THE ELDERLY RV TRAVELER

For the truly old, RVing would be unpleasant, if not impossible. Climbing the steps, driving the rig, and being far from home would ruin any advantages of this kind of travel. For those of us who are merely aging, though, the RV life is ideal. Just think—a bathroom is always just a few yards behind the driver’s seat! There is a fridge, too, and a couch where we can take naps. At night, instead of hauling a suitcase into a motel room, we turn down the Travasak cover and snuggle into a comfortable and familiar bed.  We are not locked into any schedule, and stop wherever we please. Why would anyone of a certain age not love traveling in an RV? We do need to travel intelligently, however. More than younger people, we should keep some things in mind that will help us enjoy RVing, not wish we had stayed home. 

Most of our possible problems are related to health and safety. Surprisingly, any idiot with a current driver’s license can rent or buy an RV and drive away in it.  I think that is insane; while driving and maintaining an RV is not terribly difficult, it does require some instruction and practice. My own first RV trip was in a rented Class C rig. Even though my companion was a good instructor, and I am ordinarily a good driver, I managed to hit a tree branch and break a side mirror. It might have been much worse. 

Maintaining an RV is harder than driving it. There are numerous buttons and dials throughout the rig, and many components are hidden from view. A typical owner’s manual is gigantic. As each RV model is slightly different from others, even an experienced RVer may take a while to discover what to do when, and a novice should not be trusted alone. Also, some tasks may be difficult for an elderly person. I have osteoarthritis that prevents me from grasping some small objects and opening some valves; my companion has to do some tasks for me.

Staying healthy and fit is vital for the elderly wherever we are, and it can be harder on the road than at home. I doubt that any RV has a stationary bike in it! Some fancy RV resorts, of course, have exercise rooms with good equipment, but we do most of our RVing in national and state parks. Our own solution to the exercise problem is to walk and hike as much as possible, which is easy in the parks. On the occasional days when we drive more than 200 miles, we take breaks every hour or so, and do stretches. I also enjoy doing tai chi chih, and can do it anywhere. My companion is a good swimmer, so sometimes we stay at a KOA where he can swim. The important thing is to do something active every day to avoid stiffness and weight gain.

Eating healthfully is equally important. This is easy for us—even at home, we eat very simple meals. (My companion is a vegetarian, and I eat little meat.) We keep the galley stocked with soups, brown rice, pasta and sauces, eggs, peanut butter, and salad materials. Whenever we see a farmer’s market, we stop and try some of the local produce. This boomeranged once: Just north of the Canadian border, we bought some wonderful sweet corn and other produce at a farm stand. We ate a little, then put the rest in the fridge for later. When we crossed into the U.S., a stern agricultural inspector confiscated the food and lectured us about bringing it, along with possible agricultural pests, into the country. We should have stayed in Canada long enough to have a huge picnic!

Though we usually cook in the RV and avoid restaurants, when we boondock at a Walmart having a McDonald’s we eat breakfast there for convenience. By ordering a large breakfast and splitting it, we can each have a good breakfast without too many calories. (I get all the bacon, which is nice.) I may have a small Arby’s roast beef sandwich, or a Wendy’s Cobb salad, once in a while. Aside from those aberrations, we stay out of fast-food establishments. 

Elderly people take more medicines than younger folks in general, and this can be a real nuisance when we travel. Unlike food or clothing, medicines can’t be instantly replaced if the need arises. I take about 20 pills a day, and my companion has diabetes. His insulin stays in the fridge. The rest of our meds (prescriptions and important over-the-counter items) are stored in a small suitcase near the entrance. If we ever have to evacuate quickly, we want to be able to grab that suitcase and run. When we start to run low on a prescription, we go to the nearest pharmacy to order a refill. This is remarkably easy when the pharmacy is part of the same chain we use at home—CVS, in our case—but can be a problem when it is not. So, we count out all our pills a week in advance and make sure we have enough. Otherwise, we may have to sit for hours in a pharmacy, or even stay in a town for an extra day, while faxes travel back and forth. 

Just as at home, we are more liable than young people to need hospitalization. In remote areas calling 9-1-1 may not be quick enough. If you travel with an iPad or similar device, that probably can help you find the nearest hospital. We mistrust high-tech approaches, and prefer to watch for the large “H” signs indicating hospitals. Whatever method you use, be sure you know how to get medical help if needed.

We have no children, which makes life easier in some ways, but you may have children or grandchildren who worry about you. You may want to set up a schedule for phone calls, so they will know you are all right. We keep in touch with friends and family members by sending emails every few days. Often no Wi-Fi is available in our campground, and we use the Wi-Fi at the nearest public library.

These precautions may sound daunting, but they are really no more trouble than those associated with other forms of travel—and traveling carefully is infinitely better than not traveling at all. Bon voyage!

SILICON VALLEY MEMORIES

Strictly by chance, in the early 1980s I was a student in Silicon Valley, but computers were far from my mind. I was a returning grad student in the Stanford University School of Education, concerned mainly with biology education and John Dewey’s philosophy. Slowly, though, I realized something important was happening right around me.

I had avoided math ever since high school, when the boys’ basketball coach was a very unhelpful math teacher to the sole girl in his solid geometry class. In the 1950s I even slipped through college without taking any math classes (which would be impossible today), and only as a returning student years later was I forced to study calculus and statistics. Even worse, as part of my grad work at Stanford I found myself doing a meta-analysis of hundreds of research papers. In those days we had to use a huge main-frame computer connected to small individual terminals. Hour after hour, I sat in the dark staring at a green and white screen filled with numbers and did my statistical work. (Fortunately, I soon discovered the original Adventure game, and spent a good part of my allotted computer time opening doors to secret passages, collecting keys, and avoiding trolls.)

A few of my classmates were buying the early PCs just appearing on the market. These early computers were connected to TV sets that served as monitors, had about 2K of memory, and could be laboriously programmed in BASIC. Deciding there was likely to be a future in these gadgets, I spent $2,000 on an Apple IIe and a dot-matrix printer. It was a fortune to me at the time, but I foolishly reasoned that it would be a good investment, because surely they would last a lifetime. Somehow I wrote a 300-page dissertation on the Apple, using the awkward WordStar program and storing each chapter on a floppy disk that was truly floppy. My faculty committee members complained bitterly about the difficulty of reading the dot-matrix printouts, but I was entranced by the ease of making revisions without having to pay a typist to retype the entire paper after each review.

Those early PCs seem primitive now. Today, for a few hundred dollars we can buy sleek laptops with gigabytes of memory, Wi-Fi, and webcams—machines beyond the wildest dreams of most people in the eighties. I have mixed feelings about computers, and have often been tempted to throw one out a window. Still, using the early PCs made it an exciting time to be at Stanford, and to glimpse the Information Age that was dawning.

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.

CAMPGROUND TOILETS

You know it’s really cold when the vault toilet blows frigid air up through the seat onto your rear end! We awoke one day in Joshua Tree National Park to see a quarter inch of snow on the ground and to hear a cold wind blowing. Because we postpone adding anything to the blackwater  tank as long as possible, we dashed across the way to use the campground toilet instead. It was not a pleasant experience.

The range of toilets in primitive campgrounds is amazing. In Canada we once found a simple pit toilet that had whitewashed walls and a bouquet of fresh flowers in a vase on the shelf. Then there are the horrendous ones I don’t need to describe. Conditions depend mainly on the campers rather than on campground owners; only an ignorant person or slob steals toilet paper or leaves it on the floor, fails to clean up any messes, tosses trash in the toilet, or leaves the lid up on a vault toilet.

Because the conditions are unpredictable, I always prepare for the worst. I take along some toilet paper and a soapy washcloth or hand sanitizer to clean my hands. (It would be nice to take bleach and paper towels, too, but that would raise hob with the decomposition.)

Of course, a lot of these problems can be avoided by going to an expensive RV resort that has bathrooms with real plumbing, but usually we prefer cheaper, less formal places—even if it means taking a chance on the toilets. Besides, you haven’t lived until you have had your butt frozen!

ARE SCIENCE TEXTBOOKS OBSOLETE?

Will the iPad and other electronic tablets replace textbooks in science classrooms? Many people think so, not only those who make or sell the devices, but also some educators who believe textbooks are insufficient for modern students.

Certainly textbooks have a lot to answer for. The very word “textbookish” is pejorative, implying dullness and stilted language. The books are inevitably out of date by the time they are published, and much more so after five years (a typical replacement period). Unlike the World Wide Web, they have limited content. Most textbooks present science more as a body of knowledge rather than as a continuing process, so inquiry by students may be discouraged. Only a few scientists can be authors of any single book (though many may be involved as consultants). A teacher who wants to excite students and help them to carry out individual projects and explore topics in depth may find a tablet a more useful tool than a textbook.

Using the Web  presents other problems, though. Almost anyone who has tried to research a disease to learn its causes and treatment has been frustrated by trying to get a clear picture. Some information is so simplistic it is useless; other information is so technical the average layperson can’t understand it. Some sites are reliable sources, but others are filled with misinformation or dangerous advice. Anyone trying to learn about a subject on the Web gets little help with the stepwise progression textbooks provide. (For instance, can anyone who is ignorant of basic chemistry understand the structure of DNA?) In the time it can take to research one science topic on the Web, a student can read an entire chapter in a textbook.

Having spent half a century as a textbook writer and editor, I confess a fondness for real books. They can provide the inexperienced teacher with a curriculum and needed background information, and the student with relevant labs and field work. If created by scientists and science educators, they can successfully present the current thinking in a field. However, textbooks do have drawbacks that can be serious. If I were teaching, I would use a textbook from a reliable curriculum project, such as those sponsored by the National Science Foundation, for planning the curriculum and for assigned readings. To provide the latest information on a topic or to help students carry out individual projects, I would make use of the Web. Within a few years, tablets may be as ubiquitous as cell phones are now, but at present “traditional” computers can serve the purpose. This combination of textbooks and Web can give teachers and students the best of both worlds.

SEEING THE ELEPHANT

When nineteenth-century prospectors and travelers came to California, they wrote home about “seeing the elephant.” They were referring to seeing for themselves the wonders that had been described to them, and that were often disappointing. We recently did our version of seeing the elephant, at the end of a hike in Anza-Borrego State Park, which is the largest in the California state park system. Brochures at the visitor’s center referred to elephant trees, which sounded intriguing enough to justify a hike in the desert.

The hiking trail itself was only about a mile long, and not difficult. However, we first had to park about a mile from the trailhead, so we walked about three miles altogether. Though this was in winter, the sun was bright, and there was a strong wind. Trudging through the sand, I thought, these elephant trees had better be good. My companion was happier, commenting blithely on the blue sky and puffy white clouds.

There was only one surviving tree of the original “herd” of trees. On the path toward it, we had seen the usual desert cacti, ocotillos, and other plants, with information about adaptations to the desert climate. The tree itself was more interesting; unlike most desert plants, it had bright green leaves and a thick gray bark. The reason for its name is unclear; perhaps the branches look a bit like elephant trunks, or the bark resembles elephant skin. The Native Americans who once lived here revered the elephant tree, using the red sap as a medicine. 

The walk was good exercise, and the tree at its end was appealing. We had seen the elephant, and it was good. Sometimes we are not so lucky; some trails are too steep or treacherous for me. Often, though, we do reach our goal for the day, and we will continue to do so as long as we are able. This is a wonderful life!

MISJUDGING THE FORTIES

The 1940s seem like ancient history now to much of the population. To me, they seem like yesterday. I was born in 1937, near the end of the Depression, and the long-ago attack on Pearl Harbor that propelled the United States into World War II is one of my early memories. The war years, and the country’s gradual financial recovery from the Depression, shaped my childhood.

About ten years ago I decided to write my memoirs, thinking in my self-centered way that I had something to contribute to history. They were self-published as Recollecting the Forties. Writing the book turned out to be a painful, cathartic experience for me. Under the guise of being honest or humorous, I criticized even people I cared about—my mother, teachers, and various people in the small town where we lived.

Perhaps we grow more tolerant as we age, or maybe my memory is failing. Whatever the reason, I feel much less judgmental now. So what if some people behaved neurotically because they were over-religious? Most of us are neurotic in one way or another. Was I really damaged by the teacher who taught by her nineteenth-century standards? Why did I disparage my mother’s housekeeping skills? She was a wonderful mother, and housework is rather low on my own priority list.

Though I regret much of what I wrote, my general conclusion is unchanged: The forties were a time of much inhibition, poverty, and ignorance, and I am happy to be living in a more enlightened era. However, there is much to be said for the frugality (albeit necessary) and other positive aspects of that decade. We need to “recollect” much from the forties, while staying free of its destructive qualities.

BEING A CAREGIVER

How did this happen to me? I never planned to take care of anyone else. After years of working in editorial offices, I earned a PhD from Stanford and set up my own business. The Stone Cottage was a writing and editing service for educational publishers; I specialized in biology, but worked on nearly any program for science education. My chemical engineer husband was self-sufficient, and we had no children. We seemed to be doing everything right.

In the mid-eighties my husband, who already had type 2 diabetes, had a heart attack. I stopped working for a few weeks to help him recover. Around the same time, my widowed mother decided to move from Florida to California to be near us. Again, I stopped working for a while to drive her and some of her belongings across the country and get her settled in a house she bought. Eventually, our lives settled down and I returned to my writing and editing.

As it turned out, my husband’s health worsened greatly over the years. Though he was well for long periods, every year or so he would have a medical crisis and enter the hospital for a while. By the time he died in 2003, he had had a sextuple bypass and several other cardiac surgeries, a cervical laminectomy, and amputations of a leg and some toes; and was on dialysis. His medical bills came to more than a million dollars, so even though he was well insured, we had to use our retirement savings to pay our portion. I cut down greatly on working to care for him, adding to our financial difficulties.

During the same period, my mother became unable to live alone, so we bought a larger home with an in-law apartment where she could live. I was the only caregiver for both her and my husband, doing the cooking, laundry, and other household chores.

After my husband died, my attention focused on my mother, who was in her nineties. More and more, she needed my help with bathing and other routine daily activities. In 2005 she entered an assisted living facility, and though I visited her almost daily, my life became much easier. When she died at the age of 101, my role as a caregiver ended.

My slide into caregiving was gradual, as it is for many caregivers. At first it was a matter of taking my mother shopping, occasionally rushing my husband to the hospital, and generally being available when they needed my help. Over the years, though, caregiving took over my life. I had little time for building a network of women friends or pursuing my individual interests.

Of course, in a sense I was lucky. Having a home office, I could combine working and caregiving when the projects were small enough and the deadlines were reasonable. (Any freelance editor will find that amusing.) If I could do it again, perhaps I would hire more help, so I could stay active professionally. As it was, I lost touch with what was happening both in science and in publishing, and failed to learn the new techniques that are needed for editors today. Though I have continued to write, I have done so only sporadically. Geriatrics  will probably be my last full-length book.

Would I do it again, given the cost to my own life? Yes! Though professional caregivers can be excellent, only a family member can provide the ill or aging with all the loving help and shared memories they need. Caring for my husband and mother gave me a sense of fulfillment I have never felt otherwise; during those years I became much closer to them, and found myself becoming less self-centered. We all benefited from our situation.

However, I would reach out more for help. Like many caregivers, I was naïve about the financial aid that is available. I might have been paid at least a small amount for my time, as my staying home made it possible for my husband to remain out of a nursing home. We probably could have received Medi-Cal benefits, but assumed that because we had a nice home and car, we would be turned down. Instead, we struggled to stay afloat. A social worker asked me once whether we needed financial help; why was I too proud to say yes? Caregivers’ support groups were available, and I should have made time to join one. The Unitarian women’s circle I found after my husband’s death was a wonderful source of friendship and support, but I could have found it years earlier. If it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes one to care for those near the end of life and for their caregivers.

WALKING—FROM THE SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK TO THE FORESTS OF CALIFORNIA

The El Dorado National Forest stretches across thousands of acres, where varied rocks and water supplies support all manner of conifers—pines, cedars, redwoods, firs—as well as oaks, maples. and madrones. I could roam happily anywhere along its trails in northern California and Nevada, but most often I take the easy, paved Cedar Park trail. That park is in the portion of the forest that borders my companion’s land, and I can reach it by climbing up the hill just behind the house. Here at home I can see black-tailed deer, jackrabbits, and even coyotes. Sometimes we hear the scream of a cougar from across the valley, but have never seen one. Bears, too, are fortunately rare here, though one wanders in from the hills once in a while.

Today I climbed the hill through a shower of golden oak leaves. This is the loveliest of seasons in California; autumn is giving way to winter, and we have already had one brief snowstorm. The hill itself is the only difficult part of the walk; the grade is steep, obstructed by rocks and manzanita, and rattlesnakes occasionally sunbathe there. Once safely at the top of the hill, though, I can easily follow the mile-long circular path around to the overlook. From there I can look many miles to the east and see the snow-covered peaks of the Sierra.

The first time I walked the Cedar Park trail, I was highly amused—it’s wide and paved, with benches at intervals where walkers can rest. Hiking in New York’s Central Park, or San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, is much more strenuous! However, if you want a difficult hike, there are always places to find it. Having this trail near at foot is a pleasure.

The spot where I enter the trail is near one bench, so I may stop to check my bootlaces, drink a little water, and listen to the sounds of the forest. Sometimes I hear only jays, crows, and yellowthroat warblers; at other times, there may be distant traffic noise from Sly Park Road. Walking down a hill, I may meet another walker or two, but the trail is never crowded.

Trails around lakes and through forests have always appealed to me, but I didn’t have easy access to them until moving away from Alameda. Here my companion and I can roam in our own forest at will, or drive for a couple of hours farther up into the mountains. In hot weather, particularly, we may drive up a few thousand feet to Silver Lake, where there are pleasant campgrounds with trees and water. Our favorite trail here follows a creek where large boulders create cascades.

Many people pitch tents at the Silver Lake campground, and before getting the RV, so did we. But one night a bear wandered through our campsite, too close to the tent for comfort, and we decided it was time for something more substantial than a tent. The rig we chose is a Winnebago View, a “just right” vehicle that is small enough to drive nearly anywhere, but large enough for everything we need. Only the hardiest tent campers can stay on the road more than a week or so, but in the View we can travel for months at a time. Suddenly a new collection of state and national parks, Forest Service campgrounds, and other delights were available.

The best parts of the national parks are the hiking trails, where usually only a short walk makes it possible to leave the pack and find communion only with the natural world. When we spent a few days in Yosemite one January, snow and ice kept most visitors off the trails, but we drove the View to the base of Yosemite Falls at dawn one day, and had that popular trail almost to ourselves. The air was cold and still, except for the cracking of ice at the peak of the falls, and no animal tracks dotted the snow. We  walked in silence between snow-covered rocks and across a small stone bridge over the Merced River.

Appealing as the national parks are, I like less-known places even better. We often stay in Forest Service campgrounds, where we may have a source of water, but no electricity or other conveniences. Most campers in these primitive campgrounds want to get away from it all as much as we do, so we seldom have to contend with the sound of generators or noisy parties. Occasionally we may have an entire campground to ourselves, which is pure bliss.

Walking on the Forest Service trails is usually an adventure, and not always a pleasant one. We have coped with mosquitoes, mud, and other hazards. The hiker feels very alone there, with no friendly park ranger coming along to give a feeling of security, and I suppose the trails could be dangerous. They seem safer than many city streets, though, and offer a glimpse of the wild beauty explorers found in the West centuries ago.

The most dangerous walks I’ve taken were not in forests, but in large cities. Only a foolhardy woman would stride along a street in Chicago or New York with a purse swinging at her side, or while wearing conspicuous, expensive jewelry. City walking has its own appeal, though. When I moved to New York in 1970, when it was still possible for a young editor to afford a decent apartment, I lived on East 88^th St., not far from Gracie Mansion. Being unable to see more than a patch of sky gave me a claustrophobic feeling, and so I often walked along the East River to gaze out over the water. When I discovered that taking the subway or bus to my job at Random House in the rush hours was simply horrendous, I began walking to work. It took about 40 minutes each way, and was very enjoyable. Starting in my neighborhood, I could look in the windows of German and Hungarian restaurants and bakeries. As I continued through the eighties and seventies, tall apartment buildings gave way to more and more shops; in the sixties and fifties, to even taller office buildings.

At 50^th St. and Third Avenue, I reached Random House. All along the way I had seen fascinating people, art galleries, shops filled with crafts, florists, and books galore. For a young woman from the Middle West it was an overwhelming experience.

The daily long walk kept me healthy and slim, and taught me the value of daily walking in whatever environment I find myself. I am in my seventies now, yet go for long walks whenever possible. The idea of joining a gym for exercise seems laughable. (I do have a stationary bike for use in snowy or rainy weather.) If everyone walked to work or school, or even to a bus stop or train station, it might be a major step in fighting the obesity epidemic.

PARADISE ON EARTH

Regrettably, we were able to spend only a couple of days at Arches National Park on our return from New Mexico in 2010. Driving into the park at sunset, we gazed at balanced rocks, towering hoodoos, and natural arches glowing in the russet and orange light.

The next morning we took the wrong hiking trail by a lucky mistake, so we avoided the hordes of tourists near Landscape Arch and Delicate Arch, and walked to Broken Arch  by ourselves. Being alone in windswept canyon country is important for fully appreciating its stark beauty. Edward Abbey was happy when he spent two seasons here by himself as a park ranger, but dreaded the inevitable time when broad, paved roads would be constructed, allowing many tourists—like us—to invade the park in their RVs and SUVs. In fact, he felt no new roads should be built in the national parks, and visitors should walk most of the time.

Though Arches and other national parks in the Southwest are spectacularly beautiful, they strike me too much as being Earth’s skeleton, providing structure without nourishment. The parks I love most are rich in water, the blood of Gaia. Yosemite, Crater Lake, and Yellowstone glisten with waterfalls, cataracts, and lakes or rivers that bring water and nutrients to surrounding plants and animals.

Even Abbey needed to leave the desert at times and spend time in forests and near water. Before Glen Canyon was dammed to create Lake Powell, he and a friend rafted down the Colorado River, exploring it as few since John Wesley Powell had done. Abbey’s elegiac description of now-gone Glen Canyon makes it sound like paradise—in fact, he said in Desert Solitaire that wilderness is “all the paradise we need.”

We still have that earthly paradise, in spite of the crowded campgrounds and gift shops that spoil parts of the national parks. It is still possible to pull on a pair of hiking boots, walk for half an hour or so, and find ourselves in wilderness. As Jefferson and others said in another context, though, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. We need not only to support the national parks, but also to defend their wildness.