*Well,that's pretty much the definition of American precarity: elderly, bankrupt, living in a rattling RV and working seasonally in an Amazon warehouse.
*And it's such a wired lifestyle, too!
Small armies of them. Large scattered hordes, even
(...)
After filing their papers, Chuck and Barb began liquidating their lives. They shuttered Carolina Adventure Tours and handed their 2009 Chrysler Town & Country over to the bank. They sold most of their possessions, including all of their appliances and furniture. What didn’t sell on Craigslist went to an auctioneer. Barb let go of her record collection and two pianos. Chuck surrendered his golf clubs. Objects they couldn’t bear to part with—including Chuck’s letter from Ray Kroc, framed and hanging on the wall—went to one of Barb’s daughters for safekeeping. (Barb and Chuck each have three kids.)
Whatever survived the purge had to fit in their new dwelling: a 29-foot 1996 National RV Sea Breeze motor home, which Barb’s brother sold to them for $500. The rig had dry-rotted tires, a dead generator, and a leak in the gas line. Back when the Stouts had money, they’d idly fantasized about becoming carefree vagabonds in a nice RV. Their current situation didn’t quite align with that dream, but they embraced it anyway. Perhaps, Barb reflected, this was destiny—the universe pushing them toward the lifestyle they’d wanted all along. She decided to call their next move “Barb and Chuck’s Great Adventure.”
The Stouts set off in early 2013. First they drove south to Pensacola, Florida, where they stayed for a month in a downscale RV park. Next they moved into a New Orleans trailer court wedged between a rail yard and a highway. Then to Memphis, Tennessee, then on to South Dakota and Mount Rushmore. By the time they settled in for the summer at Palisade State Park in central Utah, the adventure was already wearing them down. Whenever it rained, water began leaking into their RV from all sides; the rubber seals surrounding the windows and the bathroom skylight were shot....
