Occupation of Independence

I pined for a new trailer for years, did my homework, but then waited until I reached the age where you could withdraw funds from your IRA without paying an extra penalty. Since I bought a plain vanilla cargo trailer, and spent two months converting it into a real travel trailer, the experience seemed like quite a memorable adventure. In an analogous fashion, it is now time to buy a newer tow vehicle, since I have transitioned from ObamaCare to Medicare, and can forget about the loss of subsidy that would be caused by a spike in income. But will buying a new tow vehicle be fun or adventurous? I am having my doubts. I am not going to convert the tow vehicle -- I will just buy it. Doing mechanical work on a motor vehicle is my least favorite thing to do. If you were repainting a bedroom, you might make it more fun by at least changing the colors! But my newer tow vehicle will have to be a van, just like the old one. Nothing else makes any sense.  Truck-based SUVs are hardly avai

I wonder how many armchair travelers, stuck under grey skies in the north, look at the postcards put out by Arizona visitors, and immediately fall for the romantic escapism. It probably doesn't occur to them that the winter camper is indoors, in the dark, by 530 pm, and that it is dark until 7am. And what does that camper do for 13 hours of darkness in a little box where you can barely walk? At least at home, in a normal house, you could walk to the bathroom (or microwave oven) during television commercials. In an RV your butt is glued to a chair, or you are twisting or turning in bed, wishing that you could still sleep 10 hours a night. When you finally admit that you don't sleep like a youngster anymore, what do you do with all those hours of darkness? The nearby desert town probably closes shop at 6 pm. There is no social life when camping in the desert, unless you live where people are a bit non-transient, and you get a chance to know them. The easy answer is, "

Actually she rode in from the sunset.  The colors of sky were changing, so I grabbed my dog and went off for a sunset stroll. Instinctively I walk away from the sun. Looking up into the small mountains ahead of us, where you could say the Arizona alpenglow was lighting up, I could see a black dog, white horse, and caballera riding down from the mountains, towards us. Not actually in Arizona. From Wikipedia. The labrador wanted to come over and check us out, but she wouldn't let him. She was riding bareback (recall that scene in Polanski's "Chinatown" when Faye Dunaway told Jack Nicholson that she had been riding all morning -- bareback. Naturally that raised an eyebrow on Nicholson's face.) It takes so little for a human being to make another human's day. And she did that for me. Normally I try to block other humans from my mind, since their outdoor recreation consists of noisy sports. But there is something quiet and classic -- noble I would say

It is so easy to spot other campers' maladjustments to 'the lifestyle.' Most of them do not have any kind of recreational activity; they are just couch potatoes looking for free rent; they watch satellite television or run generators half the day. But I have always known what my biggest problem was: I read books in a nerdy, serious mood. There is little relaxation or pleasure in it, for me.  On a long winter night, this causes sourness or glumness in the reading chair. Paper books are almost irrelevant to a mobile camper, for obvious reasons. So let's just talk eBooks. The eReader "manufacturers" show advertisements of some young, attractive person reading their gadget, outdoors, perhaps on a mountain top or on the beach. I am surprised they don't show somebody skydiving while reading their gadget. I have never liked reading outdoors, with the intense sunlight, wind, and a bit of insect life. But the eReader ads are correct that I need to relax