The boondocker will say something about not wanting to camp so close to others that you can't even put out the awning. An RVing friend said he once stayed in a park where you could put out the awning or slides on one side of the rig--but not both sides.
The usual answers about crowding, high prices, unneeded facilities, highway noise, etc., are all true, but something is still missing.
But let's reverse the perspective: what do non-boondockers think of boondockers? They are probably too polite to say what they are really thinking: that we are half-destitute low-lifes, loners, etc.
Heck I even feel that way sometimes--especially when camping close to half-crazed desert rats, or old guys in the forest, usually Viet Nam vets, who wear camo clothing everyday and listen to talk radio all day long.
One of most egregious examples of RV parks are those of a well-known RVer organization, garrisoned by elderly residents who really should be called the Yoostabees, instead of the...oops.
I know a younger full time RVer, with a pickup camper, who was camped at one of their parks when he committed the enormity of hanging a towel on his truck mirror, so it would dry faster.
Soon there appeared an officious golf-cart, with flashing yellow lights. The code enforcer said nothing as he walked imperiously to the door of the pickup, and posted a pink slip that summoned the malefactor to the office.
For my part, I find that concrete-pad camping with sedentary yoostabees makes me feel old and weary, as they already are, and as I will be, all too soon. But not today!
A recent comment from a reader got me thinking along a certain line that perhaps leads to the real reason for RV boondocking. Someone, perhaps Chesterton, once said that an adventure is nothing more than an inconvenience rightly considered. By 'rightly,' I think he meant romanticized.
Perhaps some folks consider driving on major highways, from RV park to National Park to museum to be adventure enough. Nothing is to be gained by telling them they're wrong--that would be like telling them what the proper amount of tabasco seasoning is, on their food.
Other RVers might see the travel lifestyle described above as all very well, as far as it goes, but for them it is too comfortable and controlled--too much 'coloring inside the lines.' [*] In order to feel inspired they need to rise up in the morning to a certain amount of serendipity and unplanned surprise:
[*] I think in terms of images from movies, rather than in smudges of electronic ink. Consider the issue between the romantic younger sister and her older, more sedate, sister in "Sense and Sensibility."
