HAVING SECOND THOUGHTS

Enjoying Yosemite's Bridalview Falls

A couple of months ago I had really intended to end this blog, and to begin another that would focus on aging. But then I thought it over, and realized that many of my Rovin' Crone ponderings are about my own aging and how I deal with it.
I hope to go on living in both a more positive and more leisurely way than when I was younger. To quote Studs Terkel, “Take it easy, but take it!” So, the Rovin' Crone is back.

Slowing down isn't always easy. In middle age we are under constant pressure to produce, to contribute, to achieve. Trying to live up to our own and others' expectations becomes a habit.


We owe ourselves some "harvest years," though. After a professional lifetime of writing and editing books for others to read, I am luxuriating in reading for my own pleasure and knowledge. Though I will always prefer "real" books, I have an e-reader that is very helpful when we are traveling or when the lighting conditions are poor. (Like many elderly people, I need bright light to read easily.)


Another way I am enjoying these years is traveling, especially to the national parks. For various reasons I saw only a few of the parks when I was younger, and now I am making up for lost time. Having a motorhome helps greatly; I always have a bathroom and kitchen near by!

TRAVELING ALONE OR TOGETHER

Sometimes my companion and I get on each other’s nerves. Being together constantly in a small RV is a real test of compatibility, and neither of us is particularly good at sharing.

Of course, there are many advantages to traveling together. He is an expert on RVs, having lived in one for nine years while in the early stages of building his permanent home. Though I try to learn all the details of handling the RV, he can always provide the knowledge that is needed. Besides that, he is much stronger than I am. Modern RVs in general do not require much strength, but I am unable to manage the black water disposal. (Some women have grinned and told me not to learn how!)  Especially important for an aging couple, if either of us is ill or has an injury, the other one is there to help. As we are both retired science educators, we share some professional interests, and often want to visit the same places. Finally, it is simply more enjoyable to share an adventure with someone you care about.

On the other hand, it’s not all beer and skittles. He is obsessed with trains—both model trains and the real ones—and I see them only as a very enjoyable means of transportation. While we both love to read, and spend a good amount of time in libraries, I prefer fiction, while he cares only for nonfiction. I like attending plays and spending time in art museums, but he quickly loses interest in them and thinks the admission prices are too high. He hates computers, I enjoy surfing the Net and emailing friends.

So, there are times when I envy my women friends who travel solo. They do whatever interests them, go wherever they wish, without having to accommodate another person. Meeting a variety of people, one of the pleasurable elements of travel, is also much easier for someone traveling alone.

For us, exploring the planet together definitely beats traveling alone, and so we compromise. Sometimes he goes off for a day alone looking at trains or taking hundreds of photos, and I spend the time elsewhere. We are both revitalized by pursuing our individual interests, and happily report to each other on the time we spent apart.

RV ENVIRONMENTALISTS

 

Knowing we are environmentalists, friends sometimes look amused when we announce we are planning another trip in the RV. How, they wonder, can we justify using all those fossil fuels and polluting the air with carbon compounds?

They have a point. We try to minimize the environmental damage as much as possible. Our 24’ Sprinter-based motorhome (which uses gasoline rather than diesel) gets about 13 mpg, very low compared with most autos, but high in comparison with larger rigs. When we can, we take the shortest route to destinations (though often we choose scenic routes). If a campground close to home is as appealing as one farther away, we choose the nearer one. We seldom tow anything—our inflatable kayak was carried on the Suzuki just once, but usually travels under the dinette table—to keep the RV as light as we can. As it is only 24’ long, we can drive into rather small parking spaces, and we don’t usually need to have a dinghy. Yosemite, Glacier, and some other national parks provide buses for visitors; our rig can stay in the campground. By having our own “apartment” with us, we can stay out of elaborate resorts and campgrounds that are like small towns, and stay in Forest Service campgrounds, where there has been little despoiling of the natural environment.

The propane used for heating and refrigeration goes surprisingly far, probably because the rig’s interior is small. We avoid using the microwave oven, doing most cooking in a Dutch oven on the stovetop, which also heats the interior somewhat. If we happen to have electrical hookups, a tiny ceramic heater keeps us warm without using propane. Of course, then we are using electricity; we balance that use with reading rather than watching TV. Occasionally we take wood from our home in the forest to make a campfire, if we are not going far. (Wood can harbor insects that might be invasive in other areas.) We keep the refrigerator and freezer very full, minimizing the number of shopping trips and making refrigeration as efficient as possible. When stopping for the night, we always use simple leveling blocks, which also maximizes the refrigerator’s efficiency. (This can be annoying, but is important.)

Being a coffee addict, I have to make a special effort to conserve electricity. Water is heated in a camper’s teakettle, then poured through coffee in a Melitta filter cone. If I don’t drink the coffee immediately, I save it in a thermos to avoid having to reheat it. Yet, some campers say they _must_ use their microwaves for reheating coffee!

Knowing that the fresh water tank holds only 35 gallons, which must do for showers, toilet-flushing, cooking, and cleanup, we are extremely frugal with water. Our showers are the Navy type—rinse off quickly, turn off the water, soap up, rinse again quickly, turn off the water! Or, we may take sponge baths. Yogurt containers in the shower and on the counters hold warmup water for later uses. We try to dry-camp most of the time, and use the vault toilets rather than our water-consuming toilet. Cooking and dishwashing are done with the smallest amounts of water possible, but we do use our lightweight Corelle dishes rather than disposable plastics. We wash and re-use aluminum foil, cover dishes with saucers instead of plastic wrap, and save glass and aluminum for later recycling. I always feel smug when dropping a tiny litter bag (if anything) into a campground’s Dumpster, seeing the gigantic bags inside.

My companion is an enthusiastic user of solar energy, both at home and while traveling. This means hauling a solar panel with us and hooking it up to the batteries; in sunny weather it provides enough electricity for us. In fact, we only use the generator during extreme heat waves, when air conditioning is a necessity. Only one light is on at a time, and the TV is usually off. We do use the radio, which uses a very small amount of electricity.

Though we prefer dry-camping, our small tanks limit us to doing so for about three days at a time. After that, we must look for a campground with hookups. Even there, we avoid wasting electricity and water. The sustainable habits imposed during dry-camping serve us well when resources seem more plentiful, as well as when we go home again.