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Update: Tow Vehicle Shopping the Old-fashioned Way

There must be people out there who are ten times better than me at internet searching. I don't even like buying things on the internet, other than music.  Today I dropped in on the local car dealer in Gunnison CO just to kick some tires. I was suspicious that my internet searches were at a dead end. As luck would have it, this dealer had recent models of all the categories I polemicized about, last post. It was uncanny. What an amazing difference there is between seeing something real and merely reading about it. Just think how good those reviewers made the Dodge Durango and Chevy Traverse sound. One glance at them and I chopped them off the list. They had those annoyingly-low, plastic, front-bumper skirts (air dams) that hang down to about 4 inches from the ground. Ridiculous! You couldn't even get close to a concrete curbstone with one of those suburban mommie-mobiles. The Subaru Outback had a high and clean undercarriage, but it didn't look like a real hitch could

Taking Nominations for a Lightweight Tow Vehicle

It is easy to overlook things when you think alone, so I might benefit from readers' ideas about choosing a tow vehicle to pull my converted cargo trailer: 2900 pounds loaded, 6 foot wide, 350 pounds of tongue weight. But before getting concrete, let's reflect on the temptations in thinking that I can tow this trailer with 'almost anything.' Wasn't it Oscar Wilde who said something like 'A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing?' Well, 'brevity is the soul of wit' and that aphorism is brief, pithy, and easy to remember. But is it actually informative about what makes a cynic? I think not. A cynic is not a "negative" person. Rather, he is someone who has been undisciplined with his expectations about new situations and people. He has the bad habit of expecting too much, and therefore, he is usually disappointed, if not completely disillusioned, by how things turn out. He then reacts to that disappoin

Small Tribes and Sleepwalking up a Steep Hill

Yet another summer visit, sponging up the remarkable hospitality of a couple in Ouray, CO. In case I needed any more proof how important people were to an interesting travel lifestyle, I certainly got it.  There is a real advantage to a migrational loop that is approximately the same every year: it seems necessary to help friendships get beyond the 'two ships passing in the night' syndrome that some people prefer.  Short-term acquaintances seem uninteresting and frivolous to me. There is the tediousness and predictability of playing 20 Questions with them; the struggle to charm each other's socks off; adding another scalp to your belt, for whatever that is worth; and then you never see them again. Then on to Gunnison CO to meet up with a friend from Patagonia AZ, and her friend. It was a real pleasure to talk around a campfire with other people. I gave up campfires years ago, partly because of the labor and fire safety, but mainly because you need a little tribe of p

Dealing with Disappointment on the Trail

Can eyeballs 'smack' in anticipation, like lips? I think they can. At least that's what mine were doing the other day on a mountain bike ride on the Unc, as one commenter calls the Uncompahgre Plateau in western Colorado. I have a special fondness for wild roses, especially when I notice them for the first time, usually in mid-June. I am fond of the seasonal ritual. But the first sighting of this June disappointed me. The roses were waning and withering. Too late. Oh certainly, this is just a minor disappointment along the trail, but it seems valuable as a simple and quintessential representative of an entire class of disappointments.  It is important to decide what attitude we should have about these disappointments. It caused me to recall something said by a bicycle tourer. It was one of those statements that sticks with you because it stands out from commonplace chatter. He said that he only remembered the little disasters and misadventures that occurred on his t

Optimism about the Country that used to be America

For the first time since the Fourth of July was officially declaimed (by me) as the most idiotic national holiday, I feel optimistic about America, or what remains of it.  1. Many Americans seem to be at a tipping point: they are abandoning their passive acceptance of the neo-con dream of permanent war (mostly in the Mideast.) Republicans are catching on to the fact that today is not the day after 9-11, and that endless militarism is not the ticket to electoral success. 2. It's not impossible that Rand Paul will be the Republican candidate for president, rather than some senile warmonger like McCain or some low IQ Bahbll Christian. 3. No matter what your politics most people know that at least two healthy parties are necessary for a healthy democracy. Until the Republicans free themselves of the neo-con, Rapture Christian, Israeli-lobby doctrine of Permanent War, the Republican party is doomed. Is it just wishful thinking or are they actually starting to free themselves of th

Ready for Material Sacrifices in the RV Lifestyle?

With only a little bit of exaggeration I can claim to have felt "panic" about giving up some creature comfort, for the first time in 17 years of full-time RVing. No kidding. Because my new trailer is smaller and lighter than the first one, the office chair was getting in the way of everything. Perhaps it should be switched to a folding chair with arms. But first let's look at the big picture. Wikipedia has an interesting article on the subject of chairs. It is quite surprising how new-fangled the Chair is, at least when it comes to widespread use (no pun intended for Americans.) And perhaps rightly so. They were always rather uncomfortable things.  It has only been the last 20 years that chairs have accepted the fact that the human back is curved. The office armchair is the most comfortable chair I know of. I don't understand how people can live with slouchy sofas, overstuffed easy chairs, or those dreadful little RV dinette things. Hence my panic. You might be

Noticing Special Pleasures on Unpopular Land

I've certainly experienced it before, and many times. But it has been awhile since I enjoyed the exquisite pleasure of a partly cloudy day. It was bright and cheerful enough. The solar panels could charge the batteries. But what you really notice is how kind the world seems when you aren't under relentless attack by the sun. May and June are the worst months in the Southwest. It takes a special effort to appreciate the importance of this kindliness. You just have to slow down, stop running around like a postcard tourist, and let it soak in. My dog and I biked up to the top of a large ramp called the Uncompahgre Plateau, west of Montrose CO. It is not as steep and photogenic as the newer orogenies of Colorado, therefore it is less popular with sightseers. Even Wikipedia virtually ignores it. It is a place that only locals and old-fashioned outdoorsmen go. But the lack of extreme verticality makes it more fun to mountain bike and RV-camp on.  But occasionally there are peek

Do You Feel Useless When a Friend is Sick?

The short answer is 'probably.' If we look at it in a typical modern utilitarian way, that pretty much ends the discussion. But is this just one more case when a "failure" really isn't a failure if you adjust your expectations realistically? Perhaps once again the true enemy of the Good is not the Bad, but rather, the Ideal. I returned to Ouray CO hoping to have a small beneficial effect on an outdoorsy RV friend. We did have a good visit. But medical complications got in the way of doing what I really wanted to do: go on recovery walks with him, and make the point that he didn't have to be athletic superman and indestructible super-Mark to be fun to be with; and to help him focus on the improvement rather than what he normally was capable of doing. Seen objectively, he has a lot to be pleased with in his life. A zillion hours in the Colorado Rockies, hiking with a wife who loves it as much as he does. Then there is the little matter of two seriously ni

Traveling Again, Observing Again

I'm glad that southwestern Colorado (Cortez, Mancos, Dolores) seems to be coming up in the world as a mountain biking alternative to you-know-where in southeastern Utah. I will never understand what is so great about fighting loose red sandstone. Southwestern Colorado has some good ponderosa forests with smooth packed dirt trails. The other day we saw a family at the top of the hill on the trail ahead of us. Did the mom ever have her hands full: a child too young to walk, a little boy-savage about 4, and a labrador retriever, together with all the impedimenta that goes along with them. I snapped my dog on the leash so that the mother wouldn't have one more issue to contend with. Oddly enough, she seemed to be enjoying the moment of chaos. Her lab was friendly so I unsnapped my dog so that they could play together. I got a kick out of the little boy-savage, with his forest-camo, face-paint made of "Teddy Grahams." All this little boy-savage-of-summer needs in

Back to Living

Readers have heard me say it so often they are sick of it, but nothin' in this old world of ours beats living partially outdoors. I am enjoying the chilly morning air in a Colorado forest, at 7000 feet, especially with a sunrise coming through the screen door: I would sleep all night with the IMAX screens open if it weren't for the possibility of a bear getting a whiff from my kitchen and then walking into the trailer! And I'm back on the mountain bike again, after a 2 month long hiatus. Coffee Girl and I are both out of shape. We like the dirt in the ponderosa forest near Dolores CO and the views of Mesa Verde.

New Chapter Began -- and Almost Ended -- Friday the 13th

I am in the habit of reading bicycle touring blogs, CrazyManOnaBike. I've noticed how uninteresting it can be to read the travel blogs of experienced and strong bicycle tourists. The daily numbers they put up are impressive. But everything is so smooth and predictable. It is usually more fun to read the blogs of raw newbies. They are more open about their fear and wonder. They screw up and then have to deal with the drama of digging out of one mess after another. This is redolent of my situation converting my first cargo trailer into a livable travel trailer. It was long-anticipated, and highly relished. But it turned out smoother than I thought. I didn't say 'easy.' But as I anticipate leaving on its maiden voyage tomorrow, Friday the 13th, I do feel slightly cheated. Where was the drama and the exquisite Noble Suffering that William James wrote about? It seems playful to taunt the gods by starting life with my new trailer on Friday the 13th, after two months of

"Boonie" Era is Over; Introducing kaBLOOnie

There is too much personal chit-chat on the internet. It is trivial, banal, and unintelligent. What I have tried to do with this blog is focus on ideas, principles, and issues. Leave the personality trivia to TV talk shows and Facebook. Thus I didn't even use a name at the beginning of blogging.  My first day blogging: a mighty wind of hot air was about to hit the internet. Why should I? The blog wasn't about me, per se. But commenters needed to begin with something other than, "Hey you," or maybe, "You jerk..." So dear old Granny J started calling me "Boonie." I sort of liked it, and took it up, despite it not being a perfect name for me. Most of what people call RV boondocking does not even appeal to me. What does appeal is dispersed area camping on public lands. Technically, the Quartzsite mob-fest and Long Term Visitor Area (LTVA) camping are examples of dispersed camping, but these two don't appeal to me either. I simply do

Appreciating More Things in Life

Readers probably laughed off my "getting better with age" arguments as a mere pep-talk.  But I don't give pep talks, and roll my eyes when I catch somebody else doing it. Here's another important thing that can get better with age: the ability to appreciate more things in life. This ability is not guaranteed or automatic with age. It requires broad and varied experiences. Most of us don't really get this from our lives and jobs. Life has become too bureaucratized and regularized for that. But let's not surrender completely. Retirement offers enough independence and freedom to allow for wider experiences. (Must I say that I'm not talking about trivial experiences like looking at pretty scenery?) Of course early retirement offers more opportunities than retiring at the standard age, where, unless you are lucky, doctor appointments start to take over life. For instance, even though I have owned a stick-and-brick house, I've never before had the exp

Quickly Categorizing Travelers

Some people think it un-PC to stereotype people, that is, to categorize them. They think you are being "mean" and disrespectful. Nonsense. Every word in a language creates categories. If you said that a fire engine was "red", would a PC nambie-pambie immediately take offense because 'not all red things are alike?' Similarly with RV travelers. We look for categories because they are mental shortcuts for understanding and predicting others' behavior. Standard small talk, when playing 20 Question with Fred and Mildred at an RV park, might start off with 'sooooooo, where ya frum.' But it would be more informative to ask them about their shower. That quickly categorizes the RVer for me. If somebody can't survive without taking a 20 minute shower and using 20 gallons of water, they belong in an RV park or a house back in the suburb of the metropolitan area. It probably categorizes them as a vacationer or newbie. In any case, they will never suc

Altar of the Atlases

Yes, I'm turning into a rhapsode of "profound satisfactions" about converting a cargo trailer into a livable travel trailer. I built a symmetric rack for my cherished (and half-worn-out) Benchmark and DeLorme atlases. There was something altar-like in their position at the new "command-and-control" center. This was hardly a great engineering feat. It was a trivial project compared to the kitchen or the solar equipment. And yet I just loved it. Now how could such a small project offer such satisfaction? It must be the maps.  There is, in any endeavor, a delightful sophomoric phase when you realize you are no longer a mere member of the general public, but are becoming one of the cognoscenti.   With an RV traveler that phase might happen when you stop thinking in terms of Rand-McNally interstate highway maps, which gas stations and restaurants are at which exits, or which over-crowded, over-priced RV park you are going to spend the night. And this corres

Closure on Projects

It does do a blogger some good to mouth-off on the internet. After doing so -- about the great vice of putting tools down in such a reckless way that you can't find them three minutes later -- it helped me go on a massive cleanup campaign.  It is not in front of me at the moment but I think that Thomas Edison visualized his thoughts and inventions as an excrudescence (?) from his head, somewhat like dandruff. I smiled thinking of tools and materials flying off my person, in random directions. But today brings another issue: closure for a project, its difficulty, and whether it is objective or subjective. It's so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that a project's end is fixed, absolute, and objective, when in fact much of it depends on us saying, 'Enough!' There certainly is a disconsolate phase in the natural history of any project when we are like a hiker who is fooled again and again by false summits. The hiker keeps climbing, keeps making demonstrable

A Chance to Work Productively

Around the New Year I argued that 'I am not getting older, I am getting better,' need not be an empty cliche. There really are things we naturally get better at, with age. So why not pound the crap out of these things, and put aside the things we must lose on? Such qualities include: 1. Self-mastery and self-restraint. 2. Patience. 3. Perspicuity. 4. Setting more realistic (i.e., lower) expectations on new projects or people. 5. Understanding the consequences of our actions. 6. Thinking more independently. 7. Better juggling of trade-offs when making decisions. This project of converting a cargo trailer into a travel trailer has offered me an impressive and perverse example of how difficult it is to achieve #1 on the list. If you were to step back from the thousand-and-one machinations of the day, and ask yourself why you can't work faster, you wouldn't have any trouble coming up with a list. But it was fun to identify the top problem on the list.  For

The Spirit-Soul of a Human Family

The woman in the RV park was swinging her arms as she walked. You can't get much of a walk in an RV park, so I considered telling her about Farmington's (NM) nice linear city park, along the Animas River. That would certainly make for a longer and more interesting walk for her. But I kept my mouth shut. I might like recreational trails in a city -- in fact, they are my favorite thing -- but most RVers are out to "consume" the standard, bar-coded brand names of the tourism industry. In this area, Indian ruins are the main brand names, which is surprising considering how visually unexciting most old pueblo ruins are. It seems advantageous to simply read about them, for free, on the internet. My dog and I went off to do our usual thing of walking along the Animas River. On the way back, we ran into two interesting families. The first was a goose family. They paddled along on the other side of the river, which tortures my dog, Coffee Girl, who is no fan of water. Th