From Picket Fences to Pine Trees: Lessons in Joy From Life in an RV

What Colorado's campground hosts can teach us all about living well.

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I hope today’s story brings you inspiration, joy, and a fresh look on life.

-Michelle

Approximately three seconds after meeting Mearl Pearcy for the first time, he’s driving me down the campground’s dirt road in a golf cart.

I climbed aboard for a tour without hesitation, both because he radiates a welcoming, laid-back energy that makes me feel at ease, like a friend from a past life, and because we’re accompanied by his cheery three-year old spaniel, Bubba, who lives for rides like these (and the head scratches along the way). 

As one of fifteen volunteer camp hosts at Reverend’s Ridge Campground in Golden Gate Canyon State Park, a one-hour drive from Denver, Mearl’s role includes cleaning campsites, helping campers with questions, and managing reservations. The retired mechanic and his wife, Debbie, work about 20 hours a week in exchange for a place to hook up their RV for the summer season.

Mostly, though, they’re there to help people enjoy the great outdoors. 

Mearl and Debbie chose to become camp hosts four years ago in large part due to their own positive camping experiences. “Every time we’ve ever had an interaction with camp hosts before, they were the best people. One time we came in late, and somebody else had taken our reserved spot. Camp hosts were always there to help us.” 

Their decision to move into an RV was kindled by YouTube, where aspiring nomads can find real-world tips and tutorials on the lifestyle (the search “full time RV living” elicits over 4 million videos). That—plus a quick sale on their Thornton home in 2017—sealed the deal. “We sold it in one weekend with the best cash offer. No appraisal, no inspection. They said ‘here’s $300,000, now go away.’”

And go away, they did: Mearl and Debbie bought a motorhome, and they now split their time between summers in Colorado, where they volunteer as camp hosts, and winters in Louisiana, where they help on a friend’s farm. Both gigs offer a chance to enjoy a more simple life close to nature—and escape the skyrocketing cost of living (and associated stress levels) in the Denver metro area.

“For us, it’s just the way you get away from the city—a little bit cheaper living. When we sold our house four years ago, we knew we’d never be able to afford to live in Denver. We’re on a pension; social security. Having an RV really gives you a chance for that lifestyle.”

As we putter through the grounds, Mearl sends waves and smiles at everyone along the way—tykes riding tricycles; families barbecuing at reunions; wholesome thirty-somethings tossing corn hole and sipping beer.

“Now this we encourage,” Mearl chuckles.

He isn’t talking about the partying, per se; it’s joy in general that he wishes for his campers. Pure, simple joy: the kind you only achieve when you’re away from the daily grind of city life and its omnipresent tether to material things. 

This has always been the heart of America’s nomadic fleet, hasn’t it? From the beatniks of the fifties to the #vanlife millennials of now, eschewing picket fences for the simplicity of life on the road is more a reclamation of happiness than anything else.

When I call Lisa Masson, who became a campground host at Riverside RV Park in Salida two years ago, that’s one point she drives home.

“When I lived in California, I commuted two and a half, three hours a day. You’re up at five o’clock in the morning to go to work; get home at six or seven o’clock at night and go to bed. You get to the point where you’re just too tired to enjoy anything else. This is basically taking it back to enjoying life.”

Similar to Mearl and Debbie Pearcy, Lisa Masson explains that she and her husband sold their home in exchange for a simpler lifestyle—though then, campground hosting wasn’t exactly the plan. “When we moved to Colorado, we had to live in an RV because we were looking for a house. We ended up enjoying it more than we ever thought we would.” 

Of course, it’s impossible to discuss the life of a campground host—and the nomadic, minimalist movement at large—without confronting the burden of material things.

Fifteen years ago, Lisa says she and her husband would’ve opted for a new car and a bigger house at any chance they got. But like many former urban or suburban dwellers who choose this simple life, she’s since realized that stuff has an inverse relationship with joy. Today, what makes her happy resides not in what she has, but in who she spends time with.

“I get to meet people from all over the world. I can’t even tell you how many actual friends I made in the last two and a half years. We stay in contact with them even when they leave,” she says.

Peripatetic living is sometimes associated with childless folks (whether they’re not in the plans or they already flew the coop), but Lisa points out that she hosts plenty of families with school-age children, who also benefit from the movement.

“I had a family here that homeschool their kids, and their science class was to go out and look for bugs and identify them. Here, kids aren’t stuck on a television or game system twenty-four seven; they’re fishing and they’re riding their bicycle. You know, what kids should be doing.”

Staying for weeks or months at a time also cultivates community, especially among those who continue returning to the same campgrounds and RV parks year after year.

“If somebody comes in and needs help with this or that, or can’t figure out how to fix something, their neighbor is right there to help them,” Lisa explains. “Nowadays in the bigger cities, people don’t talk to their neighbors. They come in and go to work, come home, shut the doors.”

From community breakfasts and potluck dinners to ice cream and campfire socials, she says the neighborly spirit is alive and well at Riverside RV Park. “It’s almost like the lifestyle takes you back to years ago—how in the ’70s and ’80s everybody got together and had a block party or barbecue—when people enjoyed their neighbors.” 

Yet like any utopia on earth, RV life in Colorado has its dangers and downsides. There’s cleaning the septic system, disposing of black water, and repairing leaky roofs. There’s encounters with moose, heart attacks, broken ankles, campers lost on backcountry trails.

Most recently, there’s the tragedies wrought by COVID-19, which not even the most prepared survivalist is protected from.

It isn’t until the end of my tour around Reverend’s Ridge that Mearl tells me about his mother. “That’s how I lost her,” he says in an almost-whisper. We’re parked a few yards away from his favorite tent campsite, a clearing where the trees part to reveal a craggy peak. 

“She never got her shot. And, you know, she was 80 years old, had a little bit of dementia. The doctor said she just forgot to breathe.” Merle strokes Bubba, who’s now sitting loyally on his lap. “She went easy in the night.” 

Smoke from wildfires clouds the Rockies in the distance, and Bubba sighs long and slow. I feel somber not only for Mearl and the loss of his mother, but for the losses we all have endured in the past year and a half, and for the uncertainty that looms. 

Still, I’ve learned that campgrounds are a place where goodness lives on. Children can learn from nature, away from the slog of screens. Seniors can spend their golden years walking through the pines, giving their wisdom to others. Community, something intrinsic to human happiness, can thrive.

I’m also convinced that you don’t have to sell everything you own to reap these joys for yourself. A simple, unhurried life comes in many forms, and it might be the best way a person can reject the notion that their worthiness is determined by how committed they are to achieving more. Rather than working themselves to the bone, like we’ve been told we should, people like Mearl and Lisa can relish in the contentment that comes with knowing they are already good enough, exactly as they are.