Occupation of Independence

And so my career in the RV Quest for Community Caravan is over. I left for another campsite in the same area this morning. It was a noble experiment and, I think, a successful one. By "success" I mean that it involved non-trivial interaction between members, resulting in certain changes in their behavior or daily lifestyle. Two raptors chase a raven around a thermal uplift. Whatever else, we avoided the standard malaise of intentional/planned Utopias: repression and stasis. Recall your Toynbee (*): For these works [planned Utopias] are always programmes of action masquerading in the disguise of imaginary descriptive sociology. Hence in almost all Utopias...an invincibly stable equilibrium is the aim to which all other social ends are subordinated and, if need be, sacrificed. The experience also required me to scrutinize my behavior around other campers, and then try to file off some of my sharp edges. Or one could look at it as a good little Hegel

I make no secret of having little faith in building a loose RV camping caravan/community on the basis of idealism, platitudes, hippie-dippie cultural values, or group therapy while sitting in chairs. Talk is cheap. For me what matters is common activities in the outdoors -- activities that really matter to people -- and then acknowledging that these outdoor interests are more fun when sharing them with other people. It is a great challenge to do this within an RV milieu because of mainstream RV culture's fanatical negativity towards using the human body for anything other than operating a motor vehicle or waddling down to the next potluck. And most of them are too old, too fat, completely out-of-shape, and have health problems.  I have an ex-RVer friend who now lives in Tucson, which has a huge hiking club. He has had many hours of enjoyment with them. He had little opportunity for the same success with RVers, and that's one reason why he abandoned RVing. Apparently h

Although there are boondockers who praise Solitude for the sake of itself, I disagree. Solitary camping for me is largely the result of two things:  1) most men are paired with a woman who thinks boondocking is uncomfortable and unsafe, as well as boring since it's a 5 hour drive to the nearest Coach or Nieman-Marcus.  2) most rigs are not designed for, or well adapted to, the needs of boondocking. (Point 2 is partly the result of Point 1.) Therefore if you want to boondock, young man, my advice is to stay single and get a good dog. Hence I usually had to camp alone, by necessity. But if we do manage to found a core group of boondocking outdoorsmen, it would make a great group project to "design" a suitable rig for our lifestyle. The RV industry builds rigs for a typical customer whose desires are very different from ours. There are two basic approaches: 1) Select and combine a system of mass-produced rigs/vehicles/appliances that are readily available and repairabl

Glenwood NM. This is the first area I stopped at last August when I got back on the road. I was very mindful of being a better traveler than before. This is harder than it sounds. An experienced traveler learns that some camping situations work better than others; and some places are better than others. As you follow an annual migratory cycle, you polish your technique so that it works better and better. The trouble is that you become a successful specialist, with all the narrowness and lack of variety that that brings on.  For example we usually allow wireless internet and phone service to affect our itinerary, at least implicitly. There is a real downside to giving in to internet addiction. The Glenwood NM area is a Verizon hole. The experienced and specialized traveler might just blow through the area, and barely stop. He has really lost something. Does he even bother to discover that there is DSL in the area! That surprised me -- it means that wi-fi and the "e

No doubt a couple people -- including myself -- have been surprised by me surviving almost three weeks in a mobile "intentional community," without being booted out. Another phrase for what we are doing is "an RV caravan with a difference." We are attempting to build a community, rather than one more routine RV group.    Normally RV Gatherings and caravans are about having a good time, i.e., potlucks, happy hour, local sightseeing, and maybe some how-to seminars. RVers -- typically newbies -- have paid dues to join some organization, and they see the gathering as a chance to recoup some of that money by plugging themselves into a standard product that is at least good for a little entertainment or education. You all arrive as amiable strangers, spend a few days playing "Ten Questions" ( Soooooo, where ya from...?) , and then depart as strangers, never expecting to see that group of bores again.    For the next few weeks I will learn what I can from o

The Continental Divide Trail, north of Silver City NM, was more rugged than the dirt roads that I usually ride. It frequently dipped down into ravines and creek crossings, which eventually took their toll. It wasn’t long before I regretted not bringing food. Why was I resting so much? Something was wrong. I was starting to feel light-headed. It was actually a little scary. Should I turn tail and head back to the van parked at the trailhead, or plod on? Hunger favored plodding onward, since there would be a small town and restaurant in just a few miles. Then I saw the Benedictine monastery peeking through the ponderosas, on the other side of a steep ravine. If only I could drag the bike across this ravine to the monastery, it would make for a huge shortcut back to the van.  The bell tower of the monastery seemed so close! I was half-crazy with hunger by now. Getting to that monastery was my best hope. But the ravine proved to be uncrossable; I had to face the grim reali

San Lorenzo, NM. I'd found a little slice of -- actually a big slice of -- camping paradise, but I didn't expect the Caravan of the Kodgers to come up here, since the state parks really are more comfortable as long as you have an air conditioner. It might be true that boondockers are real campers because they own dogs who want to be real dogs; and you can't be that in a campground on a leash. Another reason why a camper might like my current setting is the mountain biking. The road splits and follows dry creeks through canyons cooled with ponderosas and decorated with lupines. On top of that, the dirt roads were maintained by the county, and were rather smooth. Of course those two roads would be fun to drive with a nice "towed" like the Honda CR-V that many motorhomers have. But the motorhome never would have made it to this campsite in the first place.    There are other reasons for being a boondocker, such as noise or an appreciation for nature.

San Lorenzo, New Mexico. And to think that a reader/commenter thought that I was a coward for avoiding hiking, biking, or traveling near sunset! It has always been a good policy. But sometimes a camper has to push the envelope a little. I'm not advertising recklessness. But there's such a thing as going into the Unknown simply because you must . Although risks are unavoidable, they are not being pursued for the sake of themselves. It builds character to get yourself in a bit of trouble, fight to stay calm, and work your way out of the hole by solving one problem at a time. But even more fundamental than that is backing off before it's too late. In general the Benchmark state atlas shows RV-friendly dirt roads as heavy dashed red lines, and they have names. In general there is a big turnaround once you get into a national forest; big enough for pickup trucks pulling horse trailers, or for firefighting trucks. My Ford Econoline van and 7 foot wide X 21 foot long trailer

An old RV buddy and I got together for a hike up Red Mountain, which overlooks Patagonia, AZ. He isn't an RVer anymore. Long-time RVers like me are used to seeing people drop out. Normally I can tell before they can. RVing is just a transitional state for most people. He thought RVers were nice folks who sat around too much, and that the so-called RV Dream consisted mostly of dreaming of the next potluck. I don't know how he got that idea, but he did. Also he wasn't too handy with maintaining his motorhome and never made a serious hobby out of it. He was diagnosed with the Thin Man syndrome, and it appears terminal. You know the type -- gnarly, wiry old guys who refuse to blimp out in middle age or old age, like a decent person should. If the world were fair there would be a support group for men like this. Women seem to be mercifully free of it. He had another affliction; he was single. Boys will be boys and he hoped to meet a woman with a vestige of a femini

Let's hope this is the last spring storm. Maybe I've always misunderstood what was meant by a "windy day." Didn't it mean high average speed? But that certainly isn't what happened the other night.  The average speed wasn't unusual, but the gusts were violent and a little scary actually. Since air is a compressible fluid it shouldn't be able to produce the hydraulic hammering that my RV experienced. Sleep became impossible. And wouldn't you know it: the "ship" was parked abeam the west wind. What happened to sailors pointing the ship directly into the face of the storm? I was camped alone at the northeastern mouth of the Chiricahua mountains, where these vertiginous mountains debouch onto the lonesome horizontalness of high desert. Hmmm... sudden elevation changes seem like they could make large pressure gradients, i.e., wind. What does a camper do when wind becomes a hateful nuisance, besides staying indoors that is? I headed up

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