July 9, 2007 at 8:12 pm · Filed under Travel / lifestyle musings
Last week at the big Airstream rally I was approached by many people and asked about the full-timing life. It seems more and more people are looking at this lifestyle as an alternative to a sedentary retirement. Far from being a refuge of the borderline-homeless and hillbillies, living in a travel trailer is now a cool thing to do, almost chic.
I was pleased to see the sorts of people asking me about full-timing. They were successful, intelligent, thoughtful people who have come to realize that there are huge advantages to mobile living. Most of them were approaching retirement and viewing their Airstream as a literal “retirement vehicle”, but others were still working and trying to figure out how to carry some semblance of a career forward using mobile technology.
For a lot of people, full-timing is a way to travel and live cheap. But many people who approached me last week had no intention of selling their homes. To my way of thinking, that’s reasonable. It’s not as affordable to keep your home (compared to selling it), but it does have the advantage of giving you a ready base in the event of an unexpected event that prevents you from continuing in the travel trailer.
This reminds me that full-timing doesn’t really have a definition. I know people who consider themselves full-timers but sit absolutely stationary for months at a time. Others only consider it true full-timing when you are on the move regularly. Some people have homes they return to periodically, while others (like us) go for years with the RV as their only shelter.
If you spend six months each year in your RV, and six months back at home base, are you a full-timer? Perhaps you’re a part-time full-timer.
The definition is flexible, but I believe there’s a mental orientation that we all share. Full-timing is more about your travel philosophy than your exact circumstances. Here are a few commonalities to full-timers that I’ve noticed:
Full-timers like to explore. They live in travel trailers for the convenience, but they’d do the same thing in a boat if they felt like exploring the seas. In fact, many full-timers I’ve met were formerly “live-aboards” (the equivalent term for boaters).
Full-timers like to travel more slowly than the average person. They tend to reject fixed schedules, and celebrate the opportunity to be flexible.
Full-timers are often stubbornly independent and march to their own tune. They will go where their family members wish they wouldn’t, whether that’s Alaska, Mexico, or the mosh pit. They have chosen to trade traditional “stability” for freedom, and they don’t take it lightly.
Full-timers will stretch a buck ten feet if it means they can stay on the road a little bit longer. They’ll work almost any job, no matter how menial, if it keeps them where they want to be. I met a wealthy professional working the gift shop at Grand Canyon just so he could stay all season (otherwise your stay is limited). He could have afforded a nice hotel room a few miles down the road. I met a retired lawyer cutting hair and parking RV’s just so he could stay all summer in a beautiful Idaho park and visit his grandchildren.
Full-timers tend to be unafraid. They don’t stay home because someone else had a bad experience, or because someone told them there were snakes. The only things full-timers fear are high gas prices and bad health.
Full-timers know how to make their own fun. I’ve never met a bored full-timer. (I suppose anyone who did get bored would quit traveling pretty quickly.) Full-timers learn the trick of finding something to do anywhere, and they enjoy location-independent pursuits like reading, writing, photography, quilting, and cooking.
Most full-timers are gregarious. They love to meet new people and socialize. It’s hard to travel around and be a hermit at the same time. Making friends is part of the package.
So overall, full-timing is a mindset. If you get a great feeling of freedom and lightness when you travel on business or vacation, you may be a full-timer who just hasn’t launched yet. And if you’ve been a full-timer (like we have) and are now contemplating “settling down”, just keep in mind that owning a house means nothing. You can still pack up and go out again …
July 8, 2007 at 6:45 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
If you’ve looked at the “Schedule” page of this weblog, you have probably noticed that there’s very little scheduled in our future. Some people have interpreted this as a message that we are about to get off the road and settle into our house, and I had to explain to people several times last week that it’s not really the case.
What’s really happening is that we are simply scheduling less, and wandering more. In particular, we aren’t signed up for any Airstream rallies. It seems over time that we have been going to fewer and fewer rallies. I was wondering why this is, since we generally enjoy them, and I’ve come to the conclusion that our full-timing lifestyle just doesn’t lend itself to rally participation. Roaming across the country would seem to facilitate attending rallies, but in reality it makes the situation harder. In the past our schedule has rarely coincided conveniently with events we’d like to attend.
“Where no Airstream has gone before …”
This weekend we were forced to make the painful decision to skip the Albuquerque Balloon Festival in October. A bunch of Airstreamers are going to meet up there, and I had gone so far as to send in a $130 deposit on the event. It would be a tremendous event to attend, but we just don’t have a solid schedule for this fall and so we transferred the reservation to another Airstreamer from Phoenix.
The problem with full-timing is simple: If you don’t set a schedule, it’s impossible to be sure you’ll be at the events that interest you. If you do set a schedule, you’ll inevitably find that you have to skip wonderful places to keep on the schedule, which is immensely frustrating.
After numerous frustrations, we have decided to avoid setting schedules as much as possible. If we must be in Albuquerque in mid-October, we’d have to skip Fall in New England and rush about 2,000 miles southwest in six weeks. That may seem like a lot of time to drive that distance, but it’s really not. Between Vermont and New Mexico are dozens of friends we’d like to visit, dozens of national parks, and many festivals, hikes, scenic overlooks, photo opps, and museums to check out. No matter how much time we have, we can easily fill it just by stopping and partaking in whatever the local area has to offer.
So while we don’t have an itinerary or a fixed route, we do have a lot of ideas of places to go and things to do. Instead of booking spots at rallies and other organized events, we are going to simply take a list of things that are happening all over the country — including rallies, festivals, open houses, airshows, and harvests — and see what makes sense to drop in on as we go.
While I was at the International Rally last week I also heard from many people who shyly admitted that they read this blog. In some cases it was almost like they were confessing a secret vice: “I read it every day … just to see what you’re doing.” Well, that’s fine, and you can all come out of the closet now. I know from the site statistics that over a thousand people read this blog every day, and many people read it every day. Don’t worry, I can’t tell who you are — your secret is safe. Just don’t let the boss catch you!
July 7, 2007 at 9:27 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Vermont is the most rural state in the nation. That doesn’t mean it is the emptiest, or the lowest population, but it does mean that the state is uniformly carpeted with small towns and villages. These towns are great places to live and raise a family (if you can deal with the long winter and the lifestyle associated with small towns).
Once a year the town we are in celebrates with a small fair on the green, between the library and the town offices. It’s a modest event, but everyone seems to drop in for a while. Under the big tent there are booths set up by the various civic organizations and local boosters: the Historical Society, the local church, the town Recreation program, a trails committee, a conservation organization, etc. There were bake sales and raffles, too.
Outside on the grass, Master Roh (who runs a local martial arts class), was organizing the kids in contests of high jumping, limbo, and other energy-burning activities. A guitarist was on the porch, playing and singing, while under another large tent the library was holding a huge book sale.
I wandered in, not expecting much, and came out with several books: something by Primo Levi about his post-holocaust experiences, two travelogues by Paul Theroux, “A Brief History of the Universe” by Steven Hawking, and “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee” (which I’ve been wanting to read ever since we visited our first western national park). All for $5. Eleanor picked up a few Hercule Poirot mysteries too. Those are always good for trading at campgrounds, almost as good as cash.
The thunderstorms continue to rumble through regularly, but that’s fine since the weather has been mild and actually pleasant between downpours. The rain also helps combat the dropping of the local seagulls, which seem to have an affinity for our new orange car…
Sorry for the lack of photos lately. I’ve been recuperating from the International Rally, where I shot several hundred photos and walked around for two weeks with a camera around my neck most of the time. About 170 photos remain after the first culling, and with time I expect to get them down to about 100 worth keeping.
Since I have no photos yet from Vermont, here’s a bonus shot from last week at Museum of Aviation in Warner-Robins, GA. The headless man is Brett, investigating a compartment of what memory tells me is a B-52 bomber. If anyone cares to suggest a caption for this photo, please leave a comment!
July 6, 2007 at 6:08 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
My foray into tent camping was briefer than I expected. Thunderstorms in the northeast made a second night of tenting impractical, and so I was left with three options: (1) Find a motel; (2) Drop in on a friend’s house; (3) Drive straight through, 750 miles.
The Honda Fit was performing beautifully, it was a nice day, and so I decided to just keep on drivin’ … With the engine breaking in, the fuel economy kept rising. Toward the end, I got one tank averaging 48 MPG (all highway, no A/C), and the next averaging 42 MPG (all highway at 65 MPH, using some A/C). Woo-hoo! I think we’ve found balance for the 9 MPG we get while towing.
After my decision to plow straight through, I got calls and emails from friends along the way. Don and Amanda, who courtesy parked us last fall in Connecticut, offered their couch, and I also got a call from Brad (who we camped with in the Florida Keys last winter) offering space in his Airstream in southern Virginia.
Both offers came too late, alas. By 8:30 last night I was crossing the Lake Champlain Canal and entering Vermont, and at 9:30 I was home — which means, I was once again with my family and our trusty Airstream parked in the driveway. It’s true, home is where you park it. And Eleanor, Emma and I been apart too long. I doubt I’ll let another two weeks separate us in the future.
The dominant feature of the day is thunderstorms. Every two hours another one blows through, bringing pea-sized hail (not large enough to dent the aluminum) and a deluge of rain. Our Airstream is very clean on the outside, since the thunderstorms keep giving it baths. It’s a real contrast to the months we spent in the southwest where water restrictions kept us from washing the trailer. Here, we can’t seem to get dry. With the humidity and rain and the happy birds chirping above in the trees, it feels like we are living in the rain forest.
The deluges come on so suddenly we don’t have a chance to run to the trailer and shut down the Fantastic Vent, but fortunately our center vent has the “rain sensor” feature and it shuts itself down at the slightest hint of rain. This feature has saved us a couple of times today. It may be that we have to rely solely on our two vents that have the rain sensor, during the summer thunderstorm season, and keep the manual vent closed.
July 4, 2007 at 8:58 pm · Filed under Travel / lifestyle musings
There are no bugs. I have many things to be grateful for today, but the thing that strikes me the most is that there are no bugs. No buzzing mosquitoes, no bewildered moths, and especially no irritating gnats. It’s utterly perfect here.
This is astonishing, because I am sitting in the midst of a forest campground, somewhere off I-81 in southwestern Virginia, in July. There ought to be bugs but apparently someone forgot to tell them, so I am sitting comfortably at the picnic table typing up a blog entry for you unhampered. Moreover, the air is not too humid, the temperature is balmy, and all I can hear is the light breeze in the trees and the occasional child having fun at adjacent campsites.
Oh, I’m wrong. There goes a firefly, right past the glowing Mac symbol on my laptop. Even better.
What am I doing, camping without an Airstream? Call it an experiment in minimalism, or a revisiting of my earlier camping lifestyle. Just don’t call it what it really is: a confluence of my cheapness and circumstances that prevented me from bringing the Airstream along. I’m in a rush to get back to New England, and taking my thrifty new car back with me. Since I’m using about 1/4 the gasoline that I would normally need to tow the trailer, I figured I’d go all the way and sleep in a tent as well. Reductio ad absurdum.
Tenting is also a way to reach campsites that RV’s can’t travel to. In the old days we used to carry 40 lbs of gear on our backs and hike far into the mountain ranges for camping. Now that we’ve had a taste of the places we can find in Arizona, I think we’ll want to do some tent camping and backpacking there this winter. An Airstream with a tent in the luggage compartment gives all the flexibility we could want.
So this is fun. My tenting experience will be brief this week, so I can enjoy the experience of sleeping on the ground knowing that I won’t have to do it every night. This reminds me of what other people who don’t travel full-time have to look forward to. In a way, it’s nicer to anticipate that fun camping weekend than it is to be “camping” every night of the week.
It’s also a nice change from the rally scene I left this morning. I like rallies, but I’ve decided that two weeks is too much for me. At some point the rally starts to become an analog for Burning Man, a massive experiment in group living. People start to drive faster on the grounds, boredom sets in, and pretty soon it’s just another big trailer park. Better to enjoy the offerings of the rally and then get out of town, I think.
And for me, it’s time to get home. The weather is reportedly poor, with thunderstorms expected daily, but still I want to see my family again and get going on a plan for this fall. We are debating three possible routes: east to Newfoundland, west to Montana, and straight southwest to Arizona. The final plan won’t be unveiled until August. But definitely, I plan to pack the tent and sleeping bags this time …
July 3, 2007 at 9:21 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
This year’s rally fell awkwardly on the calendar. By the club’s constitution, the International Rally must encompass both Canada Day (July 1) and Wally Byam’s birthday (July 4), and this year July 4 is a Wednesday. This has caused the last three days of the rally to be rather quiet.
Although there are scheduled events through Wednesday, many people chose to leave on Sunday or Monday. Working people tend to focus on extended weekends. Some people have another week free, but they decided to spend it traveling home slowly. And for some, the main excitement was over by Sunday and they just went home.
Tomorrow’s flea market is the last major event that people will stay to attend. This is a giant swap meet where you can find that elusive vintage part, an aluminum casting, some cheap paperbacks, crafts, and junk of all kinds.
Of course, you can also find Airstream Life magazine there. We take a double table and sell hats, shirts, magazine subscriptions, and those prized back issues. Brett & I will manage the table for a few hectic hours and then, once the crowds have abated, I’ll be hopping into the little Honda Fit for the 1,200 mile drive home.
The roadtrip plan is to try something different. I have a small tent and a sleeping bag. If I can find convenient spots along the way, I’ll get to tent camp for the first time since 2003. It should be a fun change and a good chance to regain my perspective on camping. So for a few days, this blog will switch (once again) to something a little bit different…
July 2, 2007 at 10:27 pm · Filed under Places to go
Yes, it turns out there is more to do in the area. About 25 miles up the highway from Perry is the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in Macon. You might be surprised at the number of legendary musical artists who come from Georgia: everyone from Little Richard to R.E.M. And they’re all celebrated there, along with memorabilia, instruments, movies, and their music.
Tuning up
This museum is small but really worth a visit. If you stop to listen to the music, you can spend a couple of hours. Even a quick visit would be about 45 minutes, just browsing past things like James Brown’s stage costumes, and getting a quick earful of sweet gospel music.
Back at the rally, the weather cleared up for a few hours, and everywhere people popped out of the air conditioned buildings and Airstreams to take advantage. Unfortunately, so did the ants. The rainstorms of last night washed away all the anti-ant stuff we’d put around the motorhome, and they immediately began marching in and demanding snacks. A re-application of the ant poison took care of that.
Over in the Vintage area, Vince and Lonnie were serving leftovers of their gator etouffee, so like a pair of ravenous college students, Brett and I grabbed a bowlful each. Delicious as always. Nearby, we ran into Jim Breitinger (the guy who sells meteorites). We joined him for a tour of Bill Stallworth’s beautiful 1958 Airstream Overlander. Bill’s trailer was recently rebuilt after a terrible rollover accident.
Bill and Jim
Our rounds of visiting were cut short by the return of the thunderstorms. They got beyond the normal descriptions of downpour or gulley-washer. We got caught inside a store by the evening storms, listening to crashing thunder and waiting out one of the most remarkable rainfalls I’ve seen in a long time.
It was two hours before we were able to leave the store without drowning. Fortunately the Argosy motorhome we are in does not leak, despite being 29 years old. Tonight I will listen to the rain until late and stay snug and dry in my bed.
With the worst of the heat dissipated by the thunderstorms, the major weather factor remaining is humidity. At times it is nearly 100% and fog begins to form. At 80 or 85 degrees Fahrenheit, this is still uncomfortable, and so air conditioning is a requirement if you don’t want to get moldy. I am pining for the dry heat of the southwest, or the cool humidity of Vermont. And everyone I have talked to is looking forward to the next International Rally, which will be held in a sane location: Bozeman, Montana, up in the dry air at 5000 feet elevation.
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