The most optimistic attitude towards camping in 2023 is that I will manage to find a place to get away from neighbors in Arizona. It is something to work for. It would truly be "Living the Dream."
It is ironic that I am grousing about RV snowbirds when camping near Arizona's largest collection of geese snowbirds. The geese seem to like parking next to thousands of other geese. (I thought there was some reason why I disliked geese besides their hissing and shit.)
I used to think that young Van Life nomads were an improvement over the stereotypical snowbirds of the older generation. After all, the Van Lifer has no room for a 6 kilowatt construction site generator. Then again, it seems like Van Lifers are slamming the door every 10 minutes. (At least generator noise is steady.) Why the slamming? Their You Tube channels extol the glamor of Van Life. But apparently they need to escape claustrophobia in that van every 10 minutes.
Oh dear me! I am starting a new year as a grouch. Actually I am not such a grouch -- I just don't like neighbors. In fact "camping neighbors" is a contradiction in terms.
Elsewhere in overcrowded Arizona, people have gone crazy building rock arrangements, be they vertical cairns or horizontal shapes.
This is the moral equivalent of graffiti, although it is prettier. I believe it is also illegal.
I was furious when I found this at a site I was considering. My first reaction was to dismantle it. But it just isn't in me to destroy somebody else's 'labor of love' even if that love is misplaced.
But what would have happened if I had chosen to camp there? Would a giant fifth-wheel have shown up a couple days later, with the bourgeois snowbird couple telling me that that was their campsite? After all, they had invested all that sweat equity the previous year.
Maybe that is what is most irksome about these improvements. They show how bourgeois the snowbirds are. Campers like that have no affection for the land -- they just want a residence with cheaper rent. But they still want it to have high property values.
In fact the entire RV industry caters to the bourgeoisie. By offering status and comfort to them, it encourages more people to "camp". Hence more overcrowding. Ah well, that is enough complaining. At least they don't slam doors all night like young Van Lifers.
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