WINTER SOLSTICE

Today is December 21. The shortest days of the year are past, and from now on they will gradually grow longer. It will be good to see  the sun early in the morning again, instead of this dismal dark sky.

I’m pretty much a morning person. In summer I love getting up early, seeing the new day dawning before most people are awake. It’s harder in winter, though. When the windows are dead black, a wind is blowing, and the house is cold, staying in bed is too tempting.

When I was going to school or working full time, I sometimes sat down at my desk before the sun rose. I could think clearly then, uninterrupted by whatever dark events and thoughts clouded my mind later. One spring, for a class in animal behavior I even went to a nearby swamp at sunrise every day to make a study of redwings’ courtship behavior. It was a magical time of day, with pale golden light filtering through the trees, and only the birds for company.

A few years later, I found myself crossing San Francisco Bay in a ferry boat before dawn a few times a week. The moon and stars shone in an inky sky above the bay. By the time I reached The City, the sun had risen, illuminating the Transamerica Pyramid and Coit Tower.  I had drunk some coffee and read the morning Chronicle, ready for whatever the day would bring.

Today is all too short, and I am much older. The sun rose at 7:20, and will set at 4:48. Less than ten hours of light! I woke early in the darkness, and turned on some holiday lights while breakfasting. Tonight I will light  a candle on the dinner table. I will delay the night.

FED UP!

I’m tired of all the grousing about Obamacare, all the insistence on gun owners’ rights under the Second Amendment, all the right-wing nastiness in general. What has happened in this country to common sense and compassion?

Those who object to contributing to health care that doesn’t immediately benefit them are simply deluding themselves. Do they not realize that at any moment they may be diagnosed with a serious disease, or be in a traffic accident requiring major surgery? If that happens, they will need a great deal of  money—far more than most people have available—to pay the medical bills. That is what insurance is for.

For many years, I paid for health insurance that included obstetrical benefits, though I was unable to have children. Was that fair? Of course it was; when I have occasionally required medical care for other reasons, the health insurance that others pay into has helped me pay for that care. Similarly, for a long period when my late husband was young and very healthy, he paid into the system. When he later had the heart disease and diabetes that required a sextuple bypass and the amputation of his leg, the bills were partly paid by insurance.

This sharing of responsibility extends to other social obligations, such as everyone’s paying for schools and police protection.  Such sharing is part of the social contract that makes a civilized society possible.

Unfortunately, it sometimes seems doubtful that our society is civilized. A year after the massacre of small children in Newtown, there is little progress in limiting the availability of guns and ammunition. Instead, many states have actually weakened restrictions on them.

Even John Boehner has spoken out about how the far right has hampered normal government operations.  Perhaps if Boehner and other Republicans can rein in the Tea Party-backed representatives, there is a chance that Congress will recover its sanity. I am not very hopeful, but it’s possible.

THE COMMA, AND ROBERT FROST

The Robert Frost Stone House museum

When we traveled through Vermont this fall, I was eager to see the stone house where Robert Frost—one of my favorite poets--lived in the 1920s. The house is now a small museum, with family pictures and enlargements of selections from Frost’s books and letters  covering the walls. Though not as spectacular as some writers’ homes, the museum is a feast for any Frost enthusiast.

One piece of correspondence especially fascinated me. It was Frost’s caustic letter to his editor regarding “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” that poem beloved by thousands of us. The editor had added commas to Frost’s original line, “The woods are lovely dark and deep,”  resulting in the familiar “lovely, dark, and deep” we have all seen in the published poem. Frost was obviously infuriated by the change. As a rather comma-happy editor myself, I could imagine myself automatically adding commas in the same places, and felt some sympathy for the editor. But Frost was right, of course—both the rhythm of the poem and the connotation of the line were changed by the added commas.

Coincidentally, the issue of Harper’s that came out while I visited Frost’s home contained a short story by Joyce Carol Oates, “Lovely, Dark, and Deep.” (It did not mention the commas.) Though clearly fiction, it was a slightly veiled sharp attack on Frost’s character. Using various sources, Oates quoted Frost’s children and associates about how he had mistreated those around him.  It is impossible to tell how much of Oates’s material is true, and how much is fictional. Whether Frost is as awful as he seems in this short story (which may well be true, from what I have read in other places) or not cannot be known with certainty. Because I find much meaning in his poetry, I hope he was a finer person than Oates pictured him.                                       

This lack of clarity troubles me, not just in regard to this story, but about combining fiction and history in general. What might be libelous in a nonfiction article is not in a short story, where the author is protected from accountability.

RECORDING NATURE

So many RVers, especially full-timers, have creative hobbies that they continue on the road. Some people knit, do woodworking, or absorb themselves in other crafts.  Some devise elaborate recipes for RV-friendly dishes that can be taken to potlucks at rallies. I envy them; such skills have always escaped me (my head is usually buried in a book). While we are traveling I do continue blogging and other writing, but that is rather abstract until it results in actual publication. I’d like to do something tangible.

Being a member of the California Native Plant Society, I recently read their curriculum guide Opening the World through Nature Journaling, which helps teachers integrate science, art, and literature. One section in particular appealed to me:  instructions for sketching and writing in a nature journal. This could be what I’m seeking as a craft for myself. 

Before photography became possible, naturalists like Darwin and Linnaeus drew accurate and appealing sketches in their field notes. Even today, biologists often find sketches indispensable for making complete notes in the field. 

As a college student, I enjoyed both a basic art class and the botany and zoology classes where I drew hundreds of cat muscles, chick embryos, flower parts, and so on. Though I never became an artist, I learned to use sketching as an essential tool for observing plants and animals closely. During my years as a biology textbook writer and editor, I made many rough sketches for professional artists to use in illustrating everything from starfishes to redwoods.

It is one thing to draw and paint in an editorial office having lots of space and tools; it is quite another to do so in a compact RV. Luckily, the curriculum guide emphasized using colored pencils and small pads of paper. All my journaling materials fit in a plastic pouch no larger than an iPad, and I can easily slip the pouch into a daypack with my binoculars and water bottle.

Living on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, I never lack for living things to sketch near home. We have oaks, pines, and deer; even the rare bear may show up (though in that case I probably would abandon my sketching). On the road, the possibilities are even more inviting. We often see living things we want to identify, and take photos of them, but a detailed annotated sketch can provide much more helpful info. When I have a chance later to check a reference book, I can look at my journal to find out whether a plant’s leaves are opposite or alternate, or how many stripes are on an insect’s abdomen—information that may not be obvious in a photo, no matter how attractive the photo is.

It has been many years since my college art class, and I doubt that my colored-pencil sketches will ever be considered works of art. They will be useful for careful observation, though, and the journal will be a concrete result of my new craft. 

THE FULL-TIMERS

Coming home after a few months on the road seems very luxurious. I can relax in a bubble bath, putter with flowers that the deer haven’t eaten in my absence, lie in a bed without climbing a ladder to reach it. I can sign up for a class, attend book club meetings, catch up on local politics. For a while, I want to stay home forever.

Soon, though, life seems boring. I long to see something new outside my window every morning, visit a park or museum I’ve never seen before, meet some new people having kindred interests. I want to get in the RV and go back on the road.

Lately we have cautiously been toying with the possibility of becoming full-timers. According to some Web sites, there are about a million people in the U.S. who are on the road nearly all the time, traveling from one campsite to another every few weeks or oftener. Could we manage it?

We met one retired couple who have been full-timing for the past ten years. After selling their large home, they bought a fairly large motorhome and added a small car as a “toad.” They established a permanent address in a state where there is no income tax, and where their daughter lives. They can visit—and leave—easily. A mail forwarding service takes care of sending mail to them when needed.

Like us, this couple cares deeply about state and national parks. They spend most of the year doing volunteer work in various parks, a few weeks at a time. (There is always a limit in the amount of time a volunteer can stay in one place; the campsite cannot become a permanent residence.)  This gives them free camping privileges and a very small allowance (necessary because food in the parks tends to be quite expensive). During periods when they are not volunteering, they stay in a variety of RV campgrounds and resorts. They seem very contented with their way of life.

The chance to do volunteer work of our choosing is one of the most appealing aspects of full-timing. As retired educators, we are in a position to be of some help with teaching or writing, but local opportunities are not always available or a good fit for us. If we were able to move around more, we could fairly easily find something we really want to do.

Gardening at home can be enjoyable, especially with native plants, but in a national park it could be even better; we could work with others to maintain a natural landscape for everyone’s enjoyment. I once saw a woman working at a Kentucky state park wearing a stylish gardening hat, lineny pants, and so on; she was the picture of a wealthy suburban matron gardening for pleasure. But there she was, happily digging in the dirt and helping contribute to the park’s garden rather than her own. As full-timers, we could do that also.

Long-term learning is important to both of us; we spend a great deal of time in the local library, and depend on it for books and magazines as well as occasional lectures and movies. That might be a problem if we were full-timing; perhaps we could get temporary library cards or invest in a mobile device for downloading books. Even in a large RV, though, we could not have the personal library we inevitably accumulate.

Speaking of books, perhaps the greatest sacrifice I would have to make is giving up my home office. For many years, I have been able to surround myself with the books and tools I need as a writer and editor. In finishing the final draft of a reference book a few years ago while we were traveling across the country, I found it extremely difficult to meet my deadlines. Even now, though I avoid making commitments to publishers, and do more blogging than any other writing, I can scarcely imagine not having a permanent office somewhere.

Some full-timers miss having wall space for displaying art and photos. We have already disposed of the large paintings that could be a problem, and we can look at our thousands of digital photos on a laptop computer. A small bulletin board holds some 3 x 5 photos and sketches.

Financially, the decision seems fairly easy. Even if we traded in our beloved View on a larger RV, which would probably be essential, we would spend no more as full-timers than we do now in a permanent home where we must pay property taxes, state income taxes, and many other expenses. If we remained in the West, we could find plenty of desirable campgrounds within a few hundred miles, and that would hold down the cost of gasoline. On longer trips, we could simply drive fewer miles each day.

Even emotionally—the greatest danger, perhaps—it seems like a good choice for us. We are not so involved in our local town that leaving it would be difficult, and we could always return to visit friends. We could become part of a larger “community beyond these walls,” as one church puts it. The park rangers, fellow RVers, and others we meet would make up much of our new community. There is also an extremely supportive community of RVers. The View-Navion site on Yahoo has helped us for the past few years with using our View, and we have met some of the members in person at rallies and on the road. If we have to get a larger rig, I will greatly miss that site! Many blogs about full-timing look appealing; one I have found good is http://wheelingit.wordpress.com. Joe and Vicky Kieva, who wrote a monthly column for the Good Sam magazine until they retired in 2012, are already well known to most RVers. Their blog is at http://rvknowhow.blogspot.com/. They must have taken retirement seriously, as they have not updated their posts, but the archived posts are still available.

I do have some qualms about the long-term outcome of full-timing, especially since neither of us has children to help us. If one of us becomes ill, will it be impossible to find medical care? What about assisted living when we can no longer drive? Until we learn more and feel more comfortable with the decision, it seems more sensible to maintain a home as a permanent residence. That can become very expensive, but if eventually we decide not to full-time, we will be grateful to have kept a home of bricks and mortar rather than one of fiberglass and metal.

THAT YOUNGER GENERATION

Recent magazine articles have shown some interesting statistics about the millenials. Compared with their parents, young people are driving less and postponing having children for a longer time. Perhaps surprisingly, a smaller percentage of them see themselves as doing anything positive for the environment.

I beg to differ with their self-assessment. While they may be unconscious of their contribution, the constraints imposed by population growth and pollution controls have forced them to have a lifestyle differing from their parents’. By default, they are helping the environment in some ways.

As recently as 20 years ago, getting a driver’s license was an important rite of passage for every teenager. Being able to drive meant freedom! Having a driver’s license and a car, you could get away from home some of the time, go out with your friends, and explore the world without continual adult supervision.  Today, much exploration occurs online, and friends are in near-permanent communication on their cell phones and computers. Driving is much less necessary. Young people even seem to prefer public transportation if it is reasonably priced and convenient. The environmental benefits are obvious: Fewer resources are used for building and fueling cars, and fewer pollutants are being produced. The millenials can be very proud of this change, even if they see it as a personal choice or a necessary evil.

The millenials are staying single longer, too, and living with roommates or their parents for a longer time than we did. By postponing parenthood, which usually leads to having smaller families, they are helping control the population growth that is a major factor in environmental decline. By living in smaller apartments or homes, they are taking up less space on our crowded planet.

Unfortunately, the choices that many of us older people made years ago have resulted in the pollution and crowding that have led to the millenials’ need to be more conserving. We started driving cars as soon as possible, married young, had children in our early twenties, bought homes at the first opportunity and filled them with expensive appliances and furniture. We wasted resources and used fossil fuels with abandon. During the dot-com years, some of us built disgusting McMansions (in fact, some of us are still doing so). We literally ate “high on the hog,” consuming large quantities of the meat that has helped lead to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity; and that required huge investments in agriculture. Many young people today have chosen to become vegetarians rather than imitate us. In that respect as well as others, they are contributing far more to the environment than most of us did.

I do have some concerns about young people. For instance, their dependence on technology in place of direct contact with other people and places seems bad for their emotional health, even if it may benefit the planet. They seem narcissistic, though perhaps young people always seem that way to their elders. On balance, the millenials seem capable of managing Earth better than we did. I wish them well.

FEAR OF KAYAKING

I enjoy being on the water--in ferry boats and similar stable vehicles, that is. Even rowboats and canoes are enjoyable providing the water is smooth. But I am really spooked by kayaks.

When did it start? Probably back in the eighties, when I was persuaded to go whitewater rafting in Colorado. The raft trip itself through rocks and cascades was terrifying enough, but the sight of a kayak turning upside down in the rapids, and the man in it desperately trying to right himself with an eskimo roll, panicked me.

A couple of years ago my partner cajoled me into getting an inflatable two-person kayak that we could take with us in the RV. It travels under the dinette table quite well, almost leaving room for our feet. In theory it is the perfect boat for RVers, being light and portable. In practice it is my bête noire. I have always found an excuse to stay out of it, encouraging Thane to paddle about alone. (He has greatly enjoyed it.)

This couldn’t last forever. Recently we were staying at a lovely streamside campground in Maine, with a small boat dock right next to our camp site. The weather was fine, we had nothing else to do, and I could think of no excuse. So, we inflated the kayak and climbed in. Or, I should say Thane climbed in, and I started to. The kayak put out to sea while I clung to a post on the dock until my grip loosened and I fell into the water. Luckily, the water was shallow, but it was muddy and cold. Never again!

 

THE TWO FACES OF MAINE

Let me say this first: I love Maine. Until our current trip to the east coast, I had spent virtually no time in the state. My hazy picture of it was based on textbook descriptions of the “spruce–moose biome,” Sierra Club photos, L.L. Bean catalogs, and Sarah Orne Jewett’s Country of the Pointed Firs. I knew that George Bush the Elder and his family spent their summers in Kennebunkport, along with other wealthy families who had summered there since the nineteenth century. Perhaps the most widespread image of Maine is that of fall color, of scarlet maples mixed with deep green pines and silver birches.

We have wanted for years to travel to Maine in the fall, and this year we finally managed to do so. Being an AstroVIP with the National Park Service, Thane planned to help a little with setting up telescopes for Acadia National Park’s annual Night Sky Festival, and I would accompany him to do anything I could. The program takes place during the last few days of September, peak time for fall color.

Our visit to Acadia—unfortunately cut short by the Republicans’ taking it hostage during the current government crisis—confirmed that picture. We spent several days touring Acadia and taking part in the Night Sky Festival, then drove south. The entire rocky coast is as beautiful as I could have imagined, with hundreds of inlets from the Atlantic leading to boreal forests. Much of the inland countryside, too, resembled the rural scenes in Andrew Wyeth’s paintings. Even many of the dilapidated barns looked beautiful.

There is another Maine, though, one not shown in the tourist brochures or in any novels I’ve read. When we drove through the north–central part of the state, we saw a poor area rivaling many urban slums. I had expected some picturesque poverty, based on news reports—neglected homes, unpainted barns, and so on, and those were certainly present. But, much of the countryside seems deserted, with old homes and barns collapsing and subsiding into the earth. Where did everyone go? What really appalled me was the trash surrounding so many places that had apparently been simply abandoned. How can anyone treat their environment  that way? Have they lost all self-respect?

Life in Maine has never been easy; farmers had to work hard to make a living from the rocky soil in bad weather. But, they managed to do so in the past. Has the soil been exhausted by poor farming practices? Has the logging that once helped support farming ceased? I suspect that many farmers blame a government that they feel is too liberal, and environmentalists like us, for somehow taking away their right to use the land as they see fit. (Certainly we heard complaints about limits on hunting, and about gun control in general.) That doesn’t explain the sad, neglectful picture we saw. 

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE WALMART

 

It was nearly midnight on Saturday, but firecrackers were still exploding near us. We had made the mistake of staying overnight too near a college, and some boozy fraternity boys were celebrating something or other. Another time, a noisy football game was starting up in the parking lot in the middle of the night.

As this shows, staying overnight at Walmart—sometimes called “blacktop boondocking”—can be annoying or even hazardous.  There are many other reasons as well to stay elsewhere: traffic on nearby streets is often noisy, there are no campground showers, and even the toilets may not be available before 8:00 AM. As an environmentalist, I have been extremely unhappy with the expansion of big-box stores, too. Why should I take advantage of the parking spaces they provide?

However, it is nearly impossible to resist the many plusses of parking overnight at Walmart. First, it is free! Camping for more than a few nights, even in low-cost campgrounds, can become expensive. The ubiquitous Walmart stores are often easy to find, and the parking lots tend to be more level than those in campgrounds. (We grow very tired of leveling our rig with leveling blocks.) The bright lights and security at Walmarts protect us as well as the stores. Shopping for common items there is easy; I have sometimes found RV supplies that are identical to those at Camping World at a lower price.

So, we often find ourselves at Camp Walmart. Usually the landscape leaves something to be desired, but occasionally it is attractive. The store in Scranton is on a bluff overlooking a valley; I remember watching the moon rise as lights were coming on in the houses below us. Some other stores are near wooded areas, and by careful positioning we can sit at the dinette and look out  at that view.

Perhaps our worst experience was in a store near our home in California. We had had some repair work done late in the day, and to avoid driving home at night we stopped at Walmart. We checked for signs forbidding overnight parking, found none, and fell asleep. In the middle of the night we heard a commotion just outside, and some loud talking in Spanish. Peeking out showed us a crane with some workers high up on it painting a lamppost and hanging one of those “No Overnight Parking” signs on it.  We played possum and hoped they would not drip paint on our rig. Luckily, they did not, and in the morning we made our escape.

Though many of the Walmarts seem to welcome RVers, some do forbid staying overnight. Municipal ordinances, rather than Walmart, may be responsible. The store that seemed most adamant about this issue is the one near Gettysburg, where huge signs warned of dire consequences that included being towed away. We paid attention and stayed at an expensive campground instead.

The infrequent antipathy toward RVers may have something to do with the boorish behavior of some of us. We have watched, incredulous, as people have spread huge Class A motorhomes across six or seven parking spaces. Others have unrolled their awnings, unfolded their lawn chairs, and barbecued in the parking lot. People like that may cause so much irritation that all of us are banned, which would be a shame.

We try instead to be as unobtrusive as possible, even after checking with the management to make sure we are welcome. That means staying in travel mode—not putting out the slide or raising the TV antenna, and looking like shoppers rather than like campers. We always buy some groceries or other items, and may have breakfast in the store if a McDonald’s is in it. Our small motorhome easily fits in two spaces.

Yes, we would prefer staying in national forests and parks, with intermittent stops at places having hookups for electricity when necessary. Walmart helps fill in the gaps between more desirable places, though. It’s a bit like McDonald’s—not too helpful for the environment and a possible contributor to the obesity epidemic, but a cheap source of clean toilets and orange juice.

 

 

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

The bag of recyclables was in the middle of the aisle again, and I kicked it in frustration. After being on the road for a month in the RV, I was tired of the inevitable clutter and lack of enough storage space. At home, we have a cabinet that is dedicated to various recyclables, and another that holds trash.

Much as I enjoy RV travel, I must admit there are times when I long to get off the road for a while, to return to a better-ordered life. Though I am far from a perfect housekeeper, at home I do have more space for storing things, and more time for housework. The laundry doesn’t pile up (and certainly doesn’t sit in a duffel bag in the shower until it gets moldy, as can happen when we are traveling!). I do the dishes every morning, rather than leaving them in the sink to conserve water. I’d like more opportunities for personal care, too. I’d like to shampoo my hair on the same day when I need to, and take a shower whenever I get dirty.

Another thing I miss is the El Dorado County Library, where I belong to an enjoyable book club and hang out often to read magazines and newspapers as well as to check out books and videos. Not having yet invested in an e-book reader, I sometimes run out of reading material when we travel—and for me, that is a major problem. There simply isn’t space in our RV for more than a few paperbacks.

Keeping up with world events on the road is difficult, too. (I’d be lost without NPR.) Unless I have wi-fi on a Tuesday, I am liable to miss The New York Times’ weekly Science Times. Finding the print version would be even better, but that often isn’t possible. At home, I would simply walk down the hill to the local newsstand to buy it.

I miss the sociability of life at home, too. I’m far from being a party animal, but do enjoy talking with neighbors, salespersons, and so on. It’s nice to chat with people I meet often in everyday life. Because of our travels, I see too little of friends and family in California.

On the other hand, one advantage of RV life is the opportunity to visit old friends in other parts of the country. Many people of our age seem to travel very little, and so the RV can take me to them. I can visit my old college campus, go back to cities where I once lived. In spite of the irritating aspects of living for months in an RV, at this time of my life it seems preferable to staying at home. And so, I hope to go on roving about for as long as possible, until old age or illness prevents it. There will likely be time enough for staying home in a tidy house and remembering with nostalgia what it was like to travel in an RV.