theboondork's RV blog

I feel like I need a new view.

1/28/2019

A large sign in front of a downtown Yuma store. I like the idea of sunny.

As much as I hate to make plans I'm thinking of leaving here on Thursday. My 14 days would be up on Saturday but because of the crowds and the noise all around me I think it's time to hitch up and ease on down the road.

I'm thinking of either going to the Escapees here in town for a few days to dump my tanks and get some water. Or just getting back on Interstate 8 and go 70 or 80 miles east to a little spot in the road called Dateland, and stay at an RV park there.

The SKP Park here in Yuma is okay but there drycamping is kind of cramped and there's not much of it. But they do have a nice laundry room and I could use me some of that right now. Also it requires a crosstown drive through heavy traffic to get to the escapees Park and I'm not looking forward to pulling the Arctic Fox over there.

Meanwhile in Dateland they have an RV park there that's owned by the big gift shop that sells Dates and other Date associated things, like Date candy, T-shirts with Dates on them, and my favorite, homemade, Date milkshakes, mmmm good. The RV Park is very reasonably priced, I guess because it's out in the middle of nowhere, and its spread out so there's plenty of room for everyone. And getting to Dateland is quite easy because I can take a shortcut to Interstate 8 that has hardly any traffic at all.

But as usual I haven't made up my mind yet and probably won't until I'm ready to leave, that way I get to surprise myself with where I'm going to end up that day. I love surprises especially the ones I give myself.

theboondork

Old town Yuma businesses

The Art Deco Main St., Cinema. The building in one form or another has been around since 1912 and is still in use today as a movie theater and other various events.

The Art Deco San Carlos Hotel. Back in the day this was a famous hotel and had a client list of just about every famous star in Hollywood including my favorite John Wayne. But the hotel fell on hard times and is now a low rent apartment building. I didn't know anything about the hotel when I took this picture I just liked the Art Deco look and could tell it must've been something special in its day. But at the same time it looked rather run down and I could tell it wasn't where the rich and famous stay.

The bridge that crosses the Colorado River from Yuma Arizona into California.

18 Comments

Barney Ward

1/29/2019 07:48:28 pm

Me too!

Tom

1/29/2019 08:00:23 pm

I guess you'll be shoving off pretty soon also, it always feels good to be leaving. There's a line in a song named, I was born under a Wandering Star, from the Broadway play and movie Paint Your Wagon, that says "I never seen a sight that didn't look better looking back". I feel that way myself sometimes.

Tom

1/29/2019 08:41:05 pm

In your honor, Tomorrow will be a late morning departure for a 75 mile trip.

1/29/2019 08:44:39 pm

Now that's my kind of traveling!

Tom

Thomas

1/30/2019 07:17:01 am

I'm surprised you haven't moved sooner! Crowded boondocking=not good.

1/30/2019 12:02:32 pm

Your comment was right on point, I left this morning.

Tom

1/30/2019 01:50:19 pm

I wimped out in the cold wind and plan to leave Thursday morning now.

1/30/2019 02:34:00 pm

Well that's too bad, I don't like to travel either when it's cold and windy, it just makes everything more difficult.

I got up this morning and left Yuma myself. I had nothing interesting to do today so there was no reason just to sit here doing nothing but waiting to leave tomorrow, And I was jealous of you enjoying life on the open road while I sat here surrounded by giant motorhomes and barking dogs.

Tom

Tim link

1/30/2019 02:59:11 pm

Warm and sunny sounds pretty good right now. It's bitter cold, windy, and snowy here. Of course, it's my own fault - I could have left months ago. When will I ever learn.

1/30/2019 03:28:13 pm

Just keep that memory burned in your mind when spring rolls around and you have to make the decision, do you want to work? Or do you want to live?

Tom

1/31/2019 08:15:07 am

Last year was relatively warm, except for one cold snap. This year has been warm up until the last week or so. If I can remember this week's cold, it will be easier to burn this into my memory.

I don't mind working. What I miss is the loss of freedom to do the kind of work that I'm more interested in doing. That's what's getting to me. I'm looking forward to the days when I can do what I want when I want. It just probably won't pay as much.

1/31/2019 09:15:24 am

There are people fortunate enough to do what they "love" to do and get paid for it, I never did. I've lived the life of a worker, a boss, a military man, and an entrepreneur.... And yes that's what my accountant put on my 1040 form. But I never "loved" any of it.

The closest I came was owning businesses. And that was only because I had a lot of control over my life and could make most of the decisions relative to how I wanted to live. But even that required a lot of work and I found long ago that work got in the way of enjoying my life.

So now being a full timer I get the freedom to live my life the way I want without all of that "work" getting in the way.

My rule of thumb is, if I could find a job that I loved so much I would do it for free, I might consider it. But I still wouldn't like someone else telling me when and how to do the job. It's never been the difficulty of the job that bothers me, it's having someone else controlling my life that's the problem.

Tom

1/31/2019 11:10:37 am

For me, the actual work of my job is fine. However, there is a lot of other stuff about the job that I don't like, such as sitting in a bunch of meetings. I think it comes down to what you're saying, that after all these years, I'm getting tired of other people controlling my life. So, it's coming down to every few months I'm weighing my finances against the loss of freedom and the scales are slowing tipping towards leaving. It's a slower process than I would like, but it is heading in that direction in the near future.

1/31/2019 11:38:16 am

Here's a weird thing that I've seen happen. And in fact as happened to me.

You let the folks at work know that you're seriously considering leaving, whether it's for retirement or just a better job, and suddenly everyone starts treating you better.

The bosses start treating you better because they might start realizing what it would be without you. Or they feel they no longer have control over you so they start being nice.

The other employees may no longer fear you, or feel that you're not a threat to their job so they become easier to deal with.

Then one day you look around and say to yourself, you know it's not so bad here, things are going pretty smooth. The boss isn't breathing down my neck, my co-workers smile when they see me, and most of the petty bickering has disappeared. I think I'll stick around a while longer. You tell everyone you changed your mind and the next day everything goes back to the way it was.

I'm sure it doesn't work that way for everyone especially someone like you who has probably reached a higher rung on the ladder of success than most folks. But there's something about the freedom you get when the people you work for, and with, realize they no longer have power over you.

Tom

2/1/2019 07:06:16 am

I've seen that happen as well. I haven't told anyone at work when I plan to retire, mainly because I'm not sure when I'll actually pull the trigger. However, I do think they are being nicer to me because they can read between the lines: sold his house that he had lived in for 24 years, bought a GMC 3500, bought an RV, went in a two week RV trip in the summer, seems happier overall. "Hmm, I wonder if Tim is thinking about his future after retirement? Wait-a-minute - maybe we should start being nice to him!" :)

Of course, if I stay too much longer, they'll start to think "Nah, we're never going to get rid of him. We don't need to be nice anymore".

BTW, I saw a video on YouTube last night. It was from a guy who is full-time RVing and hates it. You only need to watch a few minutes to get a sense of what the rest of the video is about. I was curious to get your impression of it. I won't tell you my thoughts in order not to sway you before watching it (only if you're interested and have the time): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkeMi7xWk2M

2/1/2019 11:22:09 am

I interrupted my midmorning relaxing session for the 17 minutes it took to watch the video that you recommended, but don't worry I will add that 17 minutes to my normal late morning relaxing period.

My opinion of this guy, and I really do feel sorry for him, is that he brought more baggage into his little trailer than anyone could possibly live with, and I'm not talking about the stuff we all overload our RVs with.

He mentioned a lot of problems that were going on, Son moving out, his mom suffering from Alzheimer's, has done a lot of "unreasonable things" and other stuff like that but he never actually mentioned what the real problem is.

He gave some clues, he's wild, his father was an alcoholic, divorces, but it appears to me he's had problems dealing with life long before he moved into the trailer, and his current full- timing life did not allow him to escape those problems as he had hoped.

Another clue that a non-RVer might not get, is he mentioned all the unhappy people he's meeting in his RVing life. I find that extraordinary. In my decades of RVing, and four years of full timing, I don't recall meeting ANYONE that was unhappy. Now I'm sure there are people out there that are, after all he's one, I just don't remember meeting them, so I'm not sure where he's hanging around that has so many unhappy people, but wherever it is I would recommend he move.

For folks whose life is a cliff and their always standing on the edge of it, they often do things, and make decisions in their life without thinking things through and I think he as much admitted that in the video.

I will be the first to admit that becoming a full-timer is not for everyone, and thank goodness for that because it's crowded enough out here already. But I think most people make the transition quite easily and enjoy the decision they've made.

You get out of life what you put into it, and so it is for full timing. If you enjoy a life on the road then you're going to be happy and the people you meet will be happy, happiness is infective. So as the Bobby McFerrin song says "Don't Worry Be Happy"and the rest of your life will fall into place.

Now I have to go, it's time for my late morning rest period.

Tom

2/1/2019 12:28:54 pm

Yes, your thoughts are very similar to mine. I think he's made a series of bad, impulsive decisions. For example, the RV he's in is only 16 feet long, which some people might be happy with, but sounds like it's too small for his needs. Also, in either this video or a follow-up video he made (which I only watched for about 5 minutes and then decided I had enough), he talks about how he hates the location he's at and it's kind of like a "ghetto" and doing some work he doesn't like. I guess if I were living in a small trailer, in a bad location, with a lot of baggage, not meeting nice people, a mother with dementia, working a job I didn't like, I would feel the very same way he does. Knock on wood that it doesn't come to that.

Sorry I interrupted your rest for that video. I found it kind of disturbing so I wanted to share it (kind of like when you have bad milk and you ask someone else to smell it), but I think he would be almost as unhappy if he were living in a house, everything else being equal.

2/1/2019 01:30:06 pm

Even though I'm a big proponent of the full-time lifestyle I realize there are people that would not enjoy it at all, and I also think their are people that will have difficulty enjoying it if they're trying to do it on a very basic shoestring budget.

If you're starting out RVing with barely enough financial abilities to survive, and you've bought an old used inexpensive RV even though you have little or no knowledge on how to fix things that sooner or later will break. Your family is the backbone of your existence, and you're going to be moving away from them. You've had no experience living on your own, and don't even know what real responsibility is. Chances are a person like that is going to be in for a rough beginning, probably rough enough that they won't want to continue.

There are run down RV parks scattered around that are mostly full of people that live there permanently. And often as not are either old living on a very small income, or relatively young working a full-time menial job. If you haven't seen one of these places before, you will know it when you see it. If a person ends up in one of these RV parks for financial reasons, they will no doubt find a lot of people there that are very unhappy with the situation they find themselves in.

It sounds to me like you're anticipating your full-time lifestyle under the best possible conditions. You've planned it out to the nth degree, you have brand-new equipment, you're not going to have a backbreaking debt to service, you have the mechanical knowledge to fix some things that go wrong, you will have a decent income and the education and ability to make more if need be, and you're not running away from a bad situation... With all of that going for you, you would have to try really hard to fail.

Tom

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I feel like I need a new view.

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