The Diesel Apartment isn’t disappearing, it’s changing shape. We’re calling the next chapter Rooted in the Dust. Same desert, same adventures. We’re keeping the squaredrop and the Jeep, and we’re already eyeing a GMC motorhome to replace the big diesel beast. If you came here for RV life in the Sonoran Desert, you’re still going to get it. But it might look different than when you first found us. Here’s why.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if I weren’t here when they return this winter?”
As I watched my neighbors leave for the summer, the thought caught me off guard.
Because I’ve been living in The Diesel Apartment, my beloved diesel pusher motorhome, in an RV park in southern Arizona long enough to sync my life with the snowbirds. And I’ve forgotten there’s any other way to live.
They make places louder and busier, but they also contribute a lot to the local economy. Most of the time, it’s a fair trade-off.
When they go home in April, we full-time residents get seven months of peace. And it was that peace that charged my battery enough to endure them for the 5–6 months they’re here.
They don’t do anything wrong, per se. They’re just here for different reasons and in a different season of life. Retired and comfortable, they can afford to spend the winter somewhere warmer than wherever they came from.
So I put up with the car alarms, slamming doors, loud conversations, wind chimes, barking dogs, speakerphones, outdoor Bluetooth concerts, cigarette smoke, traffic, and everything else that comes with our seasonal visitors, in exchange for cheap rent, so I can sock away the rest of my money in savings until I can afford something that fits better.
And after 9 years, I’m finally in a position to do just that.
It’s bittersweet. In a way, this RV park will always be home. I’m grateful I landed here. It was a safe, stable place to ride out the pandemic, and I made friends here.
When it’s good, it’s really good. I love the prickly pear, the towering saguaros, the night-blooming cacti, and the various other desert trees that provide shade and homes for wildlife.
I love the hummingbirds who constantly jockey for position at my feeders. The woodpecker who squeezes its way-too-big-for-a-nectar-feeder self into the hummingbird dogfight, crashes into the window, and screams when the feeder is empty.
The various lizards that scamper up and down my Palo Verde tree, doing pushups and getting their fill of ants. The bats that drain my hummingbird feeders overnight, forcing me to add “sugar” to my shopping list more than is probably reasonable.
The lumbering, teddy bear-like tarantulas that hang out next to the pool and appear to defy gravity with their wall-climbing skills. The big, dumb Palo Verde Beetles that sound like a freaking B-52 when they fly by your head after the first rain of the summer.
The bright orange Hooded Orioles who sew their nests to the bottom of palm tree fronds and steal mouthfuls of grape jelly from the small metal cup I attach to my living room window.
The Great Horned Owls, which raise their young in the large eucalyptus trees and allow us lowly humans to watch them grow up into apex predators.
The rattlesnakes, with their handsome patterns and stunning eyes, who help us control the packrats and just want to mind their own business.
My alarm clock in the form of a Cactus Wren scurrying across the roof of my motorhome, then posting up on the ladder to let out its throaty call.
It’s a wonderful place to be, but it’s also a place of extremes, so it’s not always an easy way to live.
Satan’s jockstrap in the first part of summer, stormy and flash flood-y in the second part of summer, windy as all get out in the spring, and snow in winter takes a toll on my 20-year-old motorhome and the vehicles I have parked outside.
With a mix of wealthy seasonal residents colliding with the trailer park-like shenanigans of the full-time residents, despite preferring to mind our own business, my spouse and I have been dragged into a lot of interesting situations.
But there are signs that my time as an RVer is coming to an end.
More people are staying through the summer now. We don’t get the place to ourselves anymore to recharge for the busy season.
The State Trust Land around us that we enjoy got annexed into the city of Tucson and rezoned for industrial use. The ranchers moved their free-range cattle to new areas. An AI data center is going in across the highway.
The beautiful swath of Sonoran Desert surrounding us will be cleared for “progress.” Because mountains surround it, this is one of the only directions Tucson can grow.
But the thing that really pushed us into thinking about our future was, of all silly things, utilities. This RV park has been out in the desert since the 1960s, and the infrastructure is starting to show its age.
There’s an issue with the septic system. Details are limited, but from where I’m sitting, it looks like a major project.
Also, the park manager we love is starting to think about retirement within the coming years. We’re not excited about who the next manager could be because they likely won’t be as diligent, caring, or willing to enforce community rules.
And when we finally had a little room to breathe financially and considered the numbers, living in this RV park is no longer the deal it used to be. When we got here in 2017, rent was $350. It’s now $500 a month and rising with no talk of adding extra amenities.
All these things made us realize we’re ready to do what we said we’d never do again: purchase a home without wheels and end The Diesel Apartment era.
We’re among the people who got totally screwed when the housing market crashed in 2008.
Freshly out of college, we were encouraged to “be responsible” and stop renting. We were in our 20s and dumb as hell, so we took the advice to heart and purchased a home in 2005.
Three years later, we found ourselves underwater on our mortgage, living paycheck to paycheck. It took us 13 years to dig out of that hole and finally sell the place.
And I said I’d never buy a house again because I was angry.
Angry at the shady lenders and financiers who caused the crash.
Angry that I did all the “right” things and still couldn’t get ahead.
Angry at myself for being so stupid and sheltered.
Angry at all the people who insisted I buy a home and were nowhere to be found when we were struggling.
Angry that digging myself out of the hole I didn’t create was just the beginning of having to justify how I chose to do it.
This time, however, buying a house will be on our terms and in a place we love. We’re not in our 20s anymore and, through bitter experience, we’re also wiser.
And this time, I don’t want a run-of-the-mill home that looks like every other house. I want something I can be proud of.
Before I came to Tucson, I put my house in Indiana up for sale in September, and was living in Arizona by November. I know how fast things can happen when we make up our minds.
The RV park septic situation came to a head in mid-April. By early May, we knew we were ready to make a change. On May 25th, we went under contract on a ranch-style house with a bangin’ mountain view in one of Tucson’s older neighborhoods.
Three weeks completely transformed the trajectory of my life. (Even if this particular house deal doesn’t work out.)
Everyone told me a motorhome is a depreciating asset and that I was throwing my money away. But years later, I’m sitting here with a substantial savings account, buying a house because I want to, not because people think I’m lacking without one.
Tucson is the only place that’s ever felt like home to me, and sometimes it feels like Tucson likes me, too. Because from the moment I decided to move here over a decade ago, things have fallen into place to keep me here.
And ending this chapter will eventually mean saying goodbye to the big diesel beast that’s been at the center of my life for the last nine years.
So, to The Diesel Apartment, which got me to Tucson safely and has been my comfortable, safe, solid home, thank you.
I hope whoever owns you next loves you as much as I do and takes you on an adventure worth writing about.
Still Here? You Must Be the Human Equivalent of Well-Seasoned Cast Iron Pan.
Most people give up early, like tourists who underestimate the Arizona heat. But not you. You’re built differently. So why not join us for a camping chair on Substack?
