photo. I complied under mild panic, afraid I’d be charged. When he asked what I wanted for Christmas, I told him the truth: not freezing to death. Santa knows.

My face that says 'I hope this is not going to cost me...'


The fly fishing section is now officially my happy place. I chatted with Lloyd, a Roaring River regular, gathered tips, and bought supplies for wooly buggers that may or may not catch fish but will absolutely be beautiful.

Ahead of a brutal cold weekend, I took myself on a solo hike: badly dressed, holding a coffee mug, and forced to climb over a fallen log in what I can only hope was witnessed by no one. It was awkward, energizing, and exactly what I needed.

Not only I had to mount the log, I had to mount it facing the correct direction (I did not and almost got stuck)


Chapter 103: The Meteor Shower That Almost Won

Saturday brought the much-anticipated Geminid meteor shower, and with it, extreme cold, clouds, and hope. We bundled up like laundry, joined a brave group at a watch party, built a fire, mistook a Verizon tower for constellations, and endured two freezing hours for one confirmed shooting star. Hot chocolate saved morale. Hand warmers saved nothing.



Defeated but stubborn, we tried again at 2:30 a.m. Still cold. Still cloudy. Still determined. At 3:30, the sky finally cleared. Orion appeared. Jupiter blazed. And then... meteors. Real ones. Five or six each. Two at once. Nelson and I watched squished together in the front seat, purely for warmth, grinning like teenagers who stayed up past curfew.

Standing out there in the cold, waiting for the sky to cooperate, I kept thinking about how meteor showers used to be part of our dating vocabulary. Back then, they were excuses... half-serious, half-romantic reasons to stay up too late, drive too far, and believe that a few streaks of light could count as a plan. We had more energy then, fewer layers, and absolutely no concept of how tired future-us would be.

Somewhere along the way, life got fuller and heavier, and those nights of reckless stargazing quietly fell off the calendar. So sitting there now - older, colder, even with multiple layers, waiting hours for something that might not even happen... felt strangely familiar and new at the same time. When the meteors finally came, brief and indifferent to all our effort, it wasn’t the spectacle that mattered. It was the fact that we were still willing to wait together, still pointing at the sky like it owed us something, still delighted when it finally delivered. <3 



Sunday morning was -9°C. Nelson went fishing anyway and returned with a fly rod literally frozen solid. The stray dog was finally rescued and headed to a no-kill shelter, which felt like the quiet emotional win of the weekend.

Real ice!  I didn't know fishing rod can freeze even when it's constantly being cast.


Exhausted, slightly feral, but deeply content, we packed up knowing we’d survived another winter milestone, cold, inconvenient, and kind of magical.

Mulled wine came to the rescue!


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