The Day the Mimics Tried to Break Us

Intro:
This is the raw journal entry about June 6, 2025, what we now call Hell Day — the day we truly thought our RV (and maybe us) wouldn’t make it. I didn’t want to over-edit this one. It’s chaotic and emotional, but that’s exactly how it felt living through it.

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Leaving FR700

Well, that was quite a turn of events over the past few days. Where do I even start? We really have to keep track of it all because it was so much in such a short period.

This past Monday, we left FR700 and ended up landing on Corva Road, heading west. I was confident that we needed to leave FR700 and not go back again. It was stressful, but we landed in a spot that seemed somewhat okay — but not really. It rained a lot, we weren’t completely settled, but we both slept pretty hard.

Finally, on Thursday, we left that spot and continued west. That brought us to Kingman, where we stayed in our same spot from before — the one with the cows (haha). We knew it was only for a night, and with no Wi-Fi, it wasn’t a long stay.

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The Moment Everything Went Wrong

On Friday, we continued on and landed in Needles. But my god — this is when everything went bad. It was like fighting through the fires of hell.

We were driving down I-40, everything seemed fine, even though it was wicked hot. Jon heard something and instantly said it wasn’t good. I didn’t see anything outside, but he insisted we pull over.

When I got to his side of the RV, I saw it — a big section of paneling above the cab was gone. Literally ripped off. It made no sense. I always inspect our RV before we travel. Nothing had been loose or concerning. It was as if something tore it away mid-drive.

We were dumbfounded. Jon was melting down quickly. I ran to a gas station to find any way to seal the gaping hole. Using the last of our duct tape, I patched what I could and prayed it would hold.

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Locked Out in the Desert

While I worked, I noticed the RV was running a little hot — understandable, since it was over 100°F. The coolant looked fine, so we pressed on down I-40.

Not long after, we heard flapping again. I pulled over. The tape wasn’t holding. I got out to help Jon fix it, but when he needed the door shut, everything changed.

Unbeknownst to either of us — his door was locked. And since I’d exited on his side, mine was locked too. The RV was still running. Our phones were inside. We were locked out, in the middle of the Arizona desert, in brutal heat.

It really doesn’t get more panicky than that.

We tried flagging drivers down, but nobody stopped. Jon was melting down, asking if we were going to die. Then — somehow — he found that the tiny window above my cab side was unlocked (or broken). He managed to climb through it and unlock the door from the inside.

He swears he manifested it. And honestly, I’m not about to argue. We were saved.

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Finding Shelter

We rolled into Needles and went straight to McDonald’s — much deserved. Soda and fries never tasted so good.

We decided to grab stronger tape and a taller ladder from Walmart, and then find a hotel for the night. The Days Inn nearby became our safe haven. We repaired the RV as best we could and finally got to relax in some precious AC.

We booked two nights but knew we probably wouldn’t stay that long. Still, we needed the rest.

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The Aftermath

The next morning, Jon was frustrated and exhausted. I was restless and uncomfortable after sleeping on the floor. Between checking on MinWin (our RV), worrying about the heat, and making plans for repairs, we were both running on fumes.

We started talking about heading toward a Thousand Trails park — maybe Menifee — to regroup, do laundry, and get repairs done. I made the reservation, and by that evening we were on the road again, chasing cooler weather and stability.

But of course, it wasn’t that easy.

About an hour in, Jon heard another noise. The Gorilla Tape was peeling loose in the heat. We pulled over again, reinforced it, and kept going — holding our breath the whole way.

By 8:30 p.m., we finally rolled into the RV park. I’d been on high alert for hours, practically holding the tape in place with my mind.

We made pizza that night — because nothing, not even hell, was going to stop pizza. 🍕

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Late-Night Chaos (Because of Course)

Just when I thought the night was over, I went outside to finish hooking up the sewer line — and it backed up. At 11 p.m.

So there I was, holding the hose in the air, yelling for Jon, trying not to spill anything while searching for a place to dump it. It was a disaster. Eventually, I got it handled enough to stop the mess and promised myself I’d call maintenance in the morning.

The next day, I tackled laundry and started getting us resettled. We were dirty, exhausted, but safe.

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Reflection

Looking back, it’s hard to believe how much went wrong in just one day — how close we came to losing everything, or worse. 

We didn’t quit. We didn’t give up on the road, or on each other.
We held on — duct tape, French fries, and all.

Some mornings I wake up and wonder how the hell we got here.
Not in a regretful way, more in that staring at the ceiling, “what day is it?” kind of way.

Coffee goes on. The sun creeps in. My husband still asleep, and I’m just sitting there, aware of the fact that we have no clue where we’ll be sleeping next week.

And not in the “how adventurous!” kind of way people romanticize. In the ‘we actually don’t know’ kind of way.

We’ve traded certainty for something less defined. We left the old systems behind: the calendars, the paychecks, the “shoulds.” And now we’re out here living in an RV, boondocking in random patches of land, setting intentions into the quiet, listening for what the earth mirrors back.

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There are no life manuals for this.

Nobody tells you how intense it is to build a life from intuition alone. To love someone through meltdowns, through panic attacks, through the disorientation of waking up and not recognizing the landscape. No one talks about how survival mode doesn’t just shut off once you opt out of the system; it follows you, sometimes louder than before.

And yet, we keep going.

Some days it feels like we’re just stringing together moments, hoping they hold. Hoping the WiFi works. Hoping our EBT balance lasts. Hoping we made the right call by leaving the last place. There are errands to run. Water to find. Laundry. A blog to build. Energy to conserve.

But in between all of that, there are things we couldn’t have planned for: a random blue bracelet hanging on a tree that feels like a message, the way my husband sings when he finally feels safe, that one brunch where the bagels and coffee were actually perfect, the quiet kind of magic that shows up when you’re so tired you stop performing.

We’re not trying to sell you a dream here. This is the part most people don’t post about; the part where you break down at a Walmart because everything is overstimulating, and the only thing that helps is sitting in the front seat and breathing in unison and taking back our power.

This is what it’s like to live without a map.
Raw. Exposed. Sacred.

Not lost, just feeling our way forward.
We might not know where we’ll be next week.
But we know we’re in it together.

And for now, that’s enough.

We didn’t fucking choose this.
We didn’t wake up one day and say, “You know what sounds fun? Losing everything. Burning it all down. Living out of an RV while our bodies unravel from trauma and our nervous systems scream for rest.”

No. This wasn’t some spiritual retreat. This wasn’t a curated van life fantasy with Pinterest sunsets and clean bathrooms. This was collapse. This was the death of everything we were told would keep us safe.

This was survival after being bled dry by a world that demanded our silence, our labor, our masks.
But when it all came crashing down, when there was no white picket fence, no miracle check, no backup plan…

We chose ourselves.

We chose the raw truth over performative wellness. We chose stillness over hustle. We chose each other when no one else stayed. We chose the fucking ground because there was nowhere left to fall.

People love to romanticize this kind of narrative. “Wow, you’re so brave!” or “Wow, you’re so resilient!” they say, from the comfort of their stable homes and predictable lives, like it’s a compliment. Like our survival is proof the system works. Like our capacity to endure makes the suffering acceptable.

But this isn’t bravery. And this isn’t resilience.This is refusal. Refusal to betray our own souls. Refusal to keep grinding ourselves into dust to make other people comfortable.

This life?

It’s not cute.
It’s not marketable.
It’s blood and bone.

It’s sensory overload in a grocery store parking lot.
It’s crying on the floor because you can’t find a water refill station and you’re too tired to care.
It’s choosing one more fucking time to not give up.

This path chose us.

But we chose what mattered: truth. sovereignty. each other.

And maybe that means we lose the safety nets.
Maybe that means we walk alone sometimes.
But we are not apologizing for saving our own lives.
This world tried to flatten us.
Tried to tell us we were too much, too broken, too sensitive.

But we are still here.
Still sacred.
Still fucking choosing.