Occupation of Independence

It's the music in the grocery store that brings it on. My city nausea, that is. When finishing a long stay on raw land and heading into the city (Sierra Vista, AZ), it makes sense to see it as an opportunity for a mental adventure. Pretend that you are seeing city-ways for the first time. Take nothing for granted. Why not let yourself be astounded and amused by it all? Anyway, that's what I try to do. Then I walked into a grocery store and had my central nervous system attacked by unusually loud and conventionally ugly music. More than anything else it's the ugliness of popular music that makes me think this society is doomed -- or at least, that I want it to be doomed, so that something better replaces it.  Does real camping get a person so used to quietness that noise pollution seems worse back in the hive? It's possible. Then again, this is a military town, so maybe noise levels are higher with all the young bucks around. A Stoic sage would come back to the

It might seem like a minor achievement to anybody else, but sleeping to dawn -- and even to sunrise! -- made me think my visitors were miracle workers. It's been a year since I visited these two mobile scoundrels. Glenn of toSimplify.net and the Mobile Kodger are here, sharing a zillion acre campsite with me. We sit out at night under the stars and solve the world's problems, after which we move on to explaining the riddles of the universe, the meaning of life, and the best rig design. A later bedtime makes for delicious sleep to dawn.  Back when I was a newbie I was actually camped at one of those dreadful Escapees' parks. I went to an evening campfire, which surprisingly wasn't against municipal code or against the RULES or something else, and an older camper came out and joined in. He said that evening campfires used to be a really big thing with RV campers, but then satellite television came along. These evening conversations with Glenn and the Kodger are rea

Southeast of Tucson. Every now and then a full-time RVer gets an opportunity to house and dog-sit. Normally it is during the "off" season, when the homeowner and everybody else wants to get out of town because of the dreadful weather. The ranch was drop-dead gorgeous. It was my favorite land: rolling grasslands, with an occasional mesquite or live oak tree, and a great view of the Santa Rita mountains, only seven miles away. It was amusing to watch the culture gap between normal, house-obsessed women and an RV boondocker/camper like myself. I was hoping for some shade to park my trailer under. It was surprising to learn that an entire guest house was available to me. It looked like something that belonged on the front cover of a glossy magazine, Fine Ranch Living Today , or some such thing. I was only concerned about heat, happy dogs, and good bicycling. After I surprised the women by showing no interest in even walking up six steps to inspect bedrooms and bathro

How many place in the world are clean, and why are they so? I'd like to ask an experienced world traveler about that. My guess is that Japan and northern/Germanic Europe (and her colonies) are clean, while most of the world stomps around in its own litter and excrement. Consider this attempt at philosophizing to be an exercise in "anger management". I am camped outside a (fee-ed and over-managed) recreational area run by the forest service. Essentially it is a "metro park" for the ghastly conurbation of Tucson. Since my boondocking area is outside the "high rent" district, it is free 14-day camping, although the campsites are numbered. There is no campground host and no facilities. I've been here almost a week and haven't seen a ranger yet. It almost seemed too good to be true. And you know what they say about that... After about a week of complete solitude some yahoos came in to camp on the weekend. You should see how the slobs leave

One day a huge, expensive police SUV (not border patrol) dropped in at my campsite near the Santa Rita mountains, south of Tucson.  Out jumped two large cops, dressed head-to-toe in black. They had belts loaded up with so much armament it's a wonder then can sit down in their patrol car and buckle their seat belts. They were friendly enough and even enjoyed the antics of my Australian kelpie, Coffee Girl. But it bothered me the way one officer kept his hand on his gun the entire time he talked to me, while the other one snooped around my trailer. They said they were just doing a routine patrol, and wondered if I had seen any suspicious activities. I hadn't, so off they went. The next day I was stretching my legs by walking up to the top of a small volcanic knoll. I saw a dense cluster of bright red blinking lights nearby. What could they be?  Safety lights on a piece of construction equipment? Binoculars didn't help because they wiggled too much in the wind. Of cou

It seemed prudent to drive to the nearest Department of Motor Vehicles in New Mexico to update my mail forwarding  address, lest there be complications with a speeding ticket from the Tucson reconnaissance-camera reich . After several nights of noisy, parking-lot boondocking my nerves were pretty frayed. Anybody who thinks that that style of camping is a quixotic, dreamy, escapist, full of holy Simplicity, Socrates and Thoreau-approved way of life has been sold a false bill of goods. Thankfully I'm back on public lands near the Santa Rita mountains, south of Tucson. It's always a little surprising to see certain topographic features stand out so clearly, clear enough to serve as a navigational tool. In the Tucson area Baboquivari Peak serves that purpose. I like to call it "Babo".

Or, Eine Kleine (uber)NachtMusik for Kampers. Most of what you can read about RV travel is just promotionalism, even when it's a blogger who is not being paid to sell anything. Why this is so is the subject of another essay. Today I merely want talk about a challenging reality of RV life. (Wannabees will want to push the "channel" button now; this is not the "RV Dream" channel.) It's a brutal truth -- and most truths are brutal -- that sleeping on top of noise is something that an RVer has to get good at. This is probably more difficult for an urban boondocker, all in all, than for an urban RV park camper, and it's worse the older you get. I've been advised to use silicone ear plugs -- not those useless yellow foam things that won't even stay in the ears. I bought some, but haven't tried them yet. In the summer it helps to run a vent fan, and not just for ventilation of course! I used to generate "semi-white noise" by run

You needn't have too scary of a misadventure outdoors to develop a sudden interest in the "wilderness survival" genre. It's an interesting sub-cult. These books emphasize how deceptively dangerous it is to go out for a sunset walk in the desert, alone. "But it's just a nice stroll," the victim says, "to take some pretty sunset pictures." What happens to somebody who twists an ankle or runs out of light and gets lost when the sun goes down in the winter desert and the temperature plummets? In contrast, the morning misadventurer has all day to get rescued by a motorized or foot-powered passer-by. We should all be as lucky as some people, who have a trail-chewing spouse to share their outings with. Those who go adventuring with dogs should not be so naive as to think that Lassie will really run back to get help when that blockhead Timmy (once again) falls into a well. In reality the dog will just be one more worry, as I found out the o

Going to bed too early can destroy the quality of a night's sleep for some of us. Sleep is a big part of life, so this problem can't be laughed off as a small annoyance. It probably afflicts RV boondockers worse than other lifestyles, since using fewer lights and gadgets tends to shut a person down at night. The Early Bedtime Syndrome is a nexus for several lifestyle issues. An RV friend, 15 years older than me, once said that he went to bed at 8 pm, and "why not?; it was perfectly natural with the early sunsets in winter". The trouble with that argument is that it's also natural to wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning. Going to bed too early when camping in town is a dreadful mess, since stores and traffic are still roaring late into the evening, and since you hear everything in an RV. How did this problem get started in the first place? Blame success. Traffic, wind, dry heat, monsoonal thunderstorms, and wildlife viewing are all good reasons why mornings are

Recently I had visitors from Arizona's Ant Hill #2, Tucson, who I was supposed to coach on the RV lifestyle. (They had a rental RV and were considering buying one.) I did a poor job of it despite being well qualified for the job. Their main concern was in assessing the comfort and practicality of their mid-sized Class C motorhome. How can an experienced camper be useful when the other person's basic philosophical orientation is wrong? (I'm still searching for that wonderful quote from Aristotle about the tiniest mistake at the beginning of a project having the largest consequences.) For instance, they thought that living in an RV was supposed to be just like living in a little house. The tiniest adjustments to their daily habits were purely negative aspects of RVing to them: partial proof  their experiment had failed. Certainly RV living is similar to house living, in ways. But not identical. The difference is subtle but important. They just don't get it: RVing h

A recent commenter was profoundly correct when he praised camaraderie as the best reason for going to that gawd-awful mess at Quartzsite in January. Recently I had a chance to go for a short, pleasant walk in the desert with three bloggers and their dogs, "somewhere in the Ajo" area. The Bayfield Bunch , Ed Frey , and I weren't doing anything difficult; it could be done almost any day. But that's just the thing. I can't remember doing anything like this before with other RVers! But why? Let's avoid my standard whine about RV culture and stick to the subject of what gets in the way of boondockers socializing with each other more. One possibility is the stereotypical image of RV boondockers as solitude-seekers: latter day Henry David Thoreaus or St. Simeon Stylites . I remember reading Walden , carefully, and was a bit scandalized to learn that Thoreau had to put up with a railroad track nearby. He also had neighbors and visited with them occasionally. There

A big part of the art of camping is stepping away from the 'looked over', and wandering amongst the 'overlooked'. The best way to do this is to camp where the scenery is subtle or mediocre in the immediate foreground, but more promising in the distance. Naturally that provides the incentive to go for a walk, right from the RV's door. But you still go with low expectations. You have to try to be interested in what there is to see, and you have to look for ways to experience it beyond mere 'looking'. Usually, the surprises are on the positive side. In that spirit Coffee Girl and I took off on a day that was supposed to be dreadful, but in fact, was delicious: what a luxury it is to leave the wide-brimmed sombrero at home, and welcome the sun's warmth onto my face, while enjoying the bracing chill. We encountered the thinnest lamellas of sandstone that I've ever seen. They were fragile and nearly exfoliated.

An RVing friend surprised me recently when he confessed that he and his wife just hate camping in wind. It is strange how some flavors of hardship discourage you, while others bring out the best in you. For whatever reason, I rather like rocking and rolling in my trailer in the wind. All RVs, even a cheap cracker box like mine, come with some sort of stabilizing jacks; but years ago I got rid of mine. Cliffs are certainly good places to experience wind. Wind results from a difference in air pressure, which is connected with sudden altitude changes, or one cliff-face facing the sun while another is in the shadow. One night I went to sleep listening to EmmyLou Harris singing some of her classics. Ahh dear, a female singer is always at her best when she is wailing about her wounds, be they real or imagined. Can you imagine anything more boring than a country-western diva, a Puccini heroine, or a Celtic lass singing about how reasonably content she was with the universe? I woke up

You have to admire the constitution of campers who can actually sleep in a noisy parking lot in town. Do engines ever get shut off? You get to enjoy trains, boom cars, loudspeakers on the pole lights, semi-trucks pulling up in the middle of the night, and perhaps worst of all, predatory strafing of your RV by the parking lot Zamboni. So why do it? There are practical advantages such as minimizing driving while accomplishing shopping errands. And there are plenty of $30 per night RV parks that are half as loud as a free parking lot. There are tricks in parking lots that will get you a few hours of sleep: 1) It is surprising how quiet a semi-truck can be if you are parked aft of its trailer, rather than sideways-adjacent to the engine and Thermo-King refrigerator. 2) It's also surprising how restful it can be to sleep next to a busy freeway, since the sound is so steady. 3) White noise helps quite a bit too. You can use music, a DVD movie, or whatever. 4) Stay up late at night an

Having just gotten camped in a new location, it was time to do something that I hadn't done in a long time: pop the outer door open, while letting the screen door face right at the southern sun. At this time of the year, the sun is getting quite a bit lower; we're only two months from the winter solstice. I'd forgotten how glorious it is feel the Southwest's sun through solar screen. (Years ago, I'd replaced regular RV industry screen with 85% blocking solar screen.) It's easy to under-estimate how pleasant it is to feel, simultaneously, cool autumn air and warm, moderated sunlight through that solar screen. This might seem like a trivial experience to people who are not familiar with the Southwestern sun, or who spend all summer in air-conditioned domiciles or cars. It might also seem like nothing is accomplished by suffering heat in the summer, without an air-conditioner, only to get the pleasure back in autumn; you could argue that it averages out, over a f

When a person starts off on round two of their traveling life, they need to stay open-minded and flexible so they can do a better job than in round one, not that round one really needed much improvement. But without improvement and progress, what are we to do with ourselves? It's easy to become bored and jaded with the progress in gadgets: thinner, lighter, more gigabytes, etc. How about some progress in some other field? In the traveling biz there has been remarkable progress, back around 2000, when Honda brought out that remarkable line of alternator/ inverter-based generators. Quiet and fuel-sipping. Of course a chain is no stronger than its weakest link: I'm not sure whether the RV industry has modernized their converter/chargers; they used to just put out 13.6 volts, which can not fully or quickly charge a battery. But there has been remarkable progress in bringing the cost down of real, three stage, battery chargers that put out 14.X volts DC, and twiddle the "

I was given fair warning when I started the driveway-guarding gig in Ouray that the late sunrises and early sunsets would take their toll on me. But it's beneficial to experience voluntary, short-term suffering when traveling. It just whips up your appetite for the next thing, and it adds drama. Even Mark, of Box Canyon Blog , had to buy a new and more mobile rig just so he can escape to Arizona in the winter and receive self-administered emergency "heliotherapy treatments". Near the end of the gig, the dogs were becoming despondent. In fact the sun was perverse on the last day. After a day or two of clouds and rain, the sky finally cracked open. Here's how things looked from Mark's driveway: Impressive indeed. That was at 2:30 p.m. By 2:38 the sun went behind the western cliff. That did it! I'm outa' here. I love being back on spacious BLM land. I'd forgotten how much pleasure you can get from small aspects of boondocking, such as orienting yo

It hardly seems intuitive to begin an autumn migration by going north, but that is what we did yesterday. Latitude does matter, at least 400 mile chunks of it, and especially at this time of year, but altitude still matters more. The Uncompahgre River drains to the north. A cynic might argue that half the appeal of a reverse migration is just the feeling that one isn't supposed to do it. Actually, one of the sweetest pleasures can be gotten by noble and voluntary suffering in the Cold before finally relenting and moving towards the Warm. (We all know certain Sybarites of the Road who would never believe this.) When the dogs and I got out of the van in Montrose CO, the sun felt delicious; but it was the rareness of this pleasure that was most appreciated. How many times does the driver of an un-air-conditioned cargo van actually enjoy warm sun coming through that big windshield? Normally I loathe it, and worry about the heat harming my dogs. I can't imagine bathers in fam

Silverton CO. One of the hangups an RV Boondocker has to get over is the exaggerated fear of breaking some petty rule or ordinance that is seldom enforced. You aren't going to get a ticket or hauled off to the hoosegow. (Well maybe in California, Manhattan, or Massachusetts.) The average Amerikan is so docile or fearful that they won't push the envelope a little. But I'm rusty, having just gotten back on the road after three years in an RV park. So it took a little effort, but I did find a dead end road by a washed out bridge that seemed like it would be OK. (Dead end roads are favorites of mine.) I was camped a few steps from a stream that was quite, uh, anim ated. Oh, by the way, the Verizon signal had four bars out of four. This was the kind of experience I had been yearning for: beautiful white noise to wake up to instead of roaring traffic, boom-cars, or the neighbor's subwoofers.

Downsizing is both a challenge and a source of great satisfaction. However, one must be careful not to get sucked into Asceticism. The travel blogosphere is full of Holy Prophets of the Desert (grin), who think that when they die they are going to Heaven to sitteth upon the right hand side of Thoreau or Gandhi. For folks not in the market for pseudo-religious emotionalism disguised as philosophy, let's look at the Downsizing mantra from a rational viewpoint. The concept of Diminishing Returns is one of the most universal and true ideas in life. The first bit of Goodie X is wonderful; the next unit does you less good, and so forth, until you are getting less and less for each additional unit of time or money.