It is strange that an experienced RV boondocker would enter a new area and feel trepidation about finding a camping site. After all, how many times have I done this, by now? But I have certain prejudices against Colorado, and expected the national forests to be camper-unfriendly. I went campsite-shopping with the usual DeLorme and Benchmark atlas. As feared, some of the forest access was blocked by McMansions and private roads.
At other times, I did find access, but the wireless signal was blocked by the topography. It becomes a game to visualize the topography relative to the cell tower. Wait a minute--I didn't know where the cell tower is. So it was a game to infer the location of the cell tower based on the number of bars my cell phone displayed at different locations, and based on that, to deduce the strength of the signal over the next hill. This is great fun; the cell tower, not yet quite real and visible, becomes a fiducial point which you use to visualize the real topography around you.
On my fifth try I found a dirt road going into a marvelous, half-open, ponderosa forest, at 8700 feet. And the wireless signal was maximum! (I had finally spotted the cell tower.) Everything was perfect. There was only one catch: I might slip getting over one hill. So I enlisted the help an RV friend in the area, who towed me up the hill with his four-wheel-drive Jeep. Our 'caravan' was a funny sight: 3 boxes, 12 wheels total, with 6 wheels driving.
This was a perfect shopping trip: starting with unease, getting frustrated along the way, working out the puzzle step-by-step, and finally a happy ending.
Each time an RV boondocker works the puzzle out, he relives in miniature the satisfaction of defeating that far bigger puzzle, the one that took him half an adult lifetime or more to defeat: the great Trap of the so-called American Dream.
At other times, I did find access, but the wireless signal was blocked by the topography. It becomes a game to visualize the topography relative to the cell tower. Wait a minute--I didn't know where the cell tower is. So it was a game to infer the location of the cell tower based on the number of bars my cell phone displayed at different locations, and based on that, to deduce the strength of the signal over the next hill. This is great fun; the cell tower, not yet quite real and visible, becomes a fiducial point which you use to visualize the real topography around you.
On my fifth try I found a dirt road going into a marvelous, half-open, ponderosa forest, at 8700 feet. And the wireless signal was maximum! (I had finally spotted the cell tower.) Everything was perfect. There was only one catch: I might slip getting over one hill. So I enlisted the help an RV friend in the area, who towed me up the hill with his four-wheel-drive Jeep. Our 'caravan' was a funny sight: 3 boxes, 12 wheels total, with 6 wheels driving.
This was a perfect shopping trip: starting with unease, getting frustrated along the way, working out the puzzle step-by-step, and finally a happy ending.
Each time an RV boondocker works the puzzle out, he relives in miniature the satisfaction of defeating that far bigger puzzle, the one that took him half an adult lifetime or more to defeat: the great Trap of the so-called American Dream.
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