Jul13
Posted on Jul 13 by Ruth Davis
We have never camped over a summer holiday weekend. We’ve always figured, let the working folks enjoy the crowded campgrounds – we have the flexibility to go anytime. But, as full-timers, we needed a place to stay over the long July 4th weekend. As timing had it, we would be near Yellowstone National Park so we committed to being there for the holiday, with the crowds. All of the state parks were booked and, with the afternoon temperatures in the mid 80’s, we needed a campsite with electricity so we could leave the dogs at home while we ventured out. After all kinds of online searching, a woman in an RVing Facebook group said she owned a campground 20 miles west of Yellowstone’s west entrance. I called and we got a space for the entire weekend, from Thursday through Tuesday. Yes, it was our most expensive campground at $58.32 a night, but, compared to the $80+ at all the other options near Yellowstone, it was the best choice. The park was nice enough, with full hookups, a few...
Jun29
Posted on Jun 29 by Ruth Davis
I believe there is great power in working with others. Sharing ourselves with people we trust and respect helps us see many more possibilities and options than we can imagine in our own minds. If we are really honest with ourselves, we crave intimacy, really talking with a person and connecting at a deeper heart level. We want to be heard and understood and we want to feel supported when we share our wildest dreams and deepest fears. As humans, we need contact and connection with other people. But what I’m learning is that basic contact isn’t enough. We’re wanting deeper connections with others, and with ourselves. I’ve been self-employed for 30 years, and, until recently, I also lived alone, so I know, first-hand, how important it is to step outside of my solitary comfort zones and seek the wisdom and companionship of others. Now that I am living on the road full-time, I no longer have an obvious community. I don’t go to my weekly yoga class or get together with friends for dinner. I don’t see...
Jun22
Posted on Jun 22 by Ruth Davis
Living in a small space with your dearly beloved is bound to be challenging sometimes. We are two very different people with moods, habits, our preferred ways to do things. For the most part, we work it out. After all, we have 27 years of practicing. But actually we don’t do things the same way we did the first time we lived together. We’ve had so much time and space living alone since then to develop our own habits and ways to do things, but, for the most part, we compromise without much discussion. But there is one thing that she does that drives me absolutely crazy. She does not rinse her dishes, and then everything crusts and hardens and I have to work twice as hard to clean them. I rinse my knives after I slice my sandwich, before I sit down to eat it. For me, cleanup is part of the preparation. For Marika, cleanup happens when there are enough dishes to wash them all at the same time. And then she’ll...
Jun15
Posted on Jun 15 by Ruth Davis
We are at Chatfield State Park in Littleton, Colorado, at a very large, very popular lakeside campground. The campground is full, but the spaces are far enough apart that it doesn’t feel crowded. Our campsite in in the second ring from an uninterrupted view of the lake, but we have a fifty-foot wide open space between campers straight to the water. And we are so glad to be here for nine days. We are ready for some stillness, some settling in. And yet, despite the bucolic rolling green hills and mountains, and the view of the clear blue lake, I can’t settle into the now, because I don’t know where we’re going from here. I have only planned our route to this place, to be here to celebrate a friend’s Bat Mitzvah. After here, I know our direction – toward the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone State Parks – but I don’t know our route, or, more important, where we’ll be camping. Summer is high camping season and reservations are a must if I want to have electric...
Jun08
Posted on Jun 8 by Ruth Davis
After 5 days in the Albuquerque area, we headed to Georgia O’Keeffe country in northern New Mexico. We stopped first at the Tire Pros and they fixed the two slow leaks. They were so nice and fast and they even pulled the RV in and out, and lined it up for us to hitch up and drive away! We camped a few miles north of Abiquiu at a Core of Engineers campground perched above the man-made Abiquiu Lake, surrounded by a dramatic, 360° sky and towering red rock hills and canyons. At dusk, after the sun fell behind the stands of red rock, the whole of the sky was ringed in fiery pink clouds, not just in the west where the sun was setting, but all around, like a cloud campfire. And I wondered what someone from New York City must feel when they experience this for the first time. Does the expansive landscape make them feel vulnerable and lonely, is the silence painful to their ears, are they in awe that this much open space...
Jun01
Posted on Jun 1 by Ruth Davis
We moved into our new-to-us 2013 motorhome while we were still parked in the driveway at the house, so we had used everything except the shower. During our first week, camped at a full-hookups RV Park in Pinetop, AZ, we discovered that we couldn’t control the water temperature in the shower. We called a mobile repair place and they installed a new shower faucet, and, while they were there, they hung the smoke detector and recommended a great place for burgers. After the week in Pinetop, we were rested, everything was working and we were ready spend some glorious and quiet time in the high desert of western New Mexico in Datil, pronounced Date-l, at a Bureau of Land Management area 140 miles south and east of Albuquerque. No water or electricity, so we had filled the fresh water tank with 20 gallons and knew that our solar panels could store enough energy for us to run the lights, the water pump, recharge our electronics, and anything else we needed. I had no ATT signal but Marika had a...
