Normally I am too practical to entertain silly fantasies of a smaller rig with much better gas mileage.   more »

And then I discovered my old buddy that I had recently discarded. It was love at first sight. It was waiting for me in the Casa Blanca casino...   more »

Truly, I'm ashamed of myself. My only consolation is that I'm addicted to the internet instead of the boob toob.   more »

Perhaps this accidental fast from the internet is good for my soul, somehow. Oh...who am I kidding.   more »

Having any kind of a repair problem is no fun for full time RVers since it usually happens at an inopportune time and place. It is the best argument that you could give for continuous downsizing.   more »

I couldn't believe it. It was a small meadow, an island of light and air. I really didn't know that such islands existed.   more »

A large peak loomed over camp. Even though I'm not a "peak bagger," I just had to start towards it because of the grand and grassy slope in front of the trailer.   more »

I'm always looking for non-scenery experiences that dovetail with the full time RV lifestyle. This spring the Tibet protests were in the news. On The Buddha's birthday...    more »

It's funny how RV boondocking campsites work out sometimes. When I came here the first night it was just for convenience's sake. Then it grew on me a little each day. And now I feel almost homesick leaving it...    more »

The cliffs were a natural amphitheater. It seemed like eavesdropping to listen to it all...I sat there for twenty minutes. I've never really listened to a forest before.   more »

The trick is pretty simple: just stay off the roads, off the trails and out of the campgrounds. Consign yourself to unglamorous land that is 5 miles away from the postcards, where the eye candy will be 90% as good.   more »

Along the way a horseman and two dogs were moving two heavy-footed ungulates to a different pasture. John Wayne, in The Cowboys, said that a cow was just a lot of trouble tied up in a bag of leather.    more »

This was the third rattlesnake this week. Apparently I've landed in the Rattler Capitol of Colorado. I knew this RV boondocking campsite was too good to be true.    more »

It seemed outrageous that after 2000 years of "progress" we should be more enslaved than ever. There is no worse form of slavery than a false freedom that no one questions.    more »

But something else happens when we take our dogs outdoors with us. They serve as an intermediary between ourselves and the rest of nature.    more »

There is something about cliffs and ridgelines. The ease of motion, the expansive views in most directions...these put the hiker in a calmly euphoric mood.    more »

I've overlooked another possibility until now. Presumably the San Juan mountains have wrung out the clouds so the land is graced with sparse vegetation. But it's still pleasantly cool.   more »

When hitching up to leave Mancos because of the heat, I noticed a bad split in the hitch cup. What if I hadn't noticed?    more »

An experienced full time RVer is not a vacationer living the "RV Dream". Dealing with difficult things is part of the job.   more »

Last fall I drove right by Monument Valley and didn't even stop for one snapshot. Was that just snobbishness?    more »

After watching a whole season disappear you experience a recrudescence of the rage that caused you to become a full time RVer in the first place.   more »

But this plan might be unraveling. Although Utah has some high forest camping, its cities and towns aren't that high. Maybe I'll just run a diagonal to southwestern Colorado right from Flagstaff.   more »

It certainly isn't something that you would expect from an RV boondocker who frequently camps alone on public lands. I blush to reveal that I've always had...   more »

We hiked up to the top of a lava dome over 2300 feet tall that lords over Flagstaff, AZ. Usually we dislike hiking on official trails but Elden Mountain promised...   more »

Ponderosas are aptly named. It is a little frightening to think of such big trees swaying a hundred feet over my head while I sleep in bed.   more »

I kept walking around it, admiring it. But the photograph belittled its three-dimensionality. This isn't the first time that I've been stumped by the camera.    more »

Sometimes we have other errands, all easily within reach of paw and pedal. Man was meant to live like this.   more »

Maybe I've been suckered into the "Freedom of the Open Road" syndrome of full time RVers: that nervous affliction that drives them relentlessly onward...   more »

There was another wholesomeness that I have long appreciated. In the Southwest "history" and museums glorify gunslingers...   more »

He was half-Indian, had done a lot of serious camping in his day, and had lived many years in Alaska in a backwoods cabin. It became a nightly habit to walk down there every night.    more »