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Adjusting to Snowbird Ghettoes

For many people, the best thing about being a snowbird in the desert is weather. For me, it is the lack of bugs.

What about the worst thing? It is probably neighbors. Winter is the only time in the year when I camp with other people in my viewscape and soundscape.

There has been progress over the years. Many people have solar panels but there are still Neanderthals that use generators. Even lower are the people who use old-fashioned, open-frame, construction site, non-inverter generators. (Usually they have giant fifth-wheel trailers with license plates from ID or MT.)

Then they hook it to a converter/charger that puts out a steady 13.5 Volts DC, which has to run all day to charge a battery. You can thank the geniuses in the RV industry for that. Why is it so hard to explain to newbies that they need a 'three stage' battery charger?

A couple posts ago I reminded myself and others how useful noise-canceling headphones are. Perhaps we neglect to use them because of a small amount of inconvenience.

There are plenty of motor-crazed yahoos blasting around in the desert. Motorsports don't bother hikers/walkers much at all. Take the ol' dawg out for a run down one of arroyos in the desert! 

Mountain bikers are bothered by motorsport yahoos more than hikers, but even here a cyclist can avoid Saturdays or ride earlier in the morning. It really does help me to ask how many seconds per day they bother me. Let's say the answer is 86 seconds. There are 86,400 seconds in a 24 hour day. So they only bother me one part out of a thousand. 

But 'practical' solutions only go so far. There is something else in the background. Camping is only fun if it engages your romantic imagination. When you are surrounded by neighbors in house-sized RVs, and they are consuming electricity like in a bourgeois house, and they are sedentary couch potatoes, how can your romantic imagination survive?

It is up to me to be oblivious of neighbors and not be influenced or affected by them. And as contradictory as it sounds, I have to imagine an occasional exception.

Living the Dream?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Most "RVers" seem to want to gather together for pot lucks, campfires, music, recreational activities and other such noise. Very few of us are in it for the solitude and the peace and quiet. It is easy, however, to find private spots where you won't see any other campers, hear their noise, smell their fires or get dusted by their ATVs. With a rig as lightweight and compact as yours, you should be easily able to find such spots. We're larger/heavier than you, and we've marked hundreds of such spots throughout the years that are private even during the peak of the Quartzsite madness in January and February. If you're troubled by neighbors, you're not really trying to be alone.
December 5, 2021 at 3:29 PM
kaBLOOnie Boonster said…
Anonymous, I agree with what you said assuming we are careful to use past tense. One cannot have ever-increasing restrictions on camping together with dozens of charlatan/blabbermouths on YouTube glamorizing the nomad life, the Nomadland movie, and millions of people blocked from the real estate market, and then think that camping will go on pretty much as before.
December 5, 2021 at 7:56 PM
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