A response to the old fat man's comment yesterday

There's always more to be seen by clicking the pics.

This is where the Durango & Silverton narrow gauge railroad parks when it's in Silverton.

Since I write haphazardly and without much thought given to what I'm saying, sometimes I have to clarify what I said but didn't mean to say or change what I should've said but said something else instead. So in response to the old fat man's comment yesterday, I've come up with this.

When I was just an RVer and had not yet graduated to full time, virtually every place I went, I went for a reason, whether it was to climb to the top of Stone Mountain in Georgia. [it's not that hard you just walk up the backside], visit relatives in another state, or fish in a lake that I fished when I was a kid, [Using the same Mitchell 300 spinning reel that I've had since I was 12 or 13 years old] every place I went had a purpose, which I believe is the way every RVer travels most of the time.

But when I started full-timing, I was coming off a period in my life where even though I was retired, I was still involved in buying and selling property, which meant I had to be places at certain times. So my travels, which were part business and part pleasure, required that I sometimes had schedules and or deadlines.

When I went full-time, I was pretty much done with schedules, plans, and deadlines. I wanted to be completely free to go when and where I wanted, which can only be reliably accomplished by not having to make reservations at campgrounds, which means that boondocking most of the time was going to be a necessity.

So I started my full-time traveling life, going places just to be in a new location. Because having a REASON for going someplace might mean I had to be someplace at a specific time. For instance, if you want to be on the Texas Gulf coast when the King Mackerel are running, which is undoubtedly a good reason for being there, you have to make plans on being there at a certain time of year, and I was opposed to plans and being anywhere at a certain time.

So after living that way for about five years, I have gotten over some of my moving just to be moving shtick and having someplace fun to go sounds like something I would like to do for a while. Now that doesn't mean I'm going to be sitting in one place for long. Self-isolating at the Pima County Fairgrounds last Spring for as long as I did reminded me that I don't enjoy sitting in one place for very long. But it did show me that being in a place where there are many enjoyable things to do makes sitting in one place more palatable. But how many places besides the Pima County Fairgrounds am I going to find a drag-strip, a race car oval, I motocross track, a gun range, and weekly events at the Fairgrounds, all of which are almost within walking distance.

So yes, I realize that for the last five years, I've been just about the only RVer in the entire country that wasn't going places for a specific reason, but I do enjoy wandering aimlessly with little or no thought to where or when, and have no doubt that will continue. Mostly for the reason that it's true freedom, and I need some real freedom every once in a while, that enables me to make a decision every morning whether or not I want to stay where I'm at or go someplace else.

Fortunately, I'm able to do both, depending of course, on circumstances that may be beyond my control. But I can see myself staying at the Pima County Fairgrounds for a couple of weeks to watch the rodeo and a few other events, and then staying in the desert for a couple of weeks under the shade of a Saguaro, without another RV in sight, for no other reason than to take a picture of a desert sunset.

                                theboondork

Red flower.

Windows on the past.

River camping on the  Arkansas.