theboondork's RV blog

on the road again

10/21/2018

Arctic Fox at Chatfield state Park Denver Colorado

My overnight campsite at Chatfield state Park Denver Colorado.

Today I've taken my first baby step on my way to where the sun is always shining, my batteries are always charged, my water tank is always full, and my holding tanks are always empty. I've never found that place in the past, but I know it's somewhere south of where I've been so I'll keep looking.

I pulled out of the driveway at about 1:30 this afternoon and 10 or 15 minutes later pulled into the Chatfield state Park campground. My annual Colorado state Park geezer pass had expired last month so I had to buy another one of those, but in a few minutes I had my pass, got a campsite, and was $80 poorer.

It was kind of hectic when I got to my site because they told me at the office that they were in the process of turning off the water for the winter to most of the RV Park, and maintenance would be getting to the loop where I was camped in about an hour. And since the main reason I'm staying here is to dump and wash out my tanks having water was pretty important to me.

So instead of doing what I would normally do which is go inside relax and put off hooking up the utilities for another time, I had to dump my tanks, wash them out, and put a little water in my water tank before the maintenance guys shut me down.

Fortunately for me the maintenance guys work about as slow as I do so I got everything done before the water was turned off. So now I've put all my hoses away and all I have to do to leave in the morning is stow my shore power cord and bring in my living room slide.

Leaving the family gets harder and harder especially with the Grandkids getting old enough to know what's going on. They change so much by the time I get back in the spring that they're almost like different people. I don't expect leaving for my winter travels and being away from my family to get any easier I'm just thankful they're all in a place like Colorado where it's so great to be in the summer.

theboondork

A Magpie outside the Arctic Fox. Magpies are very smart birds, and I've always heard if you catch them early enough you can teach them to talk.... I wonder if they can be taught to shut up.

16 Comments

Tim

10/22/2018 08:17:31 am

Hi Tom - Even though it must be tough to leave the grand kids, It's good to see your Arctic Fox on the move again. I'm looking forward to seeing where you end up this winter.

Living most of my life either east of the Mississippi or within a few hundred miles west of it, I've only seen Magpies on the rare trips out west. The first time I saw one, it looked like some exotic bird that had escaped captivity and was living in the wild (I say this because around here we have escaped parrots that nest around power transformers to stay warm in our cold winters). Once I was around them for awhile, they didn't seem nearly as exotic.

Enjoy your trip!

Tom

10/22/2018 09:21:50 am

Thank you Tim, I always enjoy traveling. I'm not sure why, but it seems like I'm always happy when I'm going someplace. I think it must be the freedom of the open road, driving when I want, eating when I want, sleeping when I want, it's the closest most people can get to real freedom and it's that freedom that makes me happy.

I'll let you in on a little secret about my winter travels, but don't tell anyone. The real secret to why I'm happy traveling in the winter or anytime for that matter is...... I don't end up anywhere.

Ending up somewhere denotes having a destination, and having a destination means that there is an end to your travels, but the way I look at it there's never an end to my travels. There's a long layover in Denver to visit my family, but the traveling never ends.

And to me that is the main difference between what I do and what a Snowbird does. A Snowbird has a summer destination and a winter destination, and they go there year after year. But I never have a destination, I have places I like to visit while I'm traveling, but its just a stopover not a destination.

Now that may be a distinction without a difference but since freedom and happiness are more of a feeling than a reality, it works for me.

Tom

10/22/2018 12:56:12 pm

Ha - yeah, that must be one of my weird colloquialisms picked up from one of the many places I've lived. When I say "looking forward to seeing where you end up" what I really mean to say is "looking forward to hearing about the places you visit and your travels".

The freedom must be amazing - that's what I'm looking forward to most of all.

10/22/2018 04:31:35 pm

That's not a weird colloquialism in fact I use it myself, I was just looking for a reason to explain how my method of travel has no destinations, only stopovers.

The freedom of endless travel is addictive. Making all of your own decisions every day on how you want to live your life is something few people ever experience, and my guess is most people don't want to experience, because there's a price to be paid that most people would not be willing to pay, and that is to be truly free you have to be alone.

I believe most people will choose not to be free than to be alone. People are not meant to be alone, were meant to be a couple within a group that's what comes natural for us. But to be a couple you have to give up some freedom, or more likely a lot of freedom, most normal people are willing to do that, there's only a few that are not.

Tom

Malisa

10/22/2018 07:07:07 pm

Oh yes the kids already miss you! We all look forward to seeing you next spring / summer.

10/22/2018 07:18:06 pm

Leaving gets harder and harder. I know it must seem like I just say goodbye and then run, but that's the only way I can deal with it.

Dad

Barney Ward

10/22/2018 09:27:37 pm

When I leave Decatur Al in the fall, I have to do the same thing. Goodbye and roll away.

10/23/2018 08:23:08 am

Yeah long goodbyes just make me sadder and sadder so I just need to get out the door as quickly as possible. Since my dad was an Air Force lifer, and on flying status, I had way too many sad goodbyes when I was a kid and still dread the thought of them even now.

Tom

10/23/2018 08:55:51 am

Agree about the freedom and being part of a couple. However, I do see some couples on YouTube that seem to have it worked out, where they seem to have a good compromise between freedom and a relationship. For me, I think I'll continue to be happier by myself and just make new RV friends along the way.

The leaving and saying goodbye to everyone and my existing life is what is probably going to be the hardest thing. Fortunately, traveling will give me the opportunity to see more relatives and old friends, since I'm up in the cold Northeast by myself. I'm looking forward to seeing relatives/friends for a few days, stay in my own place, and then move on to another location.

10/23/2018 03:29:57 pm

You could be right maybe they do compromise, or maybe they just smile for the camera. But that would make an excellent philosophical discussion, can you compromise your freedom and still be truly free? Since freedom is mostly in your own mind I imagine that's possible. But someone on the outside looking in would probably look at your situation and say, you're not truly free, you have just learned to accept what little freedom you have.

Count your blessings that you have friends that are going to be hard to leave, a lot of people aren't so lucky. As for leaving your present life behind, most of the full timers I've talked to don't miss anything about their past life, they're more likely to say they wished they had left it sooner. But if you have lived a life so great that you miss it after a few months of living the full-time life then again you should count your blessings because you've been very fortunate indeed.

Believe me your friends and relatives will be a lot happier to see you when you show up with your own home. It's usually having to actually "live" with friends and relatives that makes both parties very happy when things can get back to normal. There's nothing better than spending the afternoon catching up on old times at a friend's house and then being able to walk outside and step into your own home, with your own easy chair, and your own bed, and be perfectly comfortable.

Tom

10/24/2018 08:03:59 am

I'm not sure that everyone's goal is freedom. For example, I have a friend who is in a difficult marriage, but (based on conversations we've had) will always stay in it because of her fear of being alone. Her fear of being alone greatly outweighs any desire for freedom. I have co-workers who plan to work until the day they die, mainly because their desire for money greatly outweighs their desire for freedom (I think it's an ego thing).

Having said all of that, none of the preceding paragraph addresses your philosophical question of "can you compromise your freedom and still be truly free". I could envision a situation where maybe one of the members of an RVing couple only wants comfort and companionship (let's say the wife), but cares nothing about freedom. The other member of the partnership only desires freedom (let's say the husband). In that situation, the husband could make all the decisions and decide when and where they are going to go, which would be a form of freedom. Would he be truly free to do whatever he wants? No, but it would be relatively close (but who is ever actually "totally free").

Also, sometimes I think that being part of a couple may enhance the ability to be free, if both are on the same page. One example of that is the Wynn's from "Gone with the Wynn's". They used to RV and are now sailing in the Pacific on a catamaran. I'm not sure they could have pulled off the freedom they have at such a young age if they hadn't worked, schemed, and planned together to get their freedom.

Every once in awhile, I think about keeping an apartment or buying a small house or condo when I retire and traveling in the RV. However, when I think about that, I cringe when I think about the lose of freedom I had with my previous house. Not that I didn't like living there, but it was a very demanding house and took a lot of time to maintain. My Arctic Fox represents freedom to me.

Even though I have friends I'll miss here, I do believe (based on my little two week journey this summer), that once I've escaped into the wild, I'll never look back and won't regret leaving for a second.

I am looking forward to visiting my Dad (and other relatives/friends) and then being able to go back to my own place. Now, when I visit, I'm stuck in his routines and habits. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a place for me to park anymore where he lives (he used to have a place where I would have even had covered parking for the Arctic Fox, but that's long gone now), so I'll probably have to find a park somewhere, but that's no real issue.

Enjoy your freedom! I'm temporarily living vicariously through your blog.

10/24/2018 11:17:15 am

In today's world, like you said, no one is truly free. You would probably have to go back to Daniel Boone, or some 1800s fur trappers to find people that were truly free. In this day and age you can only aspire to getting close to freedom and I believe that full timing is as close as a normal person can get.

And like I said before I think the fear of being alone is what stops a lot of people from being free. Your analogy of a husband being free and the wife being perfectly happy with that would be a rare occurrence indeed, but love does do strange things to people and I think the average person is perfectly happy giving up most of their freedom to live with someone else so they're not alone.

I used to read "Gone with the Wynns" blog, which by the way is one of the most professionally done blogs on the Internet, but I always felt that they were so syrupy sweet and more like Ken and Barbie doll actors than normal human beings I couldn't take them for very long. And when they ditched the RVs that companies gave them and moved on to a sailboat they lost me entirely. Which reminds me so did Technomadia when they moved onto a boat. There's just something about people that live on yachts and then beg normal people for money that gets on my nerves really quick. But I have no doubt living full-time as a couple works because most of the people I meet are doing exactly that. But it requires a lot of compromise, and that's way more compromise than I could deal with and still enjoy the trip.

Keeping a house was one of the things I considered before I went full-time but I didn't consider for very long, and now that I'm on the road I'm glad I didn't. It would've been an anchor around my neck holding me back and slowing me down, and give me some amount of worry or concern that I'd rather live without.

In my weird way of looking at the world your Arctic Fox doesn't just represent freedom, it is freedom. If you look up "Maslow's theory of hierarchy"which is sometimes called "Maslow's theory of needs"and find a chart with the pyramid of needs you will see that your Arctic Fox either provides you with, or allows you access to, everything a human being needs, starting with physiological needs and all the way up to self-actualization. Your Arctic Fox is the magic carpet ride to freedom and happiness.

Tom

10/25/2018 02:13:01 pm

I read somewhere that Daniel Boone kept moving west because his neighbors kept moving closer to him. When they would get with in some miles of him (I believe it was like 15 or 20), he thought that was close enough and would move. He did seem like someone that highly prized his freedom.

The Wynn's half lost me when they bought flexible solar panels for their Class A and then were up on the roof dancing a jig on them, because they weren't supposed to be easily damaged. That bothered me because A) Dancing a jig wasn't doing the panels any good; B) It was a real safety issue; and C) Others might try to copy them and either buy inferior flexible panels (which there is a new couple on YouTube called "I'm not Lost, I'm RVing" who bought the flexible and have regretted every since) or get hurt dancing a jig, or even a Waltz, or a Tango.

They totally lost me when they went off on a catamaran. I did a few week long sailing trips when I was younger and decided it was a lot more fun on land. It's just not something I'm interested in at this point in my life.

In the future, I could see getting a home base. However, right now, I just have no idea where I would want something like that or even where I would want it to be. I'm not ruling it out, but I'm not anxious to get bogged down with it either.

I agree that the Arctic Fox is freedom, but until I actually get in it and go, it feels more like an idea of freedom. It's kind of like that old saying "If a tree falls in the forest, but no one hears it, does it make a sound?". For the Arctic Fox it's "If I never get in it and go, was it really a vehicle of freedom?".

10/25/2018 04:09:22 pm

I've always heard, if a man alone in the woods speaks, and his wife cannot hear him, is he still wrong.

You're a stronger man than I if you can look at the Arctic Fox and not go. My Arctic Fox speaks to me, and when it calls I have to go. I've lived in some very nice homes but I wouldn't trade the Arctic Fox for any of them, because the Arctic Fox is more than a home, it's a lifestyle, a magic carpet, a sanctuary, and a major source of the freedom that I so enjoy.

But yes even now the Arctic Fox can be a source of freedom. Since freedom is a state of mind you can be free just thinking about the places you can go and the things you can do while living in the Arctic Fox. But you're right for the most part having the Arctic Fox sitting in storage its not much of an asset but once you're boondocked under a palm tree at the beach its value will become more apparent.

I've always read that Daniel Boone felt that if he could see the smoke from his neighbors campfire, they were too close.

Yeah I remember that video when the Wynn's put those flat panels on the roof. But from what I understand they were making beaucoup money from putting videos on YouTube and the RV industry was giving them lots of stuff just for the advertising because of all the followers they have. So I never put much stock in the things they were hawking.

But I do respect their ability to make some really slick professional videos, even with my meager attempts at videos I quickly found out it's a lot harder than it looks.

I think living in my daughter's yard in the summer is about as close to a home base as I will ever get. It's a great place to be in the summer but the winters are no fun for me, it's kind of expensive paying for the heat. And Denver is not an inexpensive place to live.

But I know there's some people that want to own a home somewhere and stay there part of the year and travel in their RV the rest of the year thebayfieldbunch comes to mind. But to me I love living in the Arctic Fox, and a house adds nothing to my lifestyle except extra space that I no longer need, and would most certainly bring more worry, stress, and expense to my life with little discernible return.

But the beauty of RVing is you get to choose the life you want to live and no one can say your choices are right or wrong. And like I've said in the past. Being a full timer for some period of time will give you a lot more insight into the way you will want to live your future life than trying to figure it out before you've worn out a set of tires.

Tom

10/26/2018 08:58:58 am

Living space is an interesting subject to me. When I was in my big house (~3400 sf), over the years I continued to fill it up and used most of it (although most rooms for very short periods of time every month). I tended to use just a small section on a regular basis. Now, in the apartment (which is much smaller), I don't miss anything or any of those old rooms (although sometimes I have a sense of nostalgia that quickly passes).

When I was in the Arctic Fox with the slides out and was sitting on the sofa, it seemed really big and the nice thing was everything was close and handy. When I move into it, I'm guessing it will start seeming smaller, but as you say, everything I need is right there, plus I'll have a huge backyard.

It is getting difficult to not jump in the RV and take off, but these few extra months of working at the end of my career are paying off on the financial end. I just hope I live long enough to not regret working a little longer.

Speaking of money, yesterday I went to the DMV and paid for my tags and sales tax (btw, the DMV here is awful and it took 2.5 hours to get my tags). I'm in a high tax state, so the bill was pretty high, but I was prepared for it. The good thing is I've pretty much got all the big purchases out of the way for the RV, with the exception of the solar panels and system. That's a good feeling.

The only real reason I would want a place is to keep some hobby stuff and a place to work on those hobbies. However, it's much more economical and flexible to just keep stuff in storage and pull it out whenever I want to work on something. The big question in my mind is how much will my life change and will I even be interested in the same hobbies as my former life. For example, I play the guitar, but haven't even touched it since I've been in the apartment and it'll probably be even worse in an RV. Only time will tell and it would be better to spend a few hundred dollars on a storage unit than to tie myself down to an expensive house or condo that I may regret.

10/26/2018 07:17:08 pm

I collected and shot guns for my entire life, I guess you could say that guns and motorcycles are hobbys I've had since I was a kid, but the day I moved into the Arctic Fox and became a full timer I ceased being a gun collector. It happened that quickly. I still have guns I use for self-defense and I still shoot them every once in a while, but living in the Arctic Fox makes having a gun collecting hobby difficult to say the least. And I enjoy my full-time lifestyle so much that I don't want anything to get in the way of my freedom, and my enjoyment so that hobby had to go. And oddly enough it went with far less pain, suffering, and withdrawals, than I imagined.

I never wish the Arctic Fox was bigger, sometimes I wish it were smaller, but I can't imagine why it would need to be any bigger. There's plenty of room in the Arctic Fox for me and the stuff that I care about, and that's really all the room that I need. Remember the rule of thumb, if you don't have enough room in your RV, you got too much stuff.

Like a lot of people I solved my "too much stuff" problem with a storage room. And I think a storage room helps make the transition from a house to an RV a lot less painful, keeping in mind that the storage room needs to be temporary. When I rearranged my storage room a couple weeks ago I went through every box in the storage room seeing what I needed to sell and what I wanted to keep with me in the Arctic Fox, bearing in mind that everything I put in that storage room three years ago had some kind of value to me. And I came home with one small box of pictures. That's all I wanted to keep out of the entire storage room.

Full-time RVing changed me, and did it very quickly. I no longer care about gathering possessions around me, the possessions I do have I really care about and I don't mind replacing them with something newer, but owning a bunch of things means nothing to me anymore being perfectly happy living the "less is more" lifestyle.

Moving your domicile to another state like you've planned will solve your tax problems, but I don't think anything will solve your DMV problems. All DMV offices appear to be the same, overcrowded, badly managed, and staffed with overworked, uncaring employees. Some are a little better, some are a little worse, but in general their all the same.

Tom

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