this and that

Our last moving day was interesting. Neither Meadow, Mesa, or myself, enjoy moving days—Meadow least of all. I break camp the afternoon before, pack up, and back the Dodge to within a couple inches of the trailer’s A-frame and hook up the chains and break-away cable. Meadow knows what this means. In the morning, if she gets out, she’s gone. I might be able to keep walking after her and wear her down and snag her after half an hour or so. If she hides, however, she’ll hide and sleep for hours and I have to move the next day. Been there, done that. It rots. When I catch her, I have to grab her by the scruff of the neck or she will shred me. Yep, been there, gone through that, most assuredly, didn’t like it. Luckily in the morning, it wasn’t Meadow that got out. I had gone outside for a few minutes and when I came back in, there was a hummingbird flying back and forth across the back window; keeping real close to the glass, almost skimming across it, not repeatedly flying into the glass like insects do. The hummingbird had flown in through the cage window. Mesa was up on the back table watching her. I opened one of the back screens and went to shoo the bird out, but just before the bird flew out, Mesa flew out. Guano. He’s much easier to catch, however, 5-10 minutes generally does it. Caught him, hitched up, and headed out. It took 25 minutes to just drive the first 4 miles towards the asphalt. The road was more trashed from the rains last week and vehicular traffic driving through the mud. Then another 15 minutes to the asphalt.

I was going to stop part way overnight at a campground, but I have such an aversion to them in the summer, while driving through it, I decided to get back on the road and keep going. A long day and way too many miles. Then when I got 30-35 miles of the national forest I was shooting for, I noticed dense smoke from a wildfire on its southern end. Guano. The north end, where I was headed, was okay and had fire restrictions (no campfires or grills) in effect, I didn’t pass any RVs as I was driving along the forest roads. And rarely passed an RVer disperse RVing along any of the dirt roads I’ve biked in the last month. Not bad. But campfires and grills are a big part of RVing so they are probably at places where these are allowed. Hard-wall campers couldn’t care less about grills and building campfires during the dry summer months out in the woods.

For many RVers, their days driving along the asphalt with their rig, provides them with a sense of freedom and adventure; they travel to see what’s along the road. To me, this is the ball-and-chain aspect of my lifestyle. The highway is not where hard-wall campers do their traveling. After I set up camp, I can cut the chain and start my travels.

While on a hike at my last spot, I took a tangent to a campground and talked to the host for a while. No RV but quite a setup. I liked how he used his ladder.

My present spot has me thinking of the doldrums, but rather than lack of wind, here it’s lack of wildlife. I generally only see deer and turkeys while out on my early morning runs and mtn. biking a couple miles from the camping spot. Occasionally, I spot a young deer while out walking with M&M.

It’s quiet in the spot where I’m presently setup, not even many bird sounds, except for the hummingbirds, not even in the mornings as it is getting light. Strange. It is such a contrast from my spot in the White Mtns. The first month or so of my stay there, there were all kinds of wildlife sounds—turkeys when I first got there, elk cows & little ones, owls, ravens, hummingbirds & other birds, coyotes, cows & calves, two nights of frogs, squirrels & chipmunks, and moths that invariably got into the Nash and flew around as I was lying in bed after dark with the Kindle. Animal sounds continued through the nights. Cow elk calls back in late May and early June were a treat in the middle of the night.
On two early runs back in the White Mtns., I came across some pronghorn. One morning back in late May, I spotted three young elk that had started growing in their antlers. I love this aspect of the lifestyle. My friends and maybe some who spend time out in Nature might be the only ones who can relate to this, but I felt as if I was part of the local community. One would think I would feel this way while in the winter state parks, but more often than not, that’s not the case. I walk around in the parks, smiling and saying hello or something to people over the winter and a good number respond with just a look or a nod. What kind of lame response is that?

In a book I was reading, one character had never seen a treadmill. He friend demonstrated its use. She then grinned and said, “It lets you walk and go nowhere?” I generally get a chuckle when I hear someone voice a different take on something common. A sort of thinking outside the box.

With all the shade, and being up at 8535’, the rig stays cool but there is only a three-hour slot when the sun shines on the solar panels. It’s enough if there is no cloud cover during those hours. Most days, however, clouds start forming by that time of day.

I know, I know, probably my lamest entry, but I bet I make up for it next month.

Hakuna matata

Hakuna matata is a Swahili phrase for “no worry—there isn’t a problem/trouble.”
A much cooler way to say our, “no problem.”
and maybe, with a little stretch, “don’t worry, be happy.”

Someone told me that the two links at the bottom of my pages no longer work. I emailed Koocanusa Publications and they had moved my pages to another spot on their server. These are the new links:

RVwest article ‘Following a Free Spirit’

RVwest article ‘The Spaces Between the Places’