Man O man. Raglan is quite the little surf town. With its one main road, attractive sun kissed residents, and serious surf, calling it laid back is an understatement. It's grocery shoppers don't wear shoes! It's restaurants and bars open after six! We envisioned ourselves on a slippery slope here in Raglan. "Should we get a job or just stretch our last 400 till summer winds down?". To all those joking about us ending up on the streets... This is the town to do it, I think it might even be welcomed. If we weren't two girls raised in the city who like to enjoy fine food and wine from time to time and happen to have good work ethic, we'd happily beach bumm around this town all summer long.
Unfortunately, with fall coming to a close, we only stopped by for a night or two in order to wet our feet of this kind of lifestyle. We arrived early in the evening on some odd day of the week and stopped at a hotel with a hotel bar and a hotel restaurant. It seemed to be the place to end up after a days work so we parked it and pretended we were locals too.
About three hours later we left feeling happy and stuffed with good food and a cheap glass of red wine.
The sun had past set and we were on the look out for a five dollar a night campsite. Morgan's iPad gave this "establishment" one name but the color name painted on a piece of wood did not match. We pulled into what looked like someone's front yard but then we soon found an entrance to a big field. A tiny sign to the right read "text 0222647742 upon arrival". So I drove in and Morgan cleverly texted "at campsite" and about fifteen minutes later a man showed up to collect our money. It rained so hard that night that it kept waking us up with its whipping and pounding on the van.
The next morning greeted us with sun and we brewed our coffee and made our way to the Raglan library to pay some bills and update this here blog. Everyone was shoeless and sitting outside on there phones or computers to use the free wifi. After checking Facebook, paying the phone bill, and meeting a fellow traveler, we headed for the beach where we made chicken salad and read our books.
After the beach it was back to the main town street where we window shopped. Morgan joked with me about needing a key-locating gadget! Hilarious one Mo. And we imagined all of the endless useless stuff we might buy if we had jobs or homes. We shortly went back to our campsite, made sandwiches, read and watched the sun go down. The moon shown bright that night! Hiding behind clouds and igniting them in white light! It would only get brighter the next few nights.
The following morning we rearranged our van as we love to do from time to time! As we accumulate more things, such as camping chairs and a cooler, we find joy and humor in configuring everything underneath our bed just so... Like a game of Tetris. It's a good thing Morgan and I find humor in random everyday things. We can even manage to find humor in those moments where one of us annoys, intensely, the other. Like if I think I'm right and Morgan actually is, and she just quietly smiles as my pride slowly dissolves into chuckles. Or if Morgan reads over my shoulder and I over dramatized the situation because actually getting annoyed by that is seriously ridiculous and we laugh in that moment. Or when Morgan spills my cider all over my book and pants but we both laugh because we know it would usually be me.
This is why Morgan and I are pretty great travel partners. After eleven years of growing up together we really know how to interact with each other. We know how to communicate, how to encourage each other, and we know how to laugh. The other thing is, we know how to get under each other's skin, how to cut each other down. However, we chose not to because it's her and I here, exploring together, learning, seeing, changing a little bit.
So, organized van, half a tank of gas, a couple of best friends, we hit the road again to venture south once more.
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